Twinkle, twinkle, little star

I am a girl, so I’m allowed to say it: Kenyan children are SO adorable!

Kids outside Daraja

Sunday was quite the cultural experience for us. We ventured off to church in the local village 10 minutes walk from Daraja for the service we were told would start at 10 African time. That turned out to be pretty accurate as the service started around 10:30. There was a lot of singing – all to the same wannabe hip-hop rhythm blasted through the small mud-hut church from an old keyboard connected to two large speakers powered by the only power source in the village – a small generator. After several groups had performed a little song and dance in front of the congregation, our little group was asked to do the same. We had been warned before going, fortunately, so we came prepared – sort of – and ended up saying a prayer in Danish.

Three hours later the service ended with everyone forming a large circle outside the church and shaking hands with everyone. One of the locals came up to us and offered to show us around, which we gratefully accepted and got a private tour through the village.

After a late lunch, we wanted to climb the hill inside the compound, but were coerced by an 8 year old girl to go with her. So instead of climbing a hill we spent an hour playing “teacher and two bad students” until we managed to drag her out and get her to come with us. She found a friend and the four of us went off to climb the hill, although we went outside the fence. And we didn’t make it far before the rain came. It felt pretty ironic that we found ourselves soaked to the skin in the middle of Africa.

Bargaining for the return of Charlotte’s camera and some dry clothes later, we were off again this time to cook with a local family. We were put to work right away under intense supervision of four kids who found us really strange. It took them a while, but suddenly we made contact over the various translations of potato, onion and carrot. After that we were like oversized white dolls to them and they were amused by touching our skin and braiding our hair! Two of the kids found a particular interest in the mole I have on my chin – they couldn’t for the life of them figure out what that weird brown spot was.

We had a lovely dinner with the family and made our way back to the compound as night fell upon Daraja. Charlotte and I had our last imported chocolate in the chairs outside our “dorm” as we sat in the dark under the twinkling stars on the African sky.