So I’ve been away from The Nest for the last 2 weeks as I
had travelled to London to see friends, use up an airline ticket that was due
to expire and I also ended up getting 2 visas for my West Africa trip at the
end of the year. It was a great trip,
but it was also nice to be back home and today was my first visit back to the
orphanage and I couldn’t wait to see all the happy smiling faces of the babies.
When I arrived at The Nest at 12 noon, the babies were
waking up and being bought up to the big shady tree out the front of the
nursery room. There were already some
mzungu’s feeding some of the kiddies and I felt a little protective that there
were other white people holding my babies….. which is crazy as we need all the
help we can get and I KNOW that at the end of the week, the month and then the
year, I am the one that will STILL be there and there will still be mzungu’s
who come and go and it gave me a little insight into how the house mothers feel
when mzungu’s do blow in and out from the orphanage. They are letting people have their time with
THEIR babies, knowing that they won’t be there next week or next month and I
wouldn’t want to spend my time or energy in training people who aren’t going to
be staying long term either. Yes-I got
an insight into their world when I arrived today. It was a great feeling when I was welcomed
back with open arms and lots of smiles from the house mothers and little Rachel
came straight over and gave me a big hug and stopped her crying the instant I
arrived. I remembered some of the babies
names and I forgot some of the others and I felt bad about that, but I know I
will pick up the names again pretty quickly as I think it is important that you
call them by their names and when you sing to them to include their names as I
believe it just helps with the bonding with the child. I find the smaller babies the hardest to
remember as they are all so small and I hate to say look a little similar when
they are not all together-but I am determined to get all their names right-it
just might take me a little while to get right.
I could see the mzungu’s looking at me as I played and
talked to the kids and I felt good that I knew the routine, the kid’s names and
the recognition of the house mothers as well.
I spoke to one of the mzungu’s, Constance, and she was feeding Bakita,
who was only 3 weeks old and bought to the orphanage 2 days after she was born. Constance and her husband have just been approved
by the courts to adopt a baby, and from The Nest, and it looks like Bakita will
be the lucky little angel. The
biological mother approved Bakita for adoption but she has a 6 week window to
change her mind before the papers will be signed and Bakita given a new
home. Constance is German and lives 4
hours from Nairobi, so now knowing her and her husband are approved and the
baby named, it will be a long six weeks for them as they sit tight and wait for
the outcome. Constance said she will try
and come a few times a week to bond with Bakita and after seeing The Nest she
is happy that Bakita is being well cared for and in a nice environment as they
have looked at a few other orphanages and they said they were not as nice as
this one. So I will keep you updated on
the progress of Baby Bakita.
Once all the babies, well the older ones were awake I
noticed that 2 babies were missing. My
special little guy William and also the super cute PK. When I enquired on where they were I was told
the great news that they had been returned to their biological parents. William was taken back by his father and PK
went back to his mother. These are
success stories, and what The Nest is all about, but a little selfishly it
would have been nice to say goodbye to these two little guys as I had spent a
lot of time with both of them. I asked
few of the ladies if they miss the kids when they leave and the obvious answer
was yes, and just think I am only here twice a week, they are with them 11 days
straight before they get 3 days off- so just imagine how much they miss
them. Baby Caro has been approved for
adoption and will be leaving The Nest in a few weeks’ time and little Hannah
who is pretty much a toddler will be moving to the Limuru branch of The Nest
where the ‘big’ kids are located. I am
not sure how she will go there, well initially, as she doesn’t take to
strangers very fast and I am still trying to work on getting a little closer to
her and that is after nearly a month of coming.
I was getting there slowly, very slowly-but now it seems she will have
to get used to meeting new people in her transition to a new home and new ‘house
mothers/teachers/carers. Cassie is up at
Limuru each day and she saw Hannah yesterday and said that it looked like she
was settling in okay. The Nest had sent
one of the house mothers from our compound for 3 days to help Hannah adapt with
someone she knew which is nice that they do actually care for the welfare of
the children. With the reuniting of
babies is the flip side that more babies are added to The Nest Family. While I was gone in just 2 weeks we got 4 new
babies. A set of 4 week old girl twins
Newcarbie and Wanju, a 3 week old baby girl named Bakita and 4 week old baby
boy named Andy. There seems to be more
younger babies coming into our care than older ones and there are also a lot
more boys than girls-I wonder if there is anything to be read into those
statistics?
