Guyana 08/2009

I LOVE GUYANA!

While visiting Bright Horizons Children's Home we had the opportunity to play a little Cricket with the kids. Cricket is the most popular sport in Guyana, followed by soccer. The children use makeshift bats out of wooden boards with whittled handles. After enjoying our time here playing in the rain, we made sure to send a full set of Cricket equipment out to the home in their next distribution. I wish I could have been there when they received it!

I spent the week on the road, visiting the different homes participating in the program. Along with the Guyanese coordinators for the program we met with the different home directors and discussed everything from our support and potential future projects, to the current school year and the silly things the children do from time to time. The above picture is our FFP Driver Mr. Marks playing with the kids while we sitting with the house mothers and other children. Many of the children lack an appropriate father figure in their lives, and Mr. Marks gets lots of attention when he comes to the homes. The children know him very well and they all compete for his attention when he accompanies the AOH coordinators on their monthly visits.

One of our donors blesses us a couple times a year with a donation of beautiful hand-made outfits for the children.

The trip was wonderful and we were able to accomplish a full itinerary of visits and meetings. We also celebrated a Day of Celebration event with all the homes where the children went home loaded with gifts, candies and prizes. Each home had various children participating in the cultural presentations and it is always so incredible to watch children present to a large group of people. You can see the child gaining confidence and maturity when they complete the presentation and they are so happy that they had the courage to stand up and participate. One of the girls from Mahaica Children's Home ran up to me and gave me a big hug because she was so proud of herself for singing a solo to the group of 500 people. These children are extremely talented and it is wonderful to provide them with the opportunity to showcase themselves.

This is the exterior of a beautiful buildling addition that we completed at Joshua House. This large project gives the home the needed space to seperate the girls and boys dorms and provides a spacious breezy multi-purpose room/dining room on the bottom floor.

Here is a short video of the boys of St John Bosco's Boys Home's steel pan band.

They were practicing for a presentacion the following day to a gathering of all the homes of Angels of Hope.

The children of Guyana are so beautiful! Look at this beautiful face!