Three of the happiest children in the orphanage...or maybe the world!

So everyone knows from our last few blogs that we are looking for sponsors for the kids at the moment. We want to find people who really care about these children to make a committment to helping them start out in life. We have a bit of an urgent need to find sponsors for the kids who are starting school in January:  still sponsor-less, we have Isaak, Queen and Auntie...

Here's Isaak giving us jaunty wave...

...Queen giving us her trademark massive grin...

...and Auntie giving a twirl.

But these three have already been the centre of attention for one blog. You know the need.

So, what I thought I would do this week is try to feature a couple of the other kids who also need sponsors and just give you an insight into their absolute incredible-ness. It's always tricky to be choosing between children, but my selection is based purely on the kids that I personally know the best, not on anything else. My challenge to the readers of this blog is to find someone to be a 'friend' to these children, to put them on our 'Give to Receive' Christmas tree. That means signing up to $15/£10 per month, which really isn't that much when you think about it.

So...introducing Baracka, Neema Kubwa and Maureen Kubwa. They are among the children I know the best because I met them nearly three years ago when they were toddling about around the transition from the toddler dormitory to the big kids' room. Then, when I went back last Christmas I got to see how they have blossomed at age four. Here they all are dancing together back in January:

As you can see, Baracka (at the front for most of the video clip) has tons of spirit. He was a massive surprise to me in January because when I left him a year and a half before he was very definitely still a toddler. He had (and still has) the loudest scream in the world, which he would use at every opportunity. He seemed to be quite often crying and had a tendency to run away with whatever another child was playing with. I'm not going to pretend that some of that isn't still true, but let's give him a break - he is only four!

What amazed me in January is how keen he was to help, to learn and just generally to socialize with me. He was probably the most verbal out of all the children in his interactions with me. He was desperate to learn to read, and sat and listened to me read 'The Cat in the Hat' in my very broken, spontaneous translation into Swahili about five times in two days. We couldn't tear him away from the book because he got so involved - it was all that he wanted to do over, and over, and over, and over again. He's still full of mischief, but I wanted to post the video below of him because I think it shows how smart and engaged he is. Please excuse the poor video quality and the crying in the background, I think there was a major dispute over a crucially important toy going on behind us!

For the record, we are naming fruit: pili pili = pepper; chungwa = orange; nanasi = pineapple. 

 

I am extremely proud of the progress Baracka has made and can't wait to see how he does when it is his turn to begin school!

Next, Neema kubwa (Big Neema). Neema and I have always got along well, right from when she was tiny. She was always a happy little soul, but it's amazing to see how her personality has developed. She loves to sing, loves to eat and loves to dance (as I'm sure you can see from the groove she's got going on in the first video - and that's with no music on a day that she was feeling shy). Neema is the one to find if your day at the orphanage is getting a bit much. There are never any tears unless it's for a good reason, and where there are they get blown away quickly by the next new game. She's active, a little bit of a tomboy perhaps, always on the swings and apparently has now perfected the art of the monkey bars - go Neema! Here she is with me in 2011 doing her favourite thing in the world for that week:

And here is a collage which some of you may remember from a while ago on Facebook - the endlessly-available-for-photos 'Neema grin:'

Finally, let's get on to Maureen Kubwa. Maureeni can be a little shy at first, but if she decides to shout then cover your ears! When I first met her she was the furthest ahead of these three and on the way to 'moving up' a room from toddler to child. She was gorgeously sweet wandering around when all the other little ones were in bed and the older ones (including her!) got an extra half an hour to stay up. Here she is at that kind of age:

I have to say I was pretty disappointed when I got back and they'd got rid of her little bit of hair! Once again, it seems obvious to comment on how much they've all grown up in two years, but that really is what strikes you most. I would say Maureeni is now very mature for her age. She has her best friend, Miriam, is lots more confident, and did plenty of singing with me. She's also been really into the art they've been doing in the schoolroom and she loves, and I mean really loves, the camera. Although to be honest, that's true for pretty much all the kids.

Showing off her artwork.

I'm so proud of these three. I have watched them grow for 2 years and I'm so glad I got to go back and see them and I hope I will again. I'm not encouraging you to sponsor any one of the children over the others. I just wanted to try and paint a fuller picture so that those of you who have never met them see them as the people that they are, with full personalities and a serious love of life, rather than just some cute pictures.

If you can sign up to be any of their 'friend' this holiday season (or sponsor them at a higher level!), we would be so grateful and thrilled to welcome you to the Nkoaranga family! Check out our sponsorship page for all the details. 

Sharing the love!

Hello everyone, we hope you've all had a great week!  This week our blog features some birthdays, a guest post by three amazing girls telling you about their candy-gram fundraiser, and a little bit about some of The Small Things' committees who are looking for people to join them!

Birthdays!

