Another picture of Santa

And a mix of staff kids and our girls.

Our Christmas Party - Thursday

All morning has been preparation for this party - our party at the home. There were lots of gifts for the girls as several churches collected gifts as well we received gifts from a couple of other groups that work with us and the First Lady's program sent a gift for each. While we prepared in the kitchen were roasting a turkey and a ham (donated), special rice, salad with apples and some other things. Just as we were ready to eat it rained very hard. Here to of the child care workers are covering the gifts.
We had 6 tables as all of the staff were there and their kids under 12. The flowers were saved from the 15th birthday celebration! The youngster mugging from the end of the table is Mariela's almost 5 year old. We used disposable plates left over from the 15th birthday [arty - a good idea, although this day we had water from the taps so cleanup was easy. (Today, Friday, we are without running water. Water is only available from one tap. We also collect rain water to flush the toilets.) After we ate the main course we got potato chips and other burandanga.
Here I am as Santa with Pati (Mariela's daughter) and Evelia. Esther, grinning at the left was my helper. Every girl received 5 or 6 gifts - a nice mix between clothes and toys.
Here I am without my cap. It was very hot with it. Behind us is the chapel, TV space and study space for the oldest who can study independently.
Here they are with their gifts and gaft certificated for $10 each that they can spend in Titan, a store where it is possible to buy a lot for a little. This morning after the graduation I took 4 to Titan to shop. It was a first for Rosa Mari. Her sister Yani helped her and she was able to sign her name with just a little help from me.

More to come over the weekend.

Graduation today

This is Yanitcias Graduation today. She graduated from 9th grade. I am 99% sure that she is the first person in her family to graduate from 9th. Maybe her father graduated from 6th but I am not sure. He can read and write. We arrive a few minutes late for her to march in but were there for the important parts - the most important the certificates (I think the word Diplomas is for graduation from High School and College.
Here some kids are receiving deplomas and as they come down friends and relatives are taking pictures and giving gifts.
Here Yani is receiving her certificate. Her sister Raquel and friend Leonela from the home have roses and flowers to give her.

Here we are after the ceremony. Each of us had a raspado (shaved ice with sweet flavored syrup and condensed milk - 25 cents each. Yani has two sister at the home with her. They have been with us for more than 9 years. The only family members who attended were those sisters. Even though her family lives not far away they all said they couldn't come. At the right is Rosa Mari, her younger sister at the home and next to her in green is Raquel, also her sister. Claro, the one with the 'diploma' and in uniform is Yani. She has 4 siblings older and 4 or 5 younger than Rosa Mari (11).

Tia Sue

THURSDAYS CHRISTMAS PARY PART II

Here are Evelia and Sini. Notice how we made Evelias too big shirt fit better.
In the background Evelia is conversing with the bear. She couldn't carry on a conversation in March.This could be her fist Christmas Party. Santa gave everone a big hug after giving out the gifts. The clown is there animating the entire party
Clown is checking to be sure that Graciela had behaved well this year.
Every girls also got a bag of personal care items.
Some of the girls put together a coreografi to one of the traditional Panamanian carols. We have a lot of these red T-shirts (sueters here) that say Telethon 20-30. Each year the 20 club raises money for an important social service (building a new maternay hospital, installing a 911 system) and we received these as a donation.

What a great party!

CHRISTMAS PARTY TIME

Just as the people from Phizer started arriving I had to take cookies to Sinildas school since her school party was today. By the time I got back face painting had started. This is Estefani. This party, which they give every year , is especially nice as each girl is invited to write a letter asking for three different things and also what she she would choose to ear from Pizza to MacDonalds.
Here is Dona showing off her face painting. The wite ribbon around the banister is a leftover from the 15th birthday party.
Daliana, Dona's sister.
There were lots of traditional Panamanian Party games with loud music and a lot of yelling and screaming. Santa was there and you can see the Clown in the background. The people from Phizer bring their own children. A few years ago one of the children had such fun that she asked to have her birthday party at the home instead of McDonalds and we did.
Slight blurry photo of the girls eating. For all of our staff and the staff and kids of Phizer we had a turkey and ham dinner with a delicious salad and special rice and semi-traditional potato salad.
I say semi-traditional because what I think of as traditional potato salad here is rosy pink with beets.

More pictures in another entry.

English Teachers give us a Christmas Party

The English Tachers of the San Miguelito school area gave us a Christmas Party last Thursday. Several of the teachers had taught some of our girls. Various teachers played games with the group - in English- such as fruit salad, head and shoulders. They had ampel snacks and a cake and soda and each girl received two gifts. There was also distribution of clothing.
Here is the gift table. The girls are in the background choosing clothes.
Here is Maria Isabel with her gifts. She always looks very serious when I take a picture.
This is the entire group. That is Karla posing in the front. Evelia was with her dad - because it was almost mothers day weekend. He came to visit with her because her mother isn-t in the picture.

Our Christmas Tree

Here are Carla and Maria Isabel helping choose the tree - a small tree from Canada - at a local Super Market - El Rey - the KING. We are outside and the young man behind is one of the store helpers. The smell of the needles is wonderful. I have a small branch near my bed.
We arrive at the home with the tree. The dog is Manchita - which means something like spotty. Her English name is Blackears. She is very attached to me and always greets the car when I drive up. While we were getting the tree Evelia and Estefany came home from school early. After setting it up we began to make decorations. The first project was paper chains.
As you can see the paper chains are not in evedence. I heared that they were damaged when the tree was moved. Maybe Evelia and Karla had a tug of war with them. Click on the picture to see the decorations more in detail. Many were made by the girls yesterday. The two young women are Rosalia and Eveliana. They asked me to take two pictures so they could each have one. They don-t know a lot about digital cameras!



Tomorrow we will have our second Christmas Party, given by the staff of Phizer here in Panama. One wonderful thing they do is ask each girl to write a letter naming three gifts they want and also what they would like for lunch from MacDonalds or another place. I will tell you tomorrow.



School is over for the year on Friday. Summer is coming but we still will have a bit more rain before then.



Blessings, Tia Sue

Mothers' Day

Yesterday was mothers'Day in Panama. It coincides with the fast of the immaculate conception and is a big holiday and also an official national holiday. All of our girls went to vist their families or friends of the home. I spent Friday night at the home and it is very quiet and peaceful there. The two dogs are always very happy to see someone. I think that Canella is too old to jump on me but manchita (spotty) just wiggles all over and jumps. We have had our first Christmas party - given by the public school English Teachers of San Migelito (the educational district we are in). Several of the teachers played games (in English). One was familiar Head and shoulders - to a different tune. Another was Fruit Salad with a peppy song about cut cut cut the apples etc. then FRUIT SALAD of 4 (where the players get into groups of the indicated number). The teachers gave out clothes and each girls got a gift. I have some pictures which I will post durig the week.

Childrens´Hospital Visit

Last night I read in the Miami Herold that Childrens´Hospital here is almost completely shut down so since Graciela had her appointment today I called her doc.

This is the 30th day of a medical doctors and dentists strike - the ones who work for the government and the ones we use for the kids. Graciels's doc is on strike but he saw her on the ward because she has to have her blood chemestry checked once a month. She is high in Phosporus which is the hardest to control. To help control it she has to take 3 calcium tablets immediately before she eats. These combine with phoporus (to make calcumphosphate I guess) and thus it doesn't get into her system. These appointments are long because we have to wait for the results of the test and have to be there early (6:30) to draw the blood. I learned a lot more about the treatment of kidney failure today!

