We finally got running water back at the house but still dont
have electricity so could someone please tell my sister jenny that i will love her forever because i dont know what i would do without my lantern!? I dont
even recognize myself sometimes. Yesterday Crystal and I put on our
bathingsuits (it was raining) and went to the well, got water, and
stood in our front yard (its gated so no one can see us) and took
showers with the rain and buckets of water. I was surprisingly clean
afterwards. Yesterday we walked over to this shack where a woman in the village does peoples hair. I asked her to do two french braids but she started to do cornrows which was weird and thankfully crystal showed her how to do french braids. Now
I dont have to wash my hair so soon, although she poured olive oil on
my head which was annoying since i had just rain-showered. also,
while we were sitting there getting our hair braided two chickens came
into the shack and started fighting. Bizarre. This weekend Crystal
and I are getting on a tro-tro (they are unmarked vans that drive
around picking people up, kind of like hitch hiking) and going to
Kokobrite Beach to a place called Big Millys House. It's like a
rastafarian hang-out I guess on this beautiful little beach. Its
pronounced Koko-breetay. Apparently they have a bar on the beach and
they party all night on the beach and theres lots of backpackers and
people like that so it'll be nice to get a shower and some soda since I mostly drink water.
Yesterday a man came up onto our porch bleeding and our guard tried to kick him out but i was like "wait hes hurt" so i ran to my room and got my first aid kit with
antibiotics and bandaids and got him water and ibprofen and let him
sleep for awhile on our porch. he didnt speak english so i dont know
how he got hurt but blood was pouring from his face. I actually didnt
touch his face but gave him the stuff to put it on himself. Every
night i save some of my food and give it to our guard because he
sleeps there all night outside on our porch. He doesnt speak english and I think I freaked him out when i started spraying him with bugspray. I want to like let him
sleep in one of the empty rooms at least inside the house.
I just realized I havent said much about the orphanage. It is so depressing.
Godwyn the baby poops on the floor and sits in it and nobody cleans it
up. Today it was on his hands. This one little girl keeps getting
sick because she wont use the outhouses and so she holds it all in so
i'm going start taking her to use the bathroom at the school.
Lastnight I went after dinner to tuck them in and they all just sit
outside in their courtyard and the older kids fight, sing, talk while
the little ones fall asleep in the dirt. When they are asleep I bring them to their rooms where they sleep on straw mats on the floor. Lastnight i rocked 3 little
babies to sleep which felt nice since they never get held. They just
fall asleep after a minute of you holding them. Mercy is the cutest,
shes three and she is a sass! She yells at the younger ones and when
they cry she stomps her foot and says "shaaaame, shaaame, shaaame!"
its so cute. Today I also saw some boys getting caned at the school.
They hit them on the back of the legs with a stick. It looked hard but
not too hard since the kids were laughing afterward. Still, it was
hard to see. Well, I wont be able to write til next week since I'm
leaving for the beach tomorrow afternoon but ill probably get a chance
on monday. Today we are going to the high school to visit George, the
18 year old, on his lunchbreak to hang out with him. Last night he
told me how he really wants to go to the university someday and wants
to be a doctor and was showing me all his outdated textbooks. It
broke my heart. Hes being sponsored right now but maybe not forever.
I'd really like to have some 5th grade or 6th grade level books sent
here for him. The older ones love to read and all they have is 1 book of bible stories and a book about photosynthesis which is totally wrong and outdated. They have both books memorized. The children keep all their belongings in unlabeled
plastic bags and so all they own in this entire world is whats in
their plastic bag. I want to go get plastic bins or drawers for them
to keep their things in since they all steal from eachother and lose
their stuff.
The other day, Crystal and I walked over to the village "cafe" where they serve cold cokes. We sat down and the village drunk asked if he could dance for us so he
started doing splits and poking himself in the face and doing all
these crazy dance moves like popping his eyes out of their sockets. His name is Jacoby and we left when he started asking me to marry him and saying he was going to kill himself when I said No, then he reached out and started stroking my shin while I was sitting there so i chugged my coke and we left. Every single day here some really unusual things happen. Like, since we have no electricity I cant see very well at night so it was a few minutes before I realized I was offering a plate of food to a bag of rice lastnight. I thought it was our guard huddled in a corner and i was like "Ete sen, didi, didi?" and then I realized it was a bag of rice. Crystal and I were like dying laughing.

Please excuse my horrible grammar and typing in this post but I dont have a lot of time and half the keys on this keyboard are messed up. I'll post pictures with my own computer soon since there doesnt seem to be the possiblity on these old computers here.

Things I plan to buy soon: lots of food, cupboards for their belongings, some more toys, books, possibly a television since they have a Dvd player but no Dvds or TV, some clean sheets and towels since all 70 kids share one towel, etc. I also have to get Godwyn some cloth diapers. It's too hard to have disposable ones here. Ma, the house mother just puts him in new clothes everytime he goes potty. I've seen him in 50 different outfits.

Love you all!