I met the Director of The Nest this week. Irene is German and seems to have a very
clear picture and business head on her shoulders. It was good to introduce myself to her today
and I again offered my help in the washing of the bigger items with a machine
rather than hand wash and her comment was ‘thank-you and for the sake of hygiene
she will take me up on the offer’. Yes
she is certainly a switched on woman and
I guess you don’t live and work in Kenya without learning a few things
and I know I will be able to learn a lot from her and hopefully as time
progresses she will want to include me more in the running of The Nest and know
that I am there to help in any way that I can.
I spoke to a few other mzungu’s today and Cassie is from
Toronto, Canada. Her aunt and uncle
moved here 1.5 years ago and her and a friend have come to Kenya for 5 weeks
for a visit and volunteer their time while they are here. Her friend Rachel was working at The Nest
(older section) teaching in the onsite school whereas Cassie likes the smaller
babies and has been coming to The Nest for her time. It was nice to talk to someone and we got
along really well and we will catch up again tomorrow with her coming back
again. Elsabe was the other person I met
today and she is from South Africa, now living in Nairobi. She was really cool and just lives down the
road from me and when she found out that I was Australian, being a rugby fan she
said we should watch the next game together when South Africa v Australia. I had to be honest and say I don’t follow the
rugby, but as a true Australian I support any team that represents my country
of birth and just to meet some people ‘my’ side of town would also be great and
I told her I was very keen. No numbers
were swapped today, but I will ask for Elsabe’s next week as she seemed really
nice and it would be great to extend my friendship group. I also met another South African, Kelly and she
seems very keen to help out where she can and is going to try and start coming
once a week. So with Eliseba and Kelly (Cassie
goes home in 2 weeks) I may just be able to make some new friends with not only
the house mothers now but some mzungu’s who are living here and long termers
like myself which I never had really thought about that opportunity before. I had always considered any mzungu’s to be ‘fly
by nights or weeks’ and not really getting to know them as they were going to
be gone sooner rather than later. Some
people you just click with and Elsabe and Kelly are 2 of those people and I
know that I will be seeing them again, whether at The Nest or somewhere else, I
have just met 2 amazing people!!!
I also met another mzungu this week who is currently
living and working in Nairobi. Eliza (name
changed for privacy) wants to adopt a baby from The Nest and as a single woman
you can adopt, but it must be a girl and the same goes for a single man wanting
to adopt, he can, but it can only be a boy.
So when you have a female wanting to adopt a male baby you need to have
a very good solicitor and have a very good case to even be in the running for
the approval. One of the adoption rules
is that you can’t know the baby beforehand, everything is supposed to be
randomly selected and I guess that stops people ‘picking’ babies and I guess it
also tries to avoid bitter disappointment if they are not approved or not given
the child that they have pinned their hopes on.
Either way, Eliza is prepare to fight the system to get custody of a
baby boy and she is prepared that it is going to cost her 25,000-30,000 DOLLARS
as she is having to go through the international adoption regulations rather
than through a Kenyan adoption and the main reason behind that is she wants to
adopt a boy. I knew that it was an
expensive to adopt and that is just not in Africa, I have heard of the same
costs from people I know who have adopted 2 babies from Korea, but I know when
people want a family and are incapable or just want to plainly help out the orphans
you cannot put a price on that and I can guarantee that if you ask any adoptive
parent about the cost, that they would say it was worth every penny. Eliza is another person that I clicked with
today and after meeting Cassie, Elsabe and Kelly, I knew that I had met some
amazing people that I hoped that I would continue to be mates with in the
future. Add the new friendships I’m
nurturing with the house mothers and the babies that I get to cuddle, I was on
cloud nine and knew that I would go home with a smile and a little satisfaction
that finally I was starting to find my place in Nairobi. I knew I would, I knew it would take time,
but it has totally been worth it based on today’s interactions.