Today was the last day of her mother's visit and after the appointment we took her mom to the National Bus Terminal so she could start her long trip back to Bocas del Toro.

Tomorrow all of the girls go home or visit a friend of the home for Mothers' Day which is a BIG holiday here on December 8th. We will then have 3 days off - if everything works as hoped.

I am off to bed.

Tia Sue

Suspension from school

One of our younger girls arrived home yesterday with a note from her teacher saying that she scratched a classmatesfacejust under her eye with a pencil. It caused a scratch and didnotdamage her eye - but it was close. The teacher asked that we take proper measures. After a talk with her and deciding that she was not going to have any pink cake for dessert I though and thought. I knew that if an older girl did this she would get a suspension. So, the girl got ready for school and I told her ¨I don't know if the school will let you stay today". We went in and I requested to talk to the principal. Before the girl came in I told him what happened and I asked for an official suspension of one day. He wrote one out stamped it and told her not to hurt classments. I told her that she couldn't goto school. As we were leaving she asked me " who is going to eat my snack?" I said " I don't know".

Usually at the home someone who is suspended has to work all afternoon. When we got back I announced that she was suspended. Everyone reacted appropriately and we sent her off to work with woman who cleans. Being very concrete and firm has worked well with her before.

I wonder if I am the first missionary to ask for a suspension for of her kids.

Tia Sue

Quinceañeras

Here are Graciela and her mother - whom she hasn't seen since April. She is one of the 5 girls from the home who celebrated their 15th birthday this year. Here in Panama the 15th birthday is the BIG one and we had a fabulous quinceañera party last night. There were a lot of people there and these are just some of the pictures that I will post eventually. All 5 of the girls were dressed alike for the start of the celebration which was a mass.
Here is Daliana and her escort entering the home after they changed into their party dresses. Each choose the color of her dress. They were made for them by a modista (dressmaker).
In this picture are Yanitcia (green), daliana, Graciela and Leonela with their escorts. Two of the escorts are sons of the cook and one of our child care workers, secundina.
Another view of the same five girls. The guys' ties match the dresses. This is a really authentic Panamanian 15th birthday celebration.
Yeribeth is in orange on the far right. She has spent almost all of her life with us (since 18 months) and she does have contact with her brothers and sisters and her mom.

quinceañeras

I have some pictures of the girls getting the home ready for the ig party we had last night! We will see what comes up - but tomorrow or tuesday there will be more picts. In the top pic some of the girls are painting. Below, our two youngest are helping unload the 'legs' of the table. The one in front is Carla.

Independence day from Spain - 1821

Today is the last holiday in a month of holidays. If you want to learn more about Panama´s two independence days check out www.padremickey.blogspot.com.

We had a fun time this morning - I taught the girls to fold paper and cut a star. We started using magazine pages so as not to waste paper and then moved on to paper, glitter and glue. Raquel, who is in 8th grade also showed them some nice Kirigami she learned from one of my books. I am dreaming of having a christmas tree decorated only with things the girls have made! School is about over - so there will be more time to do arts and crafts and I have a number ready.

This evening 10 or 12 of the girls, the ones 12 and older, are going to a dance recitle. (My English spelling is getting worse and worse.) I am going with the Sr. Pancho, our driver is driving. It starts at 7:30, lasts quite a while and then we are going out for Ice Cream.

The younger kids will watch TV!

Tia Sue

Graduation is coming

Yes, graduation is coming but this first picture is Sinilda, who has jsut learned to read this year with our two kindergarten kids. She was reading to them but I didn't get a picture of that as Evelia wanted to be the center of attention. Karla and Evelia are holding their babies. Sinilda and her sister Maria are the first woman to learn to read in their family.
Graduation from 9th grade here includes each student painting a picture an a school uniform shirt and then getting autographs. This is Leonela with hers.
Yeri showing off her shirt. Yeri has lived at the home for almost all her life. She is 15 and graduating from 9th grade. I have the reading book she learned from in 1st. grade.
Leo with the autographs. She said there was not enough room to fit all of them.
Estefani, Maria Isabel, Evelia and Guiselle (Estefani's older sister) and others waiting to go to see a movie last Saturday.

School is over on the 14th of December and the graduation at 7AM on the 21. We have two big events before that - a quincenera next Saturday (watch for pictures here) and a concert on the 19th. There will also be Christmas parties, our Christmas party and more.

Tia Sue

Thanksgiving Sunday

This is a busy weekend for me. It was Thanksgiving at St. Pauls and we had traditional decorations of harvest time: Palm trees, papaya, pineapple, granadilla, banana, platino, suger cane and some corn. All of this bounty will be picked up by the girls' home tomorrow - that is where I live and work.

We will have a wonderful abundence of food for in additon to this food from St. Pauls' we will receive Thanksgiving Sunday Decorations from several other churches. You can see pictures of the decorations at www.padremickey.blogspot.com.

Tia Sue

Maybe this is why I am blogging less!

Apologies for being a slow blogger - but we have had a very busy and tiring last few weeks and with 25 girls this year and the average age lower things are much busier.

I have three girls who I have taken the responsibiity for see to their health/mental health. One is Graciela the young woman (15) who is on dialysis, one is a a 13 year old who has some mental health issues and the third is 8 and has some skin problems that have to be cleared up before she can have some sores in her mouth cauterized - a day surgery proceedure. Graciela has a monthly appointment and we have to be there at 6:30 so she can have blood drawn and the doc can see the results before we leve - 8 or 9 hours later. She usually has a cpiple of other appointments on the same day as we have to prepare a special diet and she has a lot of warts on her hands and wrists which are getting treated now. I am always worn out on the day we have to get up at 5 to be there on time. The mental health appointments are usally set for 8 or 9 - but any blood tests that have to be drawn while the child is fasting are early. I have not had a lot of success getting any of the girls appointments all on the same day - and in some cases that might turn out hard to manage because of the size of the hospital.

We also have more kids who have missed out on a year or seveal years of school - and most - maybe all of them need extra help - especially in math and often in Spanish. Right now I am working with 4th graders on correct use or the regular verbs (ar, er, ir amor, comer, vivir for example) in the present , past and future. In math subtraction when there are 0s in the number being subtracted from are a challenge. By third grade (the end) the kids are expected to know the multiplication tables thru 9 and be able to do multiplication with two diget numbers. And then there is short and long division, decimels, fractions (adding, subtracting etc.), and basic geometry. So I am busy.

I'm busy at St. Paul's as well. We have a good, enthusiastic and talented priest in charge - and this year many things have changed - not to the liking of all. We started feeding hungry people at the start of the year and that has grown. It is so nice to come down from the service and find 4 youth making the tuna sandwiches to feed the hungry. I put all the stuff to make them with out before the service. Some of them help me give it out. I started haveing a group prayer today. We started out using two cans of tuna a week and making 12 sandwiches - next week we will have to go to 5 cans of tuna and three loaves of bread! They also get a package of four cookies and a juice box. There are three families included, a number of people who are homeless and some others who are living on the edge financially. It has been a year since we first statred considering this and I have to write a report for the vestry meeting next week. We also give out bags of basics to these same people on the 4th Sunday. We also give 6 bags of basics to 6 others in the congregation. We prepare them and someone who knows who needs them gives them out. The bags for the people who have no place to live are the most challenging because it is hard to find food that doesn't need to be cooked, that they can open, and that is nutricious.

