We do!!! (hopefully!) A Christmas miracle.
One of our BIG jobs has been getting ready for Christmas
here. All kids in Light in Africa care receive a new
outfit and then a bag full with a toy/gift, new underwear, socks, a toothbrush,
a juice, biscuits/cookies, and some sweets. For over 200 children, this job has
been (needless to say) keeping us very busy. Luckily through our friends and
family who gave us clothes and gifts as well as the various things gathered
over the year by LIA, we had a good place to start – so we thought.
It turns out, 2 nearly 30-year-olds, who don’t have kids and
only really spend time with African children, have no idea what will fit which
kid. Outfits we picked out for 6 year-olds would maybe fit 3 year-olds. Also,
we know most of the kids at Tudor Village very well, but the kids at Mirerani
and Pilgrams, we have maybe seen a couple times – so had we been left on our
own we would have some interesting outfit and gift choices.
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| Frida, Sara, Rita (our hero) and me |
Luckily, we had two of the older girls, Rita and Frida, came
to the rescue. Rita and Frida came to LIA as children and have both been here
nearly since the beginning. Now, getting ready to start college or further
schooling, the kids are serving LIA for a year before moving on. They have
helped us sort out the clothes and gifts for all of the kids, trying to
remember who each one is and all the kids in general.
Then we went to the market the first time, looking only for
girls clothes. We were originally told that for pants it would cost 2000
schilling each (the equivalent of about $1.50). Unfortunately, as it is close
to Christmas and we are Mzungus (white) – we were not able to buy pants, they were
giving us prices for 20,000 schillings, almost 10 times the price. Luckily, we
had Rita and Frieda again to help bargain.
We spent hours the first time walking through the market
trying to find the right sizes. And then if we found the right sizes, trying to
find something that at least half-way matched. And then if that all worked out,
something that didn’t have some kind of hole in it. On the first day, after
lots of sweat from walking around the hot market and then sitting on the
crowded buses, we were happy to enjoy some lunch and Fanta pineapple with the
girls.
Then, on Tuesday, we had to tackle the rest of the boys
clothes. We needed to buy for over 30 children, and given our first experience,
we were not too confident that that would happen in one day. We decided to go
to Arusha (a bigger city, where all the Safaris go out to the Rift Valley and
Serengeti and where the Rwanda
trials are currently taking place).
Pastor Frank (a long time staff member of LIA and a truly
wonderful man) drove us with Rita and then an older boy Freddy to Arusha.
Freddy was to be our body guard, but as he can’t stop smiling, we decided to be extra cautious ourselves, too.
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| piles of clothes ready for deserving owners |
Then, we opened our eyes to a little shop right in front of
us. Rita asked how much the pants were and the man replied 22,000. Discouraged,
she started to walk away and Sara and I knew we had a long day ahead of us.
Then, something made her turn back, and she way able to get them down to 7,000
(a little over 3 dollars) per pair of pants. We were able to find 30 pairs! And
then 20 shirts!! We were done in less than a hour. Pretty convinced some sort
Christmas miracle.
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| gifts ready to be packed |
Yesterday, we bought the juice, cookies, candy and hopefully
last two pairs of pants. Now its just time to wrap everything and triple check
that all the kids are accounted for. A big job – but thanks to the great help
and company, Sara and I have enjoyed it and are really looking forward to
seeing all the Light in Africa kids on Christmas day!
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