I Hope You're Wearing Sunscreen

A boy of nine or ten years has come over to Camila, Peter, and Matt to ask what they are doing. It's a legitimate question; they are sitting around a large bowl in the sun, taking things out of the bowl and throwing them into a wooden box. They explain to him that they are sorting nails. They talk a while longer, the boy trying out a few words of English, Camila exercising her Spanish. Now they've been joined by three girls, a little younger than the boy. The elementary school is coming into session here, and I suspect that soon we will have a whole group of students hovering around our youth as they sort nails and shake debris out of books in the ministry center lawn.

Painting was ruled out because of allergies (whose allergies, I'm not sure; many things are being lost in translation), so our work projects for the day are to organize the tool shed/workshop, and take what seems like thousands of books out of the basement, check them for termite damage, move them upstairs to what will become a library, and sort them. A very industrious group of our youth also cleaned up all the garbage around the ministry center grounds. There were bags and bags of it. One of the things we've all noticed is how much trash is left on the ground here. It's everywhere. One student observed that weekly garbage pickup probably isn't part of their lives, which I think is a safe bet. The jobs we are doing today seem small and kind of tedious, and some of the youth keep looking at me like I'm kidding or insane.

We are probably not going to accomplish a major project this week, but the thing is, these strange little tasks are useful, too. We are doing the things that the locals and the usual visiting groups who do have big projects don't have time to do - the little things that will make it easier for them to do their jobs. And I get to do other sorts of little things, like pester our youth about drinking more water, washing their hands, staying off of their phones, and putting on sunscreen - which none of them want to do, of course. Our pasty northern skin is already changing color...and only tonight will tell whether it's brown or red.