#9Kenya – The Silence before the Storm: Visitors Day
Friday truly was the silence before a huge storm. Saturday was supposed to be visitors’ day and all of Thursday afternoon the kids spent cleaning and scrubbing the entire house. The frenzy of that evening was a huge contrast to the stillness of the next day; for Friday after school all the kids headed off to their grandparents and the whole home was really quite – almost eerily so considering we’re generally used to 70 bodies running and rushing here and there. Yet even so, I by no means want to give anyone the impression that we were bored out of our minds with nothing to do. With all the visitors coming the following day there were endless preparations to make.
For most of the afternoon the staff had been getting things ready and one of the biggest jobs was sorting through the rice. They buy it in bulk here and it’s not the best quality rice hence needs to be picked through to make sure that all the empty husks are separated from all the rice. Normally, this is a big enough job for a serving for 70 kids, staff and volunteers. But now we had to go through enough rice to feed over 300 people. That means we had probably sorted through about 100kg (give or take) of rice. In the evening there was about 15 of us in the kitchen, each over a bowl or over a piece of counter going through all the rice. I truly have formed a new appreciation for this staple. It is so much work not only in growing and harvesting it, but also in preparing it.
Yet even with all the work that needed to be done, Friday was a bit odd. I prefer it much more when all the kids are here. There is always someone to chat with, to laugh with, to help, or to tickle. The rooms were silent and empty and it just didn’t seem quite right. But then Saturday definitively made up for it. Everyone slowly started trickling back in starting at about 9am. By 10am there were quite a few grandparents and family members sitting on the lawn outside the home. We were still in the back getting lunch ready. At this stage that meant pealing 50kg of potatoes and chopping up a huge pile of cabbage. Truly a team effort to get a meal for this many people ready. And keep in mind, it’s hard enough cooking for 300-400 people back at home, but it is so much more difficult when you take into account the fact that you are cooking over a fire. They don’t have stoves here. Not even propane ones. Everything is prepared in huge pots over firewood. We had about 3 or 4 fires going and them some charcoal ones as well. I was sitting and pealing potatoes with my hunting knife for about an hour when one of the kids grandmas came and sat down beside me, taking my knife away from me and proceeding to do the job twice as fast as I. With no more knives to go around all I could do was keep on passing her new potatoes when she was done pealing and throwing the pealed ones into a big kettle.
Lunch didn’t end up getting served until nearly 3pm but not due to a delay on our part, but rather because James, who was supposed to arrive at 10am, arrived in true African fashion 4 ½ hours later. So we all assembled in the field in front of the home (some of the grandparents and community members had been sitting in the sun for over 4 hours by now). The food was brought out in the massive pots and the first to line up were the community kids. You should have seen the line. It was massive, snaking back and forth across the field. We handed out plates and then they loaded up on potatoes, rice, cabbage and meet. By the time the grandparents and other adults lined up, we were out of plates. So they stood in yet another huge snaking line waiting as we meandered our way between the kids collecting their plates when they had finished to go rinse them off and hand them to the awaiting adults. This process was repeated over and over. All the volunteers were working as servers while the kids from the home entertained by singing and dancing and the James, his family and a number of other VIPs sat on comfy couches in the shade and were served on glass plates from their separate pots. By the time we got to eat we were absolutely starving.
It’s amazing though how many people we fed, especially when you keep in mind the huge portion that everyone here eats. The plates are not just topped off, but rather heaped off. The mound is probably about 3-4 inches high – and that’s not just for the adults, but also for the kids. I must admit though, that when I arrived here, all the staff were giving me weird looks every time that I put my three spoonfuls onto my plate. However, by now my plate consists of a heap probably as big as that of some of the smaller kids here. I can probably bet you that once again losing weight will be an impossibility.
After everyone had eaten it was time to introduce all the volunteers and address the big boxes that were piled up in the middle of the field. It turned out that one of the volunteers from last year, a girl named Linda from Ontario, Canada, had collected tones of things and shipped them all to James. There were probably 12 huge boxes filled with toys, clothes and books. All the kids from the community got 2 pieces of clothing and the rest went to the kids from the home. The library also got a huge boost in books – ranging from children dictionaries and encyclopaedias, to little kids books and even a collection of about 20 R.L. Stein Goosebumps books as well as the whole set of Anne of Green Gables. I’m personally ecstatic about the books because it will make our library look so much better and some of the kids have already signed out their first books. On top of these donations James had purchased a huge fridge. This will be great because it will help preserve all their food.
However, the afternoon went downhill from that point onward because a number of the VIPs were local counsellors and politicians that each took their time in making long speeches to the congregation of assembled grandparents. This meant that all the “visitors” were sitting in the sun until nearly 6:30pm. After all this it was time to clean up and by the end we were completely exhausted. Yet somehow the kids maintained an energy level that was out of this world. They kept on singing and dancing until nearly 11pm. How they do it I don’t know. I guess for them it was an amazing day. They got to see their families; they got to have a huge feast; they were given tones of presents/gifts; and they got to see their daddy (James). So I guess it’s not that surprising that they were filled with energy.
