A Day at the Playground

Once again, today was a pretty "normal" day.  Woke up and had my devotional time with God, followed by heading the the little girls' house for circle devotions & breakfast, and then walking them to school.  The girls seemed to be ready for school earlier than normal this morning.  Alina came with me once again to my classes this morning.  She read another page in a book out loud along with the students.  One of my 6th grade classes was not able to come down for reading time because the teacher's schedule didn't allow for it this morning.  Our classes only meet once a week, so they'll have to wait for next week in order to participate once again.  I walked with the girls to their dining hall when the morning session of classes was over.  Here at the orphanage when you walk anywhere, your children should be in a nice, straight line.  This has really been a challenge with the little girls, but it's a work in progress.

After lunch, Alina & I walked back to school once again before heading to the apartment for just a little bit.  The girls are in school from about 1:00-2:30.  Before going to pick the girls up from school, I took Alina to the snack shack for an ice cream cone.  They had replaced their flavors since the power outage on Sunday, so both Alina & I decided on chocolate cones.  After eating them, we went to pick up the girls from school, passing the lines of boys walking to their homes.  I only know a few of them, but gave them high fives as we passed.

When we picked up the girls we headed to the playground at the school, since there wasn't the ensenanza devotional study this afternoon.  The girls played for about an hour while I chatted with Doris and interacted with a bunch of little girls.  Just like in our own families, there are fights that break out all the time.  Imagine how often your children argue in a day and then multiply that by about 15-20 (since there are around 35 girls in the house).  One girl came up to me at the playground crying very hard and showed me her back while she said that another girl bit her.  It was already very swollen and turning black & blue.  I brought the two girls over to Pamelita and asked if she could handle that, since it was a little more serious than the arguments I was used to handling.  After I turned them over to Pamelita, Elizabeth (one of the staff here) came biking down the trail to the playground and Pamelita sent them to her.

When playground time was up, we headed back to the house to have supper.  The tia (that's what they call the cook) made the girls tortillas filled with beans and butter that was home-made from the farm.  This is the first time we've had tortillas in the little girls house this year.  Last year it was practically a daily thing, but I guess they've been out of flour for a while.  The tortillas were delicious!

After supper comes bath time, and after the girls were all bathed, I spent an hour chatting with Elizabeth before heading home.  Her parents and brother arrived from Washington State yesterday, so prayers for a healthy stay here would be much appreciated.  Alina stayed with the big girls watching a movie while I went home for the evening.