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