And Then There Was Saturday

July 5^th – Saturday

                Today started with a LOT of dishes. 

Once these were all finished we went about playing with the children. A bunch of the neighborhood children were here and they all wanted to play. I was working on something elsewhere and when I finished I went to find Arielle. She had a long line of little ninas wanting to ride on her shoulders and be carried and pushed on the swings. As fun as it was to watch her try and balance all of them I decided to join the fun. At one point we had a little one on our shoulder and were swing and then another one would try and jump on our laps. It was an exciting balancing act, the children loved it.

 Jamin was working on finishing trimming the hedges.

                Eventually they called us Americano’s in and they had made us breakfast burritos, we don’t fast on Saturdays and Sundays. That was a yummy surprise. We assumed that since we didn’t fast on these days and it was well after start time that we most also not do devotions. But we were wrong we had devotions we just started 2 ½ late. Arielle shared about Daniel and the Lions den and trusting God to do hard/impossible things, I’m sensing a theme. We then sang and talked some more.

                After this Arielle took the youngest ones and went and played with them while Jamin and I taught English. We reviewed all the words from yesterday and then added some names of things found in the chapel. We have a real lesson plan starting on Monday these two days were more laid back. After this we did the melted crayon craft, it was a way to review colors and numbers. We used my blow dryer to melt the crayons. I think they liked the beads better there was less waiting involved.

                It was then lunch time followed by dishes. Arielle and I then went inside and watched some Say Yes to the Dress in Spanish with the ladies. While we were doing this one of the girls came in wearing a nice ball gown. Her fifteenth birthday party is in a few weeks. There was a lot of fuss over the dress and how it was fitting it was fun to watch. While all of this was happening children kept showing up with large water balloons.

                I went outside and Jamin and I started playing a passing game with the children and the water balloons. Eventually Arielle joined us. After all the water balloons were gone, just like in America, the children fell back to buckets and just drenching each other. Actually it was more about drenching the Americano’s, but it was well over 100 so we were okay with this. But we didn’t just lay back and let them drench us, no we gave them a run for their money and drenched them as well. Arielle was holding Hanamae and they kept getting drenched and then Hanamae would start spitting on either side and laughing crazily.

                As these festivities were wrapping up a truck pulled up with some people dressed a bit nicer. We were all started to get concerned that the 15^th birthday party was tonight and we were a drenched mess. I went and checked with Lilia and she said they were a church group that comes in to hang out with the girls. I was pleasantly surprised that some in their group spoke English it was nice to have a real conversation with someone else.

                Arielle and I went to changed into dry clothes and we were having a bit of a toilet paper issue, or lack of it issue. We were trying to ask Sakala where the toilet paper was and she kept just telling us how to ask in Spanish. Eventually a older girl came in and figured it out and went and grabbed us some toilet paper. While we were in the midst of this whole thing Sakala asked Arielle if she would do her hair. So after we were changed we took her back to our room and did her hair and eye makeup. Well she then told all of the other girls so after a early dinner of tamales we had 6 or 7 girls in our room all wanting to do their hair, feet and makeup. They were fascinated with the straightener and hairspray. They also found Arielle's camera and took a plethora of pictures. 

We were concerned they were going to damage their hair but all ended well. The only bad thing was that the other group was there to hang out and we had a group of the girls. We talked with them later and apologized and explained it was an accident. We did try and find some of their people to join us but they were busy. We ended the evening with volleyball and some cereal.