Finally....An UPDATE!

Written Saturday Feb. 28th

Life here at Emmanuel has been very busy for us and we have been unable to update you as to how our lives have transpired over the course of the past week and a half. The last of the Tennessee team left this morning, but had no farewell breakfast to say goodbye. They simply drove off into the sunrise and waved their goodbyes. While the team was here, we were lucky enough to have electricians swap out our leaky washing machine for one that didn’t leak all over our floor…well not after their second trip back anyway. It leaked at first installation and made a lake out of our laundry room and a river/puddle out of our kitchen. They came back the next day and replaced a washer (not a washing machine, but a piece of plastic used as something to create a seal) which seems to have solved our problem. They also found a dryer and brought it to us! How fortunate can we be? As it turns out—not very fortunate at all. We put a load in the dryer as we got into bed last night and it got all the way through the cycle, however the clothes weren’t dry and when we tried to restart the dryer in the morning, it sounded like a car that wouldn’t start. Then came the burning smell…we just unplugged it and cut our losses. We’d rather have semi-wet clothes to hang up than dry clothes that are burned to a crisp from a house fire that started with a faulty dryer. We were living a dream for at least a moment—a dream of owning our very own dryer to dry all of our clothes. We’ll just go back to hanging our clothes on the back of furniture for the duration of our trip. At least we have a washing machine!

A few days ago during dinner with the team, I decided to engage in a friendly game of beanbag toss into a hole carved out of a sheet of plywood. Normally this game is a bit challenging when tossing from a moderate distance, but I threw in a few extra challenges. I was wearing my laptop bag (15 lbs.), my gigantor knife, and was holding an 18 month old baby. I still did pretty well, but I think the baby was holding me back from reaching my true potential. Is that what having a real baby is like? One can only wonder…

Our lovely horses have now been without feed since Tuesday afternoon and they become angrier every day. I have been hounding the person in charge of getting them food since over a week before the food was gone because I’ve been taught that “the squeaky wheel gets the grease.” We have still been giving them hay twice a day to at least give them something to eat, but that doesn’t seem to satisfy their hunger. When we walked out to give them their hay yesterday we saw Pharaoh gallop from the back of the pasture to the front of the pasture just to get food. We have never seen him run to get food before—that’s how we know they must be really hungry. We needed to groom that day so we tried to bring in two at a time, but Pharaoh decided to push his way through and run out of the pasture to find greener grass (and yes, the grass was greener on the other side). That horse sure knows how to run when he needs to find his own food. We continue to find a tick here and there on he horses. We found another one on Grumpy’s forehead that was as big or bigger than the last one we found. Lauren had me pull this one off as well and it seemed to put up more of a fight than the last one.

School has been going well as we worked through week two with the kids. Lauren is still working with the special needs class and has been doing a fantastic job. This week she had the help of a Pennsylvanian high school student who translated between her and the teacher as well as a lady who gave her input on activities that the teacher can do in the classroom. Lauren has really been enjoying her time working with the students in the class although they can be very trying with her patience most of the time. Most of the students have behavioral problems more so than learning disabilities. I have been semi-working with the English teacher over the past week. It has been decided that I will be the teacher in the math lab starting on Monday. I will have two classes a day for about 45 minutes each and will then continue to assist the English teacher with his classes for the rest of the day. This week I was asked to do various jobs around the school such as moving bookshelves into classrooms, organizing boxes of jumbled math lab stuff, and to observe the English teacher to see what he is doing well and what areas he needs improvement. Friday I did some cement work at the school and also hung a bulletin board outside of the office of the primary school’s principal. Today (Saturday) I will be doing more concrete work at the school and possibly putting some memory cards into the computers in the computer lab. My job description is very broad in the school.

