6/23/12
The long awaited day for Tiffany, Joey, Kyle, Miranda,
Jonathan, Mikala, and Elizabeth has come and gone eight (8) days ago. All seem
to have recovered from jet lag and are trying to get accustomed to a totally
different way of life. They are enjoying the various kinds of rice and soup
that we have each day for lunch during the week. The kids are all “jumping in”
and helping with dishes on the week-end and clearing the table after breakfast
and dinner each day. Ya Posseh and her daughter totally take care of lunch each
week day. The girls are keeping the
water bottles filled, and the boys are keeping the water filter filled, so with
a lot of teamwork, things are going fairly smoothly in our household of nine
(9) people.
Most of the kids have been playing a lot of soccer and
basketball with the Sierra Leone children and young people. There are often 15
– 20 smaller children on both the front and back porch decorating with sidewalk
chalk or coloring pages from a coloring book. Some of our kids have also been
reading to the SL children or listening to them read. This afternoon there are 27 children playing
here!
Bud has totally finished up the water project with new pipe
throughout the system; he is also finishing up some electrical work. In fact,
today he and Joey removed all the florescent lights from our house and replaced
them with LED lights which are more economical. Joey has visited in the schools
and talked to some of the teachers and many of the children; in fact, he often
has a following of children with him.
Tiffany has been going to class with me each day and has
gotten to know the students and shared some of her insights with them. Kyle and
Miranda have also participated some in the NA class; maybe there will be a
desire for them to get into healthcare at some point…always a wide open field!
While we were still in Freetown, we had the opportunity to
go to the beach one day which was fun. The kids swam in the ocean and climbed
on the rocks. We all had a great lunch of shrimp and/or barracuda shish kebobs
under one of the “grass” umbrellas. It
was a good day!
After the beach, we went shopping for a while, and a
gentleman on the street was trying to sell the monkey you see in the pictures. Both
Elizabeth and Jonathan were excited to hold him and get their pictures taken.
This morning Tiffany and Joey talked to about 70+ young
people about sexual purity per request of Albert Kargbo, the Kamakwie District
Youth Director. The teens seemed to be very interested and asked several
questions. Both the pastor of the church, Rev. Alusine Murphy and the District
Superintendent, Rev. Alfred Bangura were there and assisted with translation
and further explanation.
Today, we all went over to Ya Yeleh’s house to see her
daughter Pam and the twins, Pa Leach and Dr. Tom. They are growing and look
very healthy. Each of us got to hold them for a few minutes.
We are in the process of trying to get the last things done
that need to be done before we head back to the US. Next week is our last full
week in Kamakwie; we will be happy to return to our home in the US but it will
be sad to leave the students and not be able to actually watch them as they
grow and develop in their hospital work. Bud’s two guys today seemed somewhat
“down” as they talked about Bud leaving the work to them alone.
I’ll probably try to write a short note when we arrive home
and then will start the blog again as we get ready to head for Zambia.
Until next time….
