Tuesday, July 10, 2012

Today for breakfast we had pancakes but they were more like crepes. Then we went to Korah and did camp.

Lidia was always waiting for me. Lidia is the daughter of one of the leaders. She is seven years old but looks like she's four or five.  She knew where I kept my gum and I gave her a piece every day.  She was my shadow.

I am making an example of the craft for that day. We wrote Jesus really big across our paper then we wrote who Jesus is and some other names of Jesus around it.

Aunt Heather is reading the story to the kids.  We had books in Amharic so they could read along.  These are the same books Samaritan's Purse uses for follow up with children after they deliver shoeboxes.  The kids liked the pictures in the books and followed along as Biruk, our translator, read it aloud to them.

We are singing with the kids.

The food wasn't ready when we were done with the craft so we had a few minutes with nothing to do. I got bored so I made a paper airplane. That was a big mistake. In 5 minutes the room was full of paper airplanes flying everywhere. Mommy didn't see it happen so she didn't get any photos.  But it was fun!  The kids were laughing.

After we fed the kids we ate our lunch then we visited Masresha and Balista's house. They are Aunt Heather's and Uncle Shawn's sponsor children. We had to walk to their house and it seemed like it was far but Mommy said it wasn't more than about a mile.

Walking to their house took a while to get there.  We took them oil, flour, powdered milk, teff (used to make injera which they eat with every meal), spices (berbere) and Snickers for a treat.  In case you can't tell, that's me with the green backpack.

We got to meet Masresha and Balista's older sister, Yshearg, and baby brother, Jonathan (they pronouce it "Yonatin").  He has an "American" name because one of the Project 61 sponsors was there when he was born.  His mom let the team member name him.  He is really cute!

Their mom, sister and baby brother are sitting on the bed they all share.

 Masresha and Balista were excited for us to be at their house.

Uncle Shawn and Aunt Heather with the family.  Their house was built with the tin you see behind us.  The woman peeking around the corner was cooking injera over an open fire insdie the first "house" (room) so all the "houses" were very hot because of the tin holding in the heat.  Their family lived on the other end but it was still very hot inside their house.  There were about 10 of us inside a small room (their entire house) so that made it even hotter.

As we walked back to our van at the church, we saw women doing laundry.  They lay out the clothes on the ground for them to dry.  They lived in a straw hut and this was beside their huts.

This is the inside of a house with a goat in it. :)  They were some of Masresha's neighbors.  That room is their whole house.

The dump goes on for miles and miles.  Many of the Project 61 kids would go to the dump every day to find food to eat and things to sell to make money.  Now that they have sponsors they can go to school instead.  Since they are served a meal each day at camp, they don't have to find food to eat.

These are some houses made out of straw.  We didn't go inside any of these but they are even smaller than the other houses.

This is the bridge we had to cross on the way to some of the houses we visited.  The "drain" underneath it is their sewage system.  When it rains the "drain" runs faster than when it doesn't rain.  Sometimes it smelled really bad!

After the home visit, we went to Sabahar. Sabahar is a silk factory. I got a blue hat there.

These are the silk worms. They were really big.

 

The people at the silk factory put the worms in these paper cones for about a week so they could make the cocoon. Then they put them in a box and covered them with newspaper for a little while then they took them out and took the silk.

A cocoon is placed in each opening then covered to make it dark.

Once they are removed from the dark containers, they are put out on a mat.

A lady then pulls the silk off the cocoon to unwind it.

These two women were spinning the silk into thread.

This is some of the silk thread drying in the sun after it had been dyed.

The men weaving the silk were really cool to watch.  They were fast too.

This is how Korah used to look everywhere.  But more and more trees were cut down so that more and more people could live there.  So now almost all the trees are gone.  It was really pretty at Sabahar though.  The trees smelled good.

After Sabahar we went back to the guest house and we took our showers.  We went to eat dinner at Cupcake Delights. I had a hamburger, french fries, orange Fanta and part of a strawberry smoothie. For dessert I had a double chocolate cupcake and a small bite of mommy's cinnamon roll. When we got back to the guest house I read a little bit then went to bed.