A Completed Project

Last Thursday might have been the best day of my life. Everything came together at the Remand Home and I've never felt that kind of straight-up wholesome happiness - it was unreal. It was the first time I saw the tables and bookshelf that got delivered earlier in the week, the white board was installed, I brought school supplies for the kids to start using, and the mural was finished. Even though it was the first time I visited the Home without Roo (whose Mom was in the hospital at the time), it was amazing. Didn't have my camera that day - kicked myself- but these are from yesterday when workbooks got delivered.

Roo used the space for a Paralegal Clinic to break it in, so it wasn't exactly school, but the same concept: this was actually the perfect day to take pictures because it had been storming for hours, so the entire compound was muddy (as you'll see) and without this space, the kids would have been shut in the sleep quarters, doing absolutely nothing except going crazy. Understanding that while seeing them so excited about writing in their 8 cent notebooks was perfect. There are 6 of these tables and, this is off topic, but the 'dryer' is behind them: windows.

When I showed up for the first time with these books, handing them school materials collectively worth less than a dime that still put a huge smile on their face was straight-up one of the best things I've ever done. Think about this: after I handed one of the little boys a notebook and pencil, he jumped up and down, squealing, and said he'd never owned something that nice before. Wow.

Fellow students and adults who can still remember this far back (ha), we write papers all the time - weekly, even - that are turned in, read (or skimmed, depending), and then a letter is put at the top to rate the quality. A few weeks ago, I did the same thing - basically wrote a paper - for a grant, and it had real world, awesome impacts that I got to see in the past week. I can't stress how surreal that was: I constantly had to leave the room while they were bustling over the newness of their materials just to collect myself long enough to come back and instruct them on what to do. Yes, I nearly cried.

After I distributed all the materials last week, I left to compose my stupid emotional self (which was partly a result of understanding this would be one of my last times with the kids, so it was justified, in my defense). When I came back, they had all organized themselves into classes...seperated one another by grade levels, the older girls stepped up to the white board and started working on 3-letter words with smaller kids who huddled around a table in the front. The rest of the older kids were waiting on me, so asked what I wanted them to do then...

So I told them to write about their lives. It was Friday, the volunteer teacher wasn't coming until next week, but I knew they couldn't wait - it was SO "Freedom Writers." Circles of teenagers were scattered all over the room helping one another with the English spellings and when one would finish, they'd run up their progress to me so I could read - the stories were unreal. Some were about how happy they were to be in the Home now, to be safe and have food, so felt so blessed by God, and others were accounts of what they'd experienced before coming here. You can only imagine what they were like. Oh my gosh, I get chills thinking about it...

This is where their class would have been yesterday if the room wasn't finished. In the back is the sleeping quarters where they would have been locked up and the bucket there is the dish washer. I took more pictures of the facilities yesterday too that'll be on Facebook - there are too many for here. I'm talking with my FSD contacts to discuss building them a sports hall - something larger and open-air, just covered, where they can run around - because this is inadequate for releasing the energy kids have so much of.

I can't stress how unreal this experience is - I'm applying all of those skills we learn and use over and over again in the Academy to do something useful. I'd like to say I don't do this for the rewarding feeling, and I really don't think that's the huge, overarching, motivating factor, but looking back at how stressful the grant process was at times and seeing how well it paid off now - how happy it's making these kids and doing something legit for them - is like nothing else.

In exactly one week, I'll be on a bus to Nairobi for a mini vacation with Ruweidah before boarding a plane to the States. Said this once before, but I'm redundant: that's unreal, friends.