A typical day in SABACH

I wake up around 8 to the sound of children singing in Swahili. If we're lucky there will be running water. Otherwise, we use water leftover in the kettle from the night before. After breakfast we head upstairs to the house to do the beds. I usually work on the older boys' room, which has 2 sets of bunks. I tie up the mosquito nets, which are mostly ripped and open all the windows. It's a bit of a competition to see whose room has the most dry beds. (You usually tell by feeling the mattress for any wet patches, but most other times you can smell it). It's 3/4 for me today. Martin let me down. I'm sure he told me he went to 'susu' last night, but then again I didn't see him go.

After changing the sheets and blankets we fold the laundry. Since there is really only one set of PJs and school uniform, the washing is done everyday. It's hard to match up all the socks. Most of the time the children wear odd socks, which don't seem to bother them too much.

We then spend the rest of the morning helping out in the kitchen. Most days we sort beans and rice. This involves sorting all the shrivelled or black beans from the good ones and pulling out any bugs too. We are pretty slow at this task and it can take us up to 3 hours to finish the bucket full of beans. After lunch we have a break fo 2 hours. We either head in to town to shop for groceries or prepare for 'story time'.

At 4pm we head upstairs to wake up the children. It seems so wrong waking them up especially when they seem so peaceful and quiet. The madness begins once they are awake. The 20 children start undressing and line up to go to the toilet. While this happens, we try to pick out their clothes. One of the carers washes them while we try to work out a sweat shop line. One of us will do the drying, the other the vaselining, another the dressing up. During all of this, there are 20 naked children running around. Some climbing in the bath tub full of dirty clothes, some sitting on the toilet while another is flushing it and some playing with their potties.

Somehow we manage to have them all clean and dressed up. After we take them downstairs, we try to keep them happy for about half an hour or so. On most days, this is unlikely to happen. So we have to resort to locking them in the playroom while we prepare for groups. Typically, one of us will stand by the door while another picks up children and puts them in the playroom. (I know it sounds horrible, but that's the only way to do it). Today, we sang Father Abraham to get them to all go in the room. Once we counted 20 heads, we ran out and locked the door. We try to make it a rule that none of us should ever be alone in the playroom with all the children. You just never know what might happen to you! We were talking about this over dinner tonight and we couldn't think of anything that the children hadn't done to us. We've been spat at, pinched, bitten, scratched...you name it!

For the next hour, we split the children in to 3 groups based on age and school classes. Some of them will do their homework, while we teach the others to write ABC. We can usually hold their attention for about 15 minutes before things get out of hand ie. the other day all the crayons disappeared because some of the children had chewed each one to pieces. After dinner, they watch a bit of TV before we begin 'story time'. We've been going through short stories in the bible starting from the very beginning with Mary, the house mother translating for us. Then we sing some songs and pray before heading off to bed.

Bed time is another challenge, but also my favourite time of the day. Again, working in the boys' room, I remind all of them to go to 'susu'. Joshua is usually the first in bed. He looks pretty tired, so I tuck him in and say good night. On top of Joshua is Kush or 'Eliud'. He's convinced me that he's gone to 'susu' so I let him help me with the mosquito net and turn my attention to the bathroom. Evans' head is inside the toilet while Martin is flushing it. He comes running to me with a soaked head. It doesn't take me long to make sure he is tucked in bed. Martin, is the last one. He climbs up to the top and says something to be in Swahili. I know that he has not gone to 'susu' but somehow he convinces me otherwise.

While I high 5 all of them and wish them 'Lala salama!', they sing 'Twinkle, twinkle little star' for me. I know it's been a long day, but it's moments like these that are worth it. Even when I know I will be changing Martin's bed tomorrow.

Lala salama.