Long Days, Late Nights... Frustrated!

When I came up here I was told by many of you who I know and love a number of different things. I've been told I'm brave, I'm crazy, I'm courageous, I'm doing something others would never imagine doing alone, and well everything in between. I can tell you though that while you think it is brave for me to come here I think it is braver for my children to endure all that they do.

I hear heartbreaking stories every day, some from other adults, some from the kids themselves. Sometimes I am witness to the stories myself. I think I have been writing very surface stories and thoughts and I don't know why.

My students endure so much and deserve so much more. We have breakfast every day at school, we feed every child who comes no matter if they may have eaten at home too. This is not always enough though, because the children who need it most come later after lunch to say they have no food at home and nobody there to feed them sometimes. I try to give my students all the understanding I can but sometimes I push too much because I don't know what is going on in their lives and here you have to know in order to teach them. Sometimes my classroom becomes a nap room, just this morning I had a child sleeping on the story time mats while I was on my prep because she had a rough night. I don't know what she may have dealt with all night, and I don't think I could even imagine it if I wanted to because I was lucky enough to have a safe home to grow up in with locked doors and loving parents who I could trust to keep me safe (and I know now I can not thank them enough for that). If I had to spend a day in these children's shoes I don't think I could make it... they are the brave ones not I!

I am frustrated that I am powerless to save them, I am angry that I cannot fix things for them, and I hate that I am all about how I feel and vent about how sad it makes me!

After I went to Kenya I felt hope that if everyone cared, if everyone tried and dreamed then this world could be so much better. I think it is because the people I was surrounded by, the children, the local villagers, the people who worked there all had so much hope and dared to dream. Here, my students do not have dreams and that is heartbreaking because without dreams what kind of future is there for them? When I was 8 if you asked me what I wanted to be it was a different thing every day; if you ask my students what they want to be when they grow up they just shrug their shoulders, stare at the floor, and have nothing to say. Where is their hope? I wish I could give them every dream I have for them. I wish they could see the strong and brave faces I see when I look at them!

If you could hear their stories and see their faces you would never be impressed with mine. I am just a girl who lets herself get bogged down with self-pity because I miss everything I don't have here but I have a house to myself with a door that locks, food and clothes, and people who care about me!