And so ends week three. I will confess that this week has been particularly exhausting. Partly because there was a lot to do, but it was more emotionally exhausting than anything else. The kids started testing boundaries and relationships so I had to institute a little discipline and consistency. So there has been a somewhat bumpy transition from friend to adult which we will all live through... hopefully….
Tonight as I started to walk home, one of the chil
dren called my name. As I turned I saw little Mavis running toward me. She didn’t stop when she reached me, but launched herself into my arms. My squashed spirits soared. Isn’t it interesting how much the little things affect us? All I need was a hug and someone who was just glad to see me – no gift is better than that!
Most nights there are children at the school doing their homework. Most of the students who attend this prep time are from the boarding houses and the VoH children study in their homes. The other night there were so many boarding students without homework distracting the others that we HAD to do something creative. So I divided them into two teams and lined them up according to grade level so we could do math wars. I unexpectly stumped them on a couple problems (long division), but we worked them out together and kept on playing. They really seemed to enjoy it and hardly seemed to notice that they were actually learning. Imagine! I am learning that anytime you can turn something into a game, a child’s desire to win quickly overcomes their desire to be obstinate.
This little paragraph is especially for people who have visited VoH before: a couple nights ago I went to the Traverse City house to do homework. Stephen was working on subtraction with borrowing. If you have never taught this before, let me tell you, it’s a little tricky to explain – especially if you are explaining it to a second grader with a very, very short attention span. But he did smashing! I was so excited I told him to give me ten and then one hundred. And then we did a little victory dance.... Maybe that was a little over the top, but really, I was just so excited for him.
This week an eye doctor is visiting the orphanage so we took the children in groups to visit him. As I was walking the first set of girls to the clinic, it occurred to me that they had probably never visited the eye doctor and were probably a little apprehensive. So after explaining the exact process of walking into a room, reading letters off a chart, and promising that there would be NO pain, one of the girls asked me if they would kill her eye. It took me a minute to respond simply because I was trying to identify the source of the question. But I have no idea where this question came from! Especially not after my promise of no pain. Oh, fear working on a innocent mind can produce all sorts of interesting questions...
This weekend I decided to go to the beach for a little down time. Despite our proximity to the beach, I am not supposed to go there alone (which I know my father appreciates) so I took with me one of the older children who lives in the village. I didn’t play in the water very much, but it was good to just go for a walk and splash around a bit. (It was also very humorous to what some siblings play with and torment each other.) I know the girls will be jealous of the waves. A father and son were out catching a few and it made me think of my ladies and all our times in Mexico.
Some of you may have already heard about Ghana’s sad loss in the CAN. Well, it wasn’t so much a loss, really, as they took third place. But that might as well have been a loss to some people. The night they lost to Cameroon, it seemed like the world had gone completely silent. About an hour after the match, I met one of the older children on my way to the school and I sat to chat with him but all he could talk about was how depressed he was about the Black Stars’ loss. And it really surprised me to hear several people declare that they would not watch the final match since Ghana would not take first. Two topnotch teams playing against each other for a place in a continental tournament, so what’s not to like? It was a great final game and the team definitely redeemed itself in the eyes of their fans, so the country should have lifted spirits again.
Tonight as I started to walk home, one of the chil
dren called my name. As I turned I saw little Mavis running toward me. She didn’t stop when she reached me, but launched herself into my arms. My squashed spirits soared. Isn’t it interesting how much the little things affect us? All I need was a hug and someone who was just glad to see me – no gift is better than that!Most nights there are children at the school doing their homework. Most of the students who attend this prep time are from the boarding houses and the VoH children study in their homes. The other night there were so many boarding students without homework distracting the others that we HAD to do something creative. So I divided them into two teams and lined them up according to grade level so we could do math wars. I unexpectly stumped them on a couple problems (long division), but we worked them out together and kept on playing. They really seemed to enjoy it and hardly seemed to notice that they were actually learning. Imagine! I am learning that anytime you can turn something into a game, a child’s desire to win quickly overcomes their desire to be obstinate.
This little paragraph is especially for people who have visited VoH before: a couple nights ago I went to the Traverse City house to do homework. Stephen was working on subtraction with borrowing. If you have never taught this before, let me tell you, it’s a little tricky to explain – especially if you are explaining it to a second grader with a very, very short attention span. But he did smashing! I was so excited I told him to give me ten and then one hundred. And then we did a little victory dance.... Maybe that was a little over the top, but really, I was just so excited for him.
This week an eye doctor is visiting the orphanage so we took the children in groups to visit him. As I was walking the first set of girls to the clinic, it occurred to me that they had probably never visited the eye doctor and were probably a little apprehensive. So after explaining the exact process of walking into a room, reading letters off a chart, and promising that there would be NO pain, one of the girls asked me if they would kill her eye. It took me a minute to respond simply because I was trying to identify the source of the question. But I have no idea where this question came from! Especially not after my promise of no pain. Oh, fear working on a innocent mind can produce all sorts of interesting questions...
This weekend I decided to go to the beach for a little down time. Despite our proximity to the beach, I am not supposed to go there alone (which I know my father appreciates) so I took with me one of the older children who lives in the village. I didn’t play in the water very much, but it was good to just go for a walk and splash around a bit. (It was also very humorous to what some siblings play with and torment each other.) I know the girls will be jealous of the waves. A father and son were out catching a few and it made me think of my ladies and all our times in Mexico.Some of you may have already heard about Ghana’s sad loss in the CAN. Well, it wasn’t so much a loss, really, as they took third place. But that might as well have been a loss to some people. The night they lost to Cameroon, it seemed like the world had gone completely silent. About an hour after the match, I met one of the older children on my way to the school and I sat to chat with him but all he could talk about was how depressed he was about the Black Stars’ loss. And it really surprised me to hear several people declare that they would not watch the final match since Ghana would not take first. Two topnotch teams playing against each other for a place in a continental tournament, so what’s not to like? It was a great final game and the team definitely redeemed itself in the eyes of their fans, so the country should have lifted spirits again.
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