Visit to Guaimaca

Once again this morning, Noah was not ready on time to head out the door when Alina and I needed to leave to go to our assigned houses, so he was locked in the room for the remainder of the morning.  The medium boys asked where he was, so I had to explain that it is expected that Noah make his bed, brush his teeth, wash his face (as a pre-teen he is starting to break out), and get dressed prior to leaving.  These are also expectations of the medium boys at their house, so they understood that these things were expected to get done.  I walked with the boys to the comedor where they had breakfast and then took Noah's breakfast back to him in the room and stayed there to finish preparing the calculus lesson that I had to teach this morning.  I was scheduled to teach from 8:30-10am and then from 10:30am-noon, so the class was getting 3 hours of instruction in calculus!  That's a lot of material to prepare.

School went well.  The students took lots of notes and asked questions.  When I was done teaching, I headed to the comedor and ate lunch, then took a bowl of lunch to Noah.  He had to eat quickly because Wednesdays are the days that volunteers are allowed to head in to town (Guaimaca) to go grocery shopping.  Bob sent us a list of items that he'd like to have available, so we had all 3 backpacks ready to go.  We walked into town with the Millers and hit the first grocery store which is located on the main square.  It was AFTER we got into town that I realized I had forgotten my camera, so I will try to remember to bring it when we go back into town next week.  We got most of our groceries here, but then headed to the other grocery store just 2-3 blocks away where we got a few more items.  On the way back to Emmanuel, we stopped at the bakery to get some cinnamon rolls, and then at the other bakery for Alina and Noah to get a frozen chocolate-covered banana.  At that bakery I bought 3 tres leches cakes for the birthdays coming up this weekend.  Finally, we stopped by to see Glenda to see if she had any carrots.  Both the Miller family and I had been looking for carrots and she only had two (but they were huge), so we each bought one.

We took a while trying to get 2 family's worth of groceries into the refrigerator and freezer.  I'm glad that there is currently no one in the 3rd hotel room, because groceries for 3 families in that refrigerator might be a stretch.  Alina headed to the baby house and the Millers headed to their assignments.  The boys were mowing the lawn outside our rooms, and quite a bit of grass got kicked up into the rooms and on the porch, so Noah and I swept them out and off.  

Church began at 4pm and two ladies from the Ohio team talked to the children and staff.  After the service, Luis David was waiting outside by David's all-terrain vehicle.  He double-checked to see if Bob was coming on Saturday, and when I said "yes", he said he was happy that Bob was coming on his birthday.  This really caught me off guard because I didn't know it was his birthday (I really have to put it into my calendar!).  He asked me how in the WORLD after 10 years did I still not know when his birthday was?  I said, "I don't know, but it's a good thing that I got THREE tres leches cakes then!"  (Two were already spoken for, but the 3rd was going to be a treat for Alina and Noah...guess the use was meant for someone else).

We had heard earlier this week that the team was going to challenge the orphanage staff to a game of basketball at 6pm.  Alina was very excited about this, so after church she and Noah came home and got changed right away.  At 6pm, we headed down to the gymnasium, but the lights were out and nobody was there.  I sent Noah up to the team house to ask about the game, and when he came back he said that the Ohio team had decided not to play since it was their last night at Emmanuel.  Alina and Noah were a bit bummed out.  They quickly went through as much of the obstacle course alongside the gym as they could without ropes before we headed back to our room.  We played Phase 10 together, then read a chapter in our books before heading to bed.