Globetrotter girl -

KENYA 2010-11-16 [9:30pm] Shangilia - Shopping - Shangilia

2010-11-16 9:30pm

Good evening guys!

Whooosh! What a day!
I woke up at like 7.00am, got ready, went down for breakfast and then headed out. The cyber café wasn’t open at that time, so I couldn’t update sooner.

I headed to Uhuru highway to get a matatu to Kangemi (number 23 or 30, in case you’re interested). And it was crazy. The jam is usually to go IN to town at that hour, but I had to wait for like 20 minutes before I could get one, all the others were full and just drove by.

I got to Shangilia shortly after 8am… It had been raining heavily last night… It was quite muddy in some places.
It is so much fun to walk through Kangemi alone… People are so friendly and curious what the hell a mzungu is doing there.

I arrived just as some of the kids were getting transport to their school. Everyone screamed Maddy and wanted to go back out :)

I got the list from Paulina and I hung out with some of the kids and another very nice woman, which is part of the staff at Shangilia.
The girls braided my hair and made me look very stylish! :) They were so sweet.
But I was heartbroken to find out that the older kids just graduated and were going home! Some today and some tomorrow.
(Some of the kids have relatives that they spend their holidays at).
Even the younger kids are graduating this week, and will go home… At the end of the week there might actually just be 10-15 kids left! (Out of about 240).

Sure, it will make it a lot easier to bond with the kids who will stay behind… but I’ll miss the others so much!
That made me feel really frustrated that I didn’t go to Shangilia yesterday.. But at least I got to hang out with them today and some of them aren’t leaving until tomorrow afternoon.

I actually went to Kangemi supermarket and got a few things for Gladys, Freisha and Joyce… 3 girls I also have a special bond with… Since I’m not gonna see them anymore this visit (They’re not back until mid December)… I just felt like I wanted to do something for them. So they gave me a few requests of what they’d like and I went and got it for them. …My girls <3

Then I headed back up to the matatu station and took a matatu to Hilton Arcade where I was going to meet up with Mary. I sort of ended up shopping a bit… The stores there are so cool! There are things they sell at the Masaai market but SO cheap! (Yeah, you can haggle and get it cheap at Masaai market too, but at Hilton Arcade the prices are fixed) :)

We went to Java house close to Hilton to wait for Geoffrey (He used to work at Java Koinange lane, but is now the branch manager at the one by Hilton!) This was his day off, so we were meeting up to go to lunch! But just as we ordered we got a call and he told us to meet us by the other Java house (Koinange), so we took our drinks to go and met up with him there and went to a place called Savanna, which is almost like Java house. (But Java house is better) ;)

Poor Geoffrey was feeling really sick, but still wanted to come and meet up with me and Mary. So sweet! I’ve missed him a lot! And I’m so proud of him for getting promoted and all. He’s awesome! :)
I had a chicken wrap, and it was delicious. (fyi).

Then Mary and I went to …umm… Vishal centre, which is a wholesale place.
We started working off the list, and got a bunch of different pens they asked for and also 30 pair of underwear for girls (they were 25ksh each!). The total of the pens were like 700-something…And we got A LOT of them!

They also had an AMAZING price for Always (sanitary napkins?, Maxi pads? …don’t know what the correct word is…but you know what I mean. At least you girls do!)
Anyway, I got 16(!!!) packs of 8 in each for….wait for it… 1090 ksh!!!!!!
I am SO loading up before I go home!

Then we headed to Shangilia, and handed over the first load of stuff!
The kids had finished school for the day and some of the older kids were still there.. And Wesley was there too!!! :)
Wesley used to volunteer at Shangilia, we met last year and have kept touch through Facebook!
We had such a great talk, he’s really an amazing person!

He’s even offered to take me on tour in Kibera! I was going with the “Kibera tours”, and pay for the visit, but his brother lives there and they said they were more than happy to show me around. We’re going there on Thursday, it will be great!!

He also told me that one of the women who work at Shangilia, her name is Emily, I remember her from my first visit to Kenya and Shangilia very well.. She died just last week. It’s just so awful…
She was actually hit by a car on her way to Shangilia, in Kangemi! It’s insane… but it doesn’t surprise me cause of the way they drive…
But that was really sad news… :(

We spent some time with the kids and went to the matatu station at around 6pm… We didn’t want it to be too dark when we headed back to the city.

As we arrived by the University buildings, we decided to go to Nakumatt to get some drinks, and I really, badly needed after sun… I have SUCH a bad sunburn on my chest and back(shoulders)… Even though I put on Sun block. The tattoo on my upper arm is totally fine though cause I use SPF 40+ on it :P
I had to wear a thin shirt today cause I don’t want the burn to get worse, but it has been so so sooo hot today, having an extra layer was awful!
Oh, and the beauty of it all is also that I have sort of a white round spot on my chest where I used to have my necklace… Looks great! ;)

Mary and I just spent some time in my room here at YMCA… And now I’m actually wiped out!!
Getting up at around 7 tomorrow… and they told me the cyber café opens at 7.30, so let’s hope they will! :)

Nighty night lovely people in cyber space!

Tumshangilieni mtoto!