I have been here for 5 nights and tonight was the first night we lost electricity! Wow!

 Most of you may think the excitement of the previous statement sounds odd, but electricity is really a day to day issue in this area and you never know when it will be on or off, so making it almost a week with it consistently running is pretty good!

 

Today we had chapel at 8am in the learning center and then Jason and I went with all of the skills students and we sanded every inch of the MITS walls, gates, doors, and even the playground! Another group from Pepperdine is coming in this week and they are going to repaint the entire place so we sanded it to prepare for them.

*Skills students are the older students who have been through school and are now learning a specific skill so that when they graduate they will be trained in one area so that they can go out and get a job and support themselves. Some of the skills are sewing, catering (cooking), hair dressing, computers, and mechanics.

 

After we sanded, we went and worked on the farm. Yes, the farm. They have several acres of farmland where they grow their own corn, beans, fruits and vegetables. The students tend to the farms themselves and work hard to maintain it so they will have a good harvest! Today we just pulled weeds to clean up the farmland. Although, I don't know that I have pulled that many weeds at one time in my entire life. My hands even started to get blisters!

 

After working on the farm we had lunch and then met back at the learning center for classes. I went to class with one of the teachers, Irene. She teaches English and a speech class. I helped grade papers, explain certain practice exercises, helped student with any questions they had, and I even acted out part of a scene with Irene for one of the English classes! In the speech class they were learning about interviews; how to prepare and how to interact during one. I talked to them about how interviews work and what should be expected from them during an interview.

The classes lasted from 2pm until about 5:40pm. I really enjoyed today and hope to work with Irene again tomorrow!

 

One neat thing that happened today was when we were on the farm. We were taking a break and I sat down with a couple of girls who were working beside me, one being Jackie.  I talked to them about living at MITS and they both said they really loved living there. Jackie has been at MITS for 6 years and the other girl has been here for 5 years. When I asked them what their favorite thing about living there was, they both said things like working together, playing together, having sharing time together, and things of that nature. Whatever they said, it always involved "together" which was pretty neat. They also rarely referred to the other students as "friends" but instead as "family". I thought back to my trip to Eastleigh yesterday and imagined these girls as street kids there at one time. They probably had no understanding of what togetherness and family truly was until they came to MITS and now that is their favorite thing about living there.

I talked to a 14-year-old boy, Eric, who has only been at MITS for 3 weeks. He told me that he is really enjoying it at MITS and that he has made many friends so far. When I asked him what his favorite thing about living there was, he responded with, "The food here is great!" Well, that's a pretty different answer than what the girls told me.  This young boy is so used to street life, that the main thing he thinks about now is just getting a good meal to eat. That is wonderful that he has that kind of happiness from just a simple meal, but the more I thought about it, the more I hoped and prayed that maybe his answer will soon change from "great food" to something like the girls told me involving family and togetherness. I definitely think it will.

 

Well, since the electricity is out, I guess that means I have to go to bed early. Oh well, I'm actually looking forward to a long night of sleep!

 

-SG