This week we had a group come from Idaho. They built a house for Erez and her family (Erez is one of the ladies that clean our house) I went with them yesterday and helped them finish it. Antonio and Erez have 7 children. The two oldest boys, Ray and Agape, help us translate during the camp we do with the kids in the neighborhood. Agape helped us a bunch nailing the plywood walls up. It was fun watching him and Jeff work together.
This last week at with camp has been really fun. The group from Idaho helped out so much with the kids. It was great having so many more hands, it made my job easier. I had two extra girls helping me with my group Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, then on Thursday I had four. Things went a lot smoother.
Pause* I must interject. Today we were supposed to go to the beach. Unfortunately that was canceled because the city is out of fuel and won’t be getting any more for a while. The group from Idaho was going to go and Brittany and Nick and I were going to go along. I was so excited for this because I love the beaches here and the snorkeling is phenomenal. Needless to say, I was sorely disappointed when I found out that we were not going to be able to go. However as I was writing this this morning Nick came in and handed me his phone. He said Joanna (our midwife here) wanted me to call her. A few weeks ago I asked her if I would be allowed to help with a birth or at least watch and learn about it because I really think its an important thing to understand and especially since I’m want to go medical. She had told me that that would be ok if I came. So when I called her today she love me that they had a woman in labor and that I could come help. I’m happy we didn’t go to the beach. So right now I’m the back rubber.
Back to camp, there are two girls in my group that I absolutely adore. The younger one is Stephanie the other one is Dina. They are sisters. Both of them are usually very quiet and stick to themselves. On Tuesday, we had the kids make masks. I helped Stephanie because she is around six but acts much younger. I showed her how to use the markers and drew on her mask with her. She didn’t really draw a face on the mask she just slowly made squiggly lines and odd circles. I kept praising her and telling her it was beautiful and she slowly got more excited about it. I got so excited when she drew a house and a person standing next to it. I asked her “moun?” or person. She flashed her white teeth at me and said, “oui” yes. Her person consisted of a head and two legs. She then proceeded to color red hair on it. I felt very honored.
Dina, her sister, is starting to go through puberty. I noticed a while ago that she needed a bra. I asked her on Tuesday is she had one. She said no. So on Wednesday I gave her one that I had found. It was a little too big for her but I told her that she would grow into it. She was very excited to have it. I think having a bra is very important for a young girl. If she doesn’t have one it gives boy’s one more reason to ridicule them, especially here. It gives girls self confidence. Boys and men can be very mean to girls here and we have kicked out quite a few of them from camp because of this. I told Brittany that she should ask her mom to possibly bring some training bras; I had noticed that some of the other girls were going to need them soon. Brittany said that it was something that she had been thinking about. We brain stormed for a couple minutes. It would be great if they could start a program for the young women to teach them about purity and that they are important. A lot of girls here just get pushed around by guys and have little self worth. If we can talk to them before they have had too much exposure to ridicule and abuse then we can eliminate some negative developmental things from happening.
No comments:
Post a Comment