School will be over for the year in about 4 weeks - December 14th. We have one girl (Eveliana) finishing 6th grade. She has done well this year and is studying independently. This is the youngster who I taught to read 4 years ago. We have three who will graduate from 9th grade. Yeribeth (who has grown up at the home from age about ), Yanitcia (also with us a long time - all her school life) and Leonela ( she has been with us for Jr. High). We have a concert later in December, our Christmas Party and others and then all of the girls will go somewhere for the holidays and the first part of January. January will bring the Diocesian Youth Camps as well.

No photos today because I am using a MAC and my memory stick won't fit!

Tia Sue

News from the Home

Here are some of the girls jumping rope in our patio. You can see that they have worn a bald spot in the lawn.

Now that I have learned again how to do this there will be more news. This month of November is the month of patriotoc celebrations such as indipendence day, flag day. All of the girls are visiting someone for the log weekend. They are returning Monday evening.

School is almost over / there are only 6 or 7 weeks left. All three of the first graders are reading and doing addition and subtraction.

Love, Tia Sue

A little news

I spent last weekend at wonderful Canopy Lodge in el Valle celebrating my 67th birthday, enjoying many beautiful birds and very good food. Our director has returned from her vacation so we are working as a team again - whew. I still have not mastered putting in a photo but there is one in my August entries. We are busy. Having 25 girls (17 are in Primary school) is a lot more responsibility and work that the 18 we had last year. At some points I am helping 4 or 5 kids at the same time - each doing something different. They learn to wait. Good news: Rosa has begun to work with me while I am working with other kids at the same table. This means that I can give her a lot more help. Last week she learned to know when she needed to borrow in subtraction and when not! She is also reading and was reading out loud from a 1st grade reading book - the beginning - we have waited for this for a long time. She is 11 and her mental age is 6 to 7 and she is learning the things a kid of 6 to 7 would be learning!! Our little Evelia is a handfull and when the director cme back Rosa told the directort: "When I was two and I did something wrong Tia Sue put me in a chair. You need to do that with Evelia". I have been using that technique and others and Evelia is making a lot of progress.

Blessings, Tia Sue

Monday -school pickups

I was the driver to pick up the primary kids from school today - which takes most of the afternoon. Tehn I worked with Rosa Mari on counting 2 by 2 to 20 and do subtraction with borrowing. After that it was Genesis and ordinal numbers and then Dona and simplifying fractions.

Graciela had an appointment with the nutricionista today which went well. Tomorrow I take Maria Isabel to the dermatologo.

I am learning how to give injections. A new skill.

Tia Sue

A weel later..........

Things are good at the home. The girl I spent the night with at the hospital last Saturday has some more tests and she has a stomach acid problem. We will continue to work on this. She is taking some acid reducer and an antibiotic and is on a very restricted diet!

I have a new cat friend (Luna walked away on day about a month ago and didn't come back) and a new car! The cat is Fire Cat and is wonderfully soft and affectionate. The car is a Kia Picanto - a small silver hatch back with power steering and automatic shift which is makeing my left knee better with no clutch and the power steering is easier on the shoulders.

Last Sunday was the anniversary of my 10th year here as a missionary. I didn't get to church to be blessed as I spent until 2AM at Children's Hospital with one of the girls - a fitting way to celebrate 10 years!

There was little school last week as Wednesday was the celebration of the founding of Panama City in 1519. After helping a lot of Primary students learn about this event I will not forget that Panama means an abundance of fich, butterflies and the Panama Tree!

Saturday moring was the last Saturday of Social Service work from girls at LaSalle High School (Colegio La Salle) and they had a moring of games, dances and more games. The game 'pull up the yuca' in which a girl grabs a post and holds on very tight and then others form a line behind her and try to break her hold on the poll. Evelia (oe of our 5 year olds) loved it. Karla (the other 5 year old) wisely stayed on the sidelines most of the time. Yuca is a root vegtable and is hard to pull up! It is what tapioca is made from.

Rosa is learning to read along with three others beginning readers!!!! Among them the teachers are using 3 different methods of teaching so that they all need a different kind of help!

Blessings, Tia Sue

Sunday News

I spent a lot of last night at Children's Hospital with one of the girls - something I have done quite a bit over the years. She felt bad all day but didn't tell anyone until about 8 PM - so we ended up getting back at 2AM! I have slept a lot today. She has gastrites. I will have to look into things a bit more tomorrow.

A new cat has entered my life. He is an adolescent and is a gold tabby. He has been here just a couple of hours and is rubbing against me, purring, eating, drinking and has used the cat box. He has been in a loving home for the past 2 months and was clearly a pet when he was found at the ministry of health buildings - he had a collar and had already been castrated. I have not didcovered his name yet!

My wonderful cat friend Luna who was with me almost 10 years left the house (he was an indoor and outdoor cat) and didn't come back about a month ago. I have many wonderful pictures of him with my new digital camera.

I'll try to report again soon and also get some more pictures on.

Blessings, Tia Sue

Hello again!

Hi - Here is my first picture on the blog! This is almost all of the girls (three were at acolyte training) with the La Salle students who had been doing 80 hours (quite a few Saturdays) of social service at the home on Saturday mornings. They help girls with home work of learn things they missed at some point in the past - many to do with arithmetic. We have another group now who have three Saturdays left.

I am learning how to put more pictures on and will write more later!!

Blessings, Tia Sue

More Report Cards

It has taken a long time, since the first bimester ended the 18th of May,but we have 23 of the 24 report cards. Yesterday and today I went to the Primary School Republica de la India to get the cards from the 6 of our girls who go there. Sinilda and Maria Isabel, who when they came to us in January needed to learn how to use all the tools of school in a crash pre-school and kindergarten course have done very well in 1st grade. Their teacher had nothing but good things to say about them and their grades were fine. They both can draw well (and neither could draw anything when they first came)and one teacher mentioned the delicate drawing that Maria makes. As a reminder these two girls are the first women in their family to ever go to school!

Enibeth´s teacher´s (3rd grade) first comment was that she is in the clouds all the time, isn't paying attention. This is similar to much of her behavior in the home. She doesn´t want to study. Here grades were mediocher - but with no failures. ( My English spelling is getting worse and worse).

This afternoon my friend Amando built a duo-decahydron out of paper so I would know how to do it. The way we made it it looks a lot like a sphere. Two of the kids in 9th grade have to build a cone, cylinder and a sphere. Dr. Math tells me that it is not possible to make a sphere from paper. I found two ways, but the thing we built today really had 20 triangular sides, but becasue each side is a triangle within a circle and the edges are folded out it looks really sphere like.

Graciela needs glasses. She has been having a lot of head aches and finally yesterday I took her to an opticion and it is quite likely that her astigmatism in her left eye is causing some or all of the headaches. She should get her glasses next week.

Today I received the report cards of one in 4th grade and two in 5th. We have one more to get - 8th grade - but I would probably faint if she had a failure. That means that only one of our girls had any failures for the first bi-mester.

Estefany has improved a lot in reading - she is 9 and in first grade and has some learning challenges in language (but is better in math). I have worked with her almost every day and she is reading a lot of words and writing them too. I make a lot of vocabulary cards with the word on one side and some kind of little picture on the other side. The beginners can read the word and then check to see if they are right or they can look at the picture and write the word.

