This morning I got up earlier than anticipated, grabbed breakfast and went for a walk around the centre. The final classroom is built and the kids are great fun to hang around with before they go into school. Step this morning chatting to some of the kids who go to school in the afternoon.
I arrived back to the visitors compound and pre school was just starting so I got to have an art/Portuguese lesson with them. They came out with chalk to draw on the ground and the shouts of Mama Chris started so I went to join them. We sat for a long time drawing and writing. I now know a lot of basic words I wouldn’t have otherwise learnt.
During this time I also met Laura. She is a long term missionary here and has a dorm of boys aged 5-11. I don’t really remember her being here the last time but I guess out paths didn’t cross. She is lovely she had Samoias with her who arrived at the dorm just before Christmas. His little brother is Daniel who is in the Baby House. They were reckoning that Samoias was about 5 years old but now they believe he is more like 3 and a half. She was heading into the city to find school shirts. A harder task than u might imagine. Samois came with us and sat on my knee. During the trip he started to burn up and feel asleep in my harms. I have always wanted a kid to do that in a car. See Samoias in the photo. So Laura and I chatted in the car, it was excellent to be able to get another opinion from a long termer.
This afternoon was meant to be hospital ministry but Domingos never showed up. Africa time can be so hard some times…. So we waited and waited and waited by the gate but in the end this turned out to be a very interesting experience.
While we were there the women who were going on the women’s conference came down past us. The women were from the garbage dump. They were so happy to be going on conference as they walked past us they were singing at the top of their lungs. They have been waiting all day at the back of the church they knew they were leaving at some point today so arrived at 6am just in case they were left behind. It was now 3.45pm.
Pastor Nico draws up in a flat bed truck. There must have been 60 women and some had their children with them. There were already saucepans, bags, rice and other food but these women keep piling in. Some of the women looked 70+ I know that they were probably only 40.
The heat of the day was awful. I chatted to Nico and asked how long it would take for them to get there, he said if I don’t drive fast it will take 4 hours. This of course is on African roads, many of which were flooded and pot holed! At the same time the American who were over to take the conference were leaving and saw what was going on so stopped and passed water to all the women it was a little frantic trying to ensure each woman had enough water to survive the journey. At the time there was a part of me was gutted not to be going with them but I really wanted to go to the dump tomorrow, so a choice had to be made.
I made cheesy mash for dinner tonight, just a little taste of home. This evening during church I have been picking sand out of my hair. Yuran thought it would be funny to lift handfuls of sand and throw it in my hair during the afternoon so it was something to do when I didn’t understand church. The photo below is Yuran and me.
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