"dance for us bekah!" "ha. no."

today was another good but exhausting day.
we finished putting up all the secondary-fiction books in the library and have most of the non-fiction organized now. (theres only the monstrous "500" section that we'll have to finish tomorrow before we can start stacking the rest of those on the shelves as well.) the guys are jsut about done with all the shelves in the library now and its really taking shape. all the kids are really excited to read.
today we also passed out dresses to all the girls in the home. we had partnered with a woman who has a non-profit organization back in the states called Little Dresses for Africa (littledressesforafrica.org) who has women from all over the states make these little pillow-case sundresses for the kids and then send them to her to distribute among mission groups who travel to africa. mary (our leader's wife) contacted her and was able to get 8 boxes to bring with us for the girls. after sorting them all out by size this morning, the girls came in by class in the afternoon to "shop" for their new dress! the little girls mostly just picked the first things that caught their eye, but the older girls searched through the piles of dresses with a specific idea of what they wanted in mind. after everyone had found their dresses we took pictures of them all clad in their new attire. we still have a ton of dresses left, and plan on distributing them to the little girls in some of the nearby villages within the next half a week or so.
(2 from the left is little flavia and the 5th little one is the other who's attached herself to me but her name currently escapes me.. darn short term memory lol.)
today was slower and so after lunch sometime i made my way over to where the kids were playing in the field. gift (one of the little "TOPS" (5 yr olds) girls) and bernard (one of the older boys) were quick to follow me and invite me to play. we ended up sitting in the grass instead a while, talking about sports - they LOVE futbol (soccer) and netball (which is basketball but with more of an ultimate frisbee sort of rule system) - talked about how to spell everyone's names, as well as what everyone's favorite colors are. most of the girls love pink, and im plannin on trying to make some of them bracelets by monday. gift was too cute - at one point she looks at me and asks "what is mathematics?" hahaha. she's younger and so isnt as advanced in her school work just yet. her and bernard speak english almost perfectly which is awesome especially for her age. all of the children speak lluwandan as a first language, but are taught mostly in english and are encouraged to speak it the majority of the time. however the younger children are still learning and so it is not always as easy for them to understand what we are saying.

while we were sitting in the grass talking though, little flavia (shes in the "babies" group - which is mostly 4 yr olds) hurt her toe - the nail had snagged on something at the corner and pulled back. so i carried her over to where "nana pat" was so she could get all fixed up. it was the first time i hadnt seen that bright little smile of hers dancing on her face. thereafter though she attached herself to me - holding my hand everywhere i went, and telling me i should stay at home with them tonight instead lol. one of the other little girls somewhere around her and gift's age, also attached herself to me - she spoke english a tad more fluently than flavia which was also impressive. both girls are just the cutest little thing, and i already know its going to be hard to leave them at the end of the trip.

today josh's phrase for me (the pastor in our group) was "dance for us bekah!" haha. jerad (the music teacher at the school) had just finished explaining to josh that everyone can sing - whether or not they can sing with the music and if it is plesant to everyone else may not be the issue, but God's given eeeveryyone the gift of song. well then of course josh proded him to sing for us which jerad cleverly avoided. but then josh insisted that if he wouldnt sing for us he should dance, at which point jill and audrey (2 more of our group) piped in: "bekah can dance!" The night before, while we were waiting for everyone to make it down to the dinner hall, the bar/shack was playing a bunch of american songs like "walk it out" and "no air" etc, so true to form lol i of course started jammin and dancin. well then josh came to the conclusion: "well great! jerad can sing and bekah can dance for us!" hahaha. yeah ok. i refused but then of course throughout the day he used every opportunity to insist i dance for them all lol.

tomorrow is sunday so we'll spend most of the day in church. it supposed to begin somewhere around 9:30 in the morning (though depending on the uganda clock, there's no promises) followed by about an hour sunday school, and then the main service which usually runs about 2 hours. we'll eat at the church and then head back to the hotel or the home depending on how tired everyone is. its bound to be yet another new experience for the books thats for sure. i'll do my best to blog tomorrow too:)