My first job this morning was to set the girls up to paint the shelves that my team had erected. Charis, the young daughter of the teachers was eager to help, so 3 16 year olds were let loose with roller and paintbrush, and me, being a pro (not) taught them how to paint. They did a good job and I checked in with them regularly whilst at the same time cleaned up a spiders web and dirt covered play kitchen that I had uncovered earlier in the month. That is now clean and whilst not perfect, it is able to be used in playgroup now.
Then came the mammoth task of the day. The shelves are to be used for boxes for the children's toothbrushes and washing materials and we had had lots of discussions into the night previously about how best to make this work for the housemothers. We came up with a solution that small boxes would be best, leaving room in their shelves for other items like shoes etc, the other discussion was with regard to flannels or face cloths as they call them here. Without going into detail, I have been concerned about how these had been used and shared previously, so we decided to buy bottom cleaning cloths for each house for nappy changing time...baby wipes are just too expensive. Bear in mind that each house has about 10 children wearing nappies and there are 5 houses and we only want them to be used once before they are washed......that's a lot of flannels. Bryan and I set off on a mission but not before I had gone into each house to find out their current situation re ice cream container size boxes and new flannels.
Karen (American lady who I had had the caR adventure with weeks ago) came along too as she needed to buy things and we bought 150 dark coloured flannels and about 50 light coloured ones. Tonight as I write I can confidently say that in this part of town there are no shops who could sell you a dark flannel or a small plastic container. We had done funny looks and I despaired when in one shop I bought 94, all the same price and they scanned each separate flannel individually....not even the same one over and over, let alone e just type into their touch screen till 94x.....it took a while!
Anyway mission accomplished plus a few other errands done, we treated ourselves to a KFC...come on, I have to have one when I am in Lesotho......
The afternoon was eat sorting out said flannels, i may never want to buy another one....and then playing with the kids before having a sort out of toys.....why can the weekend staff just put things back properly. Steph and I made some labels for the toy boxes which may help and then I don't quite a while writing notes for other volunteers for the kennel. They are getting a log of individual gap year style volunteers, many of whom have no child care experience so a few pointers will not go amiss.
I was delighted when one of the housemothers called me Into her house this evening and showed me a huge loaf that she had made.....for me and the team. She made me cut it in half and take half home. ...bless her... Such a kind thing to do and a lovely way to show appreciation.
The evening was spent with Terp, Bryan and Anita who shared their story with the team if his they ended up at beautiful gate. We then spent a long time sorting out all the lovely things the Bournemouth team had brought with them. Packages being delivered to the houses tomorrow ......
I need to go to school tomorrow to say goodbye....as I said we have a really busy day tomorrow and it is of course Jenny cake day, shrove Tuesday to you dear reader. They don't have English own cakes over here so gave in 2012 they were renamed Jenny cakes. I have been here every shrove Tuesday now for 4 years.....wow!!! Tomorrow I will be making them for about 20 or more.....
Happy pancake day to you all and take care.
Love
Jenny. Xx
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