Emefa

 

Emefa is on the left. Children start learning to carry burdens on their heads early on. To me, though, this was just another example of how she imitates grown-up behavior. Often times, instead of playing, she would carry a toy around on her head for a while.

I looked up Emefa's name, because I knew of at least one other one. Since, in this culture, children are often named according to the day of the week on which they were born, I wanted to see if that was the case of the name Emefa. Apparently not, but the name means "Peace." Another website I consulted said that people named Emefa developed strong personalities. I can certainly believe that, based on the little girl I know!

Emefa is the little mother of the kindergarten class. Tata often asks her to help with setting things up and even with the two babies that visit. (Just as a reminder, Espoir, the son of the first grade teacher and Weena [again, not sure of spelling!], the daughter of a clinic worker, are at work with their mothers. The ladies will bring them into our class for a change of scenery.) Emefa spreads out the mats for the babies to sit on, finds a toy for them to play with and, if they start to cry, goes to the mat to hush them. She likes to pick them up and walk around with them, and usually is the one to take them back to their mothers when they get fussy. She also takes care of Ariana and Gilbert, who frequently fall asleep. She spreads out a mat and wakes them up enough to walk them to the mat. Occasionally she tries to carry them, but that doesn't always work well. 

She is so eager to help that she fights with anyone else who tries to perform the same task. She also focusses entirely on the task. So, for example, when Tata gives instructions to put away the tables, Emefa has been known to take one that is still being used, whether for eating or writing, by another child.

At the beginning of the school year, Emefa had an interesting approach to playing with toys. She would carefully gather her favorites--and there were about 10 of them--and pile them up around her. Then she would begin playing with them one at a time. Heaven help the child who thought that an untouched toy in the pile was free for the taking. Emefa would yell, chase down the other child and grab the toy back. 

Her school work is usually very good, but occasionally she is over-confident and doesn't pay attention to the directions. Naturally, she then gives incorrect answers. 

My most recent picture of Emefa, the day I was taking portraits of all the children. At least I got her to smile; some of the others would not. Several of them held their arms like that.

Emefa's eagerness to help and bossiness sometimes irritate me. But she is a sweet little girl and I will be interested to see how she grows up!

Dieu-donné

 

I saw him from across the room and I had to get to know him.  Dieu-donné, the little boy in the green chair holding his shoestrings. He looked a little lost, as did a lot of the little ones on the first day of school. But he didn't cry. He just watched all that was happening. 

After a few minutes, he noticed me, too, and we began exchanging smiles. While he pushed the toy cars around, I watched. Occasionally he glanced my way and smiled at me. I applauded his car's speed. Eventually, by the end of the morning, he had come near enough to me that I could talk to him. I began by asking his name. I pointed to my self and said my name and then asked his. He didn't answer. After asking the question twice that way, I began pointing to him and just saying a name:  "Georges? Jean? Robert?" He chuckled, but still stayed silent. It was a few weeks before I learned his name, "Dieu-donné" or given by God. 

I don't know exactly how it happened, but we became good buddies. In the early part of the school year, Donné would sit on my lap. Now that he is a few months older, that happens rarely. However, he will come stand by me, hold my hand, and lean against me.

Early in December, a young woman came to class. Everybody except me recognized her as one of the mothers. She spoke to Tata for a few minutes, and then brought me this bag of peanuts. The teacher explained that the lady was Dieu-donné's mother. She said that he was constantly talking about "Miss Chris" at home and that he always wanted to come to school so that he would see me. I was very touched, both by the fact that he would talk about me and that his mother wanted to give me a present because of that.

That is not to say that our relationship has been constant joy. Earlier this year, I went out to my car only to discover that it had been "keyed." 

I knew it had to be one of the kindergartners. No one owned up to it that day, but the next day it came out that Donné was the culprit. It was a Tuesday, so I was in Lomé and didn't witness his confession. The next morning, though, after being urged on by Tata, he came and knelt at my chair and said something. The teacher told me that he was the one who had scratched my car. I asked him, "why?" but of course he had no answer. I told him that I was very hurt, but that I forgave him for two reasons. First, I love Jesus, and He wants me to forgive people and second, because I love Dieu-donné. He was a little standoffish for the rest of the day, but it didn't take too long to resume our normal relationship.

