Three Weeks and Still Running
I cannot believe it has already been three weeks, I still feel as if I just arrived. I have been busy filling my days with teaching at the school, organizing donations and helping wherever else needed. I have been horrible at updating the blog but i figured I would give you an overview of my normal week to at least give you something I start my day at 7:30am by organizing donations until 9:30am, the storeroom was not organized well so it has taken me my whole time here to get things sorted but we have been able to give out new school uniforms, school socks and school shoes. We hope to begin giving out play clothes later this week. At 9:30am I go to the school and teach reading or phonics until 10:30am when we take break. The students go home for 30 minutes for porridge and the teachers all meet and have Chai tea and roasted G-Nuts(small peanuts). After break I work in the school until 1pm and then we go for lunch. I eat lunch at the same house everyday so I have built great relationships with the children and the mama of the house. After lunch I have about an hour of “free time” normally this is taken up by getting houses ready for teams or visiting the baby house. The baby house is now busting at the seams with nine babies. the youngest is two months and the oldest is sixteen months. The mamas work in three day shifts at the baby house since it is quite tiring. Then at 3pm I tutor five students and then at 4pm we have free time to play with kids. 6:30pm we have dinner and then normally the interns stay up and chat and play games until about 10pm.
Wednesdays and Saturdays we have youth group for the oldest kids and then Thursdays and Sundays we have bible study for the mamas. Somewhere in between all the other things going on I make time to go to Karuma, the near by town, to get groceries and visit with some women in town. I keep waiting for the moment when I get frustrated with the African way of doing something but so far God has given me the grace to just laugh at the process. For example, to go grocery shopping takes about two hours because you have to go to four different markets and shops to get everything you need at a fair price. I have gotten much bolder in my bartering and can get more things at one place now.