We spent most of the past week at Dee's main children's home. It's situated near the border with Myanmar, 3 lovely buildings that Dee designed herself on a little block of land just outside town (there's another home in town, with more of her family, where 20 other kids live). About 30 kids live there, cared for by Dee's sister and her husband, and one of Dee's brothers. Dee's sister, Pola, loves to cook, and makes amazing meals for the entire community every single day! They also have a bunch of pigs (Dee loves pork), lots of banana trees, flowers and herbs, and a little soccer field.
We were helping to build a new fence - cement poles, wire strung between, and then bamboo sticks woven in the wire to make it animal-proof. They were even making the cement poles from scratch! Tying together a wire frame for each one, then filling it with concrete mixed in a pile on the ground.
We also helped load and unload 4 ute-trays of gravel and rock from the river to the house one morning. We'd just filled the first ute up to the brim, only to hear the engine roll over and die! On the wrong side of the river, no less. Thankfully they soon got it going again.
We went swimming in the river every day to cool off, and played games with the kids every evening (they LOVE duck duck goose - generally pronounced duh duh goo!). They have a time for devotions every night (so beautiful seeing the kids singing their little hearts out!) which we got involved with, telling stories, clapping along as best we could.. and sometimes singing the english words if it was a tune we knew (that copped some strange looks!)
One day at the river, we'd all got out of the ute already when all of a sudden, Cusay drives it right in, obviously intending to cross (no one has any idea why he decided to try it, but there you go!) and he got stuck in the pebbles just past half-way. Another ute turned up as well (apparently we were collecting more rocks?). It was much more of an off-road vehicle, and purred away quite happily in the river there as we filled it with rocks and waited for someone with a rope to come and rescue the first car! No one seemed perturbed in the slightest (I was all like - ahh! What if the motor drowns?!) but they pottered along, some of the kids even taking advantage of the opportunity to give the cars a bit of a wash!
All in a day's work.
p.s. FYI I'm getting used to the rough sleeping, but my bum's still sore.. haha
Being waved off by Pola and the 3 youngest there - nicknamed Cocoa, Milo & Chocolate!
We also helped load and unload 4 ute-trays of gravel and rock from the river to the house one morning. We'd just filled the first ute up to the brim, only to hear the engine roll over and die! On the wrong side of the river, no less. Thankfully they soon got it going again.
One day at the river, we'd all got out of the ute already when all of a sudden, Cusay drives it right in, obviously intending to cross (no one has any idea why he decided to try it, but there you go!) and he got stuck in the pebbles just past half-way. Another ute turned up as well (apparently we were collecting more rocks?). It was much more of an off-road vehicle, and purred away quite happily in the river there as we filled it with rocks and waited for someone with a rope to come and rescue the first car! No one seemed perturbed in the slightest (I was all like - ahh! What if the motor drowns?!) but they pottered along, some of the kids even taking advantage of the opportunity to give the cars a bit of a wash!
All in a day's work.
p.s. FYI I'm getting used to the rough sleeping, but my bum's still sore.. haha
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