Estefany qualifies for special ed help because of her age and difficulties. The best part of this is that she will get a speech and language evaluation as well as eye and hearing test - free. God surely had a had in this as the director and I and Estefany were at the offices if IPHE (Special Ed) trying to get her inscribed and while the director was talking to verious people with no progress, one of the social workers there saw Estefany and I in the waiting room and started to talk to us. I gave a pitch for why I wanted Estefany tested and we received an immediate visit with the speach and labgusge person, got Estefany enrolled (even though she was born in Costa Rica and has no Panamanian identity numer) and an appointment both for vision and hearing.

More later. Tia Sue

This and that

Little Evelia is learnng / some things good and others we wish she wasn-t learning. She was pulling books off the book shelf this morning and one of the girls called to the child care worker, Judith. Mrs. Judith, Evelia is pulling books off the book case. Very clearly Evelia said / Shut up! *(all was in Spanish of course). On the other hand she can now put together the farmyard puzzle with no help / it is a one piece per hole in a nice farmyard scene / but this is progress. She is also using the lego type big blocks and building things. And, tonight I was very happily surprized. I was playing a picture bingo with Estefani and her older sister and had Evelia on my lap. She actually was able to spntaneously name a picture of a shoe on one tile! This is real progress from 3 and 1/2 months ago when she could-nt name objects and I wasn't sure how much she could see.

This morning I helped a ninth grader in spanish! She is studying poetry and she didn't understnad what she was susposed to do. She needed to learning what various conventions poets use were / each had a name *such as using opposits, describing some thing using other things "the sheep looked like a cloud with little feet' and then after reading some lines of poetry by Panamanian and other Central american poets look at the underlined section and identify what convention the poet was using.

After that came Dona, in 5th grade, puzzled about Statistics / most specifically bar graphs. In her class room the kids don't have math books so she had copied everything that the teacher had written on the board and was confused / I would have been too. I found a math book that taught the same material, we made a bar graph together / she had a little quiz and did well.

She was also studying for an English quiz on some kinds of food / which included, boxes of cookies, a dozen eggs, a carton of milk, as well as orange, meat etc.

That gives you an idea about some of the things I do daily!

More later

Tia Sue

Fathers Day

The girls are all visiting family or friends of the home. At St. Paul's we had a wonderful and typically Panamian celebration. We honered 4 men who have been fathers in the church for many years but who are elderly. Cecil Haynes worked for the Panama canal for so many years that he received special recognition from President Clinton for being the person who work for the US Federal Government for the longest time. He is 93 now and still going strong.

One of the other honorees, now blind, used to play his harmonica at church for peoples birthdays and special days. He gave use to nice harmonica renditions.

The girls will return tomorrow morning.

Tia Sue

Fathers' Day is coming

All of aur girls are going to visit somewhere for the fathers´day weekend. And the very best is that Evelia's dad is coming from Yavisa in the Darien to see her - the first time since she joined us in March. She is five and has talked to her many times on the phone. He is going to be very surprised I think because she is talking a lot - and wasn't very much when she came. She is also more healthy and she has more energy as her hemeglobin count has improved.

Since I've been back I have been developing a 'program' for her and for Carla (our other 5 year old). I pick out and put in a folder 3 little projects - coloring, cutting, pasting etc and one of the girls who have little homework work with them on these for an hour then Guissell reads a story to them. She is in third grade and her teacher suggested that she read outlound each day. After that they go with some age appropriate toys to play in another area and they have one girl with them, since they are still developing play together skills. This has cut down on screamng and tantrums a lot!

Tia Sue

We are making progress in reading

Just before I left for my vacation in May I realised that Estefani was not catching on to reading. I though that during the month I was away this might happen but when I got back June 1st she was more confused than before. So, I started an immediate attempt to help her. Basically she had not caught on that the letters were the clue to what the word was and not the expression on my face. She said a word and looked at me expectantly - the word was almost always not what was written. I tried with letters on little pieces of heavy paper - but the confusin continued. Spanish is almost 99 percent phonetic and the kids start by learning the 5 vowel sounds (there are only 5 - one sound for each vowel - a bit different than English. After they learn them consonants are added one at a time. She knew the sound for the consonants well but when it came to the consonants, even when we were concentrating only on M, P and L she was confused. My first plan with the letters on heavy paper was a bust - but I tried another approach - first teaching her that at this point each consonant need a vowel next to it and then lots of practice. Today she was able to read correctly 10 or 12 words (all nouns) using the letters M-P-L-S- and N abd then write them. We have a little pile of cards with a picture on one side and the word on the other. Today Maria Isabel (also in 1st grade) joined us and she did well too. The words are mamá, papá, luna (moon), puma (the animal puma) mapa (map) etc. This is a real break through for her. She is one of the girls who has been/is being tested and as I though she is very weak in verbal skills. On the other had she loves numbers and is doing beginning addition and subtraction.

All the girls are going somewhere for Father's day so the home will have no one but myself and the dogs for 48 hours. A number of the girls don't have dads as part of their lives but will enjoy a visit with relatives, with one exception - and she has a nice place to go visit.

More later, Tia Sue

Friday is our BIG ironing night

On Wednesdays and Fridays the girls have to iron their school uniforms and the dresses that they will wear to church on Sunday. All but 4 of the girls can iron their own things - that includes Johana and Kenia who are 9 and in 4th grade. Every wednesday they iron two white blouses of their school uniform BUT on Friday they have to iron 3 blouses and two skirts as well as their Sunday clothes and for the acolytes their robes. Since each girl has 5 school items and we have 24 girls at the least we iron 120 things. 4 of the older girls iron the clothes of the 4 youngest.

I have been working hard with Estefani (age 9 in 1st grade) with beginning reading and I think we are making some progress. She doesn't have a big frown on her face and I have finally found a way for her to practice where she can have success a lot of the time. I don´t like having the kids fail over and over nor practice things doing them in the wrong way.

This morning I spent a good bit of my time helping Genesis with division and then study for a quiz in Social Science - rivers in Panama and people and the use of natural resources. We made flow charts of what she was studying.

The teacher of one of our third graders suggested that she read outloud so we have done that the last two days. I think it will improve her reading. I also reveiwed the quiz book (the notebook in which they take all their quizes of one of out fourth graders and it is clear that she needs more help in learning how to study and studying - especially in Natural Science, Social Science and Spanish. They are all connected!

Next week I am going to Leon A. Soto Jr. HIgh (as they call it in English Class) to hear about our 6 girls there in 7th, 8th amd 9th grades. I have heard that one of our 8th graders is skipping classes and also not handing in her homework - so we shall see. Please pray for her (Raquel) as she presents us with a lot of challenges here as well.

Hope to write a bit more on the weekend.

Tia Sue

Just three days later and look all we are doing.

It is Wednesday and the last thee days have been busy. We have one adolescent and a group of three primary students who are receiving grief counseling. There is a Foundation here that provides it and they are very good. The cost is very reasonable and those of you who have made danations to my work are helping to support this. We have a number of girls who have had either their mother or father die. Part of my work here is arranging this and taking the girls to the appointments. This week we had an appointment on Monday and another today - for the group.

Since on Monday the Oragization of American States met here in Panama there was no school for any of our girls. Since we usually don't have a child care worker during the afternoon school time (12 to 5+) it fell to the secretary, myself and Eva who washes and takes care of clothes. We ate lunch a little later. Then we had a siesta - on the bed and quiet. I was in the room with the youngest and next to the room of the next oldest and after a few admonishments things worked out. After that Beni (our secretary) made bracelets with the older girls and I did a play time and arts and crafts with the youngest. For snack time we had the birthday cake for the girls with birthdays in May.