There are times when I ask myself if I will come back here. When I think about Dieu-donné, the answer is always "Yes!" I may not stay as long as I am this trip, but I have to check in periodically to see him grow!

 

One thing I have always loved about children is the way they use their whole body to do things. In the photo on the left, Donné is helping another student with a work sheet. I love how he has planted his feet and is bending over the table. 

Wild Animals I Have Seen

 Upon my first return from Africa some friends asked if I had seen any wild animals. The answer to that question is yes and no. While I have not seen the wildlife those friends wanted to hear about: no zebras, giraffes, elephants, or lions, I have seen plenty of wild animals. Here in Togo (and, I hear from Karen, in other parts of the world as well), all animals are wild. The idea of pets as we Americans have astonishes the people here. Families have cats and dogs, but they are not pampered as our pets are.

So what wildlife have I seen? 

Turkeys, chickens, guinea fowl, ducks. Hammer and Dela had turkeys when I arrived in September. Having never been around (live) turkeys, I enjoyed watching them. The Tom turkey fancied himself quite the ladies man. He would approach the ladies and spread his tail so they would notice him. It made an interesting noise when he did so, but he could not maintain the pose long. I was always reminded of the stereotype of the middle age man at the beach sucking in his gut when the pretty girls walk buy. Tom also thought he was the boss of the compound. He would chase people and peck them. I was not sad when they moved him from the compound to the farm on the church property, because he liked to chase my little buddy Godwin.

The female turkeys were not all that impressed with the male's airs. They frequently ran away when he approached them. I was especially sympathetic to one of them who, after all, was getting ready to nest. I was surprised to see that she laid eggs over several days before she actually began sitting on them full time. Even when that began, she took a couple of breaks during the day to stretch her legs. She wandered around the compound for about twenty minutes before returning to the nest. On one such occasion, she decided to take a nap. Like many of the beings here in Togo, she just fell asleep where she was.

The poor lady was not a very good nester. None of her eggs--and there were fifteen or so--hatched.

Chickens are plentiful as well. None live full time in Hammer's compound at the moment, but there are some outside. One of those is pictured below. Note the cloth that has been attached to the side. I assume that serves the purpose of a brand, since they roam free in the yard out front.

The photo on the right shows the chickens wandering around the school grounds. Today, one of them came into the church for a while. That was the first time I had seen one come inside. 

Karen has ducks at her house. This week they have suffered with some illness, and one of them died. When the first fell ill (and he survived), her gardener told her he knew a man in Vogan that could give her medicine for them. She got the medicine and gave it to the ailing duck. She also put some in the water for the rest of the flock. Two days ago, a different duck got sick and died, so yesterday she spent the day catching each duck individually and administering the medicine. Karen also has guinea fowl. I took a picture of some of her ducks a few weeks ago, but it did not turn out well, so I am unable to upload it for you.

Other animals: I can, however, show you pictures of her rabbits. She has a male and two females and is hoping for beautiful babies from them. Karen loves animals and uses them as part of her ministry here. She raises them with the understanding that they belong to Hammer who can give them to members of the congregation or community who are in need. Depending on their circumstances, they can then either eat the animal or raise more to sell.

Goats. Two different types of goats live here. A local breed is short and squat, but I have seen taller, thinner versions of this animal.

Finally, there are cattle. They graze along side of the road, so I most frequently see them there. I was amused to hear the residents of one of the villages voice their concern over people selling or renting land to cow herders. Much like the plot of Oklahoma!, the farmers did not like the cattle ignoring the boundaries to their land (there are very few fences here).

After composing this post, I remembered that I had seen a monkey. But it wasn't in the wild. It was chained to a tree in someone's yard. Obviously, that is the only way one could keep a pet monkey from escaping. I was so startled that I did not get the camera out in time to take its picture!

