To Market

This morning the year 3 classes organized a Market as part of their Unit of Inquiry involving economics and counting money.
The students were selling small items and organizing games to play in order to raise money for charity.

Pet Rocks Booth van Ole and Maarten: they've collected $ 64!

1 pet rock for 1 US $ or 100 Kwanza

 

Yummy cupcakes

 

Maarten chose those 3 for me: Crazy Bird, Rabbit and Winnie the Pooh
 

One morning in the slum

The kids were a bit wild in the beginning which made it challenging but it is not of harm to us.
But I think they slowly start to understand when they obey rules and order and use good manners that they might be rewarded for that.

For the children it is always a big challenge to made the playground out of the cardboard then find a spot, sit down and remind calm. Especially on days like this when so many show up! It seems that we get more and more kids every time. And we also get a lot of attention from the passengers. Last time a group of zungueiras (women street vendors) asked us to visit their village too. I'm sure that our "vagabond school" would enjoy success in every Angolan district.

The people are usually very friendly and I never felt threatened. Only today there was a completely stoned guy who was very touchy and was interfering and disturbing our group. Luckily the villagers helped us to keep him away. And then he returned bringing us his two little boys who looked rather anxious.

We played bingo, the kids did a lot of coloring and they even tried to read some books.
The kids seem to like doing their art work and enjoying all the activities. Some are reading very well others can't read at all.  You see obvious differences only while looking at their clothes, as long as they wear some!
Many of them are orphans or are born from prostitution. Their extended family or neighbors are taking care of them. But there are so many orphaned children that the community simply can't manage to help them all.

It's very nice to see the reaction of the people and kids over there and see that they appreciate what we do for them.
You can tell that they really warmed up to us and that they have a good time the same way as we do.
During reading the books we picked up randomly some of the toddlers and babies to make sure they can see the pictures as well. They started to cuddle. I was touched.

I remember when we started to visit them they would even cry when we said hello to them. They were very frightened by us naturally.
So it was so nice to realize that they trust us enough to hold them now.

When we were about to leave some ladies surrounded me asking me something I couldn't understand. They wanted me to hold the tiny baby girl who was only a few month old.



Helping unload cardboard from car.

Some of the ladies were helping us disciplining the kids. This one was a little too agitated yelling at them hitting them with a stick and even throwing pebbles on their bold shaved heads!

Taking turns reading aloud.

The little ones want to read too!

This baby boy has his mommy, not sure about the one behind.

So proud of their work.

Brothers.

So much fun!

They all want to be in the picture!

 

Posing.

  

Dengue Fever

The rainy season in Angola brings with it the floods, landslides and even worse the threat of outbreak of infectious diseases.
Here in Luanda there are so many people living outside and they keep their water in buckets.  The buckets, puddles and all the garbage cans or tires around holds water for some time. That are an excellent breeding grounds for mosquitoes.
More mosquitoes means more diseases!  And not only malaria!
Yesterday we heard about the outbreak of dengue fever here in Luanda.
After the year spent in Angola I've became quite comfortable with living in a high risk malaria country. At least when I think back at my fears during the first months here I came to terms with it.
We are still very cautious and compared to some other expats sometimes I even think we are maybe too cautious. But how much prevention in this case is too much?

Anyway,  there are already more than 20 people infected with the dengue virus in Angola!

Unlike the malaria mosquito the dengue mosquito prefers to bite people during the day time, so beware!

It's interesting to know that dengue mosquitoes only live and breed in urban environments, in man-made areas. They only need a little bit of water to lay their eggs. They also don't like to fly far only some 50-200 meters. 

Well, I'm off to check our backyard for any pooled water!

Reuse, Recycle - Angolan Way

It is the truth that the streets of Luanda are usually covered with garbage.
But I am also impressed by sadly forced creativity of the poor to reuse old stuff.

Here in Angola shoes are a luxury item among the poor people.
I found those kids slippers made from old and abandoned tires on the market.

This is Marco from the slum we visit each Friday with his juice box toy car.
This picture is taken during the polio vaccination and he as many of the small kids were quite afraid even it was only about a few oral drops.

Despite their living conditions the kids from the poor neighborhoods are very creative when it comes to playing.

Did you know that refrigerators float? Those boys had a blast!

After the rain

We had some stormy weather this Saturday afternoon. The heavy rainfall lasted for more than 4 hours causing bad flooding, destroying infrastructure and homes and leaving people homeless.. 9 people, including children, found their dead in collapsing houses. At least 4 people are still missing. According to the head of the Instituto Nacional de Meteorogia e Geofísica the reason for the immense flooding is lack of drainage ditches. (dnoticias.pt) From our upstairs window we could see the swollen river down our compound. Sunday seemed to be calm and sunny like nothing ever happened. Rob and I went for a stroll to check the river. You could see how the river made its way through the farmlands. The banks were broaden by some 20 meters in both directions with heaps of garbage everywhere. A vehicle covered with trash was washed down the river.


Anyway, the kids were happy as always enjoying the ride in the unusually strong current.