fête

Friday afternoon we threw an end of the school year party for the kids. A party for the kids is something that has been in my thoughts and on my heart since the early months of planning to come back to Burkina. This was especially cool because the other girls here had similar feelings about wanting to do a fête, and so we were all able to put our thoughts together and do a party together.
We started, late afternoon, with games. Not all the children were there, and not all wanted to join in every game, but we'd expected both these things and had a blast with the children that did do games.
Some of the games we played involved the parachute! The parachute was donated by Extreme Kids at Foothills Alliance and boy I wish some of those kids could have seen how extremely excited our kids were to play our parachute games. Little Faichal and Moumouni (two children that are fairly new to the orphanage) giggled the entire time we played. When we were all underneath the parachute, most of looking around at each other and laughing, I looked over to see little Faichal, curled up in a ball with a giant smile on his face. As the parachute began to fall around him his smile grew bigger, he giggled a little louder and jumped to his feet ready to go again. These were the parachute games. Thank you so much Extreme Kids for the parachute. I know this was just the first of many exciting adventures!
After games we all gathered for a family dinner. We'd made party hats which I'm certain everyone thought was ridiculous, but they were good sports about it and we all laughed... We all sat together and ate macaroni, goat and juice, followed by banana/peanut cake with buttercream icing. Throughout the meal we called on random kids to give speeches (in the true African manner- with no warning!). Some gave speeches of encouragement to the kids who still have exams left to write, some a thank you to the organizers of the event, some thanked God for His support for this school year. It didn't take too long before the kids called on us to make speeches; I knew it would come back to us!

After dinner we split into two teams and had a giant balloon sword fight. This was our second annual sword fight (the first was après-lunch in 2009) and I had such fond memories of it I knew we had to have another. It didn't matter at all that we'd spent hours pumping up balloons and twisting them into swords to see them all pop in a matter of minutes. The laughter, and shrieks of amusement were everything. It is also a hilarious way to see a totally different side of the quiet, gentle children: they somehow still remain gentle, as they laugh and hit you again and again over the head with a balloon, but it's just a little different...
Our final plan was to watch a movie with the children. This was perhaps what they anticipated the most. We brought out the projector, started setting it up and...the electricity cut out. It has, been cutting out at least once a day since I arrived (rather unlike last year: a large windstorm recently damaged the power lines between our town and Ouahigouya our power supplier, and we suspect perhaps this is the cause of the power woes). Sometimes it will go four times in a day but only five minutes each time, other times it is out for hours each time. Unfortunately last night it was out for hours. No film. Instead the children brought out the djembes. It felt like forever that the children drummed, danced, sang or simply enjoyed the music. I tended towards simply enjoying the music with the others- but I definitely joined in on a little dancing and singing! It was for me, a million times more wonderful than any film and I felt myself wishing for more nights with only the djembes... As I, selfishly, enjoyed the time without the movie and we have made plans with the children to watch the movie another night soon, maybe we all win.
And so here is another thank you: to all of you who contributed funds towards the 'discretionary fund' for this trip. My portion of the costs of the party (us four girls took on the party equally), was actually contributed by you! Thank you for contributing to this fun evening for the kids. The children have already told us they hope an end of the school year party is now tradition- they felt special! (I don't know if you can tell or not but the above picture is all three of our Abrahams sitting together for dinner!)

And lastly, a quick update: I am feeling well again! By Friday, although still more tired than usual, I was feeling back to normal. This is so encouraging! Thank you all so much for your prayers. God is good.