 

 

Mind your manners

 Just a brief comment about what is considered polite here. Disclaimer: these remarks are based on my observation of interactions, hearing what the kindergarten teacher tells the children, and hearing what parents say to their children. I have not asked many specific questions, so it is, of course, possible that I am missing some subtilties.

What is not impolite:  nose-picking. Even adults do so.

What is polite:

Greeting one's elders, including a curtsy or bow. When people arrive at church, for example, they go around greeting those who are already there. I think the polite thing is to wait for the younger person to speak first. That is what others seem to do. I can't help myself. When I see someone I know, I say hi. So I probably make mistakes on this all the time.

When starting to eat, inviting others around to eat with you. This one used to confuse me. A family friend who speaks English would say to me, "Miss Chris, you are invited." Sometimes I had just finished eating; sometimes I was already eating, so I wasn't sure what to do. Thanks to the kindergartners, however, I have now learned that the proper response is, "bon appétit!" Unfortunately with kindergartners, they all feel they have to invite me to eat and get my response. I still don't know the Ewe for it, but in French they say, "mangeons" (let's eat).

And finally, going outside to pass gas. At least that is what I have inferred. Occasionally one of the children will make a face and exclaim something, before telling Tata (the teacher) that another child has done something wrong. Tata always tells the offender that he or she should go outside to do that. I am basing my inference on the faces and exclamations. Who knows, it could be something totally different!

The Long Way Home

 I did it! Today I walked to Hammer's via the long way. And came back the same way. It is only a few yards farther, but feels like more than that when I drive it. The road is a lot smoother. Here are some pictures I took on the way home. 

Coming out of Hammer's house. I have mentioned before that he is across the street from the court building. The short way to my house calls for a left turn, but this morning I turned right. There are not many pictures from the house to the corner, because the street is a busy one. There is a moto taxi stand right in front of Hammer's house and a couple of shops between the court and the corner. As usual, there were several people out and about and I didn't want to draw attention to myself by taking pictures.

 

Either side of the street after turning the corner. The top picture shows more of the right side of the street.  About halfway down, there are two piles of rocks and dirt. These are the only driving hazards of the street. One of them (I can't remember which) has a similar pile on the opposite side, so you have to drive between them. If there is oncoming traffic, watch out! The pagoda that you see in the center of the bottom picture, which shows the left side of the street, is on the tall building next to my house.

This compound is on the right side of the street. Notice the name plate to the right of the gate. That is rather unusual--it gives the name of the home owner. The fence is so high that you can't see the house inside. I would love to go by it when the gate is open one day, so that I could get a peek at the layout of the compound.

Also on the right side. This house appears to be empty. I would like to know the story behind it, because it looks as if it is a good size and a good house. Did people live there before? Are they building the house as they have funds and still have work to do on the inside before moving in? So many possibilities!

I like the way this little shop has been built on to the compound wall. I will probably stop here one day, because the lady sells plastics. Despite my large-ish collection (for one person!), I find myself in need of a smaller bucket, which I have seen displayed here.

Turning the corner to my street. 

Finally, I am home. I pass the house next door (top photo) and arrive in front of my house. The compound across the street (bottom photo) also interests me. I would love to see the layout, because I think there are at least two families who live there.

According to my phone, there are 100 fewer steps this way: 916 vs. 1010 or so. So maybe it's not the long way home. Or perhaps I take smaller, and therefore more, steps on the short way because of the rough terrain. No matter. I'm going to ignore the numbers and just bask in the accomplishment of achieving a goal.

The funeral

 The funeral for which we practiced lo these many weeks took place this past weekend. Friday night was the wake. At Dela's suggestion, I didn't attend that one. I was dressed and ready to go, waiting at her house, when I got a call from her. She told me (as I walked across the courtyard to the door of the house) that the wake would start at 8:00 p.m. rather than 7:00, so it would probably be too late an evening for me. Since I do usually go to bed early, I agreed to her suggestion.

