Monday, September 30, 2013

Ca va?



We were happy to discover that we would be having a roommate from California/Colorado (she moved to Colorado 5 days before coming to Africa) named Emily until November.  After arriving, we got a tour of the compound from Amy.  She informed us of the fact that the vast majority of the children are in their home villages right now visiting with relatives for the summer.  They will be returning at the end of this week as school starts in October.  Amy said that she wanted to be sure to save the babies[1] for the end of our tour, because we would not want to leave their cage.  

During the past week, we have spent most of our time working with (actually playing with) the babies.  This gives us time to get acclimated to their time, their culture, and their lifestyle before starting the work that we have been assigned.  

We were able to work on our first TOMS shoes distributionon Saturday, which was Bekah’s birthday.  Some people from the US embassy came down from the capital and assisted us.  It was really nice to be able to talk with them and actually understand what they were saying.  For the distribution, we went to a nearby village and distributed about 460 shoes to children that needed them.  We were shoe fitters this time, which means that by the end our thumbs and pointer fingers were sore.  It was really cool to see this side of the TOMS program, as we have both previously purchased their shoes in the states.  Lauren also said that she now wants to be able to buy more when she gets home.  

Here are some highlights of the baby cage: 

They really enjoy playing phone and photo.  This means that we have conversations on our pretend cellphones and take pretend pictures with our hand cameras.  They get great pleasure in telling us if the pictures are ‘jolie o no’.  

One of the older boys, Galilou, has stated a new game of put the younger child in the traditional Burkinabe baby wrap and walk around the baby cage.  One of the younger children will walk around behind the older child with a blanket wrapped around them.  We will try to get a picture of this to try to upload to the blog. 

The kids also enjoy practicing their greetings. They will walk around the cage, hold out their hands (we have to remind them sometimes to use their right hand), and say “Ca va?” They will not leave until we respond with our “Ca va” (meaning ‘how are you’ and ‘I’m fine’). 


[1]Any child under the age of six.

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