looove the babies!!

I started at Happy Life Children's Home yesterday. It is about a 40 minute walk from my house which isn't too bad except for all the dirt from the roads; my shoes and bottom of my pants are always red!! I have been working with the infants (one names Job is 2 weeks old!!) and the toddlers. About 20ish total in those ages. There are others that go to kindergarten on site and five that leave for school. The children come either from the hospital, people find them (two even found in a plastic bag! so sad!) or the police bring them in. Luckily they all end up getting adopted (the oldest was adopted at age six even! yay!) mostly by Kenyan families. They have to stay at the orphanage for six months (by law) before they can be adopted. The way things are done here are sooo different than the US it kills me. People pick up the babies by their arm which makes me just cringe! They will leave them on the changing table and walk into the next room; its crazy! The babies spend most of their day in their cribs. They don't cry that often because they know it won't get them any attention; I, of course, run to them! haha. They are soo little and malnurished.
So my work there is like this-- helping with morning feeding when I get there, having play time with them (its the saddest little play pen if you could even call it that and they really dont have many toys), helping with lunch feedings, putting them down for a nap, helping with washing dishes or folding clothes (oh lots of clothes!), etc.
My first day I had one baby throw up on my and another pee on me! They don't have plastic diapers so it goes right through. Today was successful with just a little bit of wetness on my shirt but I am not sure what it was haha. I have 90% of their names down and which crib they stay in. I even have a few that have clung to me and cry when someone else tries to hold them! I think I am going to like it there. :)

Just a little side note--- apparently I rock at washing my clothes by hand because the two house keepers asked who taught me how and I said no one and were like wow thats amazing because you did better then any other white person!! haha.