August 6th - Making Jewelry with Raquel

This morning I rested quite a bit (after having worked 20 of the last 24 hours). About 1:00pm, I went with Raquel (Rachel - long term volunteer) to her jewelry making class. The school had gotten a grant from the Danish to begin this class and then sell the jewelry to buy more beads...keeping them self sustaining. I know that my sister Julie makes jewelry, but if any of you out there had started this as a hobby, but nothing ever came of it - please let me know! We can send any extra, unwanted or leftover beads their way to help them in their efforts. The jewelry is beautiful: necklaces, bracelets & earrings. They will be having an art show next week for the volunteer team that's coming in where they display and sell their jewery. The children get to keep a percent of the sale (which is more motivation for them to work hard at creating great works of art), and the rest goes to buy more beads. I will most likely be in the clinic and not be able to attend, but am still hoping that I can purchase some jewelry before I head back.

When I arrived to do the night shift in the clinic, there were 11 children there (that were supposed to stay the night). In the 3 years I have now been down here, I have never seen this many in the clinic. Generally there's only been between 1 & 4. I felt completely overwhelmed. there were only 4 beds and a couple of cushions to lay out on the floor. Finally we agreed that 3 boys would go home. Their chicken pox were completely dry and they hadn't had fevers for more than 24 hours. This left me with 8 children...still a handful - but I felt that the impossible task of staying the night (and staying sane) had now become possible.

It was a long night of cleaning the clinic (sweeping & mopping), washing dishes, lathering on the calamine lotion, taking temperatures, getting the cushions out & bedding on them and putting the children to bed. I was so wound up with adrenaline (mother's instinct to ensure that all is okay to settle down for the night?), that I had to read most of the night until I was finally tired enough to fall asleep in the rocker around 2:00 or 3:00am.