The Africa Inside Israel

Good evening everyone!

I hope you all have been having a great day. Today was very exhausting in the house. For a large part of the morning, I went to a supermarket with one of the mothers to buy food. Her birthday is tomorrow and she wants to have a party at the house. When I was still at the supermarket, I got a phone call from the house that told me that we needed to run back as soon as possible because an ambassador was making a surprise visit to the house in ten minutes. We then ran back to the house to meet the Vietnamese ambassador, which was really cool.

The rest of the day I spent in the house playing with the kids. Around dinnertime, a musician came to the house to play with the kids. He is from Yemen and plays African music. All of the kids danced with him and had a great time. Afterwards a film crew who are shooting a documentary came by the house. They filmed us all dancing with the kids. It was a lot of fun. Ester, the 8 year old from Tanzania, has not had her surgery yet and when she was dancing was getting very tired and had to rest from all of the dancing.Ester is going to have her surgery on Thursday. I am going to be the person who she wakes up to, which I feel honored to be.

When everyone was dancing, Kennedy and I were partners and danced together. He is such a lovely boy. Even though he has a physical disability it does not stop him from enjoying himself. After all the dancing was done, he gave me a kiss on the cheek, which was so adorable. He then asked me to eat dinner with him. At the house, dinner is usually prepared by each mother for her child. Momma Kennedy made rice and some soup, but a nurse from Zanzibar gave us some beans to eat with the rice. Kennedy was so happy to be eating with me. He is such a cute and smart little boy.

I don’t think I ever introduced Kadisha. She is a nurse from Zanzibar. There are 2 children from Zanzibar. She helps all of the children in the house with administering their medicine.

The kitchen is the perfect place to understand the atmosphere in the house. All of the mothers and nurses are always cooking. And when some of the baby’s mothers are preparing food, the other mothers hold the babies. It is so nice and cute to watch. Today I was about to clean my dishes from lunch and Momma Midalia cleaned them for me. I gave her a big hug and kiss as a thank you.

The two girls, Ester and Julia, who do not have a mother in the house get fed by the other mothers in the house. It is a very nice system with the kitchen. Each mother has a designated day she has to clean the kitchen.

I don’t know what it was about today, but it made me appreciate what I am doing here for the 3 weeks. I love being able to play a part in these people’s lives at such an important time for them

Goodnight to all of you. Here are some pictures from today.

Shauna

Momma and baby Zaineb

Kassim holding a trophy he just made

Ester on left and Julia on right

From left; Momma Zaineb, Kadisha, and a volunteer.

Kennedy