Faith Christian Academy Helps with a Vaccination Day

The team of students, staff and parents from Faith Christian Academy (Colorado) sponsored a Vaccination Day for the talibe guys on Tuesday. 120+ (Jane knows the number!) got a couple vaccines each and the sick kids got to see a doctor and the ones with bandage needs got some first aid. As always happens, the photographers are so caught up with the cuteness of the guys that we rarely get many shots of the actual medical side of things! But I thought you'd appreciate this sweep of video of the kids waiting outside the gate to be "metered" into the system we had. Lots of soccer and the Fulani music playing. You can even glimpse me checking on the progress of getting kids started in the outside shower!

Busy, but Quiet

Well, I was going to take some photos out there today, but I'm afraid things are too calm. Campus Crusade is here doing a conference for a few days. And there are other guests, but everyone is quite well-behaved and busy doing their own thing!

Sunday a crowd (30) of high school students from Colorado descend on us for 5 days. And then a few hours after they leave Friday (very early), another conference starts gathering for that weekend.

So the Phare is being very useful.

Today is the second day of a national holiday that usually only lasts for one. The President declared a second day of paid holiday for all workers in the country to allow plenty of time for people to return from visiting with family in their home village. Quite nice of him. Quite a pain for all the various enterprises in the country! Our weekend guards are responsible to cover major holidays. Unfortunately for Albert, who is the weekend day guy, Daouda, who is the night guy, is off in his home village! So Albert decided to cover for both of them. A 24-hour shift is a great way to make a bit of cash. But now it turned into a 2 day affair. The poor guy is looking a bit ragged. I told him he was a real warrior (njambaar), and he replied that, no, he was just a real man, a working man. Good answer, Albert.

We've personally been hosting two pastors from Ohio this week. They are here to see the various UWM ministries. Earlier today Joe and John visited with Jane and the talibe. Antoinette had called one of the teachers to say we had visitors. She was afraid that with the holiday (the city is quite deserted!), no boys would come. So Diao sent a bunch extra! It made for quite a crowd and a lot of fun, since they were there to eat and play, not stumbling sick with malaria!

Here is John playing Jenga with a crowd of boys. That's the one where you build a tower of wood blocks and then take turns pulling one out until it falls.

They also got to see the boys enjoying breakfast. They had seen this millet hot cereal in the village already. But in that case some child was sloppily eating out of a large bowl of it with his hands and they were quite worried they'd be asked to share. It's kind of gray-green in color and not the loveliest looking porridge! Gruel, really. They escaped without an invitation that day. And we didn't torture them with a teasing one today. Though, in fact, Antoinette makes the fonde with milk and sugar and even by American tastes it's not bad.