Summer School 2014

From the 29th of April till the 22nd of May we ran the summer school again in the Janakiram layout, the slum where Anu is located.
Every Tuesday en Thursday we had games and arts and crafts for two groups of 50 children for 4 times each, so for a total of 200 children. It was warm, it was noisy and it was chaotic, but the children had great fun.

The children were ready and waiting at least 45 minutes early

Games

Arts and crafts

Nail polish, yoga, marble runs and catch pots

Fruit and lemonade at snack time

And there are always little ones that would love to join, but are too young

 

Photos of today

Today was the last day of summer school! I will post some photos of that soon. These are some other photos I took today.

There is a train track, cum garbage dump, right in front of Anu. Today a train stopped and after a while started to move slowly, with a lot of noise and smoke. It turned out that it was dumping gravel on the tracks. Behind the train was a group of men and women that had to level the gravel manually.

Then there was this boy and his puppy. Both very cute.

Sunday morning

Joshua at his favourite place

Slum kids

Today the second batch of summer school started, two more week (four days) with a new group of children. I will post some picture collages in two weeks time when all is finished (to safe you the agony of a day by day report).

The most heard sentence around the slum is "Auntie Photo!" these days. All the volunteers are taking their cameras or smart phones and lots of photos are made.

I snapped some cutie pies today. They are young and adorable, but a lot wiser than children of the same age that live under better circumstances. I can't help but wonder what will become of them. I can only hope and pray they will have a better life than their parents.

On our way to the car we saw a tiny baby boy, only 15 days old.



And then there was this guy, symbolic of most of the fathers in the slum: a drunkard. He slept there on the hard concrete floor, without being bothered by the noise of the children around him... We did check if he was still alive and he was, but what kind of life is it?

Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day!

I got spoiled this morning with breakfast in bed, home made gifts and lots of cuddles. There is a freshly baked cake and dinner will be cooked by my men. Just the way I like my mother's day to be :-)

Something less nice is the fact that Simon broke his knee last Friday. He fell in the classroom, on his right knee, and when he turned around to get up one of his class mates wanted to help him, but in the rush to get to him he knocked over a chair that landed on the same knee...
The nurse came to have a look and all seemed fine, but during the morning the knee started to swell up and the pain got worse, so Simon came home.
I took him to the clinic, where the GP took one look and just said: X-ray! I had put Simon in a wheel chair when we arrived at the clinic, because it was very painful for him to walk on crutches. To get out of the wheel chair and on to the X-ray table was not easy. Every movement hurt and he could not get his leg straight anymore.
Getting Simon off the table was an even bigger drama. It took 5 people at least 10 minutes to find a way to get him on a stretcher without causing him too much pain.

While we waited for the results of the X-ray, Simon got an injection with painkiller, but that took a long time to take any effect.

The X-ray didn't show any fractures, so Simon's knee was bandaged and we were told to go for an MRI to see if there was any soft tissue damage.

The choice was to either go to the MRI clinic by ambulance or by our own car. We decided to go by our own car, but getting Simon in the car from the stretcher was quite an ordeal. There were a lot of people who wanted to help, but that didn't really help (if you know what I mean).

Lots of 'helping' hands

We managed to get him home and comfortable on the couch and by that time the painkiller finally started to take effect.

Comfy on the couch

That night the MRI was followed by a complimentary CT scan and the results would be available the next day from 15:00 hrs.  At 13:00 hrs., the GP rang me to say the knee was broken after all and a ligament was torn almost completely, so we had to come to the clinic to see the Orthopedic Doctor.

MRI

The Orthopedic Dr. said an operation is not necessary at the moment. Because Simon is so young, the ligament will most likely heal by itself. The kneecap is still in 1 piece despite the break, so that needs time to heal. The only thing that might need to be done is to drain the knee to get the swelling down, but it was decided to wait till next week to see if it is still needed.

Simon has to wear a brace and has to keep his leg still. No school on Monday and Tuesday for him and back to the Doc. on Wednesday. 

Brace and crutches

resting the knee while enjoying pizza and you tube