Teacher on Duty

Hello again dedicated followers,

Cassie here…and this week we have some exciting information for you. I was a little slow to get to writing this week due to my ‘Teacher on Duty’ status and being down with Malaria that I wasn’t as organized as I usually am. But better late than never here is the update for the week.

The girls did a great job making progress on the library. We have finished all of non-fiction and reference materials and are moving right along with fiction. Also all the tables and chairs are finished. The teachers are utilizing the front of the library for a class everyday and love it. The children are so excited about the books they have asked for a special period during the day just for library time. We have been eager to integrate the materials in class. We use the National Geographics in class nearly every day. Starting this week I will sit down with every teacher to help ensure the use of the materials during lecture. Also the search for a librarian is going strong; I just hope we can get him/her here before I leave in September.

We have also been making astonishing progress on the shop. 99% of the wood for the shelves came directly from the crates inside the sea container. This saved us about $200 USD. The painting will be finished this week. Also this week we will buy some of our stock. This is incredibly exciting as it is our first project that will generate an income for the school. With an outside income we can be sure that the schools (FANAKA and ELA) can keep running without raising schools fees. Every year FANAKA spends about $12,000 USD on printing, typing and stationary goods. Having their own shop should reduce costs by an estimated $7,000. I’m so excited I can barely type!!! Without getting too carried away…we still need to find a proper Stationary Worker and finish up many details. My goal is to have the doors open for business by August 31.

Thanks to German donors the form IV’s were able to take a two day safari to Mukimi National Park. Eileen was able to join them and see animals, spend time with the kids and deal with their inevitable nonsense and noise making. Everyone enjoyed themselves….so much so the kids have been a little squirrelier the past few days.

Speaking of Germans…some of our German colleges who work at Olof are interested in getting their organization to pick up FANAKA as one of their placements. This would mean that two German volunteers would come every year. So this week we were preparing FANAKA’s application. Keep your fingers crossed as long term volunteers are great for keeping our projects running and communication flow.

As Teresa told you last week our paint job on ELA has been extremely successful. I met with another mother and a new pupil this week. She told me she knew about ELA before but didn’t think it was a proper school. Word of mouth spread and she came to inquire about the changes. I took her to see the school and now she was so impressed with the school she is sending her daughter in September. She even screamed when I told her about the library coming in the next few months! It feels great to have our first finished project be such a hit.

As always we are working hard on the documentary and website. I am doubtful of our goal of September 22^nd for both the documentary and website but we are still working little by little. Although we probably do not take as much free time as we should we have spent a day at the beach and an afternoon at the textile market, any little bit helps keeps our minds straight. We also took the night off of work last night as it was Eileen’s 23^rd birthday. Tomorrow Eileen and I will be tested tomorrow to see if we are all Malaria free.

That’s it for this week. As always we appreciate your support, prayers and wishes.