Year 28, Day 22: Body Fluids

Now, I realize I am an amateur. I do not claim to be a mother, nor do I actually know anything about it. But something about this whole childcare thing has come to my attention....

People. Childcare is all about the body fluids.

You have to catch it, clean it, stop it, or dry it... and its constantly coming out of their eyes, mouths, nostrils, bums or other unmentionable body parts. Its exhausting, and disgusting, all at the same time. Maybe I'm just feeling that way today because I unwittingly knelt in a puddle of urine. Urine that did not belong to either one of my charges. Or it could also be because after 3 days of nannying, I finally encountered my first poopy diaper. How the faaaack does that much crap come out of one child? Twice.

The 3 year old talked me through changing the 18 month old's poopy diaper. She understood when I needed encouragement to go on, she didn't judge me when I involuntarily began to gag, and she gave me peace afterwards when I needed a moment to recover.

I know I bitch, but at the risk of sounding sappy - they are adorable kids and they are quickly attaching themselves to my cold childless heart. At least the amount of body fluid I deal with daily is equal to the amount of love they dish out. Stealthy little monsters. Creeping up on me and making me adore them.

Other fun highlights include:

- Four children simultaneously spitting saliva all over the furniture. One kid thinks its funny, so the rest do it, and pretty soon things have escalated.

- A conversation between my 3 year old charge and her friend while playing on their "magic" carpet: Child 1- "Lets ride this thing home!" Me - "Where's home?" Child 2: "Disneyland!" Child 1: " We can't go there! Its a school night!"

- After painting with her hands, the 3 year old ran to the bathroom to wash up, leaving a rainbow trail of paint on the light switches and faucets.

- These kids go into freaking hell-raising melt-down mode when they're hungry. Just as I've cracked 3 eggs to scramble, the power goes out, the children go hungry, and I improvise with a little song and dance number.

- After 3 days of changing diapers, I was informed that I had been putting them on backwards.

Stay tuned!!

Year 28, Day 20: The Nanny

Courtney the Nanny: Day One.

Its a battlefield out there.

Dirty-assed diapers, kids that won't share, learning how to make bottles, picky eaters, a 3 year old who won't eat her meat or veggies, a 4 kid-strong playdate gone awry, and an 18 month old bawling his snot into my hair.

To the mothers (and fathers) of the world, I salute you.

I should have known things were going to be interesting when on the trial shift, the 3 year old accidentally peed herself. And then played in it with a cookie cutter. No joke. After we cleaned her up and changed her clothes she also proceeded to blame it on the 18 month old: "I'm not the baby! I didn't make the mess!" Ya right kid. I watched you do it, I changed your trousers, and no one but the owner would play in a puddle of pee.

Fast facts, by Courtney.

Year 28, Day 18: Employment Once More!!!

Congratulations to me!!!

After taking a month off, I am officially once again a contributing member of society!!! Yup. I got a job. I'm offically a London-er, or London-ite? Whatever. I'm employed god-damnit!

The employment, or unemployment, process has been my GREATEST pet-peeve this year and my MOST HATED experience over-seas. (Although 2 big shout-outs to the stalker and the assaulted-on-the-job situations.) Repeatedly I have been told that my Social Work experience in Canada is meaningless, and that employers want UK experience only. I think its my accent. Some people are ridiculously charmed by it. Others hate it. Regardless, this has resulted in me working ridiculous hours in a pub/night club for the majority of my time in the UK.

Now, upon moving to London I decided to avoid the night-club scene. Been there, done that.

First I tried the whole unemployment thing. Unfortunatly a happy-housewife I am not.
And this did not go well, not with the boyfriend, and not with the bank-account.

Then I got a job in a women's clothing store. That career lasted all of 2 days.
It took 3 hours of travel-time getting accross London each day: overground train, walk, underground tube, walk, bus, walk. Repeat to get home. Eff that noise.

So I applied to be a dog-walker. That plan didn't come to fruition either. (Although I do have a friend who now walks dogs in a posh London neighborhood, and her clients include dogs the likes of the CEO of the Fox UK tv network, numerous movie producers, and Emma Watson from the Harry Potter series.)

Finally, I got smart about things - I quit applying for jobs and let the jobs come to me. I tweaked my resume, created a former reference, went on gumtree.uk, and sold myself.... As a nanny.
You perverts.

One day later I had 10 potential employers, I choose one, and SHAZAM! I'm employed!!!!!

As a child-less, niece-less, nephew-less individual who may or may not be afraid of babies - shit could get interesting. I predict a learning curve coming on.

Ah-well, its a 10 minute walk from my house, the family will let me take time off to travel, its cash in-hand (peace-out tax man), they pay for my food, and the best part is - the kids have English accents. Everything is cuter in an English accent! Think circa "Ow! Charlie bit my finger!"

