The trip to the orphanage has always been an interesting drive, but this year it is much more so due to all the construction taking place near by. The drive used to end with a beautiful tree lined road, but now we have to take a dirt road turnoff before, to get around the pile of rocks and dirt they have used to block the road to traffic (funny thing is that by the end of each day, someone has moved the dirt to make a driveway). This dirt road is full of dips and potholes, and runs right through tiny farm plots and homes. Well today we had an issue with our van bottoming out and having the spare tire that was underneath drag on the ground, so we had to stop and fix it. Since the road was only wide enough for one vehicle, we had quite a few cars lined up, waiting for us to move.
Once we made it to the orphanage we got busy with kids, and bringing in the playground we purchased. We were surprised to see Beauty, a young lady who used to be one of the children, but whom now is employed by the orphanage. We had been told the day before that she worked somewhere else, but I guess that was lost in translation!
Turns out the quality of the playground was not top notch (go figure), along with the fact that the orphanage grounds are still under construction, so we decided to make it an indoor playground! Ever put together furniture from IKEA? Well it was a lot like that, with no directions, few screws, and poor construction. The guys did a good job though, and are almost finished. Now we have to purchase some mats to go underneath, but hopefully the kids will be playing on it before we leave.
We had a good time beading, making puppets, and just hanging out with the children today. We learned some good news about another of the children whom we had not seen, Min Bo. Min Bo was unable to walk, spending all his time in a crib. One of the team members last trip took him out often and spent a lot of time with him. He even insisted they pull out one of the wheelchairs so he could go to the amusement park with us. Turns out he was a candidate for a surgery (I think on his spine?) to help him walk. This was arranged by an American team, and he had the surgery and it was successful! He now lives in a foster home five hours away. This brought tears to my eyes when I heard it.
We had two wonderful meals today, and am especially loving the eggplant! Today we also had deep fried bean curd sandwiches, and they were tasty:) Tonight we went back to the square, which was packed. As expected, we found ourselves at the center of large crowds. There was a college age group of dancers, and Meme and Micah were brave enough to dance with them in front of the crowd of onlookers. They were great sports, made many new friends, and probably now on many camera phones.
As always, I hope my post makes sense, as usually I am writing this while being exhausted, and am not sure of my grammar and typos...
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