August 15th, 2011 - Saying Goodbye to Maryland Friends

This morning I had to first stop at the team house to say goodbye to the Maryland group.  As I mentioned before, I didn’t get to see them that often this year…but it was nice to see familiar faces from time to time!  I greatly appreciated the help they gave with filling in for us a few hours here & there so that we could have a little bit more time to paint.  Katja came by the house today to inspect the 3 rooms that are now finished.  I think she realizes that it’s going to take a little bit longer than anticipated.

At breakfast, Doris was pretty upset.  She shared a bit of information with me, and I will pray that God touches her heart and heals her struggles.  She is one of the many reasons that I come down each year.  I love to see her smiles and kidding around and just to be there for her!

After breakfast, I headed back to the volunteer house to prepare the last two bedrooms for painting. I took out every non-furniture item that was left behind by previous volunteers, and moved all of the furniture to the center of the room.  I did 2 loads of laundry and also scraped a bunch of the paint drips off of the ceramic tile in bedroom #3 and swept that room.  We should be painting as soon as lunch is done.

While Kari and I were doing the lunch dishes, Gerson called over our way to say that there was a boy in the clinic.  Kari took that shift since I was going to paint and she didn’t have plans – other than to come and help us paint.  Later on we found out that he was going to be staying the night, so it worked out even better because since she is a newlywed…it might be tougher on her to stay the night, away from her husband and in a new place.

When I got back to the volunteer house after lunch, Daysha was working on the white pillars in one of the bedrooms, and Daniel and Kellin (Kari’s husband) were rolling paint on one of the walls while their boys were outside cutting the lawn.  They got that wall done in no time flat.  Daysha kept working on the white borders/pillars the rest of the afternoon and I worked on the ceiling & flooring edges and also the corners with the brush.  Looks like these two rooms are going to be gray (think of an elephant’s color).  Katja came over later to check on the progress of the house and mentioned the possibility of the volunteer team that’s coming on Saturday to paint the kitchen, living room and hallway for us.

At 4:10, I headed to the little girls’ dorm to help with baths and got the shampooing job again (which I like doing).  I chatted as I shampooed each girl’s hair and then sent them to Elvia who washed the shampoo out.  I generally stay a little later to help out with calming them down, etc…but since I’ll be staying the night at the clinic, I really needed to get back to our house to have a little supper and then to get ready for the clinic. 

When I got to the clinic and was chatting with Kari, the power went out.  It was completely dark and I was regretting not bringing a flashlight (because power outage is a common thing down here).  Just a few minutes later, Daysha ran in and announced that she’d be in the clinic as long as the power was out – even if it meant staying the night.  She had let me know earlier in the day that she has never lived on her own…living with her parents’ right up until college and then living with roommates.  I don’t know how she’ll far when I leave and she has that big volunteer house to herself for 1-2 weeks.  She agreed to go back to the house to get a flashlight for us, and while she was gone the power came back on (what a relief), but I still had the flashlight for the night “just in case”.

Later in the evening, Gerson brought a boy in who had been taken to the hospital for stitches.  He had an incident with a trampoline that had just about ripped his entire ear off and stitches needed to be put on the inside as well as the outside of his ear to attach it back on.  Gerson said that this boy will be in the clinic for quite a while, so I can pretty much bank on staying in the clinic every night for the rest of my time here.  Gerson also asked me how long I’ve been her and how long I’d be staying yet and then asked (again this year) WHY I don’t stay for longer bits of time.  I let him know that eventually I’d be down here for the entire summer.