Busy Saturday

Ar, myself and 2 of our great friends here spent our morning at a local AIDS orphanage making crafts and treats with the 40 or so children. They are all just getting over chicken pox and were trying not to itch! We asked the director if we could come and do some special things with the children and we were so happy with how it turned out. We brought craft supplies and each child got to decorate a name tag for their bedroom. Most of the kids went way out of control and overdid it on the glitter and stickers, but that's how it should be for kids. They were so proud of their crafts and hung them in their rooms immediately. After cleaning up crafts we helped them all to decorate their own cookies. They, again, loaded on the frosting and sprinkles which was great! When they saw their finished products and found out they got to eat them they gave us a big thumbs up- I think they must have just learned that Western gesture because they all wanted to show us their thumbs up. After, we played with all the kids in the yard and pushed them on the swings. They were wonderful, happy and sweet children and we look forward to visiting them again...next time we hope to bring water balloons!







Immediately after leaving the AIDS orphanage we headed back out to Mesese (the village we visited last) to feed 400 children. We have spent the past 2 days making fresh squeezed passion fruit and orange juice for all the children. We can hardly believe that we managed to make over 15 gallons! We have some people staying in our house now working with another organization and it was so great that they helped! So everyone got beans, chapati and a glass of juice. Of course it was insane and the kids went crazy even just to see us. We did the best we could and served as many as possible, but unfortunately didn't have enough. No matter how much we bring we can never have enough for everyone. When the word spreads that mzungus are here giving something, anything away, children will run from very far in hopes to receive it. These children eat only once a day normally. It is truly heartbreaking to have to tell (more like scream to) the children that the food is finished. You can imagine what it's like to look into a 3-year-olds eyes and see that her tummy is puffed out due to malnutrition and to tell her that we don't have food for her. But we simply can't focus on that...we have to remember that 400 kids did get food. 400 kids who needed a good meal got it today. While it's crazy and sweaty and stressful and sad and happy, it is all worth it. We're already planning next week's meal...