Day 6

Today was the dreariest day yet!  If you told me it was cold enough to snow, I would have believed you!  The kids just threw on layer after layer to stay warm.  At 10:30 we congregated in the dining room which has been rearranged for Mass with Father Jim, a Jesuit priest from Wisconsin.  The girls and Kate were happy to see him since he has been away in Uganda building a boys high school.  The girls were active participants in Mass from the very beginning.  The older girls are getting very excited because next weekend they will be confirmed!  The girls who did not attend Mass, attended church down the road at a church called Deliverance.

After church and lunch it was time to have some fun outdoors, even though it was COLD!!!  The football (soccer) team stayed at Hekima Place for practice and the rest of us went for about a 1 km walk to the Rift Valley.  Yes, the same Rift Valley that developed ten million years ago and spans from the Middle East and ends in Mozambique and where humans are thought to have first appeared (google it if you don't believe me!).  It was beautiful!!!!

We hiked two parts of the rift and then it was time to return to Hekima Place where we watched the girls finish up playing soccer.  In the 2 hours we were out, the girls managed to drain the battery on both my iPhone and camera!  I'm sure they will be interesting to go through once we get home!  While Joe spent time with the girls in the Red House teaching them card tricks, I came back to Karibu House and hid under 2 blankets.

Then the dinner bells rang and it was off to dinner and then Bible Study.  We had a tough exercise that requires us to make a list of 5 things (10 for adults) that were important to us, and then had to cross off each one and see what we were left with.  The Bible Studies are run by the "uncles" or men who work here at Hekima Place.  Kate started this in an effort to ensure that the girls had some experience with interacting with males, given their female dominated world.  Afterwards, it was time for a typical Sunday evening.  The girls were putting out their uniforms and freshly polished shoes in order to get ready for school on Monday.  

Preparations

Lots went into planning to go on our trip to Hekima Place in Karen, Kenya.  Anyone who knows me knows that I am a bit obsessive when it comes to my to-do list, so planning went very smoothly. First, it was time to renew my passport. Even though it was months in advance, I still did the expedited service.  No joke, I got my passport in ONE WEEK!  Next came booking our flights.  There were more options than I expected!  We were able to get flights for about $2500 round trip.  We will be flying coach/economy, but I still haven't told Joe yet!  In order to make sure we could volunteer and stay with the girls at Hekima, we needed to fill out the volunteer application, do criminal background checks and get Act 51 clearance.  If you're planning on visiting Hekima (or any other reputable children's organization), make sure you allot yourself at least a month to complete these checks.  The background check can be completed online, but the Act 51 clearance has to be sent to Harrisburg for processing.  The last item on the trip preparation list was vaccinations and malaria meds.  Even though we are going to Kenya in the cool season, I figure better safe than sorry so my dad prescribed anti-malarials for Joe and I.  We will start taking them a day or two before we arrive in Kenya.  I also went on the website for Allegheny County Department of Health and submitted our travel plans.  Within a day, we received a list of recommended vaccines.  We brought our list to the walk-in immunization clinic and were done in about an hour and a half (including a little waiting).  Insurance doesn't cover the vaccines, so make sure you stick aside a little loot to cover the cost - it was about $350. It's been a while since I got that many shots!!!