Saturday, I was glad that I had done so, because it was a very long day. Dela had told me to come to the house for breakfast around 7:30 a.m., dressed for the funeral. We left the house between 8:15 and 8:30. The site was not far away. Funerals here are held outside people's homes. A canopy and chairs are set up in the street. Since we were among the first to arrive, I was able to see the empty venue.

As we waited for people to arrive and everything to begin, passers-by walked through the place as if it were a normal day. Once things started, they would walk behing the row of chairs on the right side to pass through.

As you see, the street is now blocked. I could have videoed them bringing in the casket, but thought it might be impolite. Obviously, it wasn't since there was a videographer. The two men in front of me (not shown in my picture) did not want their pictures taken. The one put his hand up in front of the camera when the man pointed it in his direction. The other just turned his head and held his hand up beside his face. I was especially sad about him doing that, because I was contemplating asking him if I could take his picture. He just looked especially regal in his traditional dress.  There were a few heart-stopping moments where I thought the four and a half pall bearers (one guy helped out occasionally) were going to drop the coffin. but they safely got it to the funeral site and, I am assuming, to the graveyard as well.

The funeral consisted of three parts: The funeral itself, the burial, and the after-party (sorry, that's what it was like). At the funeral, there were prayers, of course. Hammer preached a sermon (on Genesis 3:1-3); our congregation sang a hymn; two different brass bands played songs; people got up to sing and talk. All of that was pretty much what I was expecting. What was different was that there was an MC who kept announcing that it was time to start and calling the family to come out of the house where they had gathered. He then would announce what was coming up and remind the speakers/singers that we started late so they should cut it short. To no avail. The bands played two to three verses of every hymn; we sang all four verses of ours; the spontaneous songs and condolences went on for ever.

Eventually, however, that part of the service was complete.

Part two, the burial. We walked to the graveyard; fortunately, it was close. In fact, rather than follow the coffin, we took a shortcut and got there before it did. That part of the ceremony was quite brief. They brought in the coffin. Hammer prayed or read Scripture--I was too far away to hear which--and then they put the coffin in the grave. Fortunately, the hole was big enough. I'm pretty sure I told some of you last year that they had to re-dig the hole at Louise's funeral.

Part three: the after-party. We walked back to the funeral site and the party began. As friends served food to the family and guests, we set up to do our traditional singing and dancing. We were not the only group to do so. One set of dancers had already begun before our return from the graveyard. It took a while to get set up and ready, but finally we began. I thought we sounded really good. Lots of people came inside the circle to dance, even some men. One of those came up to me in my seat and held out his hand for me to dance. I enjoy dancing, but only when no one is watching, so I turned him down, but pointed to Karen. She danced with him and then with several ladies in the crowd. After we finished, our sister congregation did their set. By that time, two other groups had started as well, so it was quite loud. You can not imagine my relief when our friends finished up and we could go home. It was nearly 4:00, so I spent about nine hours at this funeral.

This is a picture of the group from our sister congregation. The chairs form a circle where the singers and shaker players sit. The people standing in the center of the school are going to dance.

Some things that I have taught the kindergartners

 I have a few more things to add to the list! In addition to "the Hokey Pokey" and the song "Stand Up And Shout It If You Love My Jesus!" I have taught the kindergartners some other things.

Early in the school year, the children were playing with toys, crying because they don't share well, and running around and yelling. After I could tolerate it no longer, I went to the bare space of the room and started walking in a circle. Some children followed me. I asked them, "can you walk like a snake?" and held my arms together and slithered them back in forth in front of me as I walked. "Can you walk like a giraffe?" I held my head high and bobbed it up and down. "Like a lion?" I made claws and roared. "Like an elephant?" I bent my head low, made a trunk with my arms and lumbered from side to side. They were blessedly quiet for a few minutes as we walked the different ways.

