Yesterday morning we all were up and moving a bit earlier than usual. We needed to bring all of our donations to Mtendere and some of us needed to exchange more money so before leaving the hotel we took care of some business and then headed off. We had one stop to make to pick up our packed lunches and we ended up sitting in traffic for a while, but then we were on our way.
We arrived at Mtendere ready to complete some of what we had started. There were beds to build, beds to repair, and some counting to do in order to make sure that before we leave Malawi we are SURE every child at Mtendere has a new mattress and every child has a bed to put it on. There was more corn to "shuck". We have all decided that saying we are "shucking" corn probably isn't the best way to describe what we actually do with the corn. When we sit to do this work the corn has already been shucked and dried. The kernels are hard and need to be removed from the cobs. Using your fingers or using another cob that has no kernels your are picking each kernel off the cob....if that makes sense. In the end you end up with a large pile of dried corn kernels and a large pile of cobs.
Since I had been busy running around the city for the past few days spending time seeing my friends at Mtendere was a gift. I was able to play on the playground with Ellen and some of the children for a while between jobs and I can't wait to share that with everyone when I get home.
When it was time for us to put our donations in the store room we were surprised to see that the store room was in need of some major reorganization. I asked the secretary if she would allow us to clean and organize this room and happily she said we could. With her help a few of us started to tackle the mounds of personal items and school supplies. This might seem like an easy task, but once you all see the pictures of what we were dealing with you will understand. Box by box we began to unload and put away each of the items. I know for me it was a job that came with a little 'fear". I was worried that under each box or at the bottom of each box I would either run into a spider, a rat, a mouse, a dead rat, or a dead mouse. All of us just kept working away and soon Linda spoke up that we had our first dead mouse that needed to be removed. She was quick to scoop it up in paper and hand it off to someone who took it outside. As we dug deeper into the piles in the store room and began reshuffling shelves we realized this was a bigger job than we had first thought. We had committed to do it so we just continued to work as best we could and knew that the next day we would be there to finish the job.
Some of the group were still working on making and repairing beds and others were doing tutoring with the children in the school room. When word spread at Mtendere that we had purchased tools and wood to make the beds we stared to hear of children who had beds that were damaged or missing slats. Some of those beds were carried up to where the carpenters and our team was working and with a few boards we were able to make the repairs.
Today will be our last day at Mtendere Village and I am prepared to see some tears once our time there ends. I know that many of the volunteers have become quite connected to some of the children and house Mothers and it will be tough to say goodbye. There is a birthday party planned today that we have been invited to attend by another group from the US that is staying and working at Mtendere. They have asked us to help with some of the activities they have planned and we are happy to take part. There will be dancing and food and lots of birthday fun. It will be another great day Im sure and when its all over we will leave knowing that we did make an impact here.
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