I know this is probably becoming old news, but here I go again on yet another tour with the African Childrens Choir. This will be my fourth choir, what can I say…I guess I really like what I do. I would love to say that this tour is going somewhere exotic but there is nothing too exotic about the mid west of the states. Although traveling with 20 some odd children is adventure enough.
So once again I am wrapping up my life here in Bellingham. I was talking to my boss at work and we were figuring out when my last day would be. I told her that if she needed I would work up till I leave, I just need one day before I go to get ready to go. That statement got a good laugh out of everyone in the room. I guess needing only one day to get ready to leave for 8 months is not the most normal thing. But it has become so normal for me I don’t give it too much thought anymore.
Same old Same old
Personality and Strenghts
At work we all did a bunch of personality type stuff and here is what I came out with:
Personality Type based on Myer-Briggs
ISFP "The Sprite"
Loves working behind the scenes to contribute to valued persons or causes. Happiest when working individually at something that matters deeply to her. Enjoys the moment, taking great pleasure in sensory experiences. Is reserved - showing warmth and enthusiasm only to close friends; idealistic; deprecating - demanding a great deal of ones self; gentle; compassionate; attentive
Strengths based on Strengths Finder
Belief:
Has a strong core values that cause her to be family-oriented, altruistic, even spiritual, and to value responsibility and hight ethics both in herself and others. They will give her life meaning and satisfaction, guiding her towards a consistent set of priorities. She will be dependable and trustworthy. Her work must be meaningful, valuable and mesh with her values.
Achiever:
By the end of the day she must achieve something tangible in order to feel good about herself. The relentless need for achievement might not be logical, or even focused, but will always be with her. Keeps her moving and motivated.
Responsibility:
She takes psychological ownership for anything she commits to and feels emotionally bound to follow it through to completion. She has a near obsession for doing things right, along with impeccable ethics making her utterly dependable.
Relator:
Draws her to people she already knows, and derives a great deal of pleasure and strength from being around close friends. She is comfortable with intimacy, deliberately encouraging a deepening of a relationship.
Learner:
The process of learning is especially exciting. It enables her to thrive in dynamic work environments where she is asked to take on short project assignments and is expected to learn a lot about the new subject matter in a short period of time, then move on to the next one.
Learning Style based on Memletics
Solitary:
Private, introspective and independent. Can concentrate well, focusing thoughts and feelings on the current topic. Aware of own thinking. Spends time on self-analysis, taking time to assess accomplishments or challenges. Likes to spend time alone. Prefers to work on problems by retreating to somewhere quiet. Likes to make plans and set goals, knows direction in life and work.
Social:
She typically prefers learning in groups or classes, or spending one-on-one time with an instructor. She prefers to work through issues, ideas and problems in a group, bouncing ideas off others and listening to how they respond.
Physical:
The body and sense of touch are used to learn about the world around her. Enjoys sports, exercise and other physical activities, and uses that time to think about issues, ideas and problems. When learning a new skill she would prefer to "jump in" as soon as possible.
The Language of 2 Year Olds
With my current job I am working with two year olds. At this point in their lives they are learning how to talk, and name their shapes and colors and such. So one afternoon we were all sitting around our wall chart of shapes and the kids were pointing them out with great pride saying the names of them. Now of course what they were saying did not so much resemble the name of the shape but they were catching one or two of the sounds that should be there. Well one child points to the start, looks at me with a huge smile on their face making sure I was listening to them, and confidently pronounces the name, "sshit." Hmmmm, yes honey that is a star, good job!
Another child consistently calls a triangle, chicken.
