20/09/11

Yesterday a couple of the younger girls tattletaled that the youngest girl had gone pee in her underwear that morning and hadn’t changed them yet. Since this is the same one who I caught peeing outside twice last week and thus this is becoming a health and hygiene issue, I told her to change her underwear and I would be checking later if she had.. (Right now as I am writing this I looked over at her I asked “what’s that in your mouth?” She shook her head no and ran behind me, obviously to spit it out. Then she ran back and said “look, I don’t have anything!” ) I found her 30 minutes later and she still hadn’t, so I reprimanded her and told her to go change. A few hours later she still hadn’t changed so I took her inside with me for a time out and to wait for the sister who had the keys to the dormitory to return from school. While we were waiting for the sister she fell asleep and I had another meeting, so I left her there sleeping. After my REDES meeting I saw her again, this time in a brand new clean outfit! “She changed!” I said to the Spanish volunteer who had been there while she was in time out. She rolled her eyes and said “yeah I know, I bathed her and washed her underwear.” One of the other little girls (the other one I caught peeing behind the building last week) never wears underwear. This afternoon I walked up to a group of the younger girls and these two proudly pulled up their dresses, “look sister Anata, we’re wearing underwear today!”
This morning we had our first Math and Science Club meeting. Only one student came to participate, but by the time we got to the more interesting experiments, a small crowd had gathered. There are few things better than watching kids get truly excited about and inspired by science. I did a small experiment where simple soapy water propelled our “boat” across a tub of water and each time there were ahs and shrieks from the students watching. Maybe, hopefully, I can get a couple of these kids really interested in science.