In the next few days, Tata incorporated those walks into their PE class. Fast forward to Friday. Once again, the children were unruly. They were supposed to be sitting quietly, but one would get up and run around and others would follow. So, again, I sprang into action to quiet them down. "Can you walk like a crab?" and showed the crab walk that we used to do in PE. Tata came in at the end of my demonstration (good thing she did, because I never would have got up off the floor without her help!). We had each child try the walk in turn. Today (Monday, March 14), she incorporated it into PE class.

Another game I taught the kids is "Statues." We don't play it the way I did as a child. I would never be able to explain that to them. But they take turns striking a pose and the rest of us watch to see how long they can go without moving. It is fun, because some of them will do very complicated things, like lifting a foot off the floor. 

A lot of the learning here is done by rote memorization. There are few books, so the teachers write the lessons on the board, the children copy them, and learn them at home. The kindergartners are memorizing lots of "poems" that teach them parts of the face, counting, nutrition, etc. On the occasion that the children draw something, they are encouraged to copy another drawing exactly. So it feels good to see that the little ones in the kindergarten class are encouraged to use their imaginations.

Learning Ewe

 

   

I find Ewe to be a difficult language. One issue that every language learner encounters is the problem of knowing where words begin and end. This phenomenon is complicated for me by the fact that I seem to hear the same syllables over and over again. In fact, speakers frequently repeat the syllable ka or lo. Both of these add emphasis to a word. So, for example, one can say akpe kaka or akpe lo to mean thank you very much. In addition, Ewe, like Chinese, is a tonal language. so each syllable or word can change meanings according to whether one pronounces it with a rising or a falling tone. 

Even with these difficulties, I am learning bits and pieces, thanks to individuals who are teaching me a word or phrase at a time. I also hear some of the same words and phrases a lot, and I ask to learn their meaning. As usually happens to a beginner in a language, I know some isolated words, but can't put them into a good sentence.

Pictured above is a little hymnal, containing familiar hymns in Ewe and some of the same in French. I will sometimes turn to one of the hymns that I know and read it several times to see if I can make the correspondence between the Ewe and English. This is how I learned the word dzodzi, which shows up in "Jesus Saves" and means "joyful."

Occasionally I will ask, "how do you say ____ in Ewe?" The problem with this approach is that everyone gives me a different response. There are, apparently, many different ways to say things in Ewe. Take, for instance, greetings. I have learned a few items in this category. First, when one arrives in your vicinity (at your home or at church), you greet them with We zõ. (I don't know how to spell this, I am just writing it as it sounds to me. The "e" is a long a sound and the õ is a nazalized o), The proper response to this greeting is Yo-o. The next question is either So be do?  or another one that I haven't mastered saying, but am starting to recognize when I hear it. The choice of question has to do with when you last saw the person. I think I was told that "So be do?" implies that you saw the person the day before. And the question is asking if the work you did yesterday went well. The answer to that question is do so The question I haven't learned yet asks how the day is going so far. The answer is do gbe. 

Here are some other phrases I know:

echi (fafa) = (cold) water

mi dzo = let's go

me dzi = I need

gaflu = fork

gachi = spoon

kakla = knife

Mawu = God

akpe = Thank you

akpe na Mawu = Thank God

e vo = finished

e voa = are you finished?

caba = quickly

va = come

I was pleased to recognize some words in one of the traditional songs that we are practicing for the funeral: Yesu ye va de caba! = Jesus, come soon!

I was taken aback at first when people would laugh at my attempts to speak Ewe. I thought that I must have pronounced the words incorrectly. But no, Dela explained, they were laughing to express happiness at my attempt. One of the church ladies who has been teaching me is a cook at the school. Every day when she delivers lunch to the kindergarten class, she will ask me one of the "how are you questions" and wait for my response. After I reply, she applauds, so now the children do too. 

What's more, they have begun teaching me as well. Friday morning, one of the little boys picked up some seeds outside. He showed them to me and had me repeat: "atchi _____   _________" As you can see, I can only remember the first word, probably because I had heard it before. I figure, though, with an additional 17 teachers, I should be on my way to speaking Ewe in no time!

