Sunday June 27 Week 3 finishes

I wanted an adventure this trip so I am staying away from the hotel. I am renting a very nice bed room and "hall" (living room) and small kitchen (sink, fridge, but NO stove) I guess I would have to cook outside if I wanted to cook. Luckily for me I do not even think about cooking. I may buy a toaster. It has air conditioning in the hall and a TV but that leaves the bedroom very hot and still in the night. I wish it had a fan for sleeping. I may purchase a small one but maybe not as I have just finished my third week and other than realizing how much I miss STUFF I am doing quite well. I quite miss it all or at least most of it and contrary to what I have heard many times I do not find it liberating. The young man who owns this building is working at making it a restaurant and will live here when it is done and he leaves his present job. The rent he is collecting from me will help him finish the project. He hopes to be able to open by November (I know that you may assume this November, but I having been here 3 weeks, I am not so sure.


Every morning I walk about 15 minutes to the "station" and get a taxi with 3-5 other people and go to Bantuma school. The library is a bright spot at the school. The children are loving the idea of having a Library. They are slowly looking at more books and some are really reading.
I have a picture of our littlest reader, she is 2 and LOVES books, a very unusual sight indeed. She comes to "read" every day after school and is sad on the days the library is only for the older children. I dream of the day that all the little ones can have books around they can look at every day in their classroom WHEN EVER THEY WANT. I need to ship a container of books. Anyone what to help get that together? I really can not express the difference I already see with the library going strong. I can hardly wait to see things in a year. Will the grades be better? kids happier? more kids coming to school everyday?


I must talk about the wonderful people who came to paint the Kg1 and Nursery Rooms. They were the saddest rooms I have ever seen when I was here in March. (see YouTube Tomorrow's Stars) Earlier volunteers painted the outside a great yellow and the inside walls whitewashed so it was quite an improvement. Then these 7 painting angels came. They were at the beginning of a month long trip through Ghana, Burkina, and Mali and were scheduled to help paint for 1/2 day. When they arrived they told me that none of them were artists but after some thinking we had a plan for the morning. They worked fast and the room looked great when they finished. The next day was a free day and 5 decided that they could easily spend another half day painting the other room and they had lots of ideas. They were inspired and as you look at these pictures, can you believe not one of them was an artist? I think of them as the painting angels. I am sure that the elephant is going to speak to one of the children. I think he will tell them they must grow up and write children's books

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