Actual nanny day

Side note: I wrote this yesterday but since we didn't have internet I'm just posting but I don't feel like changing the tenses.

Another side note:: Attention Marsh/Tyndal/Glass families; this baby is coming home with Rachel and/or me. We think he will fit in our carry on. His name is James. Say hello to your new nephew/grandson/cousin/brother (to ga)/whatever!

So Rachel had to be downstairs at 6am for her ‘night shift’. Since we don’t actually have to sleep down there with the kids we get to go from 5-8pm and then 6-8am during the days we are on the ‘night shift’. I had to be down there at 8am and at that point they are already changed and dressed so you just play with them until 9am when its breakfast. They have prayer time in the mornings and they had the bible out to Isaya, which I take to mean Isaiah and they were singing ‘How great thou art’ in Swahili. It was nice to see and it made me miss my church and worship time. Maybe Rachel and I will bust out some Christian music tomorrow and pretend like we are at PPC. After breakfast they get changed as well so that was my first time changing a cloth diaper. I will continue to call it that but let me be clear that it is essentially a thin rectangular wash cloth that is folded a special way (I still get it wrong every time and get a chuckle or 2 out of the nannies). They are then made into a triangle at the front and pinned. So from today I really smell like pee because it just soaks the whole thing through, especially the bigger kids who I have. I will absolutely second what Rachel had to say about diaper rash, it is really painful to look at. I will just go off on a slight tangent and say that these kids really expect absolutely nothing out of life, which is the saddest and most heartbreaking thing. I’m so happy to have come but its frustrating knowing that I can’t feasibly adopt any of them. They don’t cry over anything, except when you put them down. They just lay there while you change them and when they are finished eating and still hungry they may let out a cry but then its over and they are off to doing something else. It’s really unlike anything I have ever seen before, obviously because I have only seen kids in good families who never want for anything, unless its material things. Anyways, back on track. They get to play again until lunch at that point. There were no day-volunteers here today, so it was me, (the nanny), and all the other nannies playing with them. I will say that the nannies work very hard at getting the kids clean and feeding them, and they are excellent at nappies but they don’t really love on the kids or play with them very much. They just sit there and talk while the kids are wandering or playing with something. That is a whole other story though. Then its time for lunch and a small wipe down of the face and then the kids go to take a nap until about 230-3. They get changed again and Rachel was nice enough to come down and help me with the changing, though they thought it was really funny that we were doing 2 people changing one child. In the afternoons they get to go outside and sit on a mat and have some juice. They walk around out there and there are some small pebble type rocks and about 3 of the kids were trying to eat them. I got to finally take some pictures of the kids outside, though I’m sure there will be tons more to come. At 5 they eat dinner and I stayed down there to help feed them and then came back upstairs because needless to say I’m exhausted. It’s like being a single mother of 6 kids, well that’s not exactly it but I can’t think of a better example. Rachel and I have the day off together tomorrow so we want to go to the Masai market in Arusha (hopefully someone can come with). Other than that we have no set plans except likely sleeping in past 6 or 8 J