January 6th-Beautiful Gate

Up early and off to our volunteer sites again! There are five of us who are volunteering at Beautiful Gate. Beautiful Gate is an organization that helps to support the families and children within the community. They provide care for children who were abused or neglected. They also do a lot of work within the community providing support and preventative measures to try and avoid a child being taken out of a family. The majority of the children they care for have HIV/AIDS. There are six cottages which house seven children, and each house has a Momma(caretaker). The older children of the cottage are responsible for helping out and caring for the younger children. For example, they help make snack and lunch, sweep, wash dishes, mop the floor and look out for the other children when playing. This is a place where the children are loved by everyone there, workers and other children. They create their own family.

The past two days there have been filled with lots of fun getting to know all the children and their personalities. We found that the children love playing with our hair; the first day the younger children would pet and rub our hair while the older ones would braid and "style" it. We have spent most of our time outside on the playground, playing soccer or catch. The children have also introduced us to traditional dances and songs. We have spent quite a bit of time watching them perform but also attempting to learn the dances as well, however most of the time our attempts are met by enormous outbursts of laughter from the children.

Today around noon the rest of our group came to Beautiful Gate to help out with some work and play a soccer game. We all helped clean some cottages and pull weeds around the facility. After that the children were more than thrilled to have all these additional people here and immediately had everyone involved. Whether it was holding someone, pushing them on a swing, playing on the playground, running around, playing the jembe (a type of drum), or dancing everyone was doing something. We were so busy and involved we never even ended up having our soccer game! After saying our goodbyes we all headed home to freshen up and go to the waterfront for an amazing dinner. While everyone was pleased with their meal, Karah's was voted the best after being passed around the entire table!

Looking forward to our weekend of touring!

--Danielle