Class begins- Friday March 4

From my door watching a rain cloud

While I'm not used to sleeping with a fan on, it felt good because of the humidity and lack of A/C.  A friendly neighborhood rooster woke me at 4, then I took the first of a week of COLD showers.  There is a tank of water for showers/bathroom faucets-- whatever temp the water in the tank is, that's the temp of the water in the pipes.  Only one knob in either place.  I was reminded of a saying Lily learned at daycare a couple of years ago-- "You get what you get and you don't throw a fit".  I learned later that a warm shower could be enjoyed in mid afternoon.

We had rain showers most every morning.  I sat on the porch and read every morning, enjoying the coolness of the rain.    One afternoon, the rain hit a hot tin roof and evaporated as fast as it hit the roof.

Breakfast was ham and eggs with of course rice and some yogurt.  The guys were anxious to have coffee of which there was none.  When they were given the option, it was instant coffee with tepid water.  The water was barely warm enough to make tea.  I do think this was a disappointment to the heavy duty coffee drinkers in the group. My guess is that our cook and our hosts do not have hot beverages for breakfast.

The water building before our improvements-- before we could come to bring the filtration system, the well and water building with electricity had to be finished and in place.  According to stories I heard, the electrician just finished wiring the building less than 2 weeks before we arrived.

Dane's pics.

Pastor Kate and I went to the church and set up for class.  We unpacked the 60 pound bag and organized the papers that had been brought for this and future classes.

Big Red- 60#'s of teaching supplies

The reason everything was so heavy was that we were instructed at clean water U to prepare for 150-200 people to take the class before we come back next year to be sure all is in working order.

Students arrived at 9-- we talked about ourselves and asked about them and their families.  We begin with Creation information and move from there to germ science and songs about germs.  We had 9 students that first day--Sugey, Lindsy, Lizbeth, Katia, Ivania, Isabel and Leonardo were all eager and anxious to learn.

 The majority of them spoke pretty understandable English, but only some could read English.  Our first health activity was using Agar in petri dishes to grow germs from their hands and from the well water.  The program is planned for our "teachers in training" to teach new students in the afternoon, but that didn't happen.  Not sure whether no one got the message, or whether no one wanted to come-- Doesn't matter- we worked around that stipulation.

The electricity went out in the neighborhood which hampered the progress of the filtration system some.  After organizing for Saturday's class, Pastor Kate and I walked back to the hotel and relaxed as well as possible without electricity.

At the appointed time we walked back for supper which consisted of casaba root,  a little meat, cabbage salad and pork rinds- followed by an interesting cake.  All our meals were served in the minister's house and most were brought to us already "plated"

Walked back to hotel using flashlight-- seems really safe to be out walking after dark-