The next day one of my girls comes up to me and holds a one sided five minuet long conversation (that is very long for a two year old). She was very excited about the story she is telling me and talking as fast as she can. She is also taking in a huge breath between each word she says making the story quite long. This is a little bit of how it went:
she (breath)
she (breath)
she (breath)
and (breath)
umm (breath)
bing (breath)
and (breath)
for (breath)
and (breath)
JACK (breath)
um (breath)
chab (breath)
choo choo (breath)
for (breath)
JACK (breath)
and (breath)
chair (breath)
seat belt (breath)
Here she cracks up laughing at her story
aaannnnndddd (breath)
mommy come (breath)
and (breath)
and (breath)
daddy come (breath)
and (breath)
um (breath)
she (breath)
she (breath)
she (breath)
come (breath)
um (breath)
and (breath)
church (breath)
um (breath)
yeah (breath)
table (breath)
and (breath)
chair (breath)
daddy (breath)
on (breath)
him chin (breath)
Once again she starts laughing, showing me on her chin about her daddy
daddy (breath)
daddy (breath)
chin (breath)
and (breath)
miss (breath)
and (breath)
This was the understandable part of the conversation, there were a lot of words thrown in there that I could not make out at all. But I found her very funny with how excited she was about telling me all about her daddy and something on his chin.
And that my dear friends is the level of conversation I have throughout my days!
So yes it has been a long time from the last time I wrote. I am now back in the US, in Bellingham. The rest of my time in Uganda was great. Holly is back and feeling much better and able to take back over her orphanage. I am now working at A Children’s Learning Center. I am the teacher for the two year olds. It has taken some getting use to, but I do enjoy working with them. So I am here for now, but we will see how long I actually stay in Bellingham.
Little bits of the Day
Yesterday late afternoon I went and sat down in the sitting room and in just a few minuets my lap was filled with three children who were soon fast asleep, and there they naped for an hour till it was dinner time, while another child sat in another chair and visited with me. When it was time to eat, one child woke up with my pants imprinted on thier face, my front was covered in sweat from the child right on top of me and my arm was covered in drool from the third child. It was quite the nap time!!
Today I took 7 boys for a walk. One of them yesterday decided that we sould walk to Kenya. So off we went. We ended up walking to a golf course, and on our way we came to thousands upon thousands of bats flying overhead and covering the trees. And then we came to four cows on the green, and later some goats. There was also a section of power lines down on the road that we just walked around and by for quite some time. Only in Africa is a walk like that normal.
My Day
So a general day for me looks like:
5am The kids get up
7:30am Sharye and Jessica get up and have coffee in bed
The rest of the day is filled with:
Letting the kids hang on me
Plyaing cards
Maybe play some soccer
Take some kids for a walk to the river
Sit and let the kids pile in my lap
At some point some child will come crash into me with a fever and they just need a bit of cuddle time
Maybe walk some kids to the clinic
Kids dinner is at 6
Meds are passed out to all kids at 7
Kids go to bed
Adults eat dinner
Watch a movie
Go to bed
A Hop Skip and a Jump to Africa Again
Life is funny, one minuet I am sitting at home wondering what to do with my life, and in the space of three days I packed myself up to head off to Africa. Well not Africa directly, first I visited my friend for a week, and now the two of us are off to Uganda in two days. Sadly I am going under unfortunate events. A friend of mine has become sick and needs to return to North America for treatment. The only hitch is that she has an orphanage. So there are three of us; one American, one Canadian, and one Ugandan, who are stepping in to run things while she is gone. My ticket takes me there for six weeks, we are hoping that in that amount of time Holly is recovered and ready to work again.
Although it is bad circumstances that is take me there, I am really excited. I love Uganda, and I am very ready to go and spend more time there. I have also always, for as long as I can remember, wanted to work in and orphanage. I went through many years of being chagrined as to the fact that the US does not have orphanages for me to work in. So now here I am about to fulfill one more of my life ambitions…and I get to go to Uganda to do it.
A day in the Sun
You know there is something about spending a day sitting in the sun. In a perfect temperature, not too hot, not too cold. Sitting there alllllll day, reading, journaling, time on the computer. It is truly grand, and there is something about it that makes the world feel like such a grand place.
Black Hair
The other day during lunch I was talking with some of my kids about about the different colours I have had my hair. I told them I have dyed my hair different colours of red, I have had it blond, my normal colour is brown, and I have even dyed it black. Upon saying this last colour Mark who is sitting next to me says "eh! I wish I had black hair!" (please remember this is an African child who could not have blacker hair). I looked at him and laughing asked him what colour he thought his hair was. With a foolish grin he responds that for a second he thought he had brown hair and forgot his hair was black. I am still not sure if he really did forget or if he was joking, I kind of think he really did wish he had black hair.