Taking a picture of a screen doesn't always yield the best results, but I think you can see well enough to get an idea of the written form of the language. This app lets me do a parallel version of the Ewe Bible beside the New King James Version. There is a lot of white space on the NKJV side, because it takes more words in Ewe than English to express the idea.

Laundry Day: the sequel

 

One of the hazards of my schedule with Viviane:  if the water happens to be off when she comes, there is very little she can do here. That's what happened yesterday. Thursday is usually laundry day, so I was extremely surprised to walk into the compound after school (having left the car outside) and not see any clothes hanging on the line. When I went into the bathroom, though, I understood: the water was off. It obviously had been off since the morning. 

I was extremely thankful that Dela had reminded Karen (in my presence, so I also benefitted) to keep some water on hand. There are some garments that I have only 7 of, so if the laundry doesn't get done on laundry day, I'm in trouble. I collected a very small amount of clothes to wash yesterday. It was 2:30, so there would only be about 3 hours of daylight for drying. Another moment of thankfulness: my mother taught me years ago that, if you're just washing out a couple of things, it helps to roll them up in a towel and squeeze out the excess moisture. I usually do that by sitting on the rolled up towel! Everything that I needed yesterday evening and this morning got dry in time.

Fridays school lets out at 11:30, so I had a longer period of daylight. I arrived home after lunch and set up to do some laundry. Fortunately, the water was still on. I washed all my whites and lights and got them hung up. I had hoped to do more, but just that bit took a long time--about an hour and a half--and wore me out. So I will have to do my darker colors tomorrow.

Although I have the drying rack set up in the living room, most of the clothes are just a bit damp around the edges. 

I made two resolutions while I was doing the laundry:

1) find out where Viviane sets up to do it and buy a hose to connect to the outdoor faucet. It took about 6 buckets of water to fill up the washbasins for laundry. That means 6 trips across the driveway and back. Not really a long time, but the trips with the full bucket are not fun.

2) buy the washing machine hose for getting the water from the faucet to the machine. I think that's all I need to set the machine up, and then I can do the laundry myself.

By the way, I did not use the block of soap that Viviane uses, in addition to the powdered detergent. So the clothes are probably not as clean as she would have got them. But I will try not to think of that when I put them on!

Joe and Gilbert

 

I include two boys in this post, because they seemed to be together a lot during the early days of school. I thought they might be brothers, and had a hard time associating the right name with the face. For a few weeks, I never addressed one of them by name until I had looked at their shoes. 

I hate that I accidentally took this shot as a video (I do that occasionally!) Gilbert wore those neon green shoes nearly every day during the first months of school. I would look for them daily so that I could know which boy was Gilbert!

I mentioned Joe in my post on circumcision. He is back in class now and we have daily exchanges that go like this:

Joe: "s'il te plait aide-moi!"  Please, help me. As he hands me his school uniform after the PE session.

Me: "donne-moi ton pied gauche." Give me your left foot.

Joe: "gauche! droit! gauche! droit!" (pointing to his arms or legs, sometimes getting it right, other times getting it wrong.)

We repeat my request for his body parts until we get him dressed. He will return to stand by my chair now and then throughout the day. He counts for me and we do right and left. Occasionally he will come to get help writing his letters or numbers. He is not quick at writing them, but he can count to 10 and can recite the "poems" that they are learning.

Joe on the car during the early days of school. He frequently wore those hiking boots.

Gilbert and I spend a little more time together because he is one of the younger children. So sometimes he sits with me while the others are writing on their slates. In recent weeks, however, he has begun getting his slate out to write as well. At first he would bring it to me and try to make me write the letter or number they were working on. I refused, but would take his hand and push it in the proper direction to write the letter. Then I would tell him to write one. He would refuse, and push the chalk into my hand again. We continued this routine for a couple of weeks, but he has now begun to try on his own. Occasionally he will have me guide his hand, but then he will write by himself.

An interesting development has occurred with this change. Gilbert, who is normally a lefty, will occasionally put the chalk in his right hand and write the number that way. 