Tuesday was a 'normal' school day. We did homework and reinforcement in the morning and all the girls left for school at noon as usual. Two came back because theirteachers weren't there and we worked hard to math and reading on the third and first grade level. Estefany (in 1st grade - but 9) is very good in math and we played a new game which involved adding and chance. It was possible to get a good score and then lose it all because it was temping to toss the dice again and a losing combination came up.

Today I worked with Graciela - our most recent additon studying science. She is in 5th grade. They are learning about diseases of the excretory system and hygiene of the same. Then off to the therapist with the little group. Also we started having several of the girls tested by a psychologist - these are girls who seem to have more difficulties in learning than some of the others. Two more will be tested on Friday. The psychologist comes here to do the tests.

Our director is in a week long seminar about raising resources for our kind of program. We had lunch together and she says the seminar is very good.

Then I went to one of the primary schools to pick up the first report cards of the year. We have 10 girls in this school, Arebe de Egypto, and the 8 who are above kinder received cards. All did did quite well. All with have an average of 79 or 80 and up to the high 90s. Johana and Kenia have 4th and 5the places in their classrooms.

More later.

Tia Sue

I am back in Panama

After a very long time not writing and the entire month of May in Philadelphia (2 days in NYC) I am rested and back in Panama as of Thursday evening.

We are now 24 with the addition of Graciela, age 14 or 15 (I'm not sure) who has spent the last three years living at Children's Hospital here on peritaneal dialysis. Now she is living with us and has already spent a week in school. She is in 5th grade and although there was a teacher a the Hospital she is in the same grade she was in when she entered the hospital. I have already started to work with her on academics as she has a number of holes to fill - the multiplication tables (why can't we be born knowing them?) and other stuff in math - but she is eager to learn. While she was at the hospital the clothes she wore daily were hospital pajamas so it must seem very different to get up and dressed in regular clothing each day. She was presented a a new person at church today and psrticipated very well with a nice smile.

I went to St. Paul's, which is the church I attend, and was a usher. It was good to be back. Our Bishop was there and that is always nice. After that I went over to the Cathedral where the girls attend. It is the first Sunday in June so the service was bi-lingual and at 10 for everyone. The girls go to the 8 AM service usually. The girls all looked lovely and our two youngest Evelia and Carla - both 5 had on really precious dresses.

While in Philly I bought a digital camera (Canon) and the next step is to get pictures into this blog.

Tomorrow I resume taking girls for grief counseling. We have a number who have lost a parent. Right now a teenager is getting individual sessions and there is a small group of 8 and 9 year olds who have group therapy. It is my job to take them to the appointments.

Love, Tia Sue

Update

Wow, when I signed in to write my blog was in German! Not what I have written but everything else. Here we are at the first Sunday after Easter. And here is a little update.

It is the rainy season - has been since the beginning of April , although today we have not had rain yet. Leaves are coming out, the piper is flowering, in the patio of the home we are seeing green grass coming up. The patio got an especially hard workout this summer and was very brown and dry - so we shall see how it comes back. We had a lot of adolescents doing their social work at the home and so a lot of extra soccer games as well as volleyball. They played along with our kids. Now I can see green grass poking its way up and I wonder if we will have the lush patio we have had in the past.

We now have 24 girls officially on the role. One didn't return from Easter Weekend as yet (and may not I think - she is 14 and her mother placed her at the home so she could go to school and be in a safer place - but that is a hard transition for someone who has had fairly unsurpervised access to stores and all the alure of city life - even as unsafe as the area she was living in was. I hope she has returned to the Darien with her mother if she isn't coming back to us. While she was with us she got some badly needed dental work done.) and two were admitted on Thursday. There is one more girl in the paperwork stage. We have 32 beds - but we use one for an adult to sleep with the youngest kids (we have two 5 year olds) and we probably won't go over 30. If we get to 30 that will be the most since I have had contact with the home - which is now 19 years!

School is in full swing. This year MEDUCA (the ministry of education) is comitted to have improved education. So far there have been very few days when even one girl has not had school because of teacher absence. There isn't now and has not been a substitute system here.

Our two new girls are sisters ages 12 and 13 and as with every girl we have admitted this year (2007) that is 9 they are very out of synch with their education. Both are just starting 4th grade and both are well below grade level in arithmatic and one has a lot of problems reading. She says her teacher in her previous school says that she needs glasses - so we will be checking that out. These two girls also are very thin - but some time with us will improve that as we serve nutricious food and often have snacks. Everyone gets a glass of milk a day (this may seem little to some of you). The milk program is a gift from one of the friends of the home. We buy long-life milk at 70 cents a quart. Fresh milk would be a little less but it goes off easily here so this is better. A serving for each takes 5 quarts! a day. We also use some of it on cereal and in the breakfast drink. Ideal (evaporated milk) also goes into the morning drink.

Our morning study time (from 8AM to 10:30) is very full for the staff. Often one of us is working with 2 to 4 girls at once - and they can be in 4 different grades. I do a lot of remedial work in arithmatic, work on the girls mastering the times tables and improving their addition and subtraction skills and multiplication and division. There are four (ages 10 to 14) who have not mastered even very basic division so we spend time placing pennies and other things in groups and going on from their. If, in addition to this they are just memoring their multiplications tables I teach them the 2s, 5s, 3s and then start using those to practic doing multiplication on the grade level. In 4th grade they are learning to do such as 235 x 21.

I also have learned most of 7th grade math and some of the algebra that is used in 8 and 9th grade.

Our three first graders (ages 7, 9 and 10) are doing fairly well. Our 9 year old had been to kindergarten 4 years ago and then not back in school, but she has an older sister who had finished 2nd grade and so she is doing well in 1st. The two girls, ages 7 and 10, who are the first females in their family to go to school, are going ok - especially since when they came to us in mid January they only preschool skill they had was coloring.

I'll be in Philadelphia for the month of May.

Tia Sue

A brief up date.

I have a lot to write about and hope to do so this weekend. Here is a brief update! We have two new girls who came in yesterday. They were sent to us by a judge because of serious family problems. The are 12 and 13 and are in 4th grade. It looks as if the older has some learning problems / she reverses letters and leave out vowels. Her sister, younger, seems not to have any learning problems but both of them are behind in math for entering 4th grade / they don-t know division at all. So, there will be a lot of nivilacion / which means leveling. We have about 8 highschool kids doing their social service on Saturday morning so they will help.

Palm Sunday

Today is palm Sunday. We have a new interim priest at St. Paul's - and it is clear it is a new day. First we had a procession with palms aound the block that the church sits on - I have been there 10 years and this is the first for that. The block has the countrie's best public High School on one side but the rest of it is inner city. Many people participated including Daisy Letts who is 89 or 92 or so. That was not the only change. This is the first Sunday of the month and that means ENGLISH. But we had a bilingual service. The verses of the hymns alternated Spanish English, we did the Lord's prayer together in both languages and many other things that that would be in English were partially in Spanish. A woman priest who is not serving as an active priest now but who served at St. Paul's in the past was invited by our new Interim, Glenda, to come up as co (or con) celebrate with her at the alter. Diana did not have vestments and celebrated in regular clothes. Our Sr. Warden explained at the end of the service that it was not out of order for Diana to celebrate in regual clothes I think it is a good new start for St. Pauls. We have Glenda for 2 years by which time we are to call a rector. Although she is serving at St. Pauls, she is also the church development director for the entire diocese of Panama!

