Amani Center Celebration

 

Its time to dance! The kids at the Amani Center favorite pastime activity was to swing their arms and hip to the pop music. They are quite fun to listen to. Unfortunately, I have yet to write down the song names for you to search/youtube-it. I am positive you will enjoy it and bust a move or two :)

At first I thought the dance was a performance the kids are doing for us foreigners that were staying at the Amani Center. But I found out they genuinely like dancing to the music and love teaching us how to groove to the beat. I haven't quite master my steps to join in, but I did dance along side these little masters. That night was the most enjoyable night I have ever experienced. I was so happy because I got to dance and join in the party with them. Back at home, I rarely get the opportunity to just dance like this. Most times it would just be me dancing and friends thinking I'm so weirdo. Too bad no one took a picture of me dancing. I would love to show you what I learned from these kids. :)



We also played musical chairs. We had four groups: the Shoulder-To-Shoulder (STS) volunteers, the M-Power Business Undergrads, M1&P1 (medical and pharmacy student year 1), and the kids. A bit background of the STS, they are high school students from across the US that design and construct building projects. This group was building a prairie hut. Since their work requires a lot of physical labor, we often complain the lack of meat at dinner because the STS students would eat all of them. Unfortunately, I only took a picture of the M-Power undergrads doing the musical chair and the Amani kids. So Amani Center is not necessary an orphanage, but there are kids that stay here under the care of these women that have had a tough up-bringing. Some of the kids and the women are HIV positive. So the Amani Center was created as a support place for these people to grow and develop a trade of their own such as making jewelry.

The students were also very curious about cameras and iphones. In the pictures below, you'll see how many of them tried taking pictures with these and enjoying the whole concept of seeing the picture immediately after it was taken.

Since today is Saturday, I get to dance again because the kids won't have school the next day! So excited! (FYI there is currently a strike going on from the teachers, so the kids have been at the center this whole week.)