Rain is like wet air con…

… however, rain is no more. The sweaty heat is here! Courtney and I — Hannah — have just sat in what felt like a sauna (almost) — the homeschooling classroom at Spring Village, next to the boy’s home. Some of the children who live in the different homes are on the home schooling programme. It’s great! They have just been learning binary (clever!)

In a bit, we’re hoping to design a mural in the main room of the boy’s home with the children.

So here’s a little summary of the last few days.

Friday

Courtney: “The Drop In was okay at first but at lunch time we got some games for the Drop In people to play with so that was really fun to play lots of games with them.”

The Drop In Centre runs on Mondays to Fridays for children who don’t go to school and are street children Mercy in Action have met and reached out to (http://www.mercyinaction.org.uk/what-we-do/drop-in-centre/)

Saturday

Courtney: “It was really nice to spend time with the girls on their own and it was really nice to take them about to watch a film with them all.”

Saturday morning, Courtney and I went over to the girls home and hung out with them. They had just finished cleaning their rooms, and they took it in turns to shower to get ready for the afternoon outing. We played UNO and other games, puzzles, and created a poster made up of drawings of each of the girls who live in the house, the three mamas and the 1 papa. Some of them drew themselves, some of them each other, and some of them of me!
You’ll have to wait a while to see photos I’m afraid!
Then we headed off to the mall with 40 or so children in the truck, stacked up on each other’s laps, and they sang away.
We got to the mall and it was a joyous moment of getting all of the children and young people an icecream scoop while there was someone playing a grand piano live. Lots of smiles. We then bundled into the cinema and watched Minions. They loved it. “BANANA!”

Sunday

Courtney: “It was really fun to have free time to relax and do things as a team.”

We went to a beach resort, swam in the pool, enjoyed some relax time, buffet lunch, serenaded by a band. We then went along to a mall and did some shopping and PIZZA HUT (the boys went for crabs).

In the evening we introduced the older boys at the boys home to UNO Attack!

Monday

Courtney: “It was okay at the slum because then we know what they doing when it is a bad fish day.”

Morgan and Jem continued the building work in the morning while me and Courtney looked after two of the smallest children as all of the staff were in a prayer meeting. It was mayhem! But good fun.
After a yummy lunch we visited a slum overlooking the coast. A strange tension of beauty and danger as a high tide and stormy weather can, and has done, cause evacuations.

We had dinner at the boys home downstairs. One of the boys said a really sweet prayer. Morgan sat with the boys as they read stories (I like to think it was the other way round) and I played games with the boys.

After that we went on a night patrol. We walked round the centre of Tabanoc in two groups, passing through the markets and the streets looking for street children running about, finding shelter or working. We met some boys who were peeling vegetables to earn about 50 pesos (about 70p) for several hours of work. We invited them all to come to our base down the road where we would give out bread and hot chocolate. About 30 children and young people gathered. We sang a couple of songs and then distributed the refreshments. Some of the children who we’d seen at the Drop In Centre were there.

Courtney: “Really fun, nice to see all of the children again and to give them something hot to drink.”

Courtney’s favourite thing so far: doing lots of things with the kids and looking forward to see the Drop In again because we have see the boy lots of time and we are going to see the girl a lot of time now because where we are now staying in a house right by theirs.”

That’s all for now. Stay tuned for blog no.3 soon!