Despite his youth, Gilbert is quick to learn the lessons that don't involve writing. He can count to 10 and is occasionally used to shame the older kids who have trouble counting. 

One of his dearest qualities to me is his laugh. Gilbert takes great joy in most of life and will laugh and giggle at the other children. It is highly contagious. I love the video below because his joy manifested itself differently. 

I took these pictures today. Joe's, above, did not have good lighting, but I hope you can see his sweet face. Gilbert is in the green chair looking at me. I thought about cropping this picture to just show him, but I love the sight of the children waiting for the teacher to prepare their papers for them to write. Today they were working on the letters "u" and "i." In cursive. In the French education system, on which Togo's is based, the printed letters are used at the beginning, for children to learn the shape of the letter and, of course, to learn to recognize it in a printed text. They write those letters briefly, but then work on learning how to write cursive.

Just in case you have difficulties loading the videos.  View them here.

Dorcas

 

I thought I would start telling you about some of my kindergarten children. I start with Dorcas, because her journey through kindergarten so far has been quite interesting to me. 

Dorcas first attracted my attention during playtime in the early days of the school year. She played by herself and seemed to be talking to herself, dancing, etc. At first, I confess, I thought she might be developmentally delayed in some way, but as I continued to watch I realized she was entertaining herself. I was very impressed with her self-sufficiency. 

Once the children got to know each other better and started interacting more, Dorcas demonstrated a great generosity. Her favorite truck was a Fisher Price cement mixer. You can see it in the left foreground of the picture above. She would push that toy up and down the church forever. After a few weeks, the other children discovered the toy and began to take it away from her. Although she would be sad and cry, she didn't fight them for it (as most of the children do), but gave it up. 

Once the children started learning, I discovered that Dorcas was far from developmentally delayed. She remembers the lessons better than most of the others. Since she is quiet, however, she will often not get credit for remembering, because she will say the answer and then a child in her vicinity will repeat it more loudly. When the children do a worksheet, Dorcas gets very upset with herself if she makes a mistake on it. She loves school and practices writing at home both on her slate and in her notebook.

In the past few months, several of the little boys have noticed Dorcas's qualities and now they fight over who gets to sit by her. One little guy in particular is very possessive. He will save her a seat next to him. If she gets up to get a drink or go to the restroom, he does, too. He will get her backpack and carry it for her. His affection does not go so far as to let her win a game, however. Tata taught the children how to play Musical Chairs, and the boy did not hesitate to grab and move the chair so that he could sit and she ended up on the floor.

In this picture, Dorcas is in the yellow shirt and shorts. The boy in green on her left is the one who is sweet on her. Today, though, she was sitting for a while by the boy in the foreground in blue. When it came time for some of the songs, which involve hugging a partner, Sam in blue got to Dorcas first. Kefas was not happy, but he stood himself and his partner right next to Sam and Dorcas.

I recently learned that Dorcas has sickle cell anemia. Knowing that medical care is scarce and not as developed as in the States, I worry about her future. May God grant her a long life and may she serve Him all her days!

P.S. I just have to tell you about the exchange I had with Dorcas today. On Wednesday mornings, I leave the kindergarten class at 10:15 to go observe French classes in the middle school. Elementary students end their morning at 11:30, but the middle school continues until 12, so I normally don't see my "babies" again. However, today, Dorcas was still on the premises and she ran up to me with a hug as I was walking to my car. Then she began to tell me a story.

Tata (the kindergarten teacher) has told the children several times that I do not understand or speak Ewe, so if they want to talk to me, they need to use French. I was so touched--and very proud of her--that Dorcas was speaking French to tell me that Sam had taken her backpack and put it on the floor and now it was dirty:  "Sam . . . sac . . . parterre." "Sam put your backpack on the floor? [in French, of course]" She nodded.  "Sale!" "And now your backpack is dirty?" Again the nod. I hugged her and assured her that it was not nice of Sam to do that and she would have to clean her backpack at home. We hugged again, and she smiled, and I continued to my car.