Thursday June 6:

Today Esther and I went to visit the SOS Children's village, which is right down the road from our school. One of the social workers toured me around the facility, which was really beautiful. They have houses for children to live in who have been orphaned or cannot be taken care of (due to sick parents or are orphaned and their grandparents cannot take care of them anymore). They are placed into these houses and are raised as families by a “mother” figure and an “aunt” figure. I think this is a wonderful idea, as each child has their own family to grow up in, with brothers and sisters. The children are sent to school around the community, or are placed in their own kindergarten programs. When children become older, they help lead younger youth in programs. They also have family strengthening programs where they work with families and communities to empower them to effectively protect and care for their children. I really enjoyed visiting, and I will be working there on some Saturdays to come. They have SOS villages all over the world, which could mean job opportunities!

When we came back, Sister Theresa was talking to Esther about a brother of some children here who passed away from a drug problem. This is a big problem in the area, and this turned into me saying that I can run a drug-free/ healthy choices program that I had designed for my final undergrad social work project.

I helped again in the lunch room today, and the doctors came today, as they do every Thursday, and I helped over-see that.

At the end of the day, two girls were playing with my hair. Children here really like to touch our hair and they always say how soft it is.

Wednesday June 5:

Today was just a day of catching up on typing case notes that I have done.

At the end of the day today, I found a child with a University of Michigan Sweatshirt on, so I took a picture of him to post to my sister on her birthday tomorrow. What a nice coincidence! 

I made a birthday card for Laura and had many of the children sign their names during recess time. They went crazy over this, and everyone wanted to sign it.  I was surprised how full it was at the end of the day with so many names.