Monday 26 September 2011

Mad Monday

It's Monday morning at the Happy House … "mad Monday" Sue and her team call it.
Every new week starts with a frenzy of activity which, I know from experience, isn't confined to Monday and will most likely last right through to Friday night or into Saturday!
I'd only been at the Happy House for half an hour or so on Friday when Lanson our trusty handyman walked past me and into reception and put down my desk … just where it had been when I was here in March. 
Now I can't wait to get started on the mountain of work that Sue has earmarked for me.
It's lovely to be writing this looking out at the well ordered grounds, bougainvillea cascading down the walls and flowers, grown from the seed you have sent, adding random splashes of colour.
I remember standing in this spot on my first visit to Kenya, in 2008, when our building was nothing but a shell and looking out through a hole which is now a window.
Even though it was nine months away from opening, I could see the children playing and hear their laughter echoing through the rustling casarina trees.
Sue, too, had seen them and heard them. Spirit children, we told each other.
I wrote then it was as if this land, once bush, had been standing idle, for thousands of years,  just waiting for our Happy House and for our children to become its life force.
Three years on it is transformed, bursting with love and life,  know that I was right.