I am doing my weekend care of the 3 dogs and 4 cats at my friend Lizzy's house. She is in the states until the end of April. Olivia, who is about 7 moths old was by report mated with a number of times during the week, including by her father - who is a Huskey! Olivia has a skin infection inside her outer ear and also around the base of the ear. I bought some antibiotic cream for it and she was very cooperative while I washed it with agua oxiginada (which is something I can't remember ) and put on the cream. It has something in it to cut down on itching as I think she is scratching.

I think Olivia is pregnant because her nipples are more prominent. I can't tell with Natasha.

The young woman on Dialysis from Children's hospital has spent the weekend with us. On Saturday around noon when I left all of the tutors (from a couple of different high school doing their required 80 hours of social service) and all our girls were in a circle around our two kindergarten kids who were dancing. That must have been very different than life in the hospital for the last 3 years. Her mother at first was not going to be bothered to sign her out of the hospital to come live with us. Then we got a call that she was coming down to Panama City and Elba (the director) and I went to the Hospital to tak to her on Friday. She did agree to sign and also Elba asked her not to disapear from her daughters life. We took her out to the home with her daughter (who stayed for the weekend) We are going to try to get some help from church people in Bocas so that the young woman could go home a visit for a weekend. ( she can skip dialysis occasionally. She is on peritoneal dialysis and it is done at night while she sleeps - this will take place at the home.) Her home is in Finca 4 which Joellen (a nurse missionary who directs the medical mission program of the Episcopal Church here) says is near Changuinola. It turns out that the family are Ngobe! (One of the 7 different tribes of indiginas here. We have girls at the home from three of the tribes Our newest resident will move in right after Easter. That is because everyone at the home will visit someone for Maundy Thursday through the late afteroon of Easter day. I will be here in Gamboa with the animals from Thursday night.

Last week I went to classroom visit at the other primary school, Escuela Republica de India. We have four girls there and we got some hints one how to work with the 1st graders who are learning the vowels and are about to start to learn to put consonants with them.

Tia Sue

The Third week of School

Everyone went off to school today including one of the girls who returned to live at home last year and needs one more year to graduate from 9th grade. We are right now suppoting 24 kids in school. A gift from All Saints Episcopal Church in Verginia Beach has been a big help with school expenses. The Sunday School children and teens had bake sales and sold subs for Superbowl weekend. The proceeds of that was donated for school expenses - just when we really needed them. Every girl in school needs her uniforms, black shoes, socks of the proper color according to level in school - plus they students have to supply everything else - textbooks, paper, pencils. Sometimes they help paint the school. We still may have a few more girls befor the end of March or even into April. A BIG Thank youto the Sunday School at All Saints Episcopal.

FIRST TWO WEEKS OF SCHOOL

Hi. If you want to see some pictures of the girls go to www.padremickey.blogspot.com and check out Red Mr. Peanut Bank and Gallito Mescalito blogging.

A fun thing that is happening is that one of the girls starting school late (she is 10 and in 1st grade) is already showing signs of being a teacher. She is showing one of our kinder kids what she is learning. A E I O U and counting and writing numbers to 10. Spanish is very phonetic - each vowel has only one sound! Most kids learn to read, some very quickly with this method. After they have learned the 5 vowels they will start with the consonant M. ( I CANT PUT TILDES ON WORDS HERE SO BEAR WITH ME) and with that one consonant they can read Mama me ama. Mother loves me. And Amo a mi mama. I love my mother.

We have three in 9th grade and they are taking Algebra. I am rereading and studying Algebra for Dummies and am understanding it much better after my last two months tutoring one of our girls to pass her 8th grade math (which she failed last year). She did pass and I know a lot more math! Still, Algebra is not my forte.

One friend has expressed worry about my crossing the narow foot bridge, I talked about below - but I feel very confident with my cane. It is mauch harder descending muddy, slippery, and steep slopes in the rainy season - I use two canes for that!

Since August we have been working to get therapy for one of our girls - and it looks like she will start on Monday. I will be transporting her. Other good news is that at the grief counseling center the therapist will have 8 small group sessions for our three 8 and 9 year olds who have lost one parent in recent years. Getting this set up and keeping it going is one of my special ministries.

I found out last Saturday that one of our girls who is now living at home has not started 9th grade as she should have because of lack of resources. Yesterday I was able to wave to her and talk to her older sister and if all goes well she will come to the home tomorrw morning, we will get her matriculated and set up with school supplies and back on track only 2 weeks late.

Tia Sue

Now we are 22!

Today I took a 6 year old (with the reddish hair of vitimine A deficiency) to her local health clinic. The day before our driver reviewed with me how to get from where I was picking her up to the clinic and I also practiced crossing the river on a 2 foot wide bridge made of cement without handrails or steps to get up or down to it. I did well and it was a piece of cake this morning. Although we were at the clinic for 4 hours we say the nutricionist who cave some council, will provide a nutritive drink, got her paracite meds (which are free to indiginas and kinds 5 and under), iron suppliment (also free), we registered her at the health center, transfered her vaccination info to a new health card with her correct name, and she got another vaccination. Her mother has promised to take her and her 11 month old younger half brother there on Monday to do lab work and I hope get a food supplement for him. The girls father died s few years ago from snake bite. I bet you don't get that often where you work.

The sisters with the mouth virus (one has a heart murmer) have an appointment at Children's Hospital on Thursday. Also, Graciela (that is whom I probably mentioned, will come to visit the home for the weekend - off dialysis for two days. She will get to meet the kids and I hope enjoy the visit a bit. . Then, after Easter I hope she can move in quickly so she can get going in school.

We have a new 5 year old who is a handfull but she has a brillient smile. She is in Kinder and is starting a the beginning as she has had no school experience or experience with older sisters as our other kinder girl has.

The three in first grade (all three entereing the grade later in life than usual ) are doing well. All three can write their names and seem to like school.

It is very lively around here with 22 girls 14 in Primary and the rest in secondary, especially in the morning when they are all doing their homework - something I am very involved with. We have girls in every grade from Kinder to 9th with the exception of second. I give a lot of help in math, some in English and some in Spanish - especially reading and reading comprehension.

Now we are 21

Now we are 21 and so far this evening none of the sick girls are very sick - no fevers, rashes or blue finger tips! The 3 sick kids all seem better tonight. We have 21 girls now with a new teen named Loris, age 14 from the Darien region. She will start secondary school, that is 7th grade and we found a place for her in a school where we have two good students - a good example.

Our three first graders, all who for one reason or other are starting 1st grade later in life than expected, are doing well. Sinilida can copy a short sentence from the board and tonight copied, in cursive (which is what they teach first here) the names of many of the other girls. One of the older girls iniciated it and it was a nice interaction. I have found that showing them how to write something or practice something in pre-writing goes very well with practice on a white board or black board (a small one about 2 feet by 2 1/2 feet) really helps.

One of the new girls, now in 3rd grade, who has bot been to school for a year or two, seems to have missed introductory multiplication in 2nd grade - so we are going to start with it after dinner.

Tia Sue

School has begun!!!!

Yes, school started yesterday and only one of our 20 girls was without a teacher the first day. Today, everyone was at school. The three in first grade (two of the three are 7 and 10 and have never been to school before and the other is 9 and went to kinder 4 years agao and then no more school!) are doing well. Sinilda can write her first name and 6 weeks ago she could scarcely copy a circle. It is only the second day but they come home happy and are doing their homework. We will be 21 girls tomorrow with a new 14 year old from the Darien part of Panama (that is the part towards Columbia) who has been out of school at least two years. She will go to 7th grade. It is nice to have the 5 hours of quiet in the afternoon to do things, prepare some teaching materials etc.

