Since getting here I have been meaning to write about what a day is like for the boys. So here is my best attempt at doing that.
On weekdays the boys are up no later than 5am, but sometimes as early as 4am. They start there day off with a time of singing and prayer. After that they all have chores. They sweep the yard, their rooms, do any dishes left over from the night before and do their laundry. For breakfast they eat bread and drink tea.
School here operates in half days. Some kids go from 7am till noon and others go from noon to 5pm. The kids that aren’t in school get tutored at least two days a week by some of the workers or even the older children. All the kids eat lunch at the center, either before or after school. Lunch is usually beans and rice.
The music teacher, Daniel, comes a few days a week to teach the kids to play the piano and the guitar. They all have time slots and get lessons each week and then practice when the keyboard isn’t in use. Some days the keyboard is played from sunrise to sunset.
The art teacher, Zito, comes two days a week and helps the kids make cards and necklaces. It is amazing watching the kids and Zito create the cards with such simple tools.
Dinner is usually sometime between 5 and 6pm. Dinner is usually a starch and a protein or salad (if a large serving of protein was served at lunch). The starches are rice, spaghetti or sheema. I just found out that sheema is basically flour cooked over the stove with water, no wonder it tastes like nothing. The protein varies each day from beans, fish, or goat meat. Salad is cabbage and cucumbers and sometimes a banana or other seasonal fruit.
At 7pm the boys all gather to talk over their day. They all sit in a circle and one of the Maputo guys goes around asking them to share about their day. They usually say things like “my day was good, I went to school.” Sometimes they share about how something bad happened to them or a funny story. Last night Latino shared that on his way to school his pants split open and riding his bike made the hole get bigger and bigger. He ended up stopping to ask a taylor to fix his pants. He explained to the man that he didn’t have any money but wouldn’t be able to go to school with the hole in his pants. The man fixed his pants while Latino waited in his underwear… everybody got a good laugh out of that story.
The kids start making their way to bed around 8 and lights go out at 9. All the boys share one shower and so there is usually a line for that and others try to do more laundry.
On Friday night the kids get to watch a movie. They have tv in the common room and a DVD/VHS player. They mainly watch movies in English and they talk though the whole thing, but they love to laugh at the funny parts. The tv is locked up during the week and only gets brought out for the 3 or so hours of watching. Bedtime is extended to lights out at 10pm and the kids get to sleep in until 6am on the weekend.
Depending on who is around is what shapes the weekend. When Julie was here the kids went to IRIS ministries for church in the morning and then we all went to the beach in the afternoon. Now that Michael is here the kids have the option to attend the church of their choice but we also have service at the house.
Hopefully I'll have more pictures next week, but I didn't realize that I wouldn't be able to get the ones I took last week off of my camera...
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2020325&id=102500461&l=51b516af63
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