Update

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Inconveniences
I´m just back from a candle light shower. We´ve been without electricity since yesterday when a snake got into the electricity box and got fried in the process. Hopefully it will be fixed soon. In the meantime we´re walking around with candles (should have brought a flash light!) and taking cold showers. Life definitely isn´t very comfortable here. Clean clothes are a luxary as well. We do our laundray by hand in a bucket with warm water from the shower or heated on the stove. Some times we get lucky and are able to hang the clothed out in the sun and have it dry within a day but more often we have to hang it up under a roofed area because it rains too much. It takes a few days for the clothes to dry that way and by that time they´re all a bit smelly. Another major annoyance are the constant mosquito bites. Despite using mosquito repellent several times a day, we´re all covered with bites. Sometimes, like last night for example, they itch so much that I can´t sleep at all. At least there hasn´t been Malaria in the area for years, only a few cases of Dengue Fever.

Volunteers
There are also some positive notes. We got two new people this weekend, yay! A girl from California and the new volunteer director, a girl as well, from Wyoming. It´s great to have the extra help.

Taxi
Taxi rides are fun, especially when you get lucky enough to sit in the trunk with the door open. The other day they stuffed 11 people in a taxi, including 3 adults (I was one of them) and 2 children in the trunk! You´ve gotta love it ;-) :-D

Fund raising
It´s going pretty well. We´ve gotten some very positive replies from ex-volunteers in particular. One of them is getting married soon and wants to ask people to make a donation to the foundation instead of gifts - wow!

Expenditures
We got a list of weekly recurring costs that need to be covered. Mainly food and some other minor necessities, like soap and toilet paper. To our shock, cow stomach was also on the list. In fact, it´s by far the most meat we´ll be seeing in the kitchen for a while. 9kg compared to 1.5kg of chicken for example. Anyway, that´s where the donation money currently has been, and will be, going. Also, we had a look ath
the expenditures before the financial trouble started. It´s crazy to see that some of the staff earns less than what we pay to work as volunteers ($50 per week). It makes me wonder what kind of image they have of us and our lives back home.

Kids
It´s still crazy in the classroom. No teacher yet. We eventually got to know their names and got a few more toys at the market on the weekend, which makes it a bit easier. Currently about 1/3 of them have pink eye, so we try to make an extra effort to keep their little hand off our faces and wash our hands often.

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Comments

[martin]

Do you have a mosquito net for the night? I know it does not help during the day...but probably these bugs are also in the house? Not sure whether they sell this there....but actually they should?

[Leini]

Yes, I do. I brought it with me from the US and it´s working great. I´m very glad to get a break from the mosquitos at night!