Gerladina Orphanage & Education Centre

MY VISIT TO THE CENTRE

I arrived at the Centre at 9.30 pm after a long journey of about 39 hours drive from Dar es Salaam to Bukoba. I was very tired the time I arrived but the welcome I received from the children in the Centre made me feel well instantly. It was very exciting to me as it was my first time to see them in our Centre. I moved from here and there to see how things are arranged. Every child was very anxious to show me where is sleeping.

How is the place, is it good for you? I asked Evodius who is almost 9 years old.

Evodius- This place is very good.

Why do you say is very good? I asked him again

Evodius- I used to sleep down on grass, now look, we have new mattresses, new blankets and new bed sheets.

In the next morning some children woke up very early at around 6.30 am, one of them was Revinius. I was very inquisitive and asked him, why do you have awaken up so early?
“Is this early?” asked Revinius. At home we used to wake up earlier than that for casual labor. This gave me a picture of child labor.

These comments from Evodius and Revinius encouraged me on what we have decided to do. I saw the value of what God has enabled us to do.

On Saturday I went to visit the area where we are looking for the plot for building the centre, this took us from 10.00 am to 2.00 pm. I did this to see if there are other good plots aside from the one we saw in my last visit to Bukoba. The owner of the first plot had not yet arrived from Dodoma and we are expecting him to arrive today. By Friday I will be certain of which plot we have identified as the best and its costs.

In the evening I went to visit the grandmother of Evodius, Revinius and Veldiana. Below is the photo showing that grandmother standing with her grandchildren in front of their house.

LIFE IN THE CENTRE

These are the children in the centre on Easter

Life in their bedrooms

Gisela on her bed

The boys bedroom

The full team at the Centre
At the back from Left is Jovitha who is dealing with logistics and children health issues, at the middle is Eugenia, the house mother and right is Florida who is dealing with the general cleanliness of the centre.

Rear of the house …. look at all those tiny shoes

Front of the house

Side of the house

We love each other

Easter celebration – We danced together

We ate Easter dinner together

Posted on April 14th, 2007 by kim No Comments »