A Day at the Park 08/31

The highlight of today was an impromptu adventure to the park just a few blocks away. Erica, a fellow student, is an avid frisbee player so she brought one along to the park and four of us started playing. Before long we had a couple of locals playing along with us and neither of them had seen a frisbee before! One guy kept repeating frisbee.. fris-bee...and chuckling. Erica had shown us a pro technique for throwing and the first-timer was better than most of us. After a half hour in the park there were five or six locals with us, mostly street children, and after 45 minutes we had a huge crowd. By the time we left at dusk we had made over 30 new friends.
A muslim man, around my age, approached us and said he was very happy with the way we were treating the kids. It was one of the richest experiences thus far. When I took a moment to internalize the moment and my surroundings I was brought to tears. There were five little kids sitting and standing in this thick ray of sunlight, just smiling with each other. This is the way in Kenya, even amongst children who live on the street full time. Even as they fought over the frisbee they just beamed, and never really fought, making sure, amongst themselves, that each child had a turn to throw. No conflicts. They care so much for each other, more than I can begin to understand. I have never experienced children who interact this way.
I don't understand people who can walk past children on the street when they beg. Do I greet them or avert my eyes? I always always greet them. Usually I sit down and talk with them, sometimes patting their backs, always smiling big. It's too much to pass by. I long to sit with them, to show them something about myself, to learn from them. Finding the right way to do this will be my forever challenge.

Other highlights:
We saw some kids walking a monkey on a leash.
I had banana split icecream at a place called Oooh!, easily the best icecream I've ever had.
Life without toilet paper is not horrible, or really even challenging. Who'd have thought?


Also: Kenyan stereotypes about Americans as written by some of my Kenyan teachers:
-lazy
-all white
-anti-social
-rich
-like small families
-like details
-like paperwork
-violent
-gun carriers
-AIDS manufacturers
-all have AIDS.

ALSO, fellow Africans, my favorite soda here: Stoney Tangawizi.