Finally, we delivered the long promised hygiene kits to the school yesterday. There are usually only about 70 kids there at once, but the teachers were able to get many more than that to come for the distribution of the kits. I think there were about 125 of the 189 children there.
We took just Natalya, and she had fun handing out the "presents." In fact she was pretty upset when the job was finished! She did pretty well, considering there were over a hundred kids trying to touch her hair or shake her little hand at one point.
Handing them out was pretty sedate and orderly, but afterwards, we went outside to take a picture of everyone. When we were done nearly every child shook our hands and smiled at us. You could tell that a lot of them were not used to getting something for their very own.
The kits will be perfect for the kids. Since few of them have running water in their tents or shacks, they all need to go down to the community bath house to wash. The bags are durable and have handles, so they can carry their little kits with them whenever they go there.
There were a couple of obnoxious boys who were goofing off and wouldn't let go of my hand, but besides that, the kids were very sweet.
The pictures of Natalya on the slide were funny. In the first one, she was having a mini-meltdown because all the kids were so interested in her. They called her "the girl with the white hair" according to one of the Young Single Adults who was with us. She just sat there with the most agitated look on her face! Then she saw me coming, and recovered enough to start sliding down the slide over and over again. You can see the kids just watching her. It was an interesting moment, to be sure.
We had about 60 kits left, even after we left some kits with the school for the kids who weren't there. We will give those to a leper colony that our friend Shyam told us about. Oliver visited with McKay yesterday. The place is very close to our house. I guess that not everyone who has the disease has the symptoms all the time, so it wasn't terrifying or anything. I have seen a leper here who did have the sores, and it was pretty horrible. We will take Allyson there when she comes.
Only a few more days till company! Everyone is so excited for Allyson & Moema's visit.
Amber
Finally, we delivered the long promised hygiene kits to the school yesterday. There are usually only about 70 kids there at once, but the teachers were able to get many more than that to come for the distribution of the kits. I think there were about 125 of the 189 children there.
We took just Natalya, and she had fun handing out the "presents." In fact she was pretty upset when the job was finished! She did pretty well, considering there were over a hundred kids trying to touch her hair or shake her little hand at one point.
Handing them out was pretty sedate and orderly, but afterwards, we went outside to take a picture of everyone. When we were done nearly every child shook our hands and smiled at us. You could tell that a lot of them were not used to getting something for their very own.
The kits will be perfect for the kids. Since few of them have running water in their tents or shacks, they all need to go down to the community bath house to wash. The bags are durable and have handles, so they can carry their little kits with them whenever they go there.
There were a couple of obnoxious boys who were goofing off and wouldn't let go of my hand, but besides that, the kids were very sweet.
The pictures of Natalya on the slide were funny. In the first one, she was having a mini-meltdown because all the kids were so interested in her. They called her "the girl with the white hair" according to one of the Young Single Adults who was with us. She just sat there with the most agitated look on her face! Then she saw me coming, and recovered enough to start sliding down the slide over and over again. You can see the kids just watching her. It was an interesting moment, to be sure.
We had about 60 kits left, even after we left some kits with the school for the kids who weren't there. We will give those to a leper colony that our friend Shyam told us about. Oliver visited with McKay yesterday. The place is very close to our house. I guess that not everyone who has the disease has the symptoms all the time, so it wasn't terrifying or anything. I have seen a leper here who did have the sores, and it was pretty horrible. We will take Allyson there when she comes.
Only a few more days till company! Everyone is so excited for Allyson & Moema's visit.
Amber
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