Tumaini

Thursday 11 June – When will you be back?

Over the past two weeks or so, many of the children at Tumaini have been asking when Baba (Rob) will be back? On Tuesday, when I was doing the basket demonstration, several children came up to me and asked me about the Howell's return. They are very excited to have Baba and his family back. I told them that Kelsey, Kristen, Kaylee and Robby will be back soon to play with them again. They were rejoicing to hear that the Howells are returning today!

Wednesday 10 June – Cute Kids

Yesterday I had to laugh. While I was working on my basket demonstration, Ferdinand was also on the porch repairing a hole in the screen door. I noticed that some of the children were getting restless and causing trouble. I suggested to him that maybe we should have the children walk around the property and pick up rubbish and trash. I told him we could sweeten the deal and tell them that when our guests came that there would be a surprise for them if they could bring us 10 pieces of trash each. One of my friends who is visiting asked what she could bring for Tumaini and I asked if she would bring candy. The children don't always have a chance to have candy so I figured every now and then we could pull a bag out and give everyone a treat. Ferdinand didn't tell them that it was candy but told them they would get a 'zawadi' – gift. The little children's faces lit up. They were so excited to go gather trash! It was all quiet for a long time as the children scattered to gather trash and bring it to show Ferdinand. Then around the corner here comes a whole bunch of little children encircling a plastic bin. They were all holding onto it and carrying it together. They would stop every now and then and pick up some trash. I laughed at the sight. They were so adorable working so hard together. Even half an hour later they were still doing this and they had roamed to a farther part of the property. I wish I had taken a picture!

Tuesday 9 June - Demonstration

As I began making the insulated cooking baskets several weeks ago, Happyness requested that I make one of them as a demonstration for the workers at Tumaini. The basket is really a great concept and so helpful for these ladies to have their food hot and ready when it's needed AND they can accomplish other tasks around their home without being in the kitchen all day. I got a late start on the demonstration because I had to take care of some other business first. But once I got started, it was easy to keep a steady pace. I found a great spot to work on the porch. There is a half wall that is perfect for what I needed to do with the basket. At first no one was really around but then word spread that I was doing this and many of the ladies came over and leaned against the wall watching me work. Then several of them asked to give it a try and I gladly handed off some of the work to them. It's not hard to sew on the basket but it can hurt your shoulders after awhile so it was nice to have a break every now and then. Thankfully, since it was a small basket it didn't take as long as sewing the big baskets had but by 4:30 pm, I was ready to be done. The ladies had helped enough that they got the hang of it and they were putting the finishing stitches around the top of the basket. All that was left was making one small pillow for sitting on the top of the cooking pot. I left instructions with Ferdinand about how to make the pillow and headed home. I reflected during my ride home that it had been a very pleasant time. Many of the kids would sit around in shifts as I worked on the porch and then of course the ladies hanging around and watching was fun too. They asked questions and I practiced using some of my Swahili. A very good bonding experience.

Saturday 6 June – More mending

Today we were able to take back a box of mended clothes that a local fundi (worker) has been working on for the last couple of weeks. I took the box into my office and proceeded to fold the clothes and put them back in the box neatly before I took it up to the house to be put away. Masheshela and several of the little children joined me. Some were helpful and some were not so helpful! Masheshela surprised me because he's typically been a mischievous troublemaker. But today, he helped me carefully take each piece of clothing out and fold it and then he followed my system of stacks on the table. I was quite impressed with his helpfulness. I decided that since we will be having many guests this summer, I would go through the rest of the clothes in the house and have the rest of them mended. Since we only take the van out to Tumaini once a week, if we can help it, then today was my opportunity to get them back to the fundi for repair. Several of the older girls helped me go through their clothing. It was so nice to see them working hard and being helpful. Happyness joined me part way through my mission and helped me process the last of the clothing. We came up with 88 more pieces that needed mending. Everything increases exponentially when you have 48 children!

