Faculty Friday

Day 25

Over all today was a great experience. I left breakfast early to get the boy toddlers from Eric’s. Our morning language session went well this morning. There were few crying and most cooperated. I held a toddler named Rachel. She is a wiggle worm and very whinny, but I would take her stubbornness over a crying toddler throwing a fit.

When our morning session ended some of the clinicians took the boys back to Eric’s house. I decided to follow some of the girl toddlers to Haven 3 for Shema time (meal time). There I found Sydney in the group waiting for her lunch! I was very excited, I sat down next to her to see how she was doing, and then an Auntie handed me a bowl of shema and rice, so I got to feed her lunch. I really enjoyed it, and she seemed to enjoy it too. My day was made.

Our second language class was much better than yesterdays. I still worked with Memory (terrible child mentioned in previous post). Today she was much better, I was able to put her in a baby chair, and work with her in smaller amounts of time; working with other children when she was distracted. This worked well. The other babies I got to work with were Megan, and Pauline. Megan was great today and was imitating different sounds very well and easily. Pauline was quiet today which is unusual, but she was well behaved and smiley. Always good.

After lunch instead of taking a half an hour nap I decided to head to the Havens by myself to hang out with the kids for a half an hour extra. I worked at Haven 3 with Sydney and some others for a while before the others arrived. This time ended up being great. A lot of the kids were more comfortable and talking more than they normally would. It was fun to watch and interact with them. I tried to teach Sydney to color on paper. I think she is still too young, she was just fascinated with the paper itself. I also got to interact with Rachel, and Kelsey who are sisters. I got some video of them saying “hello” and some pictures of all of them.

Once every one arrived I did therapy with Sydney for an hour till her bath time, and then I worked with Heath. Heath is still doing well. Regan our OT helped me work with him for a while to get him to sit up by himself. Every time I got him into the position he would start to cry, but after he held the position for a while he would slowly tilt his head back till he fell into my lap with a big smile on his face. He just loves to lean his head back, and he loves looking at faces. He is a very cute smiley baby. After I worked with him for a while I put him back and worked with Sydney a little at the end until it was time to leave.

After our session I headed over to the college to help Liz and Lauren with their capstone projects. I was just there to help answer questions and collect the tests after they were finished. After that was finished I headed back to the Hamby house where I played Tessa in ping pong and got destroyed and then we had a big welcome dinner where all of the George Benson college faculty came and ate dinner with us. It was very good. We had rice, chicken, beef, coleslaw and cake! It was delicious. Before we ate we sang some songs, and some people spoke. Part of our group sang our Tonga songs we learned for the entire faculty, it was a great evening.

After dinner I listened to a great conversation with the camera guys and Megan (American worker from the States who has worked at the Havens for 3 ish years) and some of her close friend/coworkers talk about the Havens and the message they want the video to have. It was an interesting conversation. I really have a lot of respect for Megan, her friends, and the Aunties. They are basically mothers to these children and it is very emotional for them.

Later on I was in the Hamby house helping Mrs. Hamby count her post cards that she sells. She is a successful photographer and travels the word and sells post cards. She has been to 92 different countries. It was very entertaining to listen to her talk about her life experiences. Somehow Mrs. Hamby finished what she was doing and the conversation turned into all the girls talking about their worst dates, which is not what I wanted to talk about so luckily for me Justin and Webster were sitting outside with their charcoal to keep warm. I sat with them and talked for a while until more people joined us as people left the house. Webster and Justin are very fun to talk to. They love to answer questions and many times they ask great questions that I don’t know the answer to. At the end of our talk tonight Justin said that he enjoyed our talks, so I hope to talk with them more often before I leave soon.

Thank you for all your prayers.

God is good.

Ben