We are however having several kids with fairly high fevers that are hard to get down so I made two different trips to the doctor today. I deal with the kids who have something acute or that needs immediate attention, in my opinion.

After 9 days with abundant water we have been two more days without water!

Tomorrow I chair the first meeting of a group at my church which will begin to develop a ministry for people of the church who are homeless or nearly so. My plan is to define who we are serving (for me it is more than homeless men), what things need doing and what we should/could begin with, and find a name in Spanish that is more enclusive than "ministry to homeless men".

Blessings, Tia Sue

A wonderful water park day.

Thirty three of us had a great day at El Camping Resort water par - about 20 minutes away. This DOES NOT mean they we have a really big increase in kids since yesterday! We invited the staff and their primary school kids and a few other people. Our great driver, Sr. Pancho, finured out just who would sit where and had the kids lined up and then sent them one by one to their seat - or to the lap of someone. WE got everyone in the van and the car. Actually, we were 34 as our cook brought her 6 months old grand daughter! We arrived at 10 (the opening hour) and since we had a group over 30 and had made reservations we received a big discount on the lunch (big hotdog or big hamburger with fries and a soft drink). Everyone had the opportunity to choose thier lunch form those choice beforehand - an experience they don't have very often.

Since a lot of the kids were in primary we staked out a place near the main kids pool area. This is an awsome pool. There are three slids of different hights and lengths, and a structure in the middle with steps and a slide to escape on. Water is shooting out of every possible place - holes in various places. There is also a long pipe running out with a cascade of water falling. Around all of this is a lazy river which has ring shaped flotes. Also some people can float on their own (sy delf for example). Some of the kids swim around it and it is also possible to walk in the water - with the current and against the current. There is a big central pool, a wave pool and three big, high slides of varying speeds.

At lunch time we were served our lunch in the wave pool area. At three we all got a soft ice cream - and again there was a choice of vanilla or fresa (thats strawberry).

There was not once that I had to speak to any kid stearnly. I got us three throwawy under water cameras and divided the kids into three groups to use them. I will develop them tomorrow which will be a lot of fun.

Tomorrow is the firt day of school. We have uniforms (black shoes, white or blue socks - depending on grade - dark blue skirt, white or medium blue shirt - again depending on grade. Until December now life will revolve around school and things will be a bit quieter. They get up at 6AM, eat breakfast at 7:15 after doing chores and personal care, study from 7:45 to 10:30. Get dressed and ready for school and eat lunch at 11. They leave for school at 12 noon. The gilrs in the youngest grades get out of school at 4:30 and home at 5. The other primary get out at 5:30 and the oldest ones at 6:05! They do some homework and we write down what special things esch needs the next day. They eat dinner at 7 and the youngest girls go to bed at 8 and the oldest at 9.

Tia Sue

Now we are 20

I am a bit more rested today. Since we have had water 24 hours a day for 5 days today we are doing a deep, deep, cleaning - getting ready for school. Tomorrow there will be more work and then Saturday we all go to a Waterpark together. We now have a census of 20 - we admitted 3 new girls today - sisters. The youngest is 5 and will go to kindergarten. The other two didn't go to school last year. The oldest, 10, will go into 3rd grade and the middle one,9, into first grade. She has been to kinder but it must have been atleast two and maybe three years ago. She showed us that she can count to 20! For their welcome stuffed animal there were two bears each holding a baby bear and one elephnat holding a baby elefant. We have four more in paperwork so may have 23 or 24 soon. We could have 30!

Two good full days that have worn me out

First off, if youd like to see pictures of some of the girls go to www.padremickey.blogspot.com and see the posting for Tuesday, March 6. Yesterday we had a wonderful blessing and surprise. In the morning, Beni the secretary told me we might have a visit form some extranjeros (foreigners -- myself for example) arounf 10 with some puppets. Just after 10 11 people arived including two clowns. It was a group from Conneticut called Hands of Peace who felt called to take their puppet show to another country and chose Panama. They are from a Non-denominational Christian Church that ministers to students at the University of Conn., but these are older members of the church. They brough a nurse from NYC who gave the girls a talk about handwashing and tooth brushing - along with a toothbrush and a tube of toothpast and some stickers to decorate the handle while the show was setting up. There was a vantriloquist, the two clowns and other helpers, some young people from Panama and a couple of people to translate. There was a strong and visual Christian message and it was well done. One of the clowns confessed that she 'took a shirt' but that is ok!! During each recounting of stealing someones shirt she dripped someting into a plastic bottle. First it turned yellow and then blue, which she said was pritty and that everything was alright. Then she told about stealing yet another shirt and this time the bottle turned black. She was shocked. She promised God she would return the shirts and not steal again. This time the drops turned the water clear again. It was well done, with about 6 or 7 skits and then each of us got a flower made of long balloons.

Today we interviewed the mother and socialworker of three girls we will welcome tomorrow. The two oldest, 9 and 10 did not go to school last year - the oldest will go to 3rd grade and the younger to 1st. The youngest just turned 5 and will go to kinder. After they left the director called one of the primary schools where our girls attend. We discovered that the new director is the nice man who was sub director last year and so knows us. We have a place forr each of the girls!

Tia Sue

IT IS WELL WORTH A LOOK

Check out www.padremickey.blogspot.com to see wonderfull phots of the mural in Colegio Episcopal. It was posted today, March 5th. Colegio means a highschool. Colegio Episcopal is one of 5 schools the Episcopal Church of Panama has here and they are high quality.

Getting ready for school

I am wiped out because I took our youngest to the dental clinic at children's hospital and the entire visit took from 6AM until 1PM!!! She is soing to have a proceedure that requires anesthesia to remove the viral caused growths on her lips. The dentist, who speakes English, says she is seeing this a lot and thinks it may be because poor families share tooth brushes. Her older sister, from whom I bought some outstanding baskets and a terrific head mask of a toucan says the little one is the only one in the family to have the growths, which are a virus. It is a beautiful summer day here in Panama and the girls go back to school next Monday - so we are busy buying new shoes for everyone ( about $13 a pair). We have to prepare the uniforms too, white shirt and blue skirt for primary with short top blue socks, light blue shirt and blue skirt for the first part of secondary school and dark blue knee socks. We don't have anyone in the second part of secondary this year but they where white shirts and blue skirts and white socks and a blue ribbon like tie around the neck. We had a bit of rain last night but it is hot and windy today. We still have water flowing from the taps!!

Tia Sue

5 hours well spent.

My favorite book store - Hombre de la Mancha - had a 50% off on everything in the store sale today. They open at 9 and I arrived at 9:15. There were some people there and they were coming in steadily. I combed the store for 4 hours - I think I looked at every book in the children's section. After I got started with check out it took an hour for them to check out the books. What a great addition to our library. Our library right now consists of 4 bookcases and I think it is time to really think about building on a room to be a library and to provide some more storage. Anyone interested???

Tia Sue

Praise God from who all blessings (water) flow

WE have water. We woke up this morning to running water and the driver reports that the two storage tanks are full. All the girls went to the swimming pool yesterday and swam and then showered and washed their hair. Today they are all taking turns washing their clothes and we are washing dishes, floor, cups, cleaning the mop heads. One of the first things we did was to fill all the containers that we use - for future use.