The other ‘event’ this week another party. There was a French couple that were adopting 2
children from The Nest Limuru and they had been accepted as adoption parents
and the children had been picked and were living with them but the final
process could take up to 8 months to be finalised. But it was great news that they had been
accepted and the children approved. It
must be a great feeling for them and you just don’t know the reasoning behind
people adopting kids-but if they cannot be returned to their biological parents
it is a very good second chance for the children to grow up in a loving family,
no matter where that is in the world. So
to celebrate the couple had bought a feast of spring rolls, curry puffs and
soft drink. As I have seen before, most
of the workers went to the playroom and they sang some songs, said a prayer for
the departing children and it is always an emotional time, again for me and I
didn’t even know these kids. It is just
nice to see children getting out of the orphanage; no matter how nice the place
is and how much love is given, to be granted a chance at a life they may not
have had the luck to live given their circumstances when they are born into
this world.
When the babies sleep in the afternoon it is a chance for
the house mothers to have lunch, get their hair done and there is also the never
ending mountain of clothes to be folded.
There are washing ladies, where it is there job to hand wash all the
nappies, clothes, blankets, bibs and sheets and they also help in the
preparation of the cooked food in the outdoor kitchen that is attached to the
nursery. But the folding is a mammoth
job and when most of the babies are down; we sit down on the floor on blankets
and start the job of folding and sorting the clothes as they are folded. Today all of the babies were down and all the
house mothers took up a place outside, not so many to fold, but to just tale a
load off and gossip and chat and laugh.
Even though I can’t understand what they are saying as they are talking
in Kikuyu-it is nice to just listen to them talking, laughing and it automatically
puts a smile on my face. I really feel
like I am slowly being accepted by the group which is touching and even 3 of
the house mothers while we were folding 3 asked what my tattoos meant, which is
lovely that they are interested in getting to know me a little better. They do say that many hands make light work
and with Kelly and Eliseba helping folding under the tree and me and a few of
the HM (house mothers) helping out the front of the nursery we tackled that
pile with vengeance and we got it all finished just before the first wakeup cry
of the afternoon-only to come back outside 10 minutes later and another pile of
nappies and clothes had been dumped-I’m telling you it really is an endless
task.
The House Mothers had a meeting in the afternoon and they
took the opportunity to have that while the babies were on the back half of
their afternoon sleep, leaving little Maggie, myself and 2 of the washing
ladies to care for any of the babies that wake up while ALL the house mothers
went for the meeting! On her way out
Maggie told me that I was in CHARGE and if I needed anything to come up and get
one of them. I told her that was a brave
move as I might just pack all the babies into a car and take them all home with
me! She came back that there would be a
bag search before I left in the afternoon and with us all smiling and laughing
they all did return back 45 minutes later as the babies were starting to stir
and a few were being fed. I told them
that they could all have an early mark as we were under control and even though
we are all joking I know that they LOVE the babies and would do anything for
them which is a wonderful kind of love to be able to share with people not so
lucky at the start of their short lives.
The health of the babies is always top priority and there
always seems to be medicine for those who need it and if a baby isn’t well then
we all know about it (informative-keeping in the loop) and beady eyes are kept
on the children and temperatures checked.
This week Matthew hasn’t been well and unless you knew he hadn’t been
eating or his high temperature you would not know it. He is such a little trooper and still always
had a smile for you, at any time. E-ma has
also not been well all week and now has a very scary cough but it doesn’t seem
to worry him at all-but boy it sounds terrible the poor little tyke.
Considering I am only there for 4.5 hours it was a very
busy week and before you know it Driver Steven has arrived to collect me. Before London I was getting Steven to collect
me at 4pm, but the babies are just waking up from their afternoon naps and
getting fed around that time and I find that poor Steven would have to wait as
I finished feeding as I just can’t dump the child when my lift arrives and it
is frustrating that I can’t help out as I know I will be leaving in a few
minutes. So I have changed my time to
4.30pm and I will see how that goes and I may just extend it to 5pm if I
need. There is nothing worse leaving
when you hear little babies cry for their milk-really.
So it is great to be back.
It is wonderful to be back with the babies.
And it is also fantastic that I am feeling more like the
team and I am really really happy that I am here for a full 3 months now
(besides a week trip to the Masai Mara) as it will just help cement my
commitment to The Nest, the babies and also the house mothers.
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