October 27, 2014

We woke up ready to get to work. We headed out with our game plan of playing BINGO again with the kids, going over the song and doing numbers and letters with the younger kids and math problems for the older kids. We then taught them duck duck goose but sang the BINGO song with them and when we got to the B-I-N-G-O part when we tapped someone's head with O, they would have to get up and run around the circle and chase the one that tapped their head. It was a lot of fun but it was SO HOT in the little courtyard where we were playing and we worked up a sweat! At the end of 3 hours of singing the songs and runnig around we are just pooped. We did take a few minutes at the end of class to sing HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Sydney! It was so cute. The teachers and some of the kids sang and loved singing the song. It was really cute. It was fun to send Syd birthday wishes from Tanzania and from the kids and teachers here. They all know about my two older girls, Teacher Sam's big sisters :) Things went pretty smoothly today.

After I felt so exhausted though I started wondering if I had malaria. I just felt like I had been run over by a truck and totally wiped out. I went up and took a short nap after lunch before our Batik class. That kept my attention so that I didn't collapse. We each had a chance to make our own dyed art work. The artists that came to teach us brought a lot of their own work. There were some really cool pieces. We each chose what we wanted to draw and dye. Sam decided on a giraffe. I couldn't believe the giraffe he drew- it was amazing! I was so proud of him. He took his time and his work was awesome. No one helped him at all with his drawing. The batik teacher helped each of use do the dye. Sam told him what he wanted with the backdrop and he helped Sam with the dye. Sam then painted with a bamboo brush the black giraffe. Then they covered the whole thing in wax and dryed it and then Sam rubbed the wax off and then it was ironed and it was so cool. I did a palm with Kilimanjaro in the background. The artist allowed me to do the dyes and then took some prerogative on helping with my leaves as he highlighted them in wax and then I rubbed on the ink again and then highlighted the trunk and then did Kili and then highlighted everything else and did the trunk two shades of brown. It was quite the process. Then covered the whole thing in wax again, dryed it and then I rubbed it off and we ironed it. All of our work turned out so awesome. It took about 3 hours to do but was a great project. We ended up buying some of the work from the artists. Fun tokens.

After dinner I realized I just needed to walk despite how wiped out I was. I realized I have done next to no exercise while I have been here and I am not used to not moving around. We went for a walk down to the river and I felt so much better when we got back. Also the weather started to cool and so I was feeling much better. Little kids came out of their homes and banana groves to join us. Two little boys wanted to play with Sam and they chased him and they tickled each other. Sam was cute playing with them. One when we got down to the river stripped and jumped in the river showing off what a good swimmer he was. Sam and the girls and Balent, one of the other volunteers here jumped around on the rocks. It was a perfect outing. Others from around came and jumped rocks too. I think they aren't used to visitors and like having some interaction with out of towners. It was a fun evening outing.

After dinner we played some I Doubt It with the gang and then went back to our room. I  spent some time trying to figure out my computer situation. I can only get email but can't send any emails unfortunately and my iCloud account somehow I have been blocked from and it won't send me a new password email. Such a pain. After spending 40 mins being put on hold with no answers from apple I just gave up and went to bed. The internet had also gone out at the house, so must mean time for bed. When we are too tired for scriptures we are trying to recite our articles of faith and have Sam learn them. We did that and prayer and then passed out. Hoping to feel  better tomorrow.