Manis and Pedis at the Plaster House

Janelle and I finally returned to Plaster House yesterday (after being absent for almost two weeks). It was the usual craziness full of children fighting over who gets which crayon and who gets to sit on our laps. But, it was wonderful to be with the kiddos again. I got to meet Sarah, an Australian occupational therapist who started Plaster House. She's been in Australia the last five weeks and just recently returned. We talked a bit about how it got started and what their needs are. In case you are interested, they are fundraising to build a new building. They have more than outgrown their current facilities and a church has donated the land for the new building. They are going to build in phases...getting the basics first and then adding on as money allows. If you want to learn more about Plaster House, here's the website: http://www.plasterhouse.org/

Interestingly, it only costs $300 for the full surgery and rehabilitation for a child. That's obviously a lot of money here in Tanzania and not so much money in the U.S. (relative to the cost of surgery, that is...$300 is still a lot of money to the couple who is "unemployed" and "homeless" at the moment :) )

Ok, my plug is done...now onto the featured news! Sarah told me that we could bring in nail polish to paint the kids' nails. And that's just what we did today. It was total madness. So much fun and totally worth dealing with the chaos. The kids all fought over who got to go first and such, but I think it calmed down a bit when they realized everyone (yes, everyone, boy and girls) could get their nails painted. (My dad is going to flip when he hears that I spent the morning painting little boys' finger nails.) Here are some pictures:

 Hahaha...I was trying to get the boy on the right to smile. I said what I thought was the Swahili word for "smile", but that didn't work. So I smiled and pointed at my mouth, and this is what he interpreted.

Ah, sweet Lazaro (on the right...the one that calls me "Ray-book-ah")...today I realized how small he is for his age. I'm pretty sure that he is close to the same age as the boy next to him, but he stands so much smaller. This picture doesn't quite capture that.

 Lunchtime!!! The girl on the left looks annoyed that I'm taking her picture, but I promise she asked me to.

Mamas cooking ugali -  I wasn't going to take this picture, but when they saw me taking pictures of the kids, they wanted theirs taken too :)

My plate - Janelle and I ate lunch at PH yesterday and today. If we are there around lunchtime, the mamas insist that we eat. Yesterday, we had Pilau - spiced rice with some meat and potatoes - which was actually pretty good. Today, we had ugali and then the other stuff is some kind of stew made out of broccoli, cauliflower, potatoes, and some other greens.