Saimoni (5 years old)

Today is Saimoni's 5th Birthday!  He is such an amazing boy who has done so well to overcome the rickets he suffered from when he was younger (especially not easy when living in  an orphanage full of more mobile kids) to become the happy, laughing and extremely imaginative little boy that he is today!

Left to right: Faraja (8 years old), Baracka (4 years old) and Neema ndogo (1 year old)

It's been a busy week birthday-wise!  Last Friday, we celebrated two other Birthdays: Faraja - who was at Nkoaranga Orphanage until the age of 6, when she left to live at a nearby SOS children's village - turned 8, and it was also Baracka's 4th Birthday!  And last but definitely not least, just yesterday Neema ndogo turned 1!  We are so happy that they are all growing up safe and happy, although it is very scary how fast it is happening!!

PS. Just in case we are confusing you, 'ndogo' means 'little'!

Candy-grams

by Carly Charlebois, Amanda Roberts and Ashley Pollari

"We are students at Camosun College in Victoria, BC and our team consists of Carly Charlebois, Amanda Roberts and Ashley Pollari.  We are currently taking a Sociology course: Introduction to Africa Studies. One of the main components of our class is to come up with a service-learning project, which positively impacts an African country in a sustainable way.

"All three of us have been to Africa at some point in the past few years.  Carly and Ashley have been to Kenya and Amanda was in Burkina Faso.  Together we have developed a passion for this incredible continent and the amazing people who live there.  Having that personal connection and the experience of being to Africa are important and provide us with a strong basis for this project.  We all connected to The Small Things organization through Kristina Alexander; who we know either through the African Awareness Committee at school, or work.  Having Kristina here at Camosun has been a huge help in developing our project plan.  Since connecting with Kristina and learning more about what The Small Things is doing for the orphanage, we have taken a huge interest in their future projects.

"Two members of our group, Carly and Ashley, are preparing to start the nursing programs in the fall.  Therefore, we are quite interested in how we could create a sustainable project for medical development on the ground in Tanzania.  Our hope is for these funds from our service-learning project to help build the HIV health care facility for the new children’s village, as well as aid in the employment of a full-time nurse.  In addition, Ashley and Amanda plan to make it to Tanzania next year to see the impact of our efforts, which makes the connection much more real.

"Our first fundraiser for this project was a Valentine’s Day candy-gram service that raised awareness and funds for the Nkoaranga orphanage.  For three days, we sold handmade cards, and Fair Trade chocolates on campus for two dollars.  Then they were delivered on Valentine’s Day.   

"We had a positive and optimistic outlook from the beginning about our candy-gram fundraiser.  Despite it being a last minute decision to do this fundraiser, we feel as though we reached out to many people and fostered awareness about The Small Things and their mission.  In the end, we raised approximately $150.   

"In the coming weeks, we hope to build on this success through a penny drive and bottle drive.  As we learn more in our Sociology class, we will continue to work with Kristina and The Small Things to support Nkoaranga Orphanage.

"Our reward will come when can visit next year and meet the children that we have grown to love though photos and stories."

Committees

We are looking for passionate and dedicated people to join The Small Things's committees!  Below is an outline of the different committees and the sort of people who we'd love to join us working on them.

Stevie, Andrea and David drinking the
filtered water provided by Project Maji

Strategic planning

• What it involves: discussing in what direction to develop the charity for the future and considering factors which influence this; planning how to implement these decisions
• Looking for: Individuals who have experience starting or building a successful company or non-profit
• Commitment: 1hr per week + 1 meeting per month

'The Mosaic Ladies' - a beautiful
quilt made by Sandra to auction off to
raise money to rewire the orphanage

Fundraising

• What it involves: Working with volunteers to support their own fundraising projects, organising events to raise money and awareness and developing products such as calendars etc to sell
• Looking for: People who have experience organising events, connections to companies or experience with general fundraising
• Commitment: 1hr per week + 1 meeting per month

The kids looking delighted in beautiful
clothes donated by 'Fred's World'

Child welfare

• What it involves:Consideration of how best to support the mental and physical health of the children in our care, developing advice for volunteers in the form of manuals and development charts, coordinating in-kind donations such as vitamins and clothing
• Looking for: People with medical, psychological, or child development expertise
• Commitment: 1hr per week + 1 meeting per month

If you are interested in working on any of the above, please get in touch with us at info@thesmallthings.org - thank you!

Vicky (2 years old), loving her new nappy
donated by 'Baba and Boo'

Thanks for reading!

Worth a Thousand Words

Adam and Zawadi

David

Patty and Zawadi

Big Ebenezer

Big Ebenezer

Loveness

Loveness

Baracka

Simoni

Adam and Simoni

Baracka

Stine

Simoni

Miriam

Claire and Neema

(Some of the best photos of our kids from this summer, huge thanks to Claire Wyatt for her talent!)

Then and now

It's amazing how fast time flies at the orphanage... sometimes, history repeats itself, and some things never change!

Frankie 2010

Frankie 2012

 Frankie's cheeks are still for the ages!

