Mercy

Being in Africa has taught me a lot of things, and it has only been a few weeks (imagine what I'll learn after it is all done). One is that I have a lot of pride, no matter how low I think I am, I am prideful. I think I'm the lamest and most annoying people on the planet, but it seems to happen that I still think I'm better than the people I meet on the street and the orphanages and homes. It is so hard, but I'm getting so much better at looking at them and feeling a little more understanding of what is going on in their lives. I actually love them. Amazing right? I care about them and want to take every little street kid home and even a lot of the kids at the orphanages I want to take with me.

I just love going into town. Today Steph and I went into town. It took us about 20-30 minutes. That is a big deal. We were on a mission. The boda ride was 10-15 minutes. We took maybe 5 minutes in the store. Then the piki ride back was about 10 minutes. It was epic. We rocked that trip there.

And I love seeing all the babies around at the baby houses. The one down the street from our compound especially interests me. I like the small amount of kids and how uber cute they are. I want to go there every day. There is another baby house and I love that one too. There are so many kids though. It was the cutest thing ever. I don't know. They are different from american kids. They just appreciate more I think. They aren't as ADD-like. They can focus longer on one thing. If I were to stay here for the rest of my life, that is what I'd be doing, taking care of babies.

I'd also want to take care of girls like this:
We were going into town the other day and Meredith saw a girl on the side of the road. She made the cab driver stop so we could help. She was dirty and smelly and she looked old. We stood her up and found that she was younger. We all thought maybe 16 (She ended up being 23). So we took her back to the compound to take care of her. She was thirsty and hungry. I finally got to see what I came to Africa for. The hurting and the poor and the HUNGRY and THIRSTY. I wanted to take care of her and be with her. God sent this to me. It was my gift I think. :) It was so overwhelming though. I hurt so bad for her. I didn't want her to hurt anymore. We catered to her like she was queen. She probably liked it a lot. After a bath and some new clothes, we got her to a hospital and her aunt found us and told us she was mentally retarded and that she ran away. She is the kind of thing that all those sad commercials make up (and the ones that everyone changes the channel on). That was Africa for me. I finally woke up and realized that I am in Africa. After 3 weeks. Took me long enough.

That's all I have to say about that.
And I miss everyone at home SOOO SO SO SO SO much.
Jenn