August Holiday

Hello all! It's been too long....
I've realized that life here in Namibia has become my "norm". I don't feel the need to write a blog post when I see a goat, or cattle, or donkey cart. And I think this is part of the reason for me not posting so much....because it's just become my every day life. Would you write a blog post about your regular, daily life? But I've also had to remind myself that my time here in Namibia is also a unique experience...and even when things become "normal", it's important to write about it.....

What month is it? Yikes...it's been a while....

Ok - I want to tell you all about our August holiday at CEC. It was a 2 week school break for the kids. The majority of them stay at the orphanage. Only during the December holiday, do the children get to leave and go home to their biological families. So - we had to plan some activities for the children, during this 2 week break. I invited another volunteer to help out as well....which ended up being a nice change of pace, or both him and I.

We really just planned activities for the first week of the break. The second week would be more relaxed, along with cleaning and preparing to go back to school. The children also received their grades during this break. The majority of them still need so much help in math and english. I do my best, but I think I need to really get the staff mothers on board with helping the children more, during homework times...

Activities we did included team building games, communication games, a bonfire (with s'mores, of course!) making, and decorating, memory boxes, origami, math contests, brain teasers and reading. For the last day, we had an Amazing Race! Both the children and the mothers had such a wonderful time! The challenges included physical stunts, dribbling a soccer ball, math, spelling, counting a jar of popcorn kernels, and finally finishing where each child has to bob for an apple. Overall, it was a success, and I'm planning on having this as a Saturday activity sometime in the future.

I also took the children out, 3 at a time, to use my "nice nice" camera, and let them shoot whatever they wanted to. The majority of them took pictures of themselves, posing :)

Here are some pictures from the August holiday....