We arrived at the Living Compassion property this morning to find long lines of people at the water tap. The water is off in the local area, and people are streaming in from all over to use the clean water at Living Compassion, a powerful reminder of just how far this community has come. It used to be the case that people would look down on Kantolomba, and now they come to Kantolomba for clean water.
Amazing how a line of folks waiting at a water tap can be truly a work of art!
We are greeted by these beautiful, curious faces peeking around the door...
In the pre-school English program, Theresa, Veronica and Beatrice watch Phil teaching, an essential part of their training to be able to teach with this method and material. The children are undaunted by all of these grownups watching them and continue to use English confidently and clearly! Beatrice tells us that the songs are so catchy she is singing them for the rest of the day.
Can't you just feel the concentration!
Richard takes a break from his concentration to pose for the camera.
Deborah and Christine. Wow, cuteness...
Phil breaks out the next lesson
Get ready...
Meanwhile, Anna works with Charles and Georgina to practice with the pronunciation tools they began learning yesterday. Out come the rubber bands again! Georgina tells us that practicing word stress with the rubber bands is helping the music of English to "go inside." Exciting to hear! We listen to a longer chunk of English today, and tune in to the music of it together to pick out where the stresses and pauses are. We decide that the way to know that you have practiced the music of a word or phrase enough times out loud is if you start to laugh. If you're not laughing yet, you need to keep going!
And we're off, dancing to the next catchy English tune! Learning to love learning, indeed!
Georgina with her rubber band tool.
We are joined by a group of young women who are curious to participate, too. Luckily we have enough rubber bands to go around so that everybody gets a chance to practice with them. With a bigger choir, we are able to make an impressive sound!
Tuning in to the music of a new word: "accomplishment"
Stretching our rubber bands along with the music of the word: "AcCOMplishment!"
Georgina demonstrates the pronunciation difference between "art" and "heart" to the young women who have joined us.
Later on, we overhear Georgina explaining the English music system—absoLUTEly!—to some young men at the water tap. It is truly a thrill to see the new knowledge spread.
Here are scenes from just after the children have had lunch. We can tell because we can see their lunch boxes filled with food to take home.
What a group of beauties!
Christine, left, Jennifer, right
A slightly older student looking after some younger friends
We get a lesson in pounding peanuts into a paste to make the sauce that will be served on Friday
Estella holds the top of the pounding stick, we hold the bottom. She teaches us a song so that we can sing as we work together to keep us in time!
After lunch, we meet with the young women for another reading session. We split up into several groups of readers, and the classroom is alive with the sounds of lots of energetic, enthusiastic reading!
Ruben planted a papaya tree in his garden, and he got to eat one of the ripe fruits before he died. His wife JoAnn sells us one of the beautiful, fragrant fruits from the same tree.
We had a bittersweet moment when an old friend, Regina, brought her baby by to meet us. If you have read past blogs, you remember Regina's beautiful face. She is one of the first 100 children; we have known her since she was 5. She is now 13 and has a two month old baby.
Regina and two month old Karen.
Karen is very sweet and obliged us by waking up from a deep sleep at just the right moment to pose for this photo.
Just a bit later, Veronica brought by one of her three grandchildren to meet us. She laughed, saying at her age (early 40s) how could she have three grandchildren! She went on to explain that some of her children are still in school and really want to study, while others appear uninterested and seem content to live as they are. We all agreed that we offer what we can, and at a certain point each one makes her/his own choice. Our job is to meet each choice with compassionate acceptance.
We ended the day with a little photo practicing. We send you daily photos when we are here, and Theresa sends weekly photos when we are not. We had been commenting that it can be a fun game to play with light, shadow, composition, texture, etc. to offer a new view of the same things…
Like the tree behind and the nice light here.
Now how is it if we get the light behind us?
Shadow experiment didn't work so much but the action was pretty neat.
A new angle on the garden.
More fun tomorrow!