Progress

Hard to believe so much time has passed since we arrived.  It has been a good week, with lots of productive work.  I have over four pages of recommendations to provide them with so far, and was pleased with some of the progress we made.  At one of my presentations today, I received a lot of positive comments about my observations and they seem not only receptive, but eager for change.  All great stuff!

Last night we went to the trade fair.  Essentially their version of our PNE, except without the rides.  It is still a true agricultural fair. I figured that out when Tracy and I saw two very large sides of beef hanging near one of the entrances with a sign indicating they won the slaughter competition!

One exhibit we really enjoyed was about snakes.  We got to see all the deadly snakes of Africa, and a few others as well.  One of the highlights was Tracy getting her photo taken with a snake around her neck! How cool.  ....the low part of the day was arriving back to our residence, and finding a very large, and extremely fast spider on our wall!  Poor Rick, I made him kill it.  He was suffering from a cold, which is the excuse I'll allow him to use for jumping two feet off the ground when the spider made a run for it! ;-)

Among other work related stuff, we took a short trip out to a local school this afternoon.  The Chief's wife works there as a teacher.  It is in the Northern part of the City, and most of the kids attending the school are from the "informal settlements".  Beautiful kids...  The principal said they have almost 1,400 students from grade 1 - 7.  Grades 5 - 7 attend in the morning, and 1 - 4 in the afternoon.  Each teacher has appx. 40 students in their class. 

They have a meal program there, and we were there as they were serving food.  For many of the kids, it is their one and only meal of the day.  They were so awesome though! And very happy.  I would take their picture, dozens of them in the photo.  They would all charge at me wanting me to show them their picuture on my camera!  So much so, that I had to tell many of the kids to stand back because they were pushing each other out of the way, and I would make sure all of them would get a chance to see their photo! Once again, they were all so happy.  The best part was after one of my mini photo sessions, this little six year girl came up and gave me a big hug on my leg.  I knelt down, and she gave be the biggest hug you can imagine, and told me I "was the best visitor ever".  ...note to my wife, I want to adopt about 200 children!!

We spoke with the principal, and he is going to get back to us with something we can do or contribute to help out.  It is tough for them to keep the school going, ...you can only imagine.  Last year, Rick and others pitched in to buy them a stove to cook the hot meals on.  Hopefully we can help out this time as well.

So, the next time you hear from me will be with some photos of our safari and trip up North!  Hopefully the anti-malaria medication that I started today won't give me any of those dreams!

Wayne