Monday at the Manuelito Project

Today was packed full with activity! We took a tour of the schoolhouse, a small building of various rooms and a small library that educated 60 children - 37 from the project and 23 locals from the poorest families. The kids seem to enjoy the learning and one teacher is a women who lived in the project herself, graduating college and coming back to serve. I forgot my camera for that so pics will follow when we return! After the tour we began work. Today we painted the dining hall, which is also the center for church, activities and movies. We will also be painting the kitchen, and our church donations will fund new windows, doors and bug screens to keep out the problematic flies. Tomorrow we paint the kitchen, and ours funds will cover a new stove as theirs is broken. Jason will be welding... more on that tomorrow. We were almost ready to stop for the day and play with the kids when a few came to join us and help. It gave us some energy to paint for longer and bond with a few of them, even with the language barrier. Games of Ninja, dancing and hanging out made up the evening. A great delight was visiting the dorm of the youngest kids, who pounced on us for holding hands and showing off with handstands on the couch. Water was off again today. We had a brief time with it tonight and we took showers in record time :-) Bible study was partly by flashlight but the electricity did come on again after a short time.