Year 27, Day 111 - Africa, Trippin' to Town

A trip to the city of Arusha has repeatedly proven itself to be an experience.

First, the mode of transportation is Teshee's car - an old boat of a car with no seat belts, no radio, and likely not road-worthy according to Canadian standards. Second, cultural practice dictates that the men sit in the front... and then us women all pile into the back, sitting on each others laps, because again... there are no rules about how many people you cram into a single vehicle. Third, the orphanage is about 15kms away from the city, but it takes over 40 minutes to travel the dirt "roads" due to the quality of the roads, maneuvering around pedestrians, animals, and the lack of traffic rules. Its nearly impossible to describe what its like to drive through the center of a bustling African city. Its surreal.

The view from Teshee's back seat on the way into Arusha, I hung out of the window to get this shot and ducked back in just in time to have the contents of that truck (dried corn) scrape against the window!

These poor people must be so hot pushing and pulling their carts.
They maneuver through traffic like slow cars and try to sell you things through the windows.

I think that this fast fact punctuates what I mean:
Over 1 million people live in the city of Arusha... and yet there are only 2, count em, 2 street lights.
Chaos. Yes, I think so.

No street lights, no stop signs. And us trying to pull into traffic while avoiding all animals and people.
You just kind of nudge in slowly and hope for the best...

Day 3 or 4 is also about the time that my bodily functions began to fail on me. I struggled with the sudden diet change and carbohydrate overload. Rice, bread, rice, rice, bread, rice. Everyone ate well, but this girl is clearly used to a little more roughage in her life, and a banana-a-day wasn't doing the job. It was also irritating because I had no control over my diet and so I eventually began smuggling in oranges and apples and eating them in secret in the hopes forcing my system into functioning again. Around day 6 I was ready to go to the doctor, when shit *cough* literally and thankfully sorted itself out.

Too much info? Too bad. This is my show.

And if you've traveled... you know that BM's are a constant topic of conversation as someone is inevitably having too many or not enough of them. Drugs are utilized, diets are controlled... regardless, I always suffer both extremes. It happened in Asia, and Africa was no different. Unfortunately for him, brother Joe knows more about my bodily functions than any other man in my life. Thats for shizzle.

But I digress.... we went to the city of Arusha numerous times during our stay at Karim's Orphanage, and every time we would end up in the same gated shopping area. It was basically a one-stop shop for the white people and tourists. I recall being told that it was extremely unsafe for us to leave the compound of this gated shopping area on our own due to the extremely plausible possibility of us being robbed. Awesome! I recall a feeling of constant paranoia when out in Arusha: people stare, everyone crowds you wanting to sell you things, and men say very very perverted things to you in Swahili while undressing you with their eyes. Its similar to Asia, but on a whoooooooole other level of poverty and forwardness. We were escorted most places by Rahema or Teshee and it was a comfort to know that they were looking out for us as it was in their best interest to keep up safe.

Our gated shopping center, homebase, and savior : Shoprite

An example of the street-side fresh food markets.

Our favorite regular stops included:
-The markets and shops- where we got our barter-on!!! Though not as cheap as you would assume....
-The internet cafe - standard. On one eventful visit, Nicole and I actually stopped-dropped-and-rolled as it sounded like gun shots were going off. The clerk maintained that it was just fireworks.... yeah right lady. Mid-effin-day-fireworks!? Later Mary-E told us that she practically saw someone get shot due to some protests. Ignorance is sometimes bliss. This event later caused me to scream in panic when on the way home, we were piled in the back of Teshee's car and a motorbike backfired next to my window. I thought it was round 2 of guns-gone-wild and we were all going down!
-Shoprite - where we indulged in box-store comforts of home, such as: air-conditioning, ice-cream, wine, Coke, and M&M Peanuts.
-The Pharmacy - to sort out our various ailments. White wimps dependent on medication.
-Restaurants... or the African-version thereof... don't get me wrong, the food at the orphanage was wonderful, although somewhat definitely repetitive, and sometimes scary. Goats-Brain soup was an epic fail for example.... Therefore it was a treat to sit down for a restaurant meal, even if there was definitely a worm in my burger once. But I ate it anyways. :)

Its Africa people. You just gotta roll with it.
And I loved every second of it.

Year 27, Day 110 - Africa

A New Routine Learned

Well a pattern has begun to emerge.
This timeline essentially summarizes the entire 10 days we spent at the orphanage...

8:30am: Breakfast.
-Bread and butter for the white folk. Rice by hand for the Africans.
-Instant coffee and homemade fresh ginger tea. YUM.

9:00am: Wash dishes.
-Using plastic buckets, harsh soap, and old canvas rice bags as scrubbers.

Lucy is easily the hardest working 11y/o I've ever met.

