Girl's Night

I slept in this morning because I was so tired. I woke with a start wondering what was wrong and realised I had fifteen minutes to eat breakfast and be down in the nursery! It doesn’t take me long to get ready though I was just a little bleary eyed still when I started work. Back home I always look like that when I start work :).

I spent most of this morning in the nursery trying to get Joanne to practice walking, teaching John to say aunty and letting Rosie climb on me :).

After my morning break I had Richard for a one on one. First we went on a walk. We spent most of the time picking flowers and avoiding the crocodiles in all the puddles :). It rained last night so as Richard says, “there is many many mud!”

Edmund and Hope in our new stroller. 

Richard

"Aunty, for you!"

John trying on new clothes.

Aunty always has lots of flowers from her boys in her hair at the end of a walk!

Richard with whiskers. 

Then we did some colouring together. Richard and I have the same favourite colour so our pictures had a lot of blue in them :). 

It was hard today, just before their nap the boys were called to go have a talk with Danyne, the lady who runs Amani. She talked to them about some adoptions coming up and some of their brothers leaving. I don’t think that they really understood everything but it was bad timing doing it just before their nap. A lot of them came back in tears but weren’t able to explain why they were sad. I was almost in tears too :(.

Emily, Godfrey and Richard planning their dance moves.

I had activities today with Londa and Elena. The sky threatened to bring rain any minute so we decided a movie was in order. I think being a mother/aunty must change you a little bit. I don’t normally get emotional with movies but I could feel the tears threatening while watching poor baby Tarzan and his adopted gorilla mother. The little kids only lasted just over half an hour before they’d had enough of sitting still. So Londa put some music on and they danced around using up all that excess energy. 

They had a quick “sweetie” break. This is actually their daily multivitamins. Then back to dancing :). 

Elena and Jonah slow dancing:).

Agaba, feeling much better today.

Frank, looking after Edmund.

Paige and Paul

This is Paige and Katelyn’s last day of work. They leave for the airport tomorrow at 4pm. So they took the opportunity to take individual pictures with each of the kids from their cottages before dinner. 

Joseph

I was in the boy’s cottage for dinner. Paige and I almost ended up in tears because Sande said “Aunty Paige!” This might not sound like much but you see Sande never speaks to his aunties or even his mamas. We know he can speak only because occasionally we’ll catch him talking to his brothers but no one else can even get a simple nod from him. He never so much as raises an eyebrow when you’re talking to him. Tonight he said “Aunty Paige” to get his toothbrush so it was a special moment for the two of them and we were all so excited. He went straight back to not saying a word but it was enough for Paige!

Danyne’s husband Serg owns a pizzeria restaurant and all first time volunteers get half price coupons on their first visit. None of us have used our coupons yet so we decided to spend our last night together eating pizza. Anna dropped around this afternoon so she joined us. 

The pizzas were great and we enjoyed our night out together. I took us a while to find enough bodas for the ride home so we walked a while until we found 3 guys to take us. 

We got lots of photos of us girls together tonight. The girls have recently bought new dresses and African shirts. Somehow I managed to be the one to break up the African colour for photos :).

Three mzungu girls with African hair:).

It won't be the same Amani without Aunty Paige and Aunty Katelyn!

“For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known. And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.”

1 Corinthians 13:12-13