This is Africa do what Nat does. This is the rule of the trip, if Nat decides pancakes are acceptable finger food, well then you do too, if Nat decides that the oncoming truck is a suitable distance away in order to cross the street…then you do too (for the record most of her judgment calls are awesome…Colin’s are too).

 

On Tuesday we began our second day teaching in Korah (last week we were just hanging out there since another team from Texas was teaching) at Great Hope Church. We have begun to develop a routine; first we open with two games of Simon Says to warm them up and to familiarize them with the English names of body parts. Next we pray and Aki translates into Amharic, during the Amharic prayer the kids say Amen multiple times after any particular part of the prayer moves them. After the prayer we play hang man with the hang man phrase corresponding with a Bible verse today the phrase was, “the wise man builds his house on rock”, after which we spell the phrase out loud with them (Canadians must have taught them the English letters since they say “Zed” instead of “Z”). We then act out the story  the phrase goes with in a skit, while Aki reads the bible story in Amharic, the skit  today involved Dean the wise man building his house (Britney and Sheridan) on the rock (Colin) and the wind and rain (Nat and Carlee) could not knock it over, so pretty much Britney climbed on Colin’s back while he is bent over in table top position while Sheridan placed one knee on his back and her and Britney put their arms together in a “V” while Nat and Carlee danced around together making “wooshing” noises while waving their arms towards Sheridan and Britney. The wind and rain of course did not knock the wise man’s house upon the rock over, we then acted out the foolish man (Darian) building his (in this case her) house (Grace and I) on sand (Walter) and the wind and rain did knock it over, picture the same skit this time ending with Grace and I falling onto the floor. The kids watch our skits with the utmost seriousness without a smile or a giggle no matter how silly-or in this case insane-we look. After our skit we sing songs both in Amharic and English which Carlee, Britney, and Dean leading, today we sang, “the Wise Man Built his House upon the Hill“, (anyone beginning to sense a theme). After songs we do an activity today it was bracelet making, we had pre-made about a hundred three stringed multicolored strands knotted together at the end. The kids are constantly walking around with children’s shirts that they are embroidering in order to sell at the project 61 store and their artistic capabilities definitely showed, many of the kids already knew beautiful complex ways to make bracelets and the team helped show different techniques of bracelet making to the kids who were struggling. I cut the excess off bracelets so that they fit the kids better, at first the kids were not sure what the pocket knife was for after they figured it out though they began to bring me string after string to watch me cut them. Then we served lunch and said “ciao” to the kids.

 

After catching a taxi we headed over to August Café to eat lunch after lunch we headed back to the guesthouse where we regrouped for about fifteen minutes before heading out to see Wendeson (a man who suffers from a birth defect that causes him to be incapable of walking) Shehtai and Alezar (an HIV positive woman and her HIV positive son). Nat, Aki, and I went and visited them yesterday in order to give Shehtai and Alezar some clothing, to see her new house that the previous team that came in May (that Nat was on) had tried to build but had been stopped by a government official before completing, the house was now done and looked amazing Nat said it was a vast improvement from what she had been living in before. We also asked if it would be okay if the rest of the team came and visited her on Tuesday (today). We walked to Shehtai and Alezar’s house first and met them about ten feet from their home Alezar was wearing the sweatshirt and shoes we had given him and was excited to see Nat. We all filed into their house where we sat and talked to her about how things were going for her and asked about Alezar’s schooling. Shehtai said things were going much better and that Alezar’s schooling was going great and that he would be starting 5^th grade this fall, she also said that if anything should happen to her that Alezar was ours to take care of. Since it was beginning to rain we took a short cut to Wendeson’s. Wendeson and his family were very welcoming and we gave him some clothing from Eddie and Leslie (from the May team) that he was absolutely delighted with. Colin then lifted him up and carried him outside to his wheelchair and we took him for a walk.

 

After dropping Wendeson at home we returned to the guesthouse the power then went out and we played cards with candles and headlamps before eating a late dinner of plain rolls and dates.-Lizzy