How many rulers does it take...

Allison and I spent this morning in town with Geoffrey buying all the textbooks and workbooks that the Oasis kids will need when they start school on monday. There will be 51 kids in primary and 1 in Secondary (high school)...
Allison had prepared lists of what each kid would need and how much it would cost so when we went to go purchase it all we had to do was show them the list and they compiled it from there...It made things sooo easy when it could have been complete chaos...
After loading the books into the taxi we headed home and set to organizing everything...Workbooks, textbooks, and school supplies like pens, pencils, erasers...
We were so excited to get to organize everything for the kids in preparation for school...So a bunch of school supplies, another quick trip to town by Andrew, and a couple hours later we had everything organized...

You'll never guess how much these boxes actually hold...



The mountian of textbooks...



Workbooks



Anybody need a pen?


Elvis better study hard




Look at Allison's organization skills in action...


The finished product...






Call us nerds, but we love organizing, so it was fun...plus we love the kids...Thank you so much to those people who donated, these school books were bought because you gave!

It's been super quiet around here as you can tell by the lack of posts in the last week or so...With the craziness of Christmas and the holidays, it seems like everyone is out of town or lying low until school starts next week...

I've enjoyed it because I never really let myself relax and I'm almost finished with my last Harry Potter book (yes, Im obsessed), but I've moments of cabin fever, if thats possible on our huge compoud, and run to town for bread...

Like I said school starts next monday, so yesterday, today, and tomorrow will be spent getting all the supplies for the kids who will be going back to school. Yesterday we went to Transmatt and bought all the pens, pencils, rulers, and sharpeners. Today we'll be getting books and some of the supplies for the boarders...

After we had purchased everything at Transmatt we met some the house boys who didn't go home for Christmas at the Alakara for lunch fo Chicken and chips...

Pato


All the boys


Paul and Moses


All that chicken made Paul sleepy

Christmas in Kenya

Our house at Christmas...



I freaking love my lit up Mary...found it at Transmatt


Our manger


Stockings were hung by the fire with care...






Tonya decorated Emmanuel for Christmas


Dinner table


No matter where you have Christmas Dinner, be it Kenya or America, theres always a mess afterwards


Dinner was followed by a photo shoot....Complete with the cheesy "family photo" Although, I cant say its an accurate family photo because Chris isn't in it, but you get the idea




The whole group...

Christmas Eve

So last night we had Christmas Eve Dinner with 13 people. Andrew and I ran to the market to get everything we needed, and no surprise it was insane...Insane is actually an understatement...We got mauled in the Khetia's Supermarket...You would have thought the world was ending it was so packed with frantic people.

I have bruises from being hit with shopping carts and at one point I had to abandon some intended items on our shopping list because I literally couldnt move through the crush of people. Ive never seen anything like it...I wish I had taken pictures...

After, we rushed home to start dinner because we were already an hour behind. As we rushed into the house I heard Christmas music and the house was beautifully decorated with all kinds of Christmas stuff. Allison was sitting on the couch just smiling. She had spent the afternoon drawing and decorating the house for Christmas...I just looked at her and started crying. It was the first time it actually felt something like Christmas...I seriously couldn't have asked for anything else...Ill post pics soon of how awesome the house looked like, she might actually have some up on her page already...It made my day...
To be honest I was kind of sad I wasn't home with my sisters and it was starting to hit me I'd never missed a Christmas, so to walk into the house the way Allison had decorated it, I couldn't have asked for more. It was great.

Dinner was a lot of fun and ended with an American/Ukrainian photo shoot...More to come

Christmas at Oasis

Tuesday was the big Christmas party at Oasis...Long story short I had a full report of the days events ready to post and the damn internet took it so for now Ill express the day in photos...It was unbelievable...

We got up at 5:30AM to get ready for the day and were at Oasis at 6:45AM...Im not quite a morning person, but I love the random times that I do get up at that time just for a change, and especially on a day like Tuesday...

The calm before the storm...



Our Ukrainian roommate Vitalec blew up all these balloons

All the clothes and shoes organized


Alice and Andrew were put to work peeling potatoes and organizing the clothes...

The kids started arriving by 7-7:30...Some of the first to poke their heads into the center were Kamao and Ajix...

"Oh my gosh, shoes..."


Trousers



Joseph handing out the clothes...


Picking out shoes


Look how tiny Kamao is compared to Pato


Pato and his makeshift belt


Jennifer and her new skirt


The kids were so excited we could hardly keep them out of the Center and we loved getting to see the before and after. Kids would come in in their street clothes and come out in their new outfits, they looked stellar!

Acdon



I have a ton of pictures from the day, but I cant get them to post so ill just chose some of the really good ones and hope those can do the day justice until the internet decides it wants to work again...


Fitting room

Elizabeth helped in the changing room


David getting ready to go change



Some of the newly dressed boys


George, P.I.G., Charles, Etao, Collins, and Donald


Kamao's photo shoot...




Christine and her friends waiting in line

Wendy


Donald and Anthony


Moses and Elvis



Anthony and his glasses



Collins and his spiffy outfit, sans shoes...


The boys in their new clothes, They would get embarassed when we told them how handsome they looked



Kevin


Rael likes her shoes


The other Rael approved too


In this picture I had just caught P.I.G. trying to look into the girls changing room, busted...


Teresa and her crew


Rael and Christine


The rest of the days activities consisted of taking tea, watching Home Alone until the power went out, some singing and dancing, as well as reading an email from Lydia that she sent to all of the kids, and topped off by a lunch of Chipati, meat, potatoes, and soda...

Tea Time


Later,
Allison's favorite, Bushuru sang for everyone



All the kids at the end of the day


It was a really fun day and we're pretty sure the kids enjoyed it...