Blessings, Tia Sue

EXPLORA IS A 5 STAR PLACE

To day, as promised we all went to EXPLORA, a science museum here that is very interactive and lots of fun - and there were some new things too. The last time we went was in 2003 or 2004. The museum is mainly physical science (sound, light, stars, energy...). As a preparation, the kids read a number of short books on sound, tools, storms, energy and related topics. They had a form to fill in with two things they learned from each book and worked in groups of three preparing it. The monitora (child care worker) who was working with them today is very good at doing these things and she had the kids who haven't yet learned to read draw a picture in answer to the question. While they were there they had 11 questions to answere related to the exhibits. We were met by our special guide - who was great. He showed them all the locations where they could answer the questions. An example of the questions: In the Wall of Colors, how many colors can you make? They shown different colored lights (red, yellow and blue) on the white wall in various combinations and the kids cast shadows that were different colors and they could mix them. Other exciting things included the echo tube - when speaking into it what you said was echoed back. There were also a bunch of cumputers that could connect with the web amd also ones that had Scolastic's Magic School Bus programs, speaking Spanish. These were lots of fun and included puzzles and scientific stuff too. The older girls liked being able to search for things using Google. True, we have access to the internet here but with more supervision and less time.

A big bonus was that they now have a planetarium! It is a half sphere that is maintained by air being blown into it and seating is on the floor but we had a nice private show and learned about a number of constalations we can see from here. It was very effective and they were ooing and ahing about it.

There was a demonstration of electrical energy. The hairs on our arms stood straight up.

We are still without running water. A bit came up to us briefly last night, enough to fill the toilet tanks (I could hear it) but not enough to come out of the faucets. We get water in containers from a gas station and also a nearby fruit seller. If there is not enough for a good shower for everyone tomorrow we will go to the swimming pool in the afternoon, swim and then all can bathe and wash their hair. We will send our 'laundry worker' to a nearby place to wash clothes in machines. I hope they have water. It is a question of pressure. If this were the rainy season we could collect a lot of water here - enough to use the smaller semi-automatic machines.

OH, a couple of our staff and a few of the kids have seen a crocodile in a small stream at the foot of our hill. Today as we were driving out we could see three men looking at something in the stream - it was the croc and we all got out of the van to see her/him - basically brown and about 5 or 6 feet long, and almost our neighbor.

Tia Sue

A BIT OF THIS AND THAT

Yesterday and today the director and I have visited several institutions (MIDES, Children's Hospital, and the community of 24 de diciembre, offering a place at the home to girls who need to be with us to have a more usual life (a child at Hospital de Ninos) or who have some special situation that has kept them out of school or that is preventing them for going to school this year. You will hear more about this as our populations grows.

Yesterday, Tuesday, the day after we had our wonderful visit to Coronado no one, or maybe only 1 or 2 wanted to go to the swimming pool. Today they are lively and had their sewing class and also started some guided reading to prepare for an afternoon visit to EXPLORA - a very hands on science museum tomorrow. So, look forward to more about that soon.

We are learning to live with little water as the pressure is not enough to get it up to our tanks during the night.

Tia Sue

SUMMER VISIT TO CORONADO

Today the two new kids saw the ocean and a beach. We went to Coronado, a resort beach, where one of the board of directors members has a very nice house and a swimming pool. Most of the kids also walked down to the beach and saw the ocean. It is jellyfish season so I think the just walked in the water and did their swimming in the pool. We had a simple meal - easy to prepare - hotdogs and chicken hanmburgers (made in the kitchen) with all the fixings and cheese! Everyone could have two. There were cheese balls as well and a delicious cold punch with an interesting Panamanian fruit flavor. We also had tomato slices, chopped cabbage and lettuce.

It was a very nice day - although the van had two flats and for the second one we didn't have a spare - but another van the same as ours stopped and leant us their spare so the van could go somewhere and buy two relatively cheap used tires ($14) each. It was a beautiful summer day here. School starts two weeks from today.

Festininos

Today we went to the Frank Graham Festival for Kids which was less exciting than I would have liked to see it but it was interesting. Seeing about 30000 kids and accompanying adults dressed in greem, red, blue, and yellow T-shirts that indicated what section of Panama we came from was impressive as each color had their special section of the seating. The kids were animated by huge beach balls being thrown up into the stands and then kept in the air as long as possible. We all participated in a huge wave of hands rolling across the stadium by color groups. Each person in the statium was given a bottle of water - a very good idea and a huge undertaking to give out. There were a lot of dance and performance groups - clowns, folkloric, marching, banners, jugglers etc. The program itself needed a bit more pizzaz.

We looked very nnice in our blue t-shirts and several of the kids commented on them. We are going to use them again for a trip to a wonderful museum - EXPLORA - for next Thursday.

Tia Sue

BEAUTIFUL SUMMER DAY

There is some sort of game of soccer going on outside the room right now - and I expect that some are watching Chiquititas - 6 are playing soccer and that means that 8 are probably watching TV. I am glad that all of the girls don't feel they have to watch TV all of the time they are allowed ( which is not a lot).

When I took our two newest girls to Childrens Hospital (for a EKG and chest X-Ray prior to seeing the cardiologist and to make an apointment for the younger one with a dental specialist - she has something - maybe not so great - growing inside her lower lip) when they saw the Bay of Panama one said excitedly - Look Tia Sue . a river! This also was the first time they had used an elevator. Although they are 7 and 10 they have not been to school (they will atart 1st grade in March. School starts on March 12th.) and their view of the world is very limited. The hospital was full of many things they had not seen before. There are wheelchair stalls in the toilets - and they wanted to know why it was so big. They actually saw a child in a wheelchair and a handicapped boy in a special stroller with special supports.

Tomorrow morning we are going to Frank Grahams (Billy Graham's son) who is here giving a 3 day crusade. Tomorrow morning is for children - aimed at 6 to 12 (but we are taking all of ours (the oldest is 14). I'll write about it this weekend. A lot of kids from the Episcopal Church of Panama are going - all of the Episcopalians are wearing blue T-shirts. We bought our own and they are a lovely blue. I believe that each girl will also have a tag pinned to their shirt with their name and phone number. There may be 30,000 or 40,000 kids and adults there (and the stadium only holds 30,000!) Festiniños, as it is called will start at 8AM and we are leaving here at 6AM. We are not very fart away but it would be nice to get a good seat.

We also are getting greener and greener. We have a team of three young men from Colegio Don Bosco (a technical school) who are doing their required 80 hours each of social service finishing the painting of the inside and outside of the home. These you men are very serious and professional about their work.

We also have a lovely opportunity. We have three students (one entering 11th grade and two entering 12th) who are competing with others for scholarships to finish high school in Canada, the US and some Spanish speaking countries. The competition requires them to do a social service project, where they plan and design what they do - within what we need and want. They are all good students so we have one working with the primary kids 3rd grade and up on multiplication and division, tables, making change. Another is working with Leonela (who needs a lot of help with 8th grade math. Her make up test is on Tuesday! The third is working with the secondary school students on Spanish (writing, spelling, reading etc.). I try to speak English with them but usually we fall back into Spanish. One can communicate fairly well. She wants to become a doctor.

Monday we are going to the home of one of the board members in Coranado - a resort community. She has a pool. It will be a great day. Since peanut butter sandwiches are not in vogue here we will have a simple picnic of hotdogs, fruit and junkfood - called burundanga.

More later. We have a busy weekend.

Tia Sue