Catching Up

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Coming back from Phebe, oddly felt like coming home. The staff and longterm guests welcomed us back with hugs and "we missed you's" and our waiter at the restaurant next door (where we always eat) asked how the trip went. Our beds seemed familiar, we were excited to have internet again, and all was well. Unfortunately we've been out of running water, but our rain barrels have remained full enough to take sponge baths, so we'll ignore the lack of running water.

Today consisted almost entirely of catching up. We made Western Union Runs, Gift runs, money runs, settled bills, bought water for the rest of our trip, did other assorted tasks and mapped out our final days here (lots of small trips post volunteering have been planned and potentially a soccer game this weekend as well!) . For four of us (other group members may join us on a day to day basis) we will be spending the rest of our weekdays at the orphanage we visited last week. If you have any tips for things we can do with them, please shoot me an email! We have bought some minimal supplies (a long rope for jumprope, balls, crayons, paper, stickers, balloons) but we will have, on any given day, at least one hundred kids to manage (they have about a thousand at the orphanage).

Any and all suggestions will be helpful!

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Comments

[Gary Smith]

Great blog!
I have enjoyed reading your blog and can only imagine the very powerful images you have come away with and the incredible people you have had the fortune to meet. What to do with approx. 100 children? How about a mini-olympics? Maybe pick 4 physical activities that are commonly played there (they would probably love to show you guys the favorite local games). Divide up into 4 or 5 equal size groups with each group having equal amounts of older and younger children with the older ones hopefully encouraging the younger ones to do their best for the team! Good Luck! Have a safe trip back and God Bless!!