Here’s the afternoon napping mat for the Baby class. They just fall asleep. We’ve even seen them asleep when they are picked up by their arms and put on the mat. No problem. The continued sleeping soundly!
This is little Maureen Monica who lives in the local village right beside us and comes each day for school and lunch. Her mom, a street worker, sometimes forgets to pick her up from school and there has been times when she has stayed for 3 days at the orphanage. As impossible as it is to imagine, there seems to be very little bonding between mother/father and child. Most of these children just want to know that they have love first of all, food secondly and then education as they grow older if they didn’t get it. Many of the kids just come up to shake your hand and then they can grab hole of you and just hold on, touching you or they come beside you to snuggle up to you. Some seem to have empty “cups” and some seem to have more fuller ones. Maureen Monica has no sponsor right now. Would you like to care for her? She’s one of those sleeping babies!
You know that we all have the good days and then there are the OTHER days. This was the OTHER day where we tried to do many different, important and time sensitive things but found we were stumped….. at least no one got electrocuted! Oh, let me explain…
David came today to try to finish welding the rocket stove – finally – but we asked for the use of his extension cord. No problem until we realized that he was only using the bare wires directly into the outlets of the welder. And wrapping the copper wires of the 220 v with a plastic bag tied very tight. So Jasmyn stood guard in the metal house so that no children could come by the bare wires and we started using the drill to try to make a hole in the septic tank. But it wasn’t a strong enough drill to do the job so, David removed the wire and wired back up his welder til he was called by his boss to return to work.
The guys on the septic tank job used the wood chiesel that we had brought last year to try to make the hole! But, no big surprise, that chiesel won’t be used any more. A rebar was flattened and sharpened on one end but still no hole in the tank. Tomorrow we’ll try another tool!!! Lots of mud and a hole for the boys to jump over to go to the bathroom. Let alone the fact that we are expecting rain on Sunday and we need to get the cement work done before then. So tomorrow will be one of those “all hands on deck” days.
The turkey coop is also starting tomorrow finally. You might think that we left this to the end – yes you would be right but there were so many other things ahead of this that we could only manage a few every day.
Monday we had a parent/teacher meeting that lasted from 8am to 2pm with speeches and singing from the kids etc. We now have 146 children in school. Baby, middle & final (which are the Kindergarten classes) are full so now we only can accept those children in grades 1-5.
Jasmyn has been working with one of the Gr.12 boys, Felix, to help to teach English. She has found that the kids really need to have more practice in their reading which will also help in their comprehension. At the same time, she is trying to teach Felix various skills for teaching when she leaves. This could be a job that could go on for years.
So, it’s time to say bye for now. Talk to you tomorrow – if we still have power!