Puppets and Beach

09.06.2011

Hi, this is Johanne and Mathilde, the two French volunteers currently staying at the help2kids orphanage. This is our first blog, so we hope you will enjoy it!

Last week was an important and wonderful week for everybody here. The orphanage is getting more and more pleasant since we drew and painted a “Heaven Game” on the outside floor of the orphanage. Moreover, the word map on the wall is almost finished.

We donated to each child a teddy-bear to sleep with. They were very delighted to have it and they immediately took care of their puppets very well. Some children dressed them up and let a place in their beds for their new friends.

Kristina, our super German volunteer, bought a swing for the children thanks to a donation of her grandmother. The kids are very happy and the swing is already their new favorite game. Asante sana to the Suesse family in Germany!

During the past week the kids had the opportunity to follow many English classes. And, finally, we did our first class too. We really had wonderful moments because we saw a rise of their capacities. For instance the smallest boys are able to write their names without mistake. We are very proud of them.

Kristina and Janina bought small pots for all the kids, which have been painted by them. During the next days they will also plant flowers. Our goal is that each child has a plant to take care of it and learns how to nurture it.

Saturday was a very fun day for the children. We went to the beach with the children, the Mamas, Patrick, Noel (the night guardian) and Muhali (the social worker). There was also another orphanage, “Umra”, with 80 children. It was a marvelous day! The children were excited to use a Dala Dala. They were also happy to share this day with the other children from Umra. Unfortunately, the weather was not super nice but wind and rain didn`t affect the happiness of anyone.

After all these good news, we have also some sad news. Dorie, Nuru and Winston got malaria (some of them not the first time this year). Also Kristina and Francesca got malaria. We had to pay 60’000 Tanzanian Shillings for the hospital, which is the equivalent of 30€. We really hope that the rainy season will be over soon. Now all the kids are doing better, but every week we have to go to the hospital at least 3 times.

Also our car is giving us lots of problems. It had again a breakdown, probably already the 10th time this year. We don’t know what’s going on with it, it’s just very frustrating and costly to repair it so many times. Since we only have one we depend on it (also the children because some of them need to be driven to school by car because it’s very far away). We guess one of the problem is that the mechanics are not that well educated like the ones in Europe, so that sometimes they try to fix it but probably make it worse… Moreover there are almost no original spare parts, so they just put in something they guess to be ok…

Also – finally – Francesca got her resident permit from the Immigration office. They were causing lots of problems and it took weeks (!) to get it done. We still don’t know what the problem was…

Let’s end this blog with good news: we are happy to inform you that a new kid joined the help2kids orphanage. His name is Donald Francis, 6 years old, he is Suzy`s brother. We love to call him Donadi! He already knew some children of our orphanage, therefore he easily adapted to his new home. Karibu Donadi!

That’s all for this week: we hope you enjoyed and stay tuned!

Mathilde and Johanne (France)
Volunteers help2kids