My last week

I decided to stay at Freda’s project site for my last week. It’s really amazing how she’s made something out of nothing there. People from the village come with sewing and alteration projects for what might eventually become a self-sustaining tailoring side-job for Josephine’s oldest daughter, Edith. We are a little worried about whether Edith will be able to learn much from Freda about using the ancient rental sewing machine, since she is responsible for most of the housework for their family of 6.

The English lessons are going much more smoothly. Last week a couple of girls showed up with their notebooks and pencils, asking if they could come for extra help as well. There are a lot of traveling vendors who come by trying to sell us anything from second-hand clothing to sugar cane. The fish lady kept yelling something in our direction this afternoon, and once the kids did some translation we realized she wasn’t trying to sell us fish anymore, she was asking if her daughter could come for lessons as well.

Usually we have English in the morning, then the rest of the children come for weaving, coloring and play time in the afternoon. Today after play time one of our usual afternoon-only kids asked us how much earlier she could come to get extra schooling.

So, I think enrollment has gone from 2 in the older “class” and 2 in the younger class to something like 7 and 4, all within a few weeks, almost all from kids coming to us on their own, just because they like learning and they know how important it is for their future. We’re going to have to adjust but I think so far the students have all been very patient and I’m looking forward to getting to interact with even more of them for the rest of my time here.

Like I said I’m finding myself attached already. While I know a lot of that is just me being overly-sentimental as usual, the kids are really special too. Like the kids at Ttega they each have a story, and they’re all so kind and beautiful and I see the potential in each of them. I hope somehow I’ll be able to get news about them and follow their progress towards becoming the doctors, teachers, pilots, etc that I know they are entirely capable of being. These kids are the epitome of resilience.

When I catch myself daydreaming too much about the things I miss from home, I refocus my attention to them and feel like I’m not going to be ready to leave at all when the time comes (which is creeping up on me faster and faster)!

Welaba,

Lucy