We have a dog at the Orphanage his name is Clifford. He is still mostly puppy and likes to bite the kid’s ankles and clothes for which they scream and run and he runs after them. Clifford thinks this is a game. Dogs here are not usually pets and people throw rocks at them or hit them with sticks. Holly is trying to show the kids how to properly treat animals. Unfortunately he spends most of his time locked in his dog house, so he doesn’t bother the kids. They tell me they let him out at night. Now that most of the kids are in school I hope to start working with him a little so he behaves better and is nicer to be around. The last 2 days I have seen dead dogs along the street on my way to or from Angel Housel. It’s kinda sad to think that no one will miss their dog because no one owned him.

We also had a sad situation with one of the workers. A couple of weeks ago we had a worker ask for a loan because his son was sick and needed to go to the hospital, we did lend him the money. The child seemed to get better so they took him home, during the night he started to have diarrhea and by morning he was dead. My guess is he died from dehydration and malnutrition. He has 10 brothers and sisters and one on the way. I don’t know how old he was but he was just a toddler, maybe two or three. Here when there is a death in the family, if it is a boy they morn for 5 days a girl they morn for 3 days. The family does nothing during the morning period. The neighbors and family take care of the cooking, cleaning and laundry.

I tried last week to help with the sewing as the kids started school last Monday and uniforms had to be made. I cannot sew African style. I have not sewn on a trundle machine sense my grandmothers machine. I forgot you have to get the wheel going the right way or you sew backwards. This machine is from China and it has no peg to put the thread on so they wrap it around the body of the machine and put the thread in a cup on the floor. I guess that keeps the thread from rolling away! They don’t use pins! I had to put 4 pleats in the sleeve. Then, they don’t use a seam ripper either they use a razorblade to cut threads when you make mistakes. That was scary. Today they asked me to sew all the pants for the boys. I told them I would give it a try but I needed to have a pattern and I didn’t know how to do boy zippers and pockets. We’ll see how they turn out if they even trust me to make the pants.

This is the season to put in gardens here. The Angel House garden is HUGE, about one acre, it should be called a farm in fact that’s what they do call it in Swahili, shamba or farm. There is no refrigeration so they plant things like potatoes, carrots, onion, sweet potato, and squash that will last a long time.without being cold. To break the soil they use an old fashioned plow and the brama bulls. I guess it was quite something to see the plows being pulled by the cows. They hope to have enough harvest to feed the people of the village and themselves.

To keep hands clean during the cholera outbreak Mark made something called a tippy tap and we drilled a hole in a piece of soap so kids could wash hands before eating. (think soap on a rope)The next day the soap was gone, so I got soap and put it in a sock and tied it to the tippy tap. The next day the soap was gone. Now we putting powdered soap into the tippy taps and they wash hands then rinse with another bucket. A least they are washing with soap.

Every morning we wake up with the sound of cows mooing on the way to pasture land and roosters crowing. There is a rooster across the street and one up the street it sounds like they are calling “Marco Polo” in chicken language. People just let the chickens run around. We also have a neighbor that has rabbits. Why they don’t run away I don’t know, or why the dogs don’t eat them I don’t know. Mark says the rabbits look like the best meat around. Goats are also just left to run free and eat whatever they can find. We think most the meat animals are from the Heffer Project that are in this area.

We have been having some health issues with some of the kids. We took 5 to the government hospital on Friday. The government hospital is several buildings big. None have electricity or running water. They still use an out house. First you go pay for your bill then wait in line to see the doctor. We got lucky and got a doctor that spoke English, kind of. After the doctor saw all 5 we had to go for lab work and x-rays in another building. Then back to the doctor for the results of the lab work and x rays. One of the boys was wetting the bed every night and we found out that he had a urinary tract infection. One has asthma and they don’t have inhalers here to help that. The doctor thought the other boys mother had syphilis when he was born causing him to have swollen glands in his neck and a continuous tonsillitis. He needs to have his tonsils taken out but they don’t do that here so we have to take him to another hospital in another town. It will only cost about $200 to have this done but there is not money in the budget, so for now I give him hefty dose of a penicillin by shot every month. Lastly, a young teen girl, Leah, who came to us about 9 months ago with a boil on the inside of her right leg near the ankle. The doctor took x rays and told us the infection has moved into the bones and she is the most serious of all the cases and needs to be seen by an orthopedic doctor when they come to a nearby town in December. Meanwhile her leg could break because of the holes the infection had left in the bone. Lastly we went to the pharmacy building and what a surprise, he didn’t charge us anything because they were orphans.

I have tried to talk to the staff about feeding the children a variety of foods and the little ones need snacks in between meals but I’m not sure they trust me yet. Every Friday after staff meeting I meet with Jen one of the staff mothers who wants to know about nursing. I teach her about first aid. When I told her if a child has a fever you take blankets OFF she couldn’t believe it. I told her that the blanket keeps the heat in and doesn’t let the body cool down and if left covered the child could have seizures, dehydration or become sterile.

Speaking of being sterile, FYI I found out today that if a wife is not pregnant within 6 months of her wedding she is run off by her husband’s family.

There’s a few things we need at Angle House if anyone wanted to do a fund raiser that would be great! The new high school will be done and open in January but we have no desks. Desks are 50 dollars each and they are made locally so it helps the economy:-) Also the kid who needs his tonsils out we need $200 for his surgery.

Signing off for now. I’m sure Mark will post about the Wedding we went to on Wednesday. Pam