The kids of DA

I have been writing this whole time about our family and our life here.  But the biggest story here are the kids of DA.  Ever since the first day of school I continue to be amazed by these kids.  Lets first start with the elementary children.  Do you know that most of them speak 3,4 and even 5 different languages!  Just to hear them go back and forth from English, French, Wolof, Spanish, Portuguese, and countless others.  And I'm just struggling with beginner French.   And then they go and speak of all these countries that they have either visited or had to leave from because of war or a coup that broke out.  The stories they tell of gun fighting is heartbreaking.  A lot of these children are from Christian homes, but 20% are not.  There are no other elementary students that live on campus besides Monroe who is in 2nd grade so all these children live out in town.  Regan and Carter are in middle school (6th and 8th) And 6th grade is when they can start living in dorms but there aren't any right now so everyone is in 8th or higher.
This is the group of elementary students, each table is a grade. K to 5th.  I have a couple of helpers, I also work in the classrooms with individual students as well as in the office.

One thing I have found is that there is so much compassion and love here.  Everyone, including the High Schoolers are so thoughtful.  Just to show an example, Regan hurt her foot during soccer and the schools nurse wasn't around so this Senior went to a nearby tree and took his machete (!!!) hacked down a branch stripped it tied a shirt to it as a cushion and gave it to Regan as a crutch.

I know it doesn't look like that big of a deal but the simple act of him going out and doing this for someone he didn't even know was so touching to me.  And then there is the playing with the children as they change classes and go through the playground.  They take their time with people which is such a nice and refreshing thing to see!  Besides all that they are also given a lot of freedom to express themselves and not worry about being laughed at or other repercussions.  Such as in Videography class, this certainly couldn't be done in the states with some kid walking around with a "gun"

Or when they had a fun Seniors night where everyone dressed up as a Western, Caveman, Mid-evil and Future.  And they had great costumes.

                 

So now maybe you can see why we are starting to really love it here!