There have been cases of rabies throughout Guaimaca so when dogs are seen on the orphanage property they are to be shot. Our Danish friend Yentz very much enjoys using the semi-automatic riffle that he was given to use in killing the pigs and cows for butchering. The dogs often come to the back of the orphanage property (where the horse stables are) to feast on the flesh of cows that are thrown behind the meat house (pictured to the right of Yentz). Yentz simply walks out the back door, levels his riffle and shoots. He is a pretty good shot and has thus far killed four dogs. For some reason, Yentz thought that it would be a good idea to throw two of the dogs into the trashcan right next to the horse barn. After a day they smelled like death and the horses would get spooked when we would try to walk them past the trash can into the stables. We had no idea that the dead dogs were even in the trash can until after a few days of the smell worsening. I finally walked over to the trashcan and saw what looked to be maggots crawling all over a dead dog—disgusting!

Written Thursday March 5th

Life doesn’t really slow down here at Emmanuel. Just when you think you’re going to have the chance to post a blog, things come up and time slips right through your fingers. Saturday, ,after we worked in the school the first ½ of the day, we went to the store to get food, we worked on Emmanuel’s new blog (more on that in a minute), and before we knew it, there was no more internet until Monday. The rest of the week Lauren and I have been working in the school and I have also been working on the Emmanuel blog every chance I get. I started teaching the math lab on Monday and I would say that so far it is going very well. I have every grade one day a week and with more than one of each grade in the elementary school, it works out so that I have every class once each week. I have two classes for 45 minutes each and then the English class starts.

Lauren had a great idea for Emmanuel to start a blog in order to update everyone that wants to know how things are going here. She mentioned it to Katja (the volunteer coordinator) when they were talking about how to easily keep everyone around the world up to date on what goes on here. Katja loved the idea and asked Lauren and I to get to work on it right away. Of course we have both been giving it our all and it has bee

n coming along quite nicely. We’re hoping to have it at a point that others can check it out by the end of the week. I’ll post a link so that you can all check it out and see where I have been spending my extra time and why I haven’t posted an update more recently.

The past week has been very Eventful—two things could have potentially died. One of the horses and me! I have had almost all of the symptoms of malaria on two separate occasions over the past few weeks. I’ve had a fever, cold sweats, nausea, diarrhea, headaches, body aches, and tiredness. Lauren was very concerned for me and wanted me to get checked out in the town clinic. I had my blood tested while being watched by the doctor’s daughter and my friends in the entryway/patient room. After waiting 2 ½ hours, I found out that I do not have malaria….we still don’t know what I have, but I hope its not life threatening. Lauren still chooses to call me Malara-Lee though. When we got back from the clinic, Lauren found a tick on her neck…eww, I know! I guess if I can have a tick on my stomach, she can have one on her neck—we’re even.

A few days later while walking out to feed the horses, we saw Pharaoh sitting on the ground (which is strange for a horse anyway because they are very vulnerable in that position). After taking out one of the other horses, he finally got up, but only to return back to the sitting position. He then started to try and roll over which is very dangerous for a horse to do because it can twist its intestines and cause it to die. It appeared that he had colic. We put a halter and lead line on him and started walking him to try and help it pass. We walked him for 3 ½ hours and tried to get him to drink water since he was dehydrated. We ended up using a syringe to squirt water into his throat on multiple occasions to re-hydrate him.

When Wade (the staff member that works the farm) finally came over, he really had no advice on what to do with him. We finally let him lay down—so long as he didn’t roll over—since his legs were almost buckling under him from exhaustion. We tied him up behind our house so that we could check on him throughout the night. By morning he was back to having his old attitude, so we knew he was going to be just fine.

We’ve had a new Danish couple move in next door—Daniel and Annette. They seem to be a pretty nice young couple. It’s interesting to see some of the frustrations they have that we also had when we first got here. They’re not big fans of the lizards and other insects…but who is? We also lost two of our male volunteers—Jack from Cali and Corey from Greenvile, SC (where my mom’s side of the family is from)—and by lost them, I mean they left the orphanage, not this game called life.

Update: Here is a close-up picture of the annoying bird that wakes us up around 5am every day. If you ever see one, you have permission to shoot it on sight—especially if it is anywhere near where Lauren and I are living.

Update #2: We have received our wedding pictures and thought we would share a few of them on here with all of you people. I’m sure they are copyrighted, so unless you want to see us in court, keep them for non-commercial use. Thank you and good day.