Holly, Jen, and I are still in Kiminini, Kenya of course, but I wanted to write this journal article.
September 2007
Kiminini, Kenya
I jolted up from my bed and was surprised to find a chicken at my feet. I screamed and kicked, and finally the chicken ran out of our temporary home.
When I went to go talk to Irene about the chicken, she only laughed it off and explained how we were staying in the chicken's home. The chicken only came in there to lay an egg every day. It kind of ticked me off how we were staying in a chicken's own house, but Holly and I couldn't complain.
Other than the chicken problem, we were pretty much adapted to the life-style here. The only thing that I was confused about was what were supposed to do to help.
We imagined that we would be building houses and doing a lot of other hard labor, but we've done nothing.
After meeting everyone here in Kenya, we were set off to do whatever we pleased. We weren't given any instructions on what to do to help. All we did was play with the boarders.
We finally asked Joshua what else we could do to help. He told us that us being here was enough help for the boarders. If we were making them happy, then that was enough.
Irene had told us that if we wanted to do something for the kids, we couldn't just wait for orders from Joshua. We had to stand up for ourselves and think up of something for the kids.
As much as I wanted to help the kids and think up of a project, I just couldn't. I was already so busy writing from abroad to my editors. I know it was ridiculous for me to be working when the reason why we took this trip was to get away from work. I just couldn't let go. I had to get my work done.
As we spent more time with the girls at the Pathfinder Academy, I found out that they acted just like normal girls. They weren't any different than the girls back in America.
One day, we were playing with them when they had mentioned that they liked American music. I immediately went to my bag and grabbed my iPod and portable speakers.
After I plugged in my iPod and portable speakers, everyone started dancing and singing. We all laughed and had fun. I started to do this dance move of mine and everyone told me to show them how to do it. They started to copy me and danced the same way that I just did.
The dancing stopped when the girls were called to go to dinner. They made us promise that we would show them some dance moves tomorrow. They made us promise to teach them how to dance for the rest of the time we were here.
For the next couple of days, we taught the girls dance every night at six. We decided to make a play for the girls and we did. We were going to hold auditions for who was going to play what part.
Jen had told Holly and I that we could use the free time that we had before the auditions at six to do whatever we wanted. I decided to use the free time to send in some articles to my editors. Jen looked at me seriously and told me not to be late for the auditions. I agreed.
I finally got my articles sent in to my editor and went to the place where the auditions for the play were held. All the girls were relieved that I was safe. The problem was that they were already finished with the auditions for the play.
I was shocked. How could I be so late? I could have sworn that only took me a couple of minutes, but it turned out that I was an hour late to the auditions.
This really hit me hard. I really wanted to be here and see all the boarders audition for the part that they wanted, and yet I wasn't here. I was busy doing work.
Even though I knew deep down inside of me that the girls and their auditions were the most important to me, I still worked and missed their auditions.
I suddenly wanted to change.
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