After lunch I was tired from a busy morning of
organizing/sorting paperwork in the admin office. I was sitting on the couch
reading when the thunder started and I guess the clouds must have rolled in,
because it started getting darker. I flipped the curtains of the three living
room windows up over the strings that they hang from.
I was hungry, so I ate a couple little sweet bananas. It was
starting to rain a little, but I walked the 10ish yards to go wash my hands at
the sink in the dining room. A couple kids were in there, and as I was coming
out they followed me, dancing around in a funny way. I knew what they wanted:
several weeks ago when it first rained and I was here I couldn’t help but sing
in the rain. The kids expected a repeat performance.
So we all got a little wet as we (mostly I) belted out the
lines to “Singing in the Rain,” thanks to Andrea’s teaching at Kids’ Club in
Northern Ireland this summer. Complete with hand motions and tongues out at the
end, of course. A couple new girls came along and stared at me like I was
crazy. Well, I was crazy….so they had reason to do so I guess ;) After we had
sung through the song once, I retreated to my banda.
The rain was coming down a bit harder now, and so the rain
was coming in through our screen-only windows. I pulled the curtains back down,
but the wind was blowing hard and the rain seemed to be coming in sideways. So
I braved the rain (intensified because I had to go right in the places where
the runoff comes down the slanted roof) to go around and close the outside
shutters.
I got back inside and was about to get warm and dry, then
realized there was one more thing I needed to do first. So I quickly walked the
10 or so yards in the opposite direction (through the pouring harder rain) to
the pit latrine. While I was in there, it almost sounded like hail on the metal
roof!!! When I got back, I seriously wished I had put my towel by the door. I
literally had water dripping off my hair, glasses, clothes, etc.
To top it off, power was out. With the shutters closed, the
banda was pretty dark. Thankfully my 12-LED lantern was within pretty easy
finding distance on the table. So I grabbed my towel and dried off, then got
into nice cozy dry clothes (sweatpants & a hoodie!). Wrung out the clothes
I had been wearing, then flopped onto my bed and read by lantern-light for a
while. The rain poured hard, and eventually let up. The birds started singing
again!
So I decided to open up the shutters to get some light into
the otherwise quite dark room. While I was outside, the kids came out of taking
shelter wherever they could find it. They ran over, excited to see me and
wanting to play. Three of the younger Institute kids begged to be held, and
again we sang the song (even though now it wasn’t raining). They also discovered
that my hoodie made a fun "toy," and soon I found they thought that having my face entirely covered with
only a small hole for my mouth made a great game!
Then they asked to play “Go Fish,” so I told them to wait
while I cleaned off my couch, etc. Which they did wait very patiently, I was so
proud of them! :D So we had me and four Ugandan kids ages 10-4 (well, one is
Liberian) playing “Go Fish.” We’ve played it a few times before, so they’ve
mostly gotten the hang of it. They do still often think that a 6 should be able
to be paired with a 9 though, and sometimes they ask for a card that has
already been played on the table. But we make it work :)
We played several games, giving each of the kids a turn to “share”
as one girl says (she means deal). A couple times this same gal, who is pretty
high-octane, was literally bouncing up and down on our couch. I could hear it
creaking….I’ve kind of been wondering if it might be on the way to breaking….so
I asked her not to bounce on it. {I was also starting to get overwhelmed by
trying to keep game play orderly and didn’t need that distraction…….} So I said
I must need to tell her to go run around the hut a few times while I shuffled
the cards. Which she and the other kids proceeded to do, lol ;) We had to
repeat the process a little later.
I could feel exhaustion setting in, so announced that we
would do one last game. The kids were very good sports about going outside to
play something else after that game. I sank back down onto the couch and sat
there for a moment, feeling so so tired. Keeping four kids entertained for an
hour…especially while trying to maintain the rules of a card game!...can be
pretty tiring. But so much fun, and so very worth it :)
They are dear, sweet kids…even when I do have to fight
against my perfectionistic nature to keep it from making me too annoyed with
them when they don’t quite do things the “right” way and I’m tempted to lose my
patience……. But their love and
friendliness and joy and laughter make it all so so so worth it :D
