I decided to write a letter home every week…

The school closing ceremony has come (13th November) and it lasted for six hours... I was already on the verge of giving up but instead, I chose to occupy myself, taking pictures of the children with their certificates and awards for their study accomplishments. All kinds of high-ranking representatives came from the region to hand over the awards. During the event, donations were collected for the scouts, to cover their trip to the next competition, to which they would leave for at the weekend. The money collection progressed as follows: one of the representatives was urging the children – in Swahili – pointing out whom they should address, from whom they can get money … When the representative began talking in my direction, and…

The otherwise high-spirited Theresie limped increasingly every day, and her pains grew all the time. In the nearest hospital, the treatment for the four-year-old girl consisted merely of lying in bed all day while a big weight was pulling down her leg. So, it was no wonder that one month later, she came back from the hospital feeling very down. Finally, we sent her x-rays to one of our doctor friends in Hungary, who diagnosed her illness. As it turned out, her hips had to be completely relieved of any pressure, which could only be done with crutches or a walker. Although we managed to purchase crutches for her, and Sister Willy taught her how to walk with them, getting around still remained a problem for her, preventing her from participating in the games with the other children. After…

One day, I was walking home with Fausta, when suddenly she told me: "One day, I’ll go away from here, I’ll be white and I ’ll do nothing else but eat chapati (a Kenyan food) every day, for every lunch, every dinner."

I just stood there, not knowing what to say... I was shocked to hear with what a childlike honesty she could express how she saw white people, and there was nothing offensive about it. I thought the best thing to say to her would probably be this: "Fausta, you don’t have to become a white person to be able to always eat chapati, your skin color is beautiful. You have to study so that you can go to university, and then you can get a good job as a well-trained person. That way, there will be nothing to keep you back from having chapati on your table every day."…

At the beginning of my Kenya sojourn, when I was in the getting-to-know-each-other phase with the children, the following happened: we were sitting inside the "playing" room, just about to finish watching a cartoon. After their afternoon naps, the absent little ones began slowly trickling into the room. I could hear that Zakaria was calling me from the courtyard outside. Of course, he didn’t really know my name, so he simply “mzungu”-ed me. Somebody must have told him where I happened to be because he appeared at the door wearing a sleepy face. He always swept me off my feet with his smile. Zakari was just about to start saying “mzungu”, when Mutuku popped up from his seat, towering above the little Zakari, asserting all his authority, and with a terribly stern face, began explaining…

The laundry woman is washing, I’m rinsing, the children are running around or playing in the courtyard, but one of them is standing next to my thigh, examining with clever eyes how the adults (us) are cleaning the clothes. My companion is singing away next to me, sometimes awarding with a few good words the rejoicing little ones dashing in with their creative games... (yarn tied onto a stick, pebbles hidden in a matchbox, ball packed into a plastic bag), or educating them when one of them rushes in blabbing, complaining, crying. She merely says one or two wise words (like my old Gran in my childhood), and the child calms down, starting to play again. We sometimes laugh at them, and very frequently, I smile at our little buddy who has already fished out all the tricks of washing,…