Day 23
Today was another great day working here in Africa. This morning in our language class Kara basically sprung the idea of me leading the session. I was not prepared, but I read a few books to the group and then handed it off to my class mates to sing songs and interact. The children were better behaved today than yesterday. There was less crying and more participating, which is always good. Today I worked with Lee who was in a good mood during the entire session, which was awesome. During or time on the play group I took some pictures of the kids playing and I also got some footage of Lenny covering her head and legs in dirt/sand. I don’t know why she was doing this, I just figured she was being a kid, so I sat next to her and played in the sand as well, but I did not rub it all over myself.
During our next session in the morning I got the opportunity to work with Megan and Miller, these two are probably my favorites to work with during this time. They both seem to listen to what I say and enjoy playing with me. Today I thought up a new song to sing to them. It goes to “The wheels on the bus” and it goes like this. The babies in the Haven go…Da da da and so then ends with, all day long. Then proceed with ba ba ba, ma ma ma, na, na, na, wa, wa, wa, basically whatever ever you want to throw in there. The kids seemed to catch on quick because it is so repetitive. It was fun. Megan is getting better at walking; Miller continues to talk more every day. God is good.
On our way back to the Hamby house for lunch Ashley, Tessa, and I were walking. I was walking about 8 feet ahead of them on the road, and they were walking together behind me. I hear a rustle in the grass and keep walking, but about a second later I hear two screams and I turn around to see them both running towards/past me! Apparently they saw a snake. Tessa said she just saw the back of it, and Ashley says she saw the head. Ashley claims it was a cobra, (a golden colored one) but according to 13 year 364 day old African snake expert (Ian) he says it was just a harmless African garden snake. I have to say, I think I would rather side with Ian on this one.
What made this experience even better is that on the way back Ian lead us a different way back to the Havens which is even quicker, but we have to cross through a corn field, and right before we started walking through it Ian says, “Corn fields are where most people die from Mamba attacks.” I was laughing, I thought it was pretty funny, however Ashley and Tessa were both scared. It was a great walk.
Our afternoon sessions went really well. I got to work with Sydney again today! We had so much fun. While I was working with Sydney I sometimes interacted with a child named Bennet. He is one of the funniest kids. He is a very smart baby, and will imitate almost any face, sound or motion. It was pretty entertaining. Sydney was great today. We are closer to saying Ben. She has the /b/ and the /n/. Unfortunately constant endings at her age are pretty hard, so I decided I would settle with Bena, by getting her to say, “be be be and na na na” So productive. She was talking up a storm today though and it was hard to say bye today. I ended up saying bye to her three different times. It’s going to be hard to leave her. I was able to change my profile picture to a picture of Sydney and me. We have the same face. For some reason she always looks like a deer in the head lights when you pull out the camera, but other times she smiles. O well.
After therapy we walked back for dinner. After dinner I went to a student bible study held at the college only to find out that it was cancelled because there was a guest speaker speaking at the church. This guest speaker happens to be the two guys that arrived yesterday from Harding, so I was a little disappointed that I missed out on an African devotional, but I’m very thankful that I went to the one last week. The devotional was still good. At the end we were dismissed but nobody moved and we were confused but a few seconds later it was apparent that they were waiting for us to leave the building first! A new cultural lesson learned!
Thank you
Ben
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