Moja, mbili, tatu

Yesterday was my first full day of lessons. I have nursery in the mornings and level 5 in the afternoons The mornings are great fun, but a lot of hard work. I spend most of the time frantically looking up words in my swahili phrase book and asking the older children what things mean. The kids think it is fantastic I have no idea what is going on most of the time but my swahili is improving so they will have to watch out! Today I was trying to teach the kids how to say how old they were in English, but it turned into another swahili lesson. They know how to count to ten in English, but it was quickly apparent that they had learned the numbers by rote and had no idea what they meant. So we had most of the two hour lesson repeating "Una miaka mingapi" (how old are you) and counting in swahili: moja, mbili, tatu, nne, tano, sita, saba, nane, tisa, kumi and then repeating in English to try and teach them what the words meant. The children are really studious and tried to copy everything (and I mean everything) down in their composition books, even at five and six years old.

Yesterday John, one of the little boys, lost his pencil and burst into tears. These kids are hit in the face with a basketball while playing and don't even whimper, but cry if they lose a pencil. This morning when we arrived it was easy to understand why: the orphanage was in the middle of a big cleaning and all the children had moved their belongings outside. Each child had one small suitcase or plastic bag full of everything they own in the world. Most of them don't have anything to remember their families by, just a change of clothes and a couple of exercise books if they're lucky. They all know if they don't study hard and learn enough to pass the secondary school exams they will be homeless at 16.