The children and I had enormous fun playing catch. Kenyan children are very, very shy and I had a difficult time getting them to talk with me. A little rubber ball I'd tucked in a suitcase pocket broke the ice. Initially I tossed the ball out to them, expecting them to keep it and play. But the one with the ball shouted "Mwende!" (my Kenyan name), and threw it back to me. For the next hour we walked through the fields tossing it back and forth, the children roiling in laughter and begging "Mwende...Katherine...throw it here!"
I recollected a cruise for which I'd paid $2,000 in my pre-Africa days. All that money...and yet this engagement, at the cost of a 49-cent ball, was priceless... the most fun I'd had in a coon's age.
Note that these children are all shoeless. They walk a very long way to school each day, and they are chronically hungry. Please read about our school porridge program and consider helping these children to have the same fair start in life that we gave our k ids.