Saturday, July 23, 2011

Desmond "far far away"

  I've just gotten back to the ship after visiting the Cheshire Home children's school and orphanage. There weren't too many children there today, just a few who attend the local school, but of course they're just adorable, wanting to help and getting in the way of the swinging mallets at inauspicious moments. Some of the children had been taken on holiday, how nice.

  A team of 11 of us went to lay down a pathway from the school's existing sidewalk to the tiny soccer field, so that the school's handicapped children can make it down. This entailed digging ditches down the path, breaking huge rocks with mallets down into softball-sized rock and spreading it out. We'll go back in a few week's time and lay the concrete down.

  I wimped out before the end, several week's of no exercise rearing its ugly head and quite frankly never sat pickin' rock before. I sat in the shade talking to some of the girls there. One girl kept asking for us to take her little boy "far far away". A sweet little thing named Desmond, apparently named after a famous Nigerian actor. One of the girls on the team said that this is a fairly common occurrance actually, to be asked to take children away from here. Breaks your heart. Shame, such a tiny little thing. Darn immigration :-) Ruins all the fun :-)

5 comments:

Mom said...

I would also have wimped out with the rock thing - is it hot there everyday? I tried planting some echinacea seeds today and some rosemary seeds. and the ground here was like rock too.Pitifully dry right now.

Leslie said...

That sounds like very hard work. I would not be able to do it either. I did not realize you would be working off of the ship also. Your stories make me thankful for the life I have.

Lycia said...

Leslie, this was just for fun! There are always activities that somebody has arranged on the weekends - trips to the beach, trips to orphanages or old age homes, etc., to showings of the Jesus film, help at dental screenings or eye screenings that you can sign up for. I wanted to go to the kid's home, so you sign up in an activity folder and pitch up :-) Not required to :-)

Angela said...

That's what you get for missing out on meetings at the local quarry. Back to Quarry-Work 101 you go. :-)

- A

Anita said...

Hey hey, it's good to hear that you know what rock pickin is like now. Welcome to my world girl. Sounds like the place for me. It's good to hear that God is doing good work through you and all the people on the ship. Take care and keep the updates coming. Love you girl, Anita