Ndege Dorm

What do hair whipping, conversations about snake houses and your favorite internal organ to eat, and eating cake face first have in common?  My seventh grade dorm girls!Every Thursday night I do dorm cover from at Ndege dorm with 10 wonderful 7th graders to give their dorm parents a night off. We do homework together in study hour, we are enjoying a biography about Amy Carmichael in devotions, I get to hear about 7th grade drama at RVA and life in the bush that is their home.  These girls have homes of origin range from the UK and Germany to Brazil and Korea.  Their parents are in place like Malawi, Tanzania, and Kenya.  They are such a diverse group of girls. 

It is never a dull moment with them.  A few weeks ago we were talking about life in Ella’s family’s village and she said something about a snake house.  I asked, slightly horrified, “What is a snake house?”  2 other girls looked at me like I must have been living in a cave to not know what a snake house was.  Ella simply said, “Its a house where snakes go”... “Oh... of course”.... I needed more clarification.  Specifically one is put up when an area is cleared to give all the homeless snakes a house that is not your house.  “OK.”

The birthday girl with her sister

 This past weekend I got to spend some extended time with the girls as their dorm parents were spending time with visiting family.  It was kind of like a sleepover.  On Sunday it was Sarah’s birthday.  I had previously found out that vanilla and strawberry were her favorite cake flavors.  Wonderful Kijabe HAS strawberries!  So I made a vanilla cake that was very sticky and a pain to get out of the pan, but with the help of Maggie and her ingenious idea to cut the cake into 2 pieces I was able to get it out.  And icing covers a multitude of mistakes.  And some extra strawberries help support a sinking center.  I also found out that Sarah’s favorite color is pink, so the strawberry icing was perfect.  (guess I should have expected this from the girl who told me, as she painted my nails, that the 3 things she always has with her are her nail polish, makeup, and jewelry.  Not all girls from the bush of Africa are tomboys :)  I didn’t have any birthday candles but they all seemed pretty pleased with the red tea light in the center.  After this, per their birthday tradition, everyone dug in face first and left not a crumb or a speck of icing on the plate.  I love my 6th graders, but 7th graders are pretty fun too.  I am blessed to be a part of their unique, wonderful lives.  And I am glad they can be one of the many parts of my life at RVA.

Strawberry delight!

Dorm tradition!