With Love, From Neema: Do all things with love...

I want to start by thanking all of you for your sweet messages, thoughts, and prayers for the kids after their accident this weekend. It has been a rough couple of days, but each day has brought us a better tomorrow. The boys are all home and up and walking now, which is wonderful! They have been sleeping in my room and I slept on the floor right by their bed in case they needed me in the middle of the night-- which they did... the first night they were home, they woke me up 4 times to carry them to the bathroom. I love being there for them though, it makes me feel like a mom. The boys all went back to school today and popped their heads in my room once they were all dressed and ready-- I was still half asleep with Pendo all bundled up in blankets. Dominique knocked on my door and peeked in and said "Hi Neema! Umelalaje? Nataka kusema kwaheri kwa subabu nitaenda shule leo!" (Hi Neema, how did you sleep? I wanted to say goodbye because I am going to school today!) His face lit up with that beautiful smile of his. It was an amazing way to start my day.

A little recap of our last few days over here--- ALL day sunday, monday and tuesday we sat at home and watched movies. In town, there are little shops where you can buy these DVDs and they have between 12-20 different movies on one disc.. for $2 haha so i brought home a bunch of them for the kids-- A few of the movies we watched were Matilda, Little Rascals, Home Alone 3, Dark Knight, Over the Hedge, Happy Feet, and Where the Wild Things Are. I love sharing the movies that I grew up LOVING with them. I believe that you can't know where you are going until you know where you have been... and this goes for knowing people as well. I feel that the more the kids learn about my life, my family and friends, my childhood, and my past, the more they trust me and the more they open up to me. I've spent some time this week talking with some of the kids about their parents and grandparents-- a few of them shared their stories with me and some of them just listened. It was really nice to hear where they came from and what happened to their families. I actually got to meet Little Neema's bibi (grandmother) yesterday, which was such a treat. Neema's bibi raised her since she was a baby and when she got to old to care for Neema, Neema was welcomed into the orphanage where she has been for about 5 years now. Yesterday morning, Pendo wasn't looking so good and I was worried about her. She had these puss filled bites all over her stomach and she was exhausted and not acting like her happy little puppy-self. Yesterday afternoon, I decided to take Pendo into town to meet my friend Mussa and to go to the vet. Mussa has a beautiful German Shepard named Ranger and Mussa took me to the vet that he takes Ranger to. The vet gave her 3 shots which vaccinated her from about 6 different diseases including rabies and a few other parasitic diseases. He also gave her deworming tablets to get rid of heart worms and any other parasite in her stomach. Then he gave her a really good bath with a special shampoo that kills fleas, lice, and ticks. once she was all clean and healthy, she looked BEAUTIFUL and was so soft. I took her home and the poor thing slept all day and night. She was exhausted. After I put her and the kids to bed, Malaika and I went to this restaurant called House of Wine where we ran into a bunch of our friends. All the CCS ROTC guys who had come to help us build the other day where there as well as a few of our local friends. We went home around 10:30 and crawled into bed

Here are some pictures from the past few days