I used to say that a person has no idea what “tired” means until they’ve had kids… That was before I’d ever been on a mission trip;-).
What an adventure. So far not much has been as we had expected, so we’ve become very good at going with “plan B”. We’ve been up early to have breakfast and be on our way by 7:30am then get back to the Rev’s house just in time for dinner each evening. After dinner we chit-chat for a while and then move on to planning for the next day before hitting our beds HARD.
We spent Monday getting acclimated at Eccleston primary school & then Tuesday diving into our literacy mission. We get to work with all of the kids in the school (ranging in age & literacy level) to help with letter recognition, simple story reading, and reading comprehension. We were surprised and impressed to see how literate the students already were!! The books that we had brought were appropriate for the younger students… but too remedial for the older. For a school with such limited resources, the students were well mannered and eager to learn. We’ve enjoyed coming up with different learning games to help meet the needs of the wide range of literacy levels we are encountering.
Brownstown has been experiencing a drought which severely limited water reserves, in fact on Tuesday all water was shut off. The inconvenience has really struck us… we can’t imagine how the teachers and students manage consistently this way. The kids are well aware of the significance of the situation and make promises to be very careful with their water usage. It’s amazing to see what order exists in a place where adult presence is minimal, basic resources are nonexistent, and stray dogs roam freely. The thing that we’ve found to be most in abundance has been happy children with LOTS of love to give. The kids have been such a treat to work with. They are around EVERY corner with a smile, a hug, a story, and a song. Their favorite thing is to hear that we remember their names, so we’ve worked hard to learn as many as we can. Team members have over-heard children saying “teacher, I love the white people” and “can they please come back tomorrow”. One teacher told us today that she wished we were here for 2 weeks instead of just 1, which helped reinforce that our visit has great value to them. The literacy project has been a rewarding journey so far!
As for the garden project, it has been slow coming. We usually have an hour or 2 at the end of the school day to change into our work clothes and join the school’s 4H club to clear land & plant vegetables for the school to eventually use. Over the first two days, we’ve gotten the plot of land weeded, but can’t achieve much until the land is tilled. With just one rake & one wheelbarrow, progress is quite slow. A visiting minister from Haiti has been helpful in cutting back the weeds with a machete, but at this point it will be a true miracle if we have a completed garden by the end of the week. We hope to be able to get terraces built so that the next group can plant.
On day 1, we had blogged about the minister at church who prayed that we would learn from the children that we are teaching… truer words could not be spoken. Over breaks, the kids take us by the hand and walk us around the school to show us the pictures of the seven heroes of Jamaica, show us national maps, and give stories of their heritage.
We go to bed each night genuinely excited for the next day…
