Ending an Adventure

So in some two hours I will be in a vehicle headed to Lilongwe. I have said good bye to the children here with out regrets. I will miss then greatly but I feel I have completed what I came here to do. We have had some fun time working on crafts and reading and hanging out for devotions and conversation. I have seen their lives and no they are being well cared for and will continue to be so.
I have completed the recording and inventory of the school libraries and left well labeled and repaired books with and excel database that is searchable. These are good things.

I have never been in a place where there is such enjoyable weather for so many days. I have never seen the quantity of beautiful sunsets that I see here on a daily basis anywhere else. I have rarely had so much enjoyment of the humor, foibles and random quirks of personality that I have experienced here.

Last night I shared devotions with the girls in Isaiah cottage. They are all mid teens and have a little adolescent attitude and sass.  However it is mild and not jaded with much worldliness and they have such good hearts. They are at the age where they like boys, probably too much for their own good as they are in a pretty closed environment and more then casual "looking" is not appropriate. If their dark faces showed a blush they would frequently. I am generally drawn most to the younger ones in the village but these girls are special.

I spent much time in class and out with the kids in standard 5. They are as a whole delightful. As a group they are smart and avid readers, individually they are just fun. The girls are quieter then many and seem content to do a craft or read a book and work hard at school. The boys are smiley, mischievous and while they no their boundaries in school and out they push them to the limit and are gracious and sheepish when they are pulled back.

Over all the children here are refreshingly unworldly and enjoy their life. Without access to internet and electronics they play with energy and imagination. They read books to explore new worlds. They are appreciative of small things. This is true across Rafiki villages and is a big reason why I enjoy my time here to much.

It is time to head home and I am dreading the travel but so ready to be in my own home again.

Gecko's and Books

So I have been reading a book out loud to the form 1 aka grade 9 students. It is titled "The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African. Written by Himself. Vol 1. I." It is quite and amazing story with a horrendous vocabulary. I have been trying to inspire students to use more colorful words in their writing. This guy needed no inspiration, lots of 5 dollar words. Normally I say quarter words but these are beyond that.
I am quite inspired that this mostly self taught man at least to the point we have covered in class could come to write such a grammatically involved and vocabulary rich work. 
Yesterday when I got home from bible study I turned on the light in my bathroom and there was my resident gecko darting toward the top of my shower. I screamed quite impressively if I do say so myself. Repeated the scream again an hour later when he dashed about again when I turned on the light. I have now named him Gustavus Vassa, or Gus for short. He seems to like it here and while I am not in love with the idea of having a house gecko, I do realize that they eat mosquitos, therefore I put up with him. I am thankful that he is a soft orange in color and only about 4 inches long. 
There are a variety of lizards and geckos around. Some are striped and move very very fast. Some have blue heads and like to sun themselves.
I am glad I haven't seen as many spiders as geckos. I read some paragraphs in a book today about spiders and it said that all spiders bite and are venomous to a degree. Most are not venomous enough to harm a person but with the size of the spiders around here I don't want to take any chances.
The books in this village are getting close to being completely inventoried. After the better part of 6 hours of entering data in excel I digressed to read about the spiders.
I have been hear a full month now and I actually know most of the kids by name and have an idea of what to expect from many of them. They are delightful and a piece or two of my heart will stay here when I leave.