Saturday, November 27, 2010

Cultures Come Together! by Greg Davis


We started out the day at the local high school attended by 1200 kids from around Shalai! When we arrive the students were sitting in an orderly fashion having their morning prayers. We did our songs and dances for the school and then the local students started their performance. Some of their teachers started picking our kids out of the audience and got them dancing on stage with the local students. By the end every one was dancing and having the time of their life! The energy was amazing! YMAD had a great time meeting the local students. This is the first time they had ever seen a foreign student let alone an American. The administrators and teachers were vary gracious the entire time.

After the cultural event the real fun started! We were able to get all 50 kids from the Daya School and bring them to town to get fitted for new schools uniforms. Each of our YMAD team took the hand of two kids and helped them out. It was crazy fun and the kids were so excited to get new clothes. We were able to find all of the pants, shirts & sweaters for the boys at the government shop. We had to have dresses made for all of the girls. We paid the local seamstresses some extra money so we could have them all by Monday. When I saw the boys get out of the vehicle sporting their new clothes, putting their chests out with pride, all I could do was smile. We are making a difference! Some of the shoes that we got the girls didn't fit and they had tears. That was remedied real quick! Shopping in Shalai is interesting. The market is about two blocks long, really not much there. My wife is a hoot! She keeps trying to get Tanner Higgins to stand behind the counters in the shops and pretend he is a local! We have two more schools that will get the same treatment on Monday! Its going to be awesome!

By the end of the day everyone was exhausted. We have been going so hard from early morning to late at night there has been little time relax or think of much else. Tonight we are going to sort all of the bags for the final distribution of supplies on Monday. Sunday we are going to relax a bit. We are planing to do our Thanksgiving activities and then let the kids call home!

We did have some technical problems tonight! The water was shut off to Shalai. It happens all the time, I have heard. We have a tanker truck standing by and just got a pump to fill the storage tanks. With a stroke of luck we might get showers!


1 comment:

barbarakime said...

I'm not sure who I'm even communicating with when I send these comments, but these wonderful messages just seem to me to deserve a response of some kind! So...thank-you so much for this communication, and for this wonderful project, and for all your hard work, for this heartful of feelings! Hope all continues to go well for everyone! With best wishes, Barbara Kime