Today was a quiet day at the orphanage. Apparently, term break ended this morning for the entire home. Unlike in the good old US of A, these kids’ year is divided into three terms of three months, with a month-long vacation in between all of them. This means that for the last month, I have woken up to some seriously off-key singing outside my door, from 6 AM on since the kids had nowhere else to go.
But this morning when I rolled over at 9 AM, and all I heard was the dogs’ morning ritual of apparently torturing and murdering each other slowly, I knew something was off. The kids were gone, and they stayed away until 4 when they finally got home for chai.
It was disorienting. But they made up for their absence when they got home. With the peculiar type of energy that I remember distinctly from the end of a long school day, the kids came home all kinds of revved up.
Edwin began un-burying the dead fetal bird we had found yesterday.
Rhoda had found a dirty thorn on the way home, and was quietly doing surgery on her foot to get out a splinter, or “some tree.”
Hannah Banana began beating everyone with the massage stick jonathan left us to help our chances of surviving the marathon training.
Ephantus began a rousing game of “touch me die” in which I touch him, and he falls over and plays dead.
Sammy came along to beat on my door and remind that I could not call him “troublemaker” for six days. We had agreed on four days, so we had a debate. I won.
Then, as quickly as anything else, they all took off. We found out a few minutes later that while they had been at school a baby cow or “dama” had been born at Tumaini, and we followed to the animal pens.
Baby cows are massive, and I don’t understand how they could possibly come out so hairy. But they are, and they do.
We then had a good time throwing our voices as best we could to convince the kids that the ABSOLUTELY MASSIVE pig was saying “Jambo, Simon!” or whichever urphan happened to be about. Sitothe, also known as “the professor” for his husky voice and swollen belly that would look more appropriate on an intellectual/lazy 50 year old man, saw quickly through our little game, and began yelling in Kiswahili “It is you who talks! It is you who talks!” This quickly ruined the game for Claire and me, but then the kids felt they could play, so cries of “Jambo, Rola! And Jambo Crayol!” resounded around the animal pens for the next twenty minutes.
Home to tea, then an impromptu piano lesson (though I gave the instrument up in 8th grade, I was supposed to be the teacher at this ) followed by a special dinner of mokimo (mashed kale, potato, maize and beans) at which each kid got a treat of two coin-sized pieces of meat and a banana.
After such a day, the party is still raging.
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