Thursday 4 June – Visit Update

Well, the news is not good nor is it bad. The officials measured the room that we are currently using with our youngest children's educational activities. The room is wide enough but not long enough. We are 5 centimeters (I think that was the measurement they were using) too short. I have passed the information on to Rob and we will have to decide soon if we want to proceed with the paperwork. The measurement they are using is based on having 45 children in the classroom. If we don't have 45 children can the room be a bit shorter? That's one of the things we have to find out.

Wednesday 3 June – Ministry of Education Visit

Today is another long-awaited day. Ferdinand and I have been gathering information and looking into forming a registered Nursery School. This school would be for children ages 5 to 6. Typically, children at the age of 7 will attend Primary School. Six year olds are allowed to attend Primary School if there is no Nursery School available. We are hoping to open the school to other children in the village of Shadi as well as to take care of the education needs of our own 5-6 year olds. Ferdinand has made at least two special trips to town over the last two months to inquire at the Ministry of Education. Each time, he gets a slightly different answer to his queries. Today made his third trip and of course, new information. It can be frustrating to try and make plans and provisions when you can't get the specific information you need. He has met the two officials in town this morning and will procure a taxi to bring them out to Tumaini and then return them to town once they are finished. He will give me his report tomorrow.

Tuesday 2 June – Payday and a Meeting

Today was the long awaited day (at least for me!) to have a meeting on discipline with the caregivers. Since today was payday, it made the most sense to have the meeting coincide with everyone present to pick up their paycheck. We met in the dining area and I was surprised to see other workers joining us. I reminded Ferdinand that only the caregivers needed to be there though everyone else was welcome to stay if they wanted to – and they did. Using hindsight, it was probably a good thing that they were all there so all the staff will know what we are trying to do and which direction we are heading in. We opened with prayer and then I said, in Swahili, for them to forgive me for using English since I am still learning Swahili very slowly. Then I turned to Ferdinand and asked him if he was ready to translate for me. I went through some of the verses from Scripture that I had looked up in studying discipline of children and then made some application for us at Tumaini. After that, Ferdinand read through the Philosophy and the list of wrongdoing and the corresponding punishments. Finally, the floor was opened for questions. I was pleasantly surprised that there were few questions and mostly just needing clarification on some of the punishments. There were two items we added to the list. One was from Gaudencia, the washer lady. She said that sometimes in the evening she will ask the older children to help her bring in the clothes off of the line and they refuse to help her. The wrongdoing falls under our category of disobedience to an adult but we "tweaked" the punishment for that particular item. For disobedience we have said that the children will lie in their bed for a period of time. Since this disobedience toward Gaudencia is so close to the children's bedtime, it really wouldn't be much of a punishment to cause them to lie in their bed. So we decided to remove their video watching privileges. Sometimes in the evening, Ferdinand will let the children watch videos – but not every day. If it happens to be a non-video day, then the child will lay in their bed when they arrive home from school the next day.

The other item we added to the list was from Odilia, the nurse. She said that there are Form 1 children, which are the youngest – like 1^st grade in the U.S – who arrive home late from school. Typically, they should arrive home around 11:30 a.m. but many of them are arriving home with the Form 3 children who are finished with school later in the afternoon. Since we have a list of children who should be eating at particular times, and the cooks are trying to follow the schedule, then it causes some problems down the line. We are going to try a punishment that the offending child will lay in their bed until all the older children arrive home and have eaten. Then the child will wait for another half and hour after which time, he will be allowed to eat. Hopefully, it will only take one time to get the point across.

Saturday 30 May – Cooking Instructions

I spent the morning at Tumaini and in the afternoon typed up the Swahili instructions for cooking with the insulated cooking basket.

Rice – 10 minutes on the stove and 1 hour or more in the basket

Beans – 45 minutes to an hour on the stove and 4 to 6 hours in the basket

Fish – 10 minutes on the stove and an hour in the basket

Meat Stew – 5-10 minutes on the stove and 2 to 3 hours in the basket