A Brief Update

There is so much to share, but I’m not even sure where to begin with what I have been doing in the last few days. We arrived at the baby house and were all very tired from the traveling. A team from Houston, Texas was here when we arrived and they already had the babies routine somewhat figured out. They have been fun to have around and offer so much help.

Our days consist of bathing the eight babies in the morning, getting them dressed, feeding them breakfast, entertaining and playing for the morning, lunch, and then their nap time offers some relief. After the babies wake up, there is more playing, the babies eat dinner, the baby's nightly bath, and they are dressed for bed. Intermingled within all of this routine, are diaper changes for eight babies, and finding time to go to the market down the street for supplies and food. That doesn’t include fixing dinner for the eight of us that don’t eat with the babies. It has been difficult to find time to sit down and write a new blog post.

While I sit here typing, the boys work on school work with their mother, we are all enjoying some Jon Shirley tunes, and I am loving life. I am going to try and post many pictures on my flickr photo account. These pictures will hopefully give you a better idea of what I am experiencing here in Africa. I am having a hard time putting my thoughts into words, but I think that my pictures will show you what I have been able to enjoy and experience.

Pieter has put me in charge of the large work groups that are coming into help at the baby house. The next two work teams are from Okalahoma and South Africa. I have been working on trying to get some of their visit organized, assigning jobs on a rotating schedule, and setting up visits to the jails, hospitals, and maybe even a soccer game to see Mozambique vs. Senegal. The tickets to the game are pretty steep in price at $1.00. ☺

Many things are happening around the house, they have begun to establish a partnership with a grandma and grandpa that are raising five children. We take food over to them for the week, so we will be running to the market to pick up what they need tomorrow and riding by chappa (van-like taxi that crams 15-20 people inside) to deliver the food to them. We have a long list of things that we are going to try and accomplish at their house. A few of the project include getting running water to the house, starting a vegetable garden, and installing an outdoor kitchen. Pieter and Rika are also working on renting another property to start a 2nd baby house. The property is within walking distance of the current house, and we are probably going to start painting, and doing some work on the house next week with the team from Oklahoma.

We are also working on getting a passport for one of the baby girls, so that she can get in to South Africa to see a doctor for problems that she is having with her ears. Hopefully it will be an easy and quick process. I am finding out quickly that the government is slow in their work and many simple projects take much longer than it seems that it should take.

Check out the pictures on flickr.