This year, all but one of the kids at the orphanage headed to school. School in Cameroon is not compulsory or free. Students are responsible for providing uniforms, dress uniforms, sports wear, black shoes, white socks, pens, pencils, exercise books, and text books (plus, if they are taking a special exam they have to pay for that too). It can all really add up, most families can't afford to send all their kids to school, and rarely do children have all the textbooks that they need. The government schools are the cheapest so they are packed full, classes often have over 80 children with only one teacher (can you imagine teaching 80 five-year-olds!). Needless to say, the standards are pretty low. For that reason we send all our primary age children to a private school (it only has 30 to 50 pupils to a class) so that they can get a good foundation before heading to a government secondary school (equivalent of middle school). Now when you hear private school, don't think American private school, it still has a lot of room for improvement but they are better than most schools around. We are thankful for the three Helping Hands Car Washes in town whose income allows us to send the children to a better school. The last week of August was crazy busy making sure that all 29 children had everything they needed. I let out a great sigh of relief once they were all off to school!
Gamboh excited about seeing all her friends at school again (Nursery 2)
Blessed's first day of school (Nursery 1)! He is just too adorable stomping off to school each morning in his little uniform. It is amazing to see how much he has improved in the last year. He was so weak and malnourished when he came just over a year ago. He is now on meds for the HIV in his body and is strong and healthy. Such a cutey!
I'm just so proud of these seven children (Nestor, Joel, Ocilia, Mirander, Kari, Tahirih, and Francis). They started Secondary School this year. They have come so far in the last four years. Most of them could barely speak a word of English let a lone read and write when they came to HHCH.
We've completed week three of homeschooling (33 left!). It has just been going so well, I am really thrilled, I have a lot of peace in my heart about it. Last year was not easy being six months in the States, for most of which we were on the road. I am grateful that our kids got to see so much of the States plus tons of national parks and museums but once I got back to Cameroon it was all work and no play. So far this school year we have managed to finished by Thursday afternoon and then have fun on Fridays. Seth is studying about the Eastern hemisphere in history this year. Each week he focuses on a different region and then has to do a special project about it. The first week it was on the Pacific Island and he had to cook a meal from there. He went with a Hawaiian chicken-pineapple recipe and tropical fruit smoothies that were pretty yummy.
Our Hawaiian night!
He had fun making the leis too.
Delicious
Josh made us up a special menu
Last week Seth was focusing on Australia. He had to draw an Aboriginal piece of art which I decided to make into everybody's art project for the week. After studying different pieces on the web, we had a go at it, it was a lot of fun.
Seth went with a Kangaroo
Josh's duckbill platypus (he's such a perfectionist, he still hasn't finished it!)
Jude painted a lizard
For Jordan I traced out a snake and she painted it, not bad for a three-year-old!
Seth's finished masterpiece
Jude's is pretty cute
And I had to try my hand at it too, pretty fun.
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