Little Moments

Time is flying by for us here at Malayaka House. Yesterday was the first time that I thought about the next couple months and felt like I didn’t have enough time left to do everything I want, both with the kids and in East Africa. But I guess another 2.5 months is a long time.

Lately I’ve been posting about the big highlights here - usually pizza nights, field trips, and updates about school/education – but in the past few weeks I’ve been noticing the little moments more. The individual time with kids or the moments when they really enjoy learning or when we discover another aspect of their maturity. So instead of the big things I’m going to share a bunch of the little things, because, as the saying goes, they’re actually the big things in the end.

Less than a half mile up the hill in Entebbe Town, there are people who make French fries (chips), grilled chicken, sausages, and a delicious treat called a rolex. It’s not a fancy watch, but a chapati with 2 fried eggs rolled inside (the name comes from a shortening of the description – rolled eggs). It costs about 60 cents for chips or a rolex, and about $1.20 for chicken. Evan and I would occasionally walk to town at night to get a cheap meal, so a few weeks ago we decided to start taking the older kids with us. We take just one or two a week, and it’s been really cool to talk to them individually when they have our undivided attention. We usually talk about what they want to do when they grow up, or we ask them about their life before Malayaka House, or we share more about ourselves and our lives back home. Each and every one of the kids is so incredible in their own way,

On a similar note, during the afternoons we try to take a couple of the young kids around town with us when we do errands. Because there are 35 kids here, and because there are always aunties and/or volunteers at the house to watch them, the kids don’t go out to do errands like a typical kid would. So if we’re going to buy airtime and internet or pick up some groceries or pay the bills, we often take a couple kids with us. The kids enjoy the attention and, for us, it’s always more entertaining with a couple of them around. A few weeks ago we took Ishmat and Elijah out with us and Ishmat didn’t stop talking the entire time. There are few things funnier than a 4 year olds’ commentary on life.

Something else we’ve been doing quite frequently lately is going to the doctor. For the first month that we were here no one got sick, but with the changing seasons it seems to be a different story. We’ve had ear infections, rashes, malaria, infected wounds, and pneumonia, all in the last month. It wasn’t until probably my 5^th time at the doctor that an obvious observation crossed my mind – I was a care taker for 35 children. I looked around the waiting room and wondered what the other parents and kids thought of me, Evan and Fran - besides the fact that we’re crazy for having 3 people take 1 child to the doctor. But, in our defense, since you never know who will be around at any given time, it helps to have multiple people hear what the doctor has to say and understand what medicine is being prescribed.

On a daily basis I spend at least a little bit of time thinking about the overwhelming task of giving these kids a better education. The most important and most intimidating issue is teaching a bunch of the kids how to read. But lately I’ve challenged myself to take baby steps each day instead of trying to think of a way to solve all the problems at once. So I created some word searches and an educational jeopardy game, Evan made flash cards with letter and word sounds, we made a multiplication chart, Marta photocopied a bunch of activities from the lesson books we have at the house… and now we’re putting them all to use. We’ve realized that the older girls really enjoy doing simple spelling and literacy tasks that we originally thought would be boring. So in the evenings and on the weekends now they sometimes come and ask if they can play these “games.”

With the young kids we’ve been using the letter tiles from our Bananagrams game and letting them spell words or unscramble words that we’ve mixed up. None of them do any sort of creative learning in school, so anything that deviates from just copying information into book seems really exciting and holds their attention. We also started today with weekly spelling lists for P. 1, 2, and 3. So it seems like very small steps, but I’ve really been enjoying it lately. It’s always nice to see the smile on a kid’s face when they complete a task or spell a word correctly or recognize a word that just looked like random letters before. And it’s nice to see many of them enjoy educational activities and beg us to do more with them, even after being in school for 10 hours and doing homework for another 1 or 2 at home.

So these little learning moments, the trips to the doctor, the evening walks to town, the spontaneous games at home, the afternoons with just a few kids at the park or the botanical garden, the conversations with the aunties, the business meetings with the girls… they’re all part of our days here and, in the end, they’re the most meaningful experiences.

Speaking of business, the last thing I wanted to mention is that I shipped 7.5 kilos (16.5 lbs) of bags, aprons, and necklaces home to Norton. We wanted to see how much it costs and how quickly it arrives, in order to determine how practical it would be in the future to export our crafts. My mom should get the package at the end of next week and, once she does, she’ll be selling them for us. So if you’re interested, contact her and support Malayaka House! Thank you!