Driving Driving Driving
Well after three long days of driving we are finally home! The whole group is so glad to be off the bus. After our last concert on the morning of the 23rd we had to say good bye to three of our chaperones. It was the beginning of the end. So after our hurried good byes we started our three day drive from Wisconsin back to our home in North Carolina. We arrived here today and it is so good to be home. We have already started our repacking and organizing of all our stuff. Our next few days will be filled with getting the kids pack with everything they need to go home with along with as much play time as possible. The kids are all so excited to be going home, they are counting the day.
Stop And Smell The Flowers
So this morning I went grocery shopping for the next three days of lunches for the choir. As I am walking up and down the isles of a nearly empty store, I find myself completely enjoying myself. There I am piling loads of fruit, bread, and lunch meat into the cart as I listen to the mellow music that is playing in the store; and I realize how much I miss doing normal things such as going and buying food. So as I am taking my stroll with my loaded cart up and down the store, I start to realize how busy I get and then forget to take pleasure in the little things in life. Our society gets so wound up with work that we forget to sit back and smell the flowers. And by consuming our lives with our work and social live of moving here and there, we are robbing ourselves of simply enjoying living. So my revelation for the day is stop and enjoy the grocery shopping, don't always run around like a chicken with it's head cut off. Even if you have a lot to do, take one thing at a time and enjoy what you are doing. Take pleasure in the little things, because it is all the little things that make the big picture of life.
Life with/out kids
Sometimes I wonder about my life. I mean here I am in a hotel room after putting to bed two of my girls. After our concert I snuggled into bed with them and read them a story, we prayed, and now they are sound asleep in the bed next to me. I love being a parent. When I came on this tour I thought, just four months, that is not so long, how attached to these kids will I actually become. Well it has happened. I love my kids so much. I love being a parent, I love laughing with them, having tickle fights with them, hearing their stories from their days, teaching them the right thing, leading them in devotions, putting them to bed, giving them hugs, encouraging them at their concerts, and so much more. This is the third choir I have been with, the third group of kids, and the third group of my children I will have to say good bye to. I wonder if I will always be living these short little time spans of life with so many people coming and going. As God continues to call me down the path that he has for me I wonder if it will always be this swinging door of people and places. If it is, that is fine with me. As I always say, Where ever you are Be all there. And I try my best to live like that. But there are times when I do wish that I could just keep my kids like a normal parent. Watch them grow up and know that they are (hopefully) in my life forever. I suppose I am just getting thoughtful as we are counting down this last month till the kids fly home, and I will be left here once again without children to call my own.
Shampoo
So I went to get ready for bed last night, open up my toiletry bag and find that the cap had broken on my shampoo bottle and there was shampoo all over. So at 11:30 at night I have to clean everything off, and clean up my toiletry bag. But of course the more I rinse it out the more it lathers up. Let me tell you, it is now one clean bag! Nothing like lots of shampoo lather to clean up a bag.
Going to the Movies
We decided to take all the kids out to a movie. There is a $1.50 theater near by. So this afternoon we all went to see Alvan and the Chipmunks. We even did it up right with popcorn and pop. I was not expecting much out of the movie, but as it turned out it was fun and rather funny. I love watching movies with the kids. Because they hardly ever see movies their reactions to them are great. The kids get so into what they are watching. Anyway, it was a great afternoon.
Holding Your Breath
Do you know the driving game where you drive through a tunnel and see if you can hold your breath through it? Well we were driving today and went through a long tunnel and the kids tried to hold their breath. Half way through we hear a voice from the middle of the bus "I AM HOLDING MY BREATH" I just about died laughing. Then later we went through another tunnel and a little way into it, we ask "Who is holding their breath?" and all over the bus we here a bunch of excited "ME" Hmmmm....something tels me some of them don't quite get the game.
