A Day in the Life

The internet has finally decided to let me upload photos here again, so the long overdue post explaining what I actually do all day can finally be completed.

Night Shift:
Wake up at 5:30/6 to heat up the kids' breakfast. When I am working, they always get oatmeal or peanut butter toast.
Monday - Friday the 4 older kids go to "school", so they need to get dressed early.
7:00 is medicine time for our HIV+ kids. The meds need to be prepared beforehand and given as close to 7 as possible. Day shift starts at 7:00 so there are usually people around to help.


Day shift:
The big kids go to school at 7:30 and the little ones are dressed by 8. Now that it is getting chilly in the mornings they play indoors and watch cartoons until about 10, at which point they go play outside.

We were donated a lot of fun playground equipment, so there is a lot of swinging and climbing going on. While the kids play, the Aunties clean the house, make lunch and do the washing. With 8 kids, there is a LOT of washing, every day. Thank God for the African sunshine. If we had to do this in Minnesota we would need to use the dryer all day long. The big kids get back from school at noon and take a nap, occasionally until 3 if they are really tired, which is very nice. Then they color, read stories or play outside until supper at 5.

Night Shift-

Supper is probably the favorite time of day - all of our kids love to eat! After supper the kids take their bath and don their PJ's. We have some really cute ones. My favorite is the fuzzy, blue foot-slipper one that our oldest girl likes to wear. I don't have any pictures, but she looks rather like Grover from Sesame Street!

While baths are happening we usually watch "one of Auntie Kate's New Movies". They don't seem to realize that the movies have names. The oldest girl just says, "I wan't to watch your New Movie" and then we have to flick through what I brought to see what we want to watch. My supplies are getting exhausted though, so if anyone has anything they would like to send that would be very exciting!

7:00 is medicine time again, and then by 7:30 all of the little kids are in bed and we have a bible story and prayer with the big ones. They are so funny. Britt, one of the Norwegian volunteers, was doing the story of the 10 commandments with them the other day and we were trying to all remember them afterwards. We got "you must go to bed nicely" and "you mustn't talk to strangers". Not necessarily biblical, but we decided God liked those things too.

After that, the night shift person has to make bottles, do the dishes and get things ready for the next morning, when it all begins again.