Monday

Yesterday morning Suzanne and I went to the Pick-And-Pay. I got some more peanut putter (in a huge jar this time), some grapes (so I could freeze them for a chilly snack), and some chocolate. Oh and more apple juice. We enter through the service entrance, just because it gives us easier access. But the hallway leading into the mall is always soaking wet. As we were leaving, Suzanne slipped walking down the ramp because our shoes had gotten wet. Basically she skinned her knee. When we got back, she washed it and put a snoopy band-aid on it. Then Ajay and Suzanne were in the kitchen, and she hadn't told him about what happened, and he goes "whats that?!" and pushes on her knee. She squealed soooo loudly. Apparently he had thought it was a tattoo or something, and he was like "well it wasn't there yesterday and it looked funny so I pushed it". It was pretty hilarious. Suzanne was fine, but Ajay felt so bad and left the kitchen with his head down :(

I started working on a game for the kids. It's really simple, just pictures drawn in a box and the identical pictures drawn on cardboard circles. The point of the game is to match up the disks to the pictures drawn in the box. I made one with animals (which I didn't finish until 11pm last night!) and had to recreate pictures of clothing in a box for disks whose box had been stolen.

The center was a gazillion times better yesterday! I worked with a boy named Rodney who stopped going to school after grade three because his school fees weren't being covered. Today Marybeth is bringing him back to school. Only thing is, he can't read. So I went over the alphabet with him, but he couldn't even line up the letters in the correct places. He's eleven! Then I tried to teach him the phonetics of the letters, and he really struggled with that. We read Pup and Pop together, but it's impossible to read if you don't know what sounds the letters make.

Then he and a bunch of other kids played Sight Word Bingo. Many of the kids know their sight words, which is great, but there are also a lot of kids like Rodney, who don't know any of them.

While I was playing bingo with them, Ilga was playing shape/color bingo with some of the much younger kids. And Kirsten, the newest volunteer, worked with the older kids, playing checkers and other harder games. Mondays and Thursdays are knitting days, and a ton of kids get involved with that. Even the boys! Suzanne ran the computer room, and kids who weren't liking the structure and learning just left themselves, MB didn't even have to tell them to leave! It really was amazing, a HUGE improvement.

Ok- side comment- There is a boy named BamBam, who is I think six or seven years old (although he looks like he's four), who is the epitome of child-Tarzan...with the name and everything! Frequently he doesn't wear a shirt, and he runs around like crazy! It's the cutest thing ever.

At the end of this wonderful day, MB asked a group of boys to walk us to the taxi. They took us as their "girlfriends". It was so funny. Rodney took me, Helton took Ilga, and Set and Brownie walked with Suzanne and Kirsten. They walked us to the taxi station, and helped us get a taxi. We rolled down the windows, and I told Helton to make sure that Rodney didn't forget to bring MB all his previous school papers and reports to MB so that he could get back into school today, and Helton replied to me, "and he won't forget you either!" and they all shouted "I love you, I love you" as the taxi left. They are hilarious!

We came back home and Ilga made pasta and meat sauce for dinner, and her friend Rubia was there with us. She is also from Germany. We got to spend a lot of time talking about Namibia and languages and perceptions of America, Germany, Europe in general...etc. It was really interesting. She and Ilga may take some weekend trips to Etosha and to some other places, and I may join them. I really hope I get to travel while I'm here.

I've been trying to load pictures, but it just isn't working. Sorry! :(