Hitch Hiking
So we are flying out of Florida tomorrow and we have to get going at 5:30 and naturally that is way to early to eat breakfast. Any normal person's stomach would not take any part in putting food in at 5am. So Sarah and I took the hotel shuttle to the grocery store so we could get food to eat later at the airport. I made sure before we left that we would also be picked back up. So we do our shopping for breakfast and lunch food to take with us tomorrow. I call the hotel and tell them we are ready to be picked up, they say ok. 45 minutes later I call again, they say the driver just got back from the airport and he will be with us in a few minutes. 30 minutes later I call the hotel again and no one picks up the phone. So I call one of our chaperones and tell him to go down and yell at the front desk. He calls them and they inform him that the grocery store is actually outside of the shuttle range and the driver was just bing nice to drop us off but he is not going to come and pick us up. We give the hotel a what-for because I had been told we would be picked up, so they call a taxi and they were going to pay for it. In the same time Sarah went and talked to a lady coming out of the store and tells her our situation and asks for a ride back to our hotel. The lady was very kind and agreed to give us a ride. So we loaded all our groceries in the car and she takes us back. And that is my first hitch hiking experience.
Rich People
This evening we just finished up with a corporate event in St. Petersburg FL. We did a short performance for about 130 people who are all the financial people of sorts to large corporations. Disney, Johnson n' Johnson, Nike, and one of the larger hotel chains are just a few of the corporations there. These people were coming together to somehow decide and think about what they should do with their money. So we are hoping that some of the money will come in the way of the African Childrens Choir. But despite if it come to us or not, I think it is great that all these large companies are looking for something that they can feed into in a way that will make a positive impact in others lives.
Hotel Pictures
So being that we stay in hotels every day of the week, there are a few things that I have noticed. Why is it that they decorate the two sides of the room exactly the same??? On one side of the room there is a bed and a picture over the bed. About two feet away there is another bed and the same picture is over that bed. This I do not understand. Why not put two different pictures in the room. Do they think that the people sleeping in the two different beds only see the picture over their bed??!! A little bit of creativity would be nice. Is It really that hard to find a set of two pictures that would go together nicely in the room. Honestly, I could do a better job at decorating hotel rooms than what they are doing.
The other thing is the coffee that is provided in the rooms. It is usually quite nasty. It is kind of like having a little bit of coffee flavor with my hot water. Being that this is the case I have given up on it. On the occasion I will attempt to drink it but too often I can only manage one sip of it and then I just have the pleasure of having a cup of coffee sit next to me. But on the other hand there are the hotel that do have good coffee. So not all hotels fail on this point (which is a very important point in my books).
A big plus to hotels, is that often times the pillows are just right for pillow fights…
My wet bed
So we had a bit of a long drive today so we did not get to our hotel till late. By 10:30 I had my two girls in bed sleeping, and I then climb into my bed. This is when I discover that my sheets are wet. So I call the front desk and ask them to bring new dry sheets to my room. As I wait for them to come I strip off the wet ones and find that it is the mattress that is wet. Yes there is a large wet spot right in the middle of my bed that had soaked through all the sheets and blankets on the bed!! So I point this out to the lady who brings me my new sheets, and being that my girls are already sleeping she brings me a cot instead of moving us rooms. I do not even want to know why my bed was wet. Some things are better left unknown.
What have you done this morning???
I am sitting on an airplane next to two other chaperones with my 22 children sitting in the rows in front of us. We are waiting for the rest of the people on the plane to disembark before we move our group off. I look at my watch and notice that it is only 8:30 am and think “hmmm most people are just getting out of bed or leaving for work.” As I voice my thoughts I soon find myself and two friends laughing to kill ourselves as we start listing what we had done already.
Wake up our 22 children at 3:00 am
Load our bus
Drive a half hour to the airport
Check in all 28 people
Eat breakfast as we wait for our plane (and drink Starbucks)
Pass out all the boarding passes to the children
Get the group settled in their seats
Take an hour and a half flight
And there we were, still needing to take another flight, to get us to Florida for our concert later that day. So we had already done quite a bit by 8:30, and we were just wondering what other people had done with their mornings by that point?
