Just Hanging Out

On most Saturdays the kids are able to relax, play games, and just be kids. Yesterday, all the kids had to work in the fields for a few hours. It is harvesting time here, and there is a lot of work to be done. Seasons are just opposite of what they are in the States (we are just getting into the cold season, this will last until September). We have had a few rains the last few days (which is very unusual this time of year), which pushed harvest time sooner - if all the food doesn’t get picked it will just sit in the field and mold. Also, because of the rain, the field is too wet to work in.

After the kids finished the work they had to do, they got to just relax. Curtis and I had a meeting all afternoon, so we didn’t get to play as much as we would have liked. But, they still were ready to pose for some pictures.

The first picture is three of the youngest girls we have here. From left to right: Mary, age 9; Wendy, age 7; and Rebecca, age 8. They don’t get there pictures taken often, so ‘just’ smiling for a picture isn’t good enough for them - they wanted the pictures I took to be more like glamour shots! In my opinion, this was the best one I got, from about the dozen I took of them.



In the second picture, some of the older boys (they were waiting for the soccer field - we had let the girls have a turn to play, and the boys didn’t like that). From left to right: Joseph, age 14; Peter, age 13; Gibson, age 17; Kelvin, age 17; and Sydney, age 15…despite there age difference, these boys are grades 6 and 7. Our school only goes up to grade 7. After that we send the kids to a secondary school. We have two houses at the secondary school, a boys and a girls, and house parents at both.