Day Seven - Saturday, September 29

About an hour after we all fell asleep last night, Hugo fell out of his bed. We both heard him hit the floor and there was a brief pause before he started crying. It wasn't a long fall but the floor was linoleum on concrete so it was probably a really awful way to wake up from a deep sleep. No injuries, though, and he was back to sleep in no time. He woke up two more times throughout the night and ended up in bed with us. Morning started at 6:10 and as usual, the first thing he did was flip all the switches on the outlets before trying hard to wake us up.

Breakfast was different this morning. There was the ever present tea, but rather than just plain bread, there was an egg tucked inside each slice. It was no Egg McMuffin but we were very pleased with the change. Hugo, however, was not terribly interested in the egg sandwich and chose to focus on the tea instead. He had several small cups of it and we had to hide the lumps of sugar. For several days, we had been trying to get an antibiotic in to him to deal with the sinus congestion he has. On the advise of our pediatrician at home, we've been trying to sneak it into his food. Even though he is completely obsessed with food, he can detect the slightest hint of the presence of medicine and won't eat it. He finally lost interest in the tea and ate the sandwich when we tried to slip some antibiotic into his drink.

Hugo didn't want to leave the table and we had a little struggle getting him outside but once he was there, things were fine. Rebekah decided that we needed to do some laundry while we had the opportunity and asked Jacob to lend us a couple buckets. I could explain the whole thing, but the video tells the story much better. Take a look:

After doing the laundry, we decided to go for a walk with the intention of exploring the very small town where the orphanage is located. Rebekah wore Hugo on her back and everywhere we went, we got curious and unfriendly looks from the locals. Remembering what Boat had told us about keeping a low profile, we decided to cut the walk short. While we were heading back, one little boy yelled to us, "Oboruni! Is that your baby?"

Ashley had told us that the orphanage was a different place on Saturday since there were no classes and the atmosphere was more relaxed. She was exactly right. There were kids everywhere and it was immediately clear that this was their down time. We met the orphanage director's daughter and she was able to answer a few questions we had about Hugo's habits. We learned who his primary caregiver was and that he sleeps in a crib but doesn't like it. She said that he much prefers to sleep in the beds with the bigger kids...no surprise there. Meanwhile, as Rebekah was finding out things about Hugo, I was surrounded by kids. We thumb wrestled and arm wrestled. I usually was busy with some sort of wrestling on both my left and right side simultaneously. I saw some of the musicians from the band at assembly the previous day and tried to strike up a music conversation but they seemed very distrustful that I knew what I was talking about. I told them I was a music teacher and they asked lots of questions to see if I was telling the truth, including asking me to sing several songs. I was glad to do it but it didn't do much good...they weren't convinced.

A very old and small pick up truck showed up and lots of the teenagers piled into the cab and the bed. I asked what was going on and one of the smaller ones told me that the big kids were going swimming somewhere. The teenage boys who were left behind were tasked with removing a stump from the center of the courtyard. I have removed stumps before using modern hand tools and some power tools and it has always been an arduous task. These kids took to the job with great excitement and rarely have I seen anyone work so hard. What made the process even more amazing was that the only tools they had were a few picks, one shovel, a couple machetes, and a long stick with a piece of sharp metal screwed to the end that served as a digging iron. They would end up working at this job, nearly non-stop, for most of the weekend. I thought how amazed these boys would have been if they had been present to see the backhoe remove nineteen stumps in a few minutes at my in-law's house a few summers ago.

We went back to the house to get the things we had brought for the kids. We returned with several bottles of bubbles, a soccer ball, nail polish, a bag of scarves we picked up at Goodwill, stickers, and fake mustaches. Rebekah was the center of a huge mob as she tried to distribute things. The scarves were a huge hit as was the soccer ball. The courtyard became an instant soccer field for the younger kids. We held on to the bubbles instead of just handing them out and we soon had little ones chasing bubbles as they floated away on the breeze.

 While all this was going on, the boys never stopped working on the stump and I noticed that the sky was turning gray. Suddenly, the oldest boy working on the stump, a kind young man we nicknamed "Charlotte" since he was wearing a basketball jersey with that word on the front, shouted some instructions and everyone sprang into action. Benches were removed, tables were relocated, and the young children took shelter. When all was in order, the skies opened up and rain poured down. Charlotte was determined to get a large root out of the ground before he took a break and I helped him wrench it out. We both were soaked but he was very pleased and I think it was a start of getting him to like us more. Rebekah and I took shelter in one of the classrooms and waited out the storm with a few other kids who were happy to keep chasing bubbles and trying on mustaches. There was so much rain that little rivers formed in the courtyard. Hugo threw his sandal into one of these and I had to chase it downstream to get it back.

We went back to the guest house so Hugo could have a nap. He fell right to sleep but woke up after a little while, crawled out of his bed, and joined Rebekah in ours. It was really cute.

 We went back to the orphanage later on but didn't stay long. The boys had removed all the the exposed roots from the ground and had dug a trench around the base of the stump's trunk so they could cut it off below ground level. They were now taking turns hacking at the trunk with the machetes. I took my guitar and played several songs for a small crowd of children. It was fine until the kids, who didn't understand exactly how the guitar worked, found the tuners on the headstock and kept turning them while I was playing. Rebekah had started painting fingernails but found out right away that the girls were not as interested as the boys. By the time we left, there were about a dozen boys running around with bright red nail polish.

We left the orphanage because the kids were starting to get a little nutty and we didn't want the adults to be mad at us if we were the cause. We spent the rest of the day removing a lizard from our room (it was hanging on the light and fell right onto Rebekah's face), fixing the laundry line that had fallen over in the storm, and having cold showers. The power was out after the sunset so we went outside and played with some glow sticks that Rebekah had brought along - she thought of everything. After Hugo was in bed for the night, I wrote the latest journal entry by candlelight.