First day "on the job"

Salvete omnes!

I am excited to report that I am teaching some conversational Latin to Virginia, a board member of Tumaini and secretary for the parish. I imagine that soon the Roman Empire will rise again! It was my plan all along! *evil laugh*

Bookbags wait for kids to eat breakfast

Kaki and I awoke early in order to walk some of the younger students to school. I get a general sense that the children really enjoy school, which brings joy to my heart. Afterwards, we looked at the different farm animals that are taken care of on campus. This includes 3 cows and several chickens. To my delight, I was able to pet the cows, and I have hopes that I can milk one some morning.

Catching a ride to Nyeri town

We began our physical task for the week, which is organizing the library at Tumaini. We will be organizing the children's books based on reading level and cultural context. It has been so fun to see what books they have (and to reminisce about my childhood) like Frog and Toad, Amelia Bedelia, and the 1996 and 2010 financial records for some bank in the US.


After some afternoon tea, the team, along with Eunice and Reuben (a volunteer at Tumaini) traveled to Nyeri town in a "van" which in our vernacular is "pick-up truck with benches in the back." We got some more supplies for the children and our apartment. Sadly, they did not have any extra toilets on sale. 😞

After lunch the team split up to do different things. I went to the library to check on Julie and Kaki who were having storytime with the pre-schoolers. AS SOON AS I entered the library, I was swarmed by several young children who kept bringing me over-sized books to read to them. It was pretty insane and I was only there for 20 minutes! Julie and Kaki looked like a honeycomb covered with bees! At one point, one of the children I spent time with yesterday, Margaret, called my name from across the room and came over to greet me. This warmed my heart! The rest of the time the team played with the children and brought out some of our balls. Since I was seen bringing some balls out, several children came up to me asking for another ball...often several times!

Thank you for your thoughts and prayers! We will continue to update the blog when we are able, and be sure to check on the older posts as well as we add images. Below is a picture of the library as our organization is in progress.

Quote of the day (from a Kenyan teenager here at Tumaini): "All wazungu look alike to us." A mzungu (pl. wazungu) is a white person.

ex animo,
Stella aka Ngwaci (sweet potato)

Today's activity in GIF form: