Thursday

Hello from Nigeria:

It’s Tuesday morning and I am sitting outside to write this. When I get to the orphanage I’ll paste this onto my blog.

Linda Rowe is off doing some surveys for boreholes. She has had a really difficult time this trip. The company they were going to use didn’t work out. We only have one week left and no wells have been dug. She was planning to do six to ten. On Saturday and Sunday evening she met with a new driller and looked at some places he has worked.  Yesterday they took off to look at the sites she wants to have done. With any luck they will get some thing done this week. After she leaves, Ruben, the fellow in charge of wells here can complete the work. The wells they drill are about 150 feet deep and have to go through rock to get to water. The villages where the drilling is done usually have no source of clean water nearby and the people are sick often during the dry season. Out in the remote areas there is often no good road, children must walk a long way to school if they go, water is scarce, and life is hard.

I’m struggling to get something done here also. My frustration is with myself. I have had a terrible time with the heat, especially the last couple days. The painting I’ve been doing with the children is going OK. I want them to have fun but they are taking everything so seriously. The best day we had was when we worked a bit on a computer and learned the keyboard home row.

Hannatu, who works with Brittany from Iowa on micro loans for women has someone sick at her house today so she will not be by. I’m not sure what Brittany will be doing, She might come with me to the orphanage if she and Hannatu cannot work on their micro loan project.

March 15, evening

I am sitting outdoors enjoying the almost cool of the evening. I wasn’t able to get online today because the server wasn’t working. It is an electrical thing. They’ve had electricity consistently at the orphanage and secretariat until I came. It is so hot that people are using too much to cool off. Here at the guest house we are running a generator to keep the fans running.

I worked on painting pictures with the children in Primary Level 5 today. They are a fun bunch. They find great humor in the way I talk and the fact that they can talk amongst themselves without my understanding what they are saying. This group has been the most lively of all the groups both times I’ve worked with them. They first drew their pictures with pencil. Then, some of them traced over their lines with markers. We used watercolor crayons and when that dried they outlined with glitter glue. We had a blast. Tomorrow I am working with Primary Level 4 kids and there are more of them. We’ll see how it goes.

Linda and Ruben should be getting back from doing their survey work this evening. I hope everything goes well and they can do some well work before she has to go back home.