9:30am: "Shower"

-We attempted to uphold some standard of personal cleanliness on a daily basis.
Allow me to share the hygienic options:
1) Re-apply deodorant, brush teeth, find the least-dusty clothes.
2) Soak feet in a bucket to dislodge dirt, plus option 1.
3) Sponge bath using wet-wipes, plus option 1.

Mama Mary E demonstrating Option 2: the foot soak.

or, if you wanted to get completely down with your bad-self, you could....

4) In teams, take turns washing each others hair using COld-AsseD well water poured over your head from a 5 gallon pail.
Shampoo.
Shiver to death.
Accept the fact that your relationship with your fellow shower-companion has escalated and changed forever.
5) Follow this with a solo-round where-in you stand in the 5 gallon pail and execute a private "shower". By this I mean you either dump water on yourself bit-by-bit using the water jug... or contort your body into unnatural positions in order to submerge your limbs piece-by-piece.

I didn't think mine and Nic's relationship could get much closer... and then this took it "to the next level".

10:00am: Begin preparing lunch.

-Start re-using every one of those dishes you just cleaned.
-Dada usually took care of this, using all fresh ingredients Rehema purchased at the markets.
-Meanwhile the kids play outside, but never leave the security of the compound.

Inside the walls of the compound,
these separated the orphanage from the other houses.

One of our neighbors houses.

10:30am: Options
-Option 1) Call Rehema's friend Teshee to drive us to town.
-Option 2) Play with the kids outside.
-Option 3) Help with various chores.

2:30pm: Mandatory-Sanity-Saving-Nap
-Break-time from the hordes of grubby/grabby yet wonderful children.
-Chug bottled water.
-Its the heat of the day and so even the children are quiet and inside.
-Take time to read, journal, and reflect upon how I'm not ready for motherhood.
-Feel grateful for how privileged my life has been.
-Allow myself to miss the comforts of Canada and *gasp* England.
-Feel grateful and proud that I am in Africa, seeing and doing.
-Feel grateful that my professional choice was not to become a childcare provider.

3:30pm: Lunch time.
*Please note the amount of time that has occurred since I was last fed.... adjustment much!?
This was the menu. Daily. It included and was limited to:
-Rice.
-Unknown meat chunks.
-Unknown meat sauce.
-The biggest and most bad-ass fresh avocados.
-Fresh bananas.
-Bottled water.

4:00pm: Wash dishes. Again.
-Battle hordes upon hordes of black flies to do so.

4:30pm: Begin preparing the evening meal.
-Reuse all the clean dishes.
-Participate in 18th century domestic hell.

Dada doing the laundry for all 14 kids and 4 adults.

5:00pm - 7:00pm: Play outside.
Games include, but are not limited to:

-Tag.....Courtney is always "it".
-Push the kids on the tire swing.
-Push the kids in the wheel-barrow.
-Brush the white-person hair.
-Fight over who gets to take pictures with the cameras.
-Pose endlessly for said cameras until one of the camera owners gets tired of monitoring the game.
-Fight to repeatedly touch any electronic device within eye-sight.

7:00pm: Singing on the front step.
-These kids can shake it! Seriously. Booty bouncing and singing all over the place!

7:30pm: Move indoors because its too dark outside. 

Games include, but are not limited to:
-Coloring books

-Practicing homework: numbers and abc's

-Dice

-Go Fish (or a version thereof, depending upon the age and English level of the participants....)

-"The Long Game" aka: War.

Quiet time coloring!

9:00pm: Suppertime.
-Please refer to the daily dinner menu in order to see the daily supper menu.
-Possibly insert tomato salad and mango's.
-We use utensils, they use hands. They hover around us at the end of the meals, ready to eat whatever we leave behind.

9:30pm: Bedtime!
We see the kids off to bed by tucking them into their bunk beds and setting up their mosquito nets.

9:40pm -10:30pm: Downtime.
-Every night this time period got smaller and smaller.... the first few nights we played crib and drank wine, but after a few days exhaustion kicked in and we started going to bed when the kids did.
-Brush teeth.
-Wet-nap off dust.
-Eat smuggled fruit
-Chug bottled water
-Tuck in mosquito net.
-ZZzzzz.....

Nic, tucking in her mosquito net which I'm sure was very comfortable due to the soft African breeze that inevitably blew threw the numerous holes in it. Safety first here in Malaria-land.

2:00am: Wake up
-Because, silly you, you chugged too much water before bed.
-Climb out of the mosquito net and find flashlight without waking others. Ha.
-Luckily the orphanage recently built washrooms, and so a run to the loo wasn't the end of the world.

5:30am: Wake up
-Plot the roosters death as he screams outside of your window.
-Mentally note that a closed window in Africa does not equal the sound-proof/weather-proof equivalent of a closed window in Canada.

Repeat.