First off, I'd like to say that I feel 100% better today. PTL.
Secondly, We finally finished with the baby monitorings!!! Phew. I know that doing all these shifts were necessary for the babies' health, but I'm definitely looking forward to just being able to love on the kids, instead of having to sit and watch, without interaction. So... yeah I'm pumped!
Now that all the information is in from the 3 youngest groups, we'll turn them in to Danyne and make adjustments to the schedules, more geared towards individual needs of the babies, rather than the needs of the mama's and the orphanage's fluidity. So even though those changes won't take place until I'm back in the States, I'm glad we did it.
After monitoring, it was a little after noon and Annelise and I took a walk down to the lake, so I could get some pictures. On the way, two boys ran up to us talking away, excited to see us. I asked if they wanted their picture taken, and they knew EXACTLY what that meant! So they each went up by a tree that was next to us and POSED! Hilarious. They were awesome. And after each got their picture taken, they sprinted back to my side, to check the LCD screen and see themselves! It was nice to see them happy. I have their pictures posted on my journal, if you want to see them. After that, we walked a little further, closer to the lake. I wanted to take some pictures because A) it's a lake. And in my family.... that equals life. :D and B) it's Africa's largest lake, and one of the largest in the world- being the source of the Nile! So pretty cool... I thought it would be appropriate to take a few pictures.
When I was done with seeing the lake, we walked back up the road to the orphanage, and we saw a little girl climbing a tree. She saw us and started yelling "Hello mzungus!!! Hello!" So I asked her how she was, her name, and seeing how she was looking at my camera, I asked her if she wanted me to take her picture. She was still a bit shy, but she let me take it. I was a little surprised when she kept standing there after I took it; I expected her to come running over to look at the screen to see her instant portrait. But instead, she just stood there, kind of half-smiling at us. I asked her if she wanted to see the picture, but she didn't budge. So I don't know if I even thought about it, but apparently I said "Guay jangu, jangu sokay"... or "you, please come, come it's okay". (Yes, thank you Mama Ruthie for teaching me simple commands... pulled those suckers outta nowhere today) So she came over! And the instant she saw HERSELF on my screen, she jumped back, and the look on her face was priceless. She was absolutely blown away! The simple picture made her day. The happiness on her face was incredible. When we left, we turned back to see her climbing that tree again, screaming "thank you mzungus! goodbye mzungus!" over and over again. I won't forget that. That was a really cool experience, and I'm glad that we went down to the lake today. I put the pictures of her up on the blog today also, she's adorable. I hope you check it out...
When we got home and had some lunch, I realized that I absolutely had NO laundry left. So I did some in a wash basin with my laundry soap-- You're impressed, I know. :) We had an outing today, to finish up the kids in Baby B. I took Maria, and about 6 of us went to town. (By the way, today was the day that Ashley got to meet her Compassion International girl that her family has been sponsoring!! She lives a few hours away, but her and another woman traveled here to Jinja, to meet up. They spent the entire day together and she said it was incredible. I'm so glad it worked out!) We went to Ozzy's for some dessert, and I got Maria a piece of chocolate cake. The child is 1 year old. She ate the WHOLE restaurant-sized piece of cake all by herself! I was so proud. Haha she's great, and all the babies had a good time.
We walked back to the orphanage, and it was about 10 til 6, so we started getting the kids ready for dinner. A lot of the girls are sick right now, so we were a little short tonight. I worked in B and A. In Baby A, I fed one of the infants, Joseph. It was a little difficult, but hilarious. The boy probably got 20% of what I fed her- INTO his belly. Haha the rest of it was all over his face, hands, neck, and belly. Oh man... after that in Baby B, I fed Deborah. Then after all the kids were done and Mama Santa bathed them, I got them dressed and in bed. I just love that. It's officially my favorite thing that I get to do here. I just don't think there's anything better than making the babies giggle and smile, then put them to bed happy and clean. I mean, sure beats laundry duty, right?
Tonight it was pretty hard to leave Luke though, I hope it's not too hard on Saturday...
We get two new volunteers tonight (their flight got delayed in Ethiopia. Imagine that....hmmm), but we won't see them until the morning. I'm excited to get to know them, and it'll be really nice to have some more help with the kids.
Other than that, I finished 1st Samuel today and am gearing up for part deux.
Talk to you tomorrow.
God is revealing,
Love,
Linds
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