So that was visitors’ day. Not sure how often they have it, but based on the amount of work that goes into preparing it, I hope it’s not too often.
For most of the afternoon the staff had been getting things ready and one of the biggest jobs was sorting through the rice. They buy it in bulk here and it’s not the best quality rice hence needs to be picked through to make sure that all the empty husks are separated from all the rice. Normally, this is a big enough job for a serving for 70 kids, staff and volunteers. But now we had to go through enough rice to feed over 300 people. That means we had probably sorted through about 100kg (give or take) of rice. In the evening there was about 15 of us in the kitchen, each over a bowl or over a piece of counter going through all the rice. I truly have formed a new appreciation for this staple. It is so much work not only in growing and harvesting it, but also in preparing it.
Yet even with all the work that needed to be done, Friday was a bit odd. I prefer it much more when all the kids are here. There is always someone to chat with, to laugh with, to help, or to tickle. The rooms were silent and empty and it just didn’t seem quite right. But then Saturday definitively made up for it. Everyone slowly started trickling back in starting at about 9am. By 10am there were quite a few grandparents and family members sitting on the lawn outside the home. We were still in the back getting lunch ready. At this stage that meant pealing 50kg of potatoes and chopping up a huge pile of cabbage. Truly a team effort to get a meal for this many people ready. And keep in mind, it’s hard enough cooking for 300-400 people back at home, but it is so much more difficult when you take into account the fact that you are cooking over a fire. They don’t have stoves here. Not even propane ones. Everything is prepared in huge pots over firewood. We had about 3 or 4 fires going and them some charcoal ones as well. I was sitting and pealing potatoes with my hunting knife for about an hour when one of the kids grandmas came and sat down beside me, taking my knife away from me and proceeding to do the job twice as fast as I. With no more knives to go around all I could do was keep on passing her new potatoes when she was done pealing and throwing the pealed ones into a big kettle.
Lunch didn’t end up getting served until nearly 3pm but not due to a delay on our part, but rather because James, who was supposed to arrive at 10am, arrived in true African fashion 4 ½ hours later. So we all assembled in the field in front of the home (some of the grandparents and community members had been sitting in the sun for over 4 hours by now). The food was brought out in the massive pots and the first to line up were the community kids. You should have seen the line. It was massive, snaking back and forth across the field. We handed out plates and then they loaded up on potatoes, rice, cabbage and meet. By the time the grandparents and other adults lined up, we were out of plates. So they stood in yet another huge snaking line waiting as we meandered our way between the kids collecting their plates when they had finished to go rinse them off and hand them to the awaiting adults. This process was repeated over and over. All the volunteers were working as servers while the kids from the home entertained by singing and dancing and the James, his family and a number of other VIPs sat on comfy couches in the shade and were served on glass plates from their separate pots. By the time we got to eat we were absolutely starving.
It’s amazing though how many people we fed, especially when you keep in mind the huge portion that everyone here eats. The plates are not just topped off, but rather heaped off. The mound is probably about 3-4 inches high – and that’s not just for the adults, but also for the kids. I must admit though, that when I arrived here, all the staff were giving me weird looks every time that I put my three spoonfuls onto my plate. However, by now my plate consists of a heap probably as big as that of some of the smaller kids here. I can probably bet you that once again losing weight will be an impossibility.
After everyone had eaten it was time to introduce all the volunteers and address the big boxes that were piled up in the middle of the field. It turned out that one of the volunteers from last year, a girl named Linda from Ontario, Canada, had collected tones of things and shipped them all to James. There were probably 12 huge boxes filled with toys, clothes and books. All the kids from the community got 2 pieces of clothing and the rest went to the kids from the home. The library also got a huge boost in books – ranging from children dictionaries and encyclopaedias, to little kids books and even a collection of about 20 R.L. Stein Goosebumps books as well as the whole set of Anne of Green Gables. I’m personally ecstatic about the books because it will make our library look so much better and some of the kids have already signed out their first books. On top of these donations James had purchased a huge fridge. This will be great because it will help preserve all their food.
However, the afternoon went downhill from that point onward because a number of the VIPs were local counsellors and politicians that each took their time in making long speeches to the congregation of assembled grandparents. This meant that all the “visitors” were sitting in the sun until nearly 6:30pm. After all this it was time to clean up and by the end we were completely exhausted. Yet somehow the kids maintained an energy level that was out of this world. They kept on singing and dancing until nearly 11pm. How they do it I don’t know. I guess for them it was an amazing day. They got to see their families; they got to have a huge feast; they were given tones of presents/gifts; and they got to see their daddy (James). So I guess it’s not that surprising that they were filled with energy.
So that was visitors’ day. Not sure how often they have it, but based on the amount of work that goes into preparing it, I hope it’s not too often.
posted by Kasia Koltunska at 1:54 AM
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