Life at GSF

Please look in the older posts section and get caught up if you are not current:)
In this blog I wanted to show you some things that are different about living here in pictures, and a few other random photos. You will see pictures of Katie Davis at the pool with her 13 children that she is taking care of, the clinic that GSF runs, a guy cutting the lawn (this is how they do it here - no kidding), living with mosquito nets (sometimes they fall), a termite mound, a nightly sunset at GSF, washing clothes, and a few pics of Zuri (we keep her full time now except for night-time sleeping and she is learning to walk).

Meet little Gayla

Hello friends,
So today, I was at the guest house where we are staying, just getting some chores done, and I get a call from Carolyn. She tells me that baby Gayla ( yes you read correctly, Carolyn named a baby after me that came to GSF last week, I was honored! ) was sick with Malaria and they needed someone to hold her so they called Gayla to come hold Gayla. It is pretty weird hearing her name when I’ve only even heard of about 3 people who share my name in the 38 years I’ve been alive. She was so pitiful! When I picked her up she was blazing hot. Two of the first symptoms of Malaria are a high fever and a headache. I have never felt anyone as hot as this baby Gayla. I would have called an ambulance if it had been in the states! But here, they are use to it. It is still very scary and life threatening but you have to be strong and do what you know to do. She couldn’t be given motrin until the Malaria medicine had been in her system for 3 hours. They are unsure how old she is and normally you can tell but she is so little you can count her ribs and touch your thumb and forefinger together around her wrist. She is between 18 months and 3, and is smaller than Zuri. I took her up to Claudia’s to try to cool her down. I stripped her and gave her a tepid sponge bath….she screamed on and off but I had to keep soothing her long enough hoping to cool her some. We gave her a cracker and she grabbed it out of my hand and ate it like it would be taken from her if she didn’t eat it quick. I tried to give her juice, but she wanted more crackers first. After about 4, we heated up some beans and she ate the whole bowl, then agreed to the juice. Carolyn said she found her this morning by walking into the baby room and she was sitting in the floor crying, with nobody around caring about her. When she picked her up, she knew immediately she had Malaria. As I rocked her back and forth, I prayed and wondered….God, what do you have for this little girl? Who will care for her? We want to adopt again, do we pursue her because she doesn’t have anyone, or do we wait for sirens to go off and the official word. It is so hard to see so many kids in need and know there are so many homes, including ours, with enough room to give them love, food, education, medicine, and security. Update: We just learned 3:45 p.m. on Thursday that she has been taken to the hospital with pneumonia. UPDATE: SUNDAY (May 31): She is back at the orphanage and is still sick and very clingy, but seems to be improving.

Morning chores around the campus

Kids washing their own clothes while our kids were still asleep. Washing the dog was a fun chore for everyone and the Renslow's have chores too.

Picture with us where we are living for the month

This room is the kitchen where we do the cooking. We are making our own meals on a gas stove with food that we bought in Entebee. The next picture is of our room where our beds are. We stay under mosquito nets as much as possible. If it were not for the fans we would be miserable, but with them it is just fine. We spend the mornings here reading, doing schoolwork, washing clothes, etc.

More of the guest house quarters

One picture is of the veranda where we spend some time, but we are not out there much because we are afraid of mosquitos and the subsequent malaria that follows. The other picture is of the first laptop ever built and this is where I upload the blog (one kilobyte every minute - it seems):)

A quick tour of GSF where we are for the month