Give a man a fish, he will eat for a day. Teach a man to fish and he will eat for a lifetime.

Edwin :)

Forward progress has continued at the orphanage this week!  While the days seem to last forever as everyone operates on Africa time, the weeks fly by.  As a result, I always seem to surprise myself at the end of the week when I feel a sense of accomplishment.  Last weekend, I spent about $50 at the bookstore on supplies for the school.  I bought 5 handwriting books for the little ones, 4 books with English vocab words, 4 coloring books, makers, index cards, a big pencil sharpener, and two primary school books so I can tutor Edwin and Augustino. 

I have started reading to the kids at porridge time and they love it!  When I read shorter books, they repeat everything I say and I try to translate everything in my broken Swahili….somehow they seem to understand.  I hope this is helping them pick up some new words and maybe even teaching them how to read some basic words on their own.  After porridge and story time this week, I pulled Edwin and Augustino into the office so I could begin to prepare them for the primary school entrance exam.  We are working on reading in English, basic sentence structure, and writing. They are doing very well so far so I have no doubt they will both pass the entrance exam in a few weeks!  I also made a few flash cards with pictures including both the word in English and Swahili for all of the children to use. Click 'Kuku' to see a video of James and Josephat using the flash cards:  Kuku!

Just another day at the office- mowing the lawn with a machete!

On Wednesday, I was expecting a normal day at school but Francis had other plans.  He decided I was going to come help him clean up his “office”- he is a furniture maker so I knew manual labor was definitely going to be involved.  He had me carrying chopped wood around, mowing the lawn with a machete, and starting a fire to burn any trash that was lying around. It was really fun to see how his workshop operated I just hope that next time he gives me advanced warning so I don’t wear an ankle length skirt!

Maybe now he will let me help build the desks...

Working with Francis gave me a great idea on how to spend a good chunk of the money I have left from donations.  It has been hard trying to budget out how to spend over $2,000 here because that is an unfathomable amount in the eyes of most Africans.  You have to be very careful talking about money because people are not afraid to ask you for anything.  People come up to us on the street and just shout "money" in our faces.  Yes, its very rude but they are so desperate for anything you can give that they feel no shame. Because of this, I try not to talk to my directors about the amount of money I have raised I have just been spending it on things I know they need.  In their eyes, the biggest needs are money for rent and money for teacher salaries.  While I would love to just hand over a check to pay for these things, unfortunately you can’t always trust that your money will end up in the right place.  I also want to make sure that the generous donations all of you made are being spent on the things I promised I would spend it on- the kids!

Since Francis lives at the orphanage with his family and has a steady job outside of the school, he ends up financially supporting the orphanage most months.  I thought it would be a good idea to support his business while also providing something for the children.  After visiting his workshop, I decided that it would be great if he could build a few desks for the baby class since they just have benches.  This classroom setup is very distracting for the kids and makes it difficult for them to learn without desks to write on.  I am hoping that adding desks to the classroom will make the days more productive and easier for the children to pay attention.  At the same time I am buying desks for the kids, I am also giving Francis money to help sustain the orphanage and spend the money as he sees fit.  Just handing over money does no good here, the people need to learn to provide for themselves without rich Mzungu coming in and giving them money to solve all of their problems.  If we give them the tools they need to progress, they will learn independence.