David Sunday January 31ST, 2010
So Mercy Home has a swing set now and I would like to thank those of you back home who contributed what you could to make this project happen. As it turned out the money we raised ended up being pretty much what it cost to build the swing set so thank you!

On Tuesday I was given the job of finding out what paint Mercy home had so that we could paint it. Mercy home had two green paint cans so we took them back along with some of the Mercy Home paintbrushes. We decided to paint it at our place because we figured the kids would get to excited seeing the new swing set and they would get in the way and get especially excited and curious seeing Mzsungus (white people working) because for some reason they don’t think white people should work.

We got home from Mercy Home and I showed Dane the paint I got. Unfortunately the lid was not on properly (my bad) and when Dane lifted to read what kind of paint it was a lot of it spilled all over the cement floor and on the welcome mat in the corridor missing Dane by inches. I began to wonder what to do but couldn’t think of a good plan. Dane was kind of in shock, and then Candice walked into the room and started laughing. We eventually got our act together and realized the cement was painted practically the same green color.All we had to do was mop the spilt paint around evenly and get rid of the old mat. It might have smelt of paint for a bit but it was all good in the end.

On Wednesday Candice, Detty and I started painting the swing set after breakfast (and if I can say so my self I thought we did a darn good job) although, I kind of pulled a Dane and spilt paint all over the grass.... guess what color grass is? Yup, saved again.

On Thursday morning Gershom (the manager) came with the Mercy Home truck and picked up the swing set to bring to the center. We hadn’t painted the seats yet so Candice, Detty and I went to kitale Gibson’s building supplies and bought a small can of blue paint, red paint, and yellow paint so that each swing could have its on color. When we got out to Mercy home we realized that the paint had not really fully dried and that alot of the paint job had been ruined transporting it from home to the center. Now Gershom does drive to fast down the bumpy dirt road to Mercy home but the fact is that it just should have been left to dry longer.

We realized that if we were going to paint the seats at Mercy Home we had no old clothes to paint in. Luckily their were some old stylish paint clothes there (recognize them Edwin?) there were enough paint clothes for two people so Detty sat out and Candice and I got to work. Now as I said before having a new swing set is a tremendous deal for these kids and also the fact that Candice and I were painting was pretty much mind blowing. I was busy painting away when I looked behind me and pretty much the whole school was on a field trip to see the mzungus work. Remarkably Detty had them all in a neat row and she made a line where they were not to cross that that Candice and I had our space and that they wouldn’t touch the wet paint. Candice remarked that with the large crowd watching us that it felt like we were in a competition. The same day we also dug the holes for it to go in and we cemented it.


Friday we really had to keep watch so that the boys would not go on it, because the cement needed to dry but on Saturday we gave in and now since then it’s been in constant use.
Thanks again for those of you who contributed!
David