Things becoming normal

Last night Jeri, Sarah, Paco (dog), and I went for a walk and found this on the front porch. 

Today Jeri and I went to the bank to get money exchanged and et cetera. Then we went to a mall to buy stuff for a rehabilitating community meeting (for recovery from floods). While we were at the mall we went to the supermarket and I saw....OREOS! So I bought myself a little packet-yummy comfort food; Jeri calls it food for the soul. : ) We then went to the Shiphra Birthing Home and set up for the meeting a little by making sandwiches. Jeri told me I could go over to the baby home, an orphanage for children mostly within the age of 4.5 years and newborn. Today they had an adoption complete! The family is from Holland and we had them over to Jeri's house for dinner. They adopted a one year old boy. So anyways, I was able to hold to some adorable little babies. I asked the ages but one of the workers kept giving me different ages, so I have no idea, but I  know that the little girl, Cindy, is malnourished from her mother not being healthy while pregnant. I hope to spend a lot more time over there with the little ones!

Oh, and you might notice some voices in the background as some guys on the street were asking for my name. First encounter with that much attention due to being white. : /

After the baby home visit I helped more with sandwiches and watched the meeting start. We gave them paper and colored pencils for each group to draw out community maps and then after this they told their own contributions they could make, like cooking, masonry and etc. Then they decided within their groups what was the most important two projects they needed to fix. It's really neat seeing how Jeri does her mission work, because she makes sure the people don't see her as someone undermining them and superior to them, but only helps them work as their own community together. She in this way gives them more than just relief, but dignity, worth, and empowerment in working through their own problems. I was asking if I should buy some scrubs and she said, "no, not necessarily. Because anything seemingly uniform makes a supposition that I am the caregiver and you are lower than I." Through this I learned that I am allowed to wear tank tops in the birthing home, which made me very happy. : )

Around 4:30 we came back to the house with Jeri's daughter, Deborah, her son-in-law, Darren, and her grandsons Aubrey and Auden (8 and 4), and picked up the new adopting family for dinner. I sat in the back with the boys on the way to the house, which was so much fun for me. They reminded me of Esten and Ryan back home. : ) Aubrey is very fun to talk to and Auden is bursting with energy and runs around constantly just for fun. They both are as blond as can be.