Wild Walking Wednesday (literally)

Today I saw a snake. It was terrifying. I ran away screaming. We are not 100% sure what type it was but according to Ian it was some random not poisonous snake. My thought process was as follows, “oh my gosh that is a snake, it was in the grass and blended in, grass is green, mambas are green, it could potentially be a green mamba” then I ran. Good news, I am alive. Bad news, I have been on edge all-day and screamed for no reason multiple times. I will survive and hopefully be snake free for the rest of the trip.

Now that all of you are worried about my wellbeing I will discuss more important things. Today was another day of language enrichment. The day started off semi-uneventful with a nice breakfast of eggs and toast. Our group is quite large now so it is one big happy family for all meals. After breakfast I of course walked to the Haven, especially since it is another walking Wednesday. I started my day going to Eric’s house to retrieve some cute little toddler boys and headed to therapy with our group. Today in therapy it was a little more subdued; the children were not all in bad moods, which made all of us clinicians happy. I had Seth again to begin with, like I said, I love the attention hogs. Some people say it is because I like attention, I have no idea what they are talking about. Anyway we read books with them and sang a bunch of songs. Some of them really get into it but most of them look at us. The good thing is we are saying more words to them during that hour than they hear from adults during any other time, which is what matters. After the therapy ended I headed to Haven 1 to change some diapers before therapy. I have gotten really good at this cloth diaper business. I must say, at first they scared me and I was not sure how to do the safety pen but now I have diaper changing down to an art. I can even effectively wander around finding clothes for most of the children. This session I worked with a little boy named Caleb. He is the one that I think throws the most tantrums and in addition has casts on his legs to straighten them out. I do not believe any of us have ever heard him make any sounds other than cries. Today he did not really make any consonants but I did get some vowels and not too many tantrums so I counted that as an effective day. Update on Wesley, he can now pretty effectively say Tessa and sometimes does it quite often. I have not been working with him in the afternoons this week so he is probably missing me, good news is he is also an attention hog and gets it from many different people.

The snake scare happened on my walk to the house for lunch in front of one of the other houses like 50 yards from where I live. It sprawled out of the cut grass onto the path close to Ashley, who screamed, and then slithered off. Unfortunately I was right behind Ashley on the opposite side of her, further away from the snake, but I still had to see it. So she screamed, then I screamed, then I ran. For lunch we had Leonard’s famous fried chicken and mashed potatoes. It was quite good. For a surprise we had Zucchini cake, which was delicious. I am still holding out for the apple cake since the last time he made it I was sick and did not get any. Good news though, I made up for it today with the zucchini cake. For our walk back to the Haven I was already on edge and then Ian decided it was a good idea to take Ashley, Ben, and I on a shortcut he likes to use with his dad. He failed to mention that it was through corn fields and tall grass so needless to say I was doing a nice little snake dance the entire pathway freaking out. Thanks for that Ian. It was quite entertaining for all other people involved in that moment in my life. So just picture me prancing about freaking out thinking I was about to see another snake while trying to walk as quickly as possible down the path. Lucky for me, no other snakes were spotted and I arrived to the Haven in one piece. That afternoon I went to Haven 3 for more language enrichment. I have grown to love this place almost as much as some of my classmates who started out in that Haven. Today I worked with Seth again and a boy named Bennett. Bennett is actually one of Anna’s favorite children so I play with him when she is not there. He is very good about imitating what you say so we said many words today. My favorite was when I could get him to say “hiiiiiii” drawn out like I do sometimes; precious to the max! After working with him I stole Sydney, the cutest kid ever, from Ben. She is seriously adorable and I love to work with her because she is typically really happy. Sometimes Ben is nice and lets me hold her, like today. I also helped hand out snacks at the end of therapy, which is always entertainment. Who needs television when you can watch adorable toddlers? My walk back to the house was thankfully uneventful other than running into Mark; I still wish his name were Mike. At dinner we were graced with the gift of ice cream and not just any flavor but a multitude. I of course ate banana!!! It is sooo good. We played Phase 10 again tonight without finishing and then headed to a bible study led by Dr. Hopper and Mr. Ragsdale, two of the professors from Harding that joined our group yesterday. I always love attending church events with the Zambians when there is singing involved. It was a good sermon but I would like to know how hard it was for them to understand the accents. I have had the discussion with a few of them and they tell us that we talk really fast. I will have to ask some of my friends sometime. Anyway whenever the Zambian professor said that we were dismissed no one got up and we were slightly confused but took our time. He then proceeded to come up to our professors and tell them that everyone is waiting for us to leave first, who knew! So we had to walk out in front of all the students, which was slightly weird. After the devotional we went back and Mrs. Ellie provided a small party for us including more zucchini cake and hot chocolate! She is my new favorite person for bringing out the hot chocolate. So tomorrow will be a new day with hopefully not as much excitement or sugar. Until then over and out!