The Grand Old Opry
We did an event for a dentist convention at the Gaylord Opryland Hotel, a.k.a. The Grand Old Opry in Nashville TN. I am told that this is a very famous hotel and performance halls, I had not heard of it before. But anyway we preformed there. It was quite the event, everyone was in formal evening attire, boy did I feel under-dressed in my black pants and blue button up concert shirt! Before we preformed we were given dinner. Usually if we are fed at things like this we are shoved in some back room and given something like spaghetti. But here we were treated great. The waiters actually came around and put the napkin in our laps, and the adults were served steak and shrimp (the kids got some really good mac and cheese). And O man the fruit and chocolate cake that came at the end of the meal...mmmmmmm good! I was really impressed with it all, it was some of the best food I have ever had. The kids were a hit and got a standing ovation after almost every song. It was a fun evening.
How is this for a medical day. I took one of the chaperons to the dentist and we were told that she needs all four wisdom teeth out and that is why an infection has set in. We get home and later in the day one of my girls walks into a wall and splits her lip and now has a bruise on her nose as well. In the evening one of the boys falls off his top bunk and bit his tongue quite badly, so he has more than a quarter of an inch gash in the middle of tongue (good thing he did not bite all the way through it). Fun day!!
Spider man dreams
I was talking to one of my boys, Martin, as we were drying dishes together. He had already showered and was in his spider man pajamas. He goes on to tell me that when he wears those pajamas they tickle him at night and so he dreams of spider man. In his dreams he is spider man and saves people and does good things, but if he is having a bad night then he dreams he is the bad spider man and he does bad things and kills people. So I asked him what about when he is in his other green pajamas, and he said that when he is in those he just has normal dreams, like he is a move person in the action movies.
Age 17
I went to walmart the other day and found some movies in the $5 bin (I love that bin), anyway I want to pay for them, and I guess it was because one of the movies was PG13 but it rang up on the register asking if I was over 17. So the man asks me, I say yes, he looks at me for awhile and then asks for my ID. I know I look young but I think I look older than 17.
Wattle
In my grade five science class we are learning about poultry. We drew a rooster and labeled the different parts. There is the red comb on top of the roosters head and there is the wattle, which is the red skin that hangs down on the neck. One of the kids asked me what is the purpose of the wattle. Well I had no idea so after class I looked it up and after much looking around, I went back to the kids the next day and gave them the answer. It is for nothing. The wattle is for nothing. And I find that to be strange...flesh that is for nothing. It is the same as our ear lobes, what is the reason for them...it is for nothing. Or the baggy skin on some dogs...for nothing. You know a lot of different kinds of birds have a lot of for nothing skin. Don't you find that strange? I find that really strange.
Kid Quote For The Day
The children were in rehearsal and were going over the terms "stage right" and "stage left."
They were asked "If this is stage right, then over here would be...?" One of the children answered "Stage wrong!"
What is with my name?
So this is what I do not understand about my name. Why is it that if people do not know how to say they make it up in such a way that they add a bunch of letters that are not there. For example one of the older children here, had seen my name written down and so he comes up and calls me Auntie Sarshe. Now how you get an extra sh out of it I don't know. Now one might think "well he is just a child" but it is not only children who do this. Honestly! Where do people learn to read? But as far as this child goes we solved the problem. He calls me Auntie Sharshe and I call him Marmar (his name is Martin) So in the end it all works out.
In a Movie
I felt just like I was in a movie. As I was flying from Seattle to North Carolina one of the flight attendants came on and asked if there was a doctor on board. About the same time another flight attendant went rushing by with oxygen. Well it just so happened there was a doctor on board so she went to the front and then they came to get more medical things, and we went down to a lower altitude of flying. I started getting worried we would have to make an emergency landing somewhere, being that we were still a few hours away from our destination. Well in the end it all worked out, I don't know what the problem was but it was soon taken care of and the person seamed to be ok after that.
Drama, drama, drama.
