Trying to Establish a Routine

We are finally getting our bearings around here. At first it seemed like it took forever to do anything. Finding food is a major undertaking. There are many, many places to buy food, but they all carry something different. We like Coke Light. Only a few places have it. We DON'T like bologna, but we try to find the best quality and will eat it in pinch. All places have bologna. lol Chicken is our first choice, but you can't find chicken lunch meat. We can buy a whole rotisserie chicken at a little place called the 'Chicken Grille' That is all they sell. The chicken is very good. We can also buy chicken kabobs at the supermarket, but three kabobs are almost as much as a whole chicken. Our next choice of meat is ham or 'veecheenah'. The quality of that varies. It isn't really any more expensive than the salami or 'kielbasa' you find everywhere here. We can find lots to eat, but all of it gets boring when you are trying to find enough to eat for three meals every day and are limited to just a hot pot.

We go to the orphanage every day from 10am until 1pm. We do look forward to seeing all our little friends. Yesterday, we came as they were all washing the rugs. That was a pretty good way to keep them all busy and wear them out. lol The orphanage has an above ground pool that 10 kids at a time can swim in after their afternoon nap. They have to wait until there is someone to supervise them. They were using the water in the pool to wash and rinse the rugs. This soon became a contest as to who could dump the most water on whom.

The orphanage is down in numbers right now because it is summer and many of the children are with their parents or other relatives. It is hard to understand why they stay in the orphanage if they have relatives. Our facilitator stated the same thing. He doesn't understand either and this is his country. He said even if they are poor, they should be able to find a way to make it work. The orphanage is really not referred to as an orphanage here. They call it an internat or boarding school. Many families here are single mothers with many children in the family. One girl told us she is the only girl in the family with five brothers. I think that is why. This orphanage has many large sibling groups. Alcohol abuse is another reason. If parents are found neglectful, their rights are terminated. The sad thing is that the majority don't take steps to have their rights re-instated.