Me holding Pray and Simoni 2010

Me holding Pray and Simoni 2012

I still adore this funny little pair, who couldn't be more different from each other if they tried, despite being just a few months apart in age...

Baracka (left) with bubbles 2010

Baracka with bubbles 2012

Baracka still loves bubbles, but has moved up the totem pole, and now gets to blow them rather than just pop them!

Simoni grinning 2010

Simoni grinning 2012

 Simoni still has the world's best happy face...

Eman 2010

Eman 2012

Eman is still way cooler than I will ever be, and he still likes chilling on the trampoline...

Stevie (far right) as a baby with volunteers (thanks Amy for the photo!)

Stevie (far left) 2012 with volunteers

Stevie's mouth still exerts its own gravitational pull... 

Tumaini with Zawadi 2009

Tumaini with Peace 2012

And you still can't keep Tumaini away from the babies. Ok, so a few concrete updates on the kids - Peace is out of the hospital and back home with us, missing only a little of his belly chub. Big Ebenezer has taken his daredevil antics to the next level and smashed out his front teeth - poor boy! Little Ebenezer is doing much better and should be discharged from the hospital tomorrow (yay!), so our whole little family should be at the orphanage together as of tomorrow! Thank you so much to everyone who donated for his care - he was in about ten days altogether, so his bill will be high. We continue to gratefully accept contributions towards his hospital bills. 

And as a final bonus, a lookalike feature: 

Which of these pictures shows our gorgeous boy Shujaa, and which shows a Japanese Kabuki crab ? Both are surprisingly fuzzy on top. 

A Mixture of Feelings

I have always been surprised about the combination of feelings you can experience because of the children of Nkoaranga Orphanage. Happiness when you see their smiling faces, sadness when they're crying, annoyance when they're being a bit too cheeky, overwhelming joy when you're lucky enough to see them taking their first steps, and utterly, crazy, unconditional, never ending love. Always love, no matter what.

An incredible previous volunteer, Jasmine, has just returned from spending a month with the kids and I am unbelievably jealous of her. It feels so strange because I lived with Jasmine in Nkoaranga last year and have spent many hours with her, reminiscing about the wonderful times we had with the kids. When she returned, one of the first questions I asked her was, "Do they remember me?" The kids are always there, in the back of your mind, so you often wonder if they do actually remember you. And, I was so happy to hear, that they do in fact remember me and kept asking Jasmine where I was. It was so wonderful to know that they remember us, and still love us as we love them. But this wasn't the only feeling I experienced on hearing this. It also made me feel sad. I feel guilty for not being there and knowing that they do actually still think about us from time to time. It made me think about something that the lovely Emma has touched on before now: whether coming into the children's lives and then leaving does more harm than good.

But, then I thought about all of the wonderful times that we have had with the children.

I thought about how Gracie first learned to stand by pulling herself up on my legs. I thought about the times I had spent getting Simoni to run and jump and try to do anything we could to help his legs to improve. I thought about the night Megan and I sat singing to all of the children, whilst we fed the babies, because they were getting scared by the power cut. I thought about the first moment we all walked into the orphanage and the way the children immediately ran up to us and started hugging and climbing all over us. I thought about the hundreds of times I had told the children that I love them and they told me they love me too. I thought about when Nsima turned to me on her last day at the orphanage and said, "I will miss you, Emily". I thought about Saimoni singing the 'Embily song' and Stevie playing 'wewe chakoula'. I thought about the hundreds and thousands of beautiful, heart-wrenching, perfect memories I have of those beautiful children and all of the love that they have shown me and I have shown them.

If we hadn't gone to the orphanage, then we wouldn't have been able to hug them when they were crying. Make them laugh when they were feeling sad. Protect them when they were scared. Play with them when they were feeling lonely. We wouldn't have been able to show them the love that they deserve; the love that the Mama's, the children and the volunteers are always showing one another, every single day.

When you hear that the kids have been asking after you and missing you, but you can't be there with them, it's hard. It's really hard. So, I have to hold on to those memories and cherish them. I try to think about the wonderful times I have had with them and the fact that I was able to help them when they needed it the most. I think about the fact that, even though I'm not there with them, I was there. And I will be there again. I think about the fact that they are safe and with people that love them.

As Emma says, 'If every volunteer, at Nkoaranga Orphanage, does what they can to help the children, make them laugh, make them feel safe and happy, make them feel loved, then hopefully, the memories of their childhood will be a happy blur of all the love and support from all of the volunteers to whom they mean so much to'.

The kids can make you experience such a range of emotions, sometimes all at once. But, I know that they are safe and I know that they are happy, and this is all that matters. I'm so overjoyed that the kids actually remember me, even if it does make me feel sad that I can't be there in person. When I think about all of the wonderful times I have had with the kids, all of the love I have shown them and all of the love they have shown me, I know that I wouldn't trade this for anything.

Gracie's first attempts to stand

Simple fun with Baracka, Neema and Eman.