Movie Madness Monday

Shout out to the papa! Happy birthday dad!!! I hope you had a wonderful day and I am sorry I was not there to celebrate. Love you!

Well yet again it is time for therapy. Yay. This week I am yet again in Dr. Tullos group. This means I begin my day with the toddlers, and then work with the younger babies like 8-12 months. In the afternoon I work with the children with special needs at the Haven and end doing language therapy with a child of my choice.

I woke up today ready to take on the world and live the last two weeks here to the fullest. I cannot believe how quickly this time has gone by and it genuinely saddens me to know I will be leaving Zambia soon. We had oatmeal for breakfast, which is always happy. I accidentally added too much honey to it but in the end it was good and gave me my daily sugar rush, which is always entertaining. I walked to the Haven with Ben, Liz, and Shanna yet again using the back trail. I truly enjoy using this trail to get to the Haven’s because you have to walk through the fields to arrive. It is more of an African feel walking this way, not to mention, why not live life on the edge and be in nature as much as possible. Upon arrival to Eric’s house we picked up our little toddlers and headed to therapy. We worked on language stimulation and then played outside with the children. I like to sit on the swings with the children and talk to them; it is quite fun and a very funny picture. Now these swings are not like typical American swings but there is no way I can describe them accurately via blog post without a picture. One day, when I have better Internet, I will post a picture. We took the children back to Eric’s house after therapy and headed to Haven 1 to continue with language stimulation. We begin with tummy time and one on one interaction with the children. Afterwards we sit them all at the table and for about 30 minutes do a group session. Today we sang many songs and read many books; then to spice things up I used pictures from books to make up my own stories. They were amazing. So amazing in fact that it put 3 of our 5 children to sleep. By the end of the session they were completely out. So what does that mean, picture time! They were adorable but I was given much grief from Dr. Weaver and Dr. Tullos for putting children to sleep in therapy. For lunch we had pizza!!!! I love pizza day because Ba Leonard’s pizza is so good. I will not even pretend, I definitely ate more than one slice of pizza.

For the afternoon I was able to work with Kritz. He is an adorable boy that is on the high end of the Autism spectrum. We sang many songs and looked at a few books but most of the time he wanted to hold them. His security blanket or self-stimulation is holding things in his hand, which occasionally posed a problem. We worked past it and I incorporated this fact into our session. Sadly it ended too soon and it was time to move on. I ended up working with the TB babies looking at their abilities against a Rossetti Infant Toddler Language Scale. This assessment is part of my capstone project; I am looking at the Zambian children’s ability on this Americanized test to see how it compares and begin to make some normative data for the orphans in my project. Then it was time to walk back. We decided to take the normal road, which ended up being an adventure. Mark, Ben, and I walked together and a little way down the road we met a boy who is in grade 9 walking to the mission where he lives. Mark asked the boy to walk with us and I was able to hear their discussion and add my two sense every once in a while. I love learning about the Zambian culture and learning Tonga words. Our task on the walk back was to see how many people we could greet in Tonga. It brings me an incomparable joy to see how happy the people are when we can greet them in their own language, even if that is all we can say to them. I love everything about this place and the people have brought a new outlook to my life, not just in regards to speech pathology but every aspect of my life. I feel so blessed to be here; words cannot even describe it.

This evening we had sandwiches for dinner since we had a blackout before dinner. I do not mind it though, sometimes it is relaxing when all of the electricity is off and it really makes you thankful for electricity that is always around. After dinner I took a shower in the solar showers. Trust me, this is also an experience in and of itself. We then had a sharing time where we talked about our experience here so far and everything we have learned. It was great to hear everyone’s thoughts and be together as a group. I have been blessed by having the people who are here experiencing this with me; I believe it is a bond that we will share for the rest of our lives. Right now we are watching The Number 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency movie on the porch of the Hambie house on a big screen. I love when we watch movies together, especially when I get to sit by the two night watchmen Webster and Justin. Unfortunately it is super cold so I am ready for the movie to end so I can be warm!!! Who knew it would actually get cold in Africa, just does not seem right! I cannot wait for tomorrow’s adventures to come about. We leave for Livingstone on Wednesday and there will be many adventures from that trip. Please wait in anticipation! Also I must add, the picture did not creep the guys out. In fact, I think they enjoyed it. Oh well. They have still brought new fun to the trip and are amazing documenters so I enjoy them being around. Until next time!