Village Tour

We went on a tour of Cinsta East, which is the nearby village. Our program leader from VA 32 degrees, Milton, grew up there and lives there now. We walked from our house for about 15 minutes to the edge of the town. When we walked by the first house a little girl ran up, and hugged the girl next to me. She kept hugging us, and insisted on walking (well being carried) along with us through the whole town. As we walked further into town, more children joined our group. They loved taking pictures with us, and touching our hair. 

Milton showed us the preschool that previous ISV groups had improved, and built playgrounds around. They were so basic compared to the playground kids in the USA still call "boring", but the children absolutely love them. Previous groups also built the health center for the town. Milton explained that a nurse would come from East London twice a month to give check-ups to the people. On the days that the nurse would come, people would start to line up outside the building before the sun comes up. Sometimes the nurse wouldn't show up, without warning, until the next scheduled visit. After he explained all of this, he told us that if they called an ambulance it wouldn't show up for hours, or even until the next day. It broke my heart when he told me that waiting for a taxi to drive through the town would be faster to get to the nearest hospital, 45 minutes away. 

For the next two Tuesdays that we are here, we will be playing games with the children when they get out of school. All of the children wanted to play with my camera, and my phone, so here are some pictures that they insisted on taking :)