Blog update October 22nd 2008

It is great to be back here with the boys! For details of the trip here see my previous post. I have been here four days now and I am convinced it is hotter here than Bamako and there isn’t any air conditioning or ceiling fans. I managed to get a head cold here. But I am getting better now and am coping with the heat.

This is a little friend Lorna found in her bedroom. Needless to say I always turn on my bedroom light now!

The Garibout boys here remember me from last time and were very excited to see me, even the new ones who didn’t know me knew all about me (and the rest of the team from the DTS). They kept asking me if I was leaving and every time I say I am staying they get very cute smiles on their faces. There are only about 10 boys at the moment because many of them have gone to work in the fields, they will be back in about a month.

Some of the boys.

Day to day life:

We get up at 6:15am and make the boys a breakfast of hot milk and bread (bought not homemade), the boys have eaten and left by about 7:15am. Then the lady i am staying with teaches at the school 3 mornings a week, during which time I do the dishes and other bits and pieces (and usually have a nap). Then we have a base meeting 3 days a week at 10ish, then some of the boys pop in and out during the afternoon and I play with them, sew up their clothes etc, and then prepare dinner. The boys get dinner around 7ish then head off, then Lorna and I clean up after them and get our own dinner and in bed by 9pm.

YWAM Base

Some funnies:

A few of the boys have started calling me ‘Bexie’ I have no idea where it came from and I tried quite hard to get to them to stop but to no avail, it has stuck. But there are some who can’t quite pronounce ‘x’ so they call me ‘Beckus’ or ‘Beckus-ie.’

One night I had to get up and go to the toilet (a long drop outside) and I put on flip flops to go but as I stood up somehow the heal of my flip flop caught on the edge of the hole and came right off my foot and fell into the toilet... that was the end of that!

My cool new "wash off-able tan" (nothing to do with the long drop! Just dirt)

While having breakfast one morning the lady i am staying with (the Canadian YWAMer) said ‘please pass the pile of milk.’ They only have powdered milk here but it seems so strange to have piles of milk.

Ok well I will end there but you can read more about my trip here below. I will try to upload some photos but the internet may be too slow so you will have to forgive me if there aren’t any.