Wednesday, January 18 - Part Two

Wednesday, January 18  ... two posts in one day, I"m cranking them out now!

After our optical escapade, ice cream and pizza, we headed back to the hotel to pack up for the orphanage.  We take bus #3 to the orphanage and there are ticket takers on each bus who obviously sell the tickets and also maintain some sense of order on the bus as well.  From what we can tell their job responsibilities include:

•         looking out for blind individuals, older people, older people with lots of bags – ensuring they have help getting on or off  (I think I'm retiring here, they really respect elders!)
•         sometimes hanging out the window to wave off motor bikes from impeding the bus’s ability to get to the curb
•         ensuring folks who sit in the very front of the bus take off their shoes (there’s some sort of blue mat that must be sacred, the volunteers we met at our orphanage from Norway got yelled at the other day until they understood via sign language that their footwear needed to be removed). 

Quite often we have the same ‘ticket-taker guy’, but this particular day we had a woman we had never had before.  I don’t know if we were behind schedule or what, but she was ‘owning’ this bus.  As soon as the bus pulled over to pick up new riders, she was hanging out the door gesturing for them to hurry up, hurry up.  As they approached the bottom stair of the bus she would grab them and literally pull them up the stairs and off we would go.  She was then all about assigning seats and getting you in your seats pronto!  Because there were a number of people getting on at our stop, I must have been in the middle of the crowd so didn’t notice getting ‘pulled’ on to the bus.  However, as we were riding along I began to notice she was also practically pushing them off when it was their time to depart.  I started getting a little anxious thinking … please lady don’t push me off the bus – because as you are getting off the bus you also have to double check that no motor bikes are trying to scoot by the bus, or riding down the sidewalk you are trying to get to in their hurry to get into the throng of traffic right in front of the bus (it’s like in the US when a car goes flying by you at an unsafe speed only to be right in front of you at the next stop light).

Well I got off without incident and we never had her again, but I have to wonder if this is simply her ‘style’ or we were truly in a big hurry that day!!

There was a very large group of volunteers at the orphanage today.  (Actually I don’t think they were volunteering per se, but perhaps were from a company that was making a donation of food or some sort of goods.)  Due to construction we weren’t able to go to our ‘usual’ spot, which is a bit secluded, so we were more out in the open.  Some of them spoke pretty good English so came over to inquire about us.  Very kind of them but overwhelming to me.  Poor Julie had to manage all of this because I can’t manage our kids wants and needs, IT problems AND talk to people who English is their 2nd language (they do absolutely awesome, but it still takes concentration to understand them). 

We bring puzzles, balls, light up toys and then we have two iPads, an old iPod and our phones.  We know that in the past a game called ‘Cut the rope’ has been well-liked and it takes dexterity.  So, although they are using electronics, they are also having to utilize fine-motor skills.  In between trips I delete the apps off our devices (to save space) and so the night before flying over here I remembered and realized I needed to download some apps.  I got ‘cut the rope’ and a few other new games.  Of course since we are their IT department I had to play for awhile to have some idea of what they needed to do.  I ended up staying up until 4am getting set up because I then remembered they also like animal sounds.    I found 3 or 4 apps I thought they would enjoy and figured I was all set. 

Selfie Fun!!

Unfortunately because it WAS 4 am I didn’t pay attention to the fact that I put all the animal sound games on only one device.  ROOKIE mistake – I should know better.  We hadn’t asked for the wifi password at the orphanage (and it probably doesn’t extend to where we were anyway) and since I had already spent over $150 on data usage I wasn’t about to download the games on additional devices, so we had a few unhappy campers.  ‘Cut the Rope’ just wasn’t cutting it this day and because we were in a new area it really wasn’t conducive to doing puzzles.    Hopefully tomorrow I’ll have my act together!!

This is how I felt at the end of the day!!!

When we got back to the hotel I was absolutely exhausted and sore everywhere!  I walked in the door and simply laid down on the tile floor trying to work out kinks in my back and shoulders.  I knew I should first be wiping down all our ‘stuff’ since everyone there has a runny nose, is coughing and even Dorothy (who usually isn’t a drooler) had drooled on my arm today and we both had quite a giggle over it. 

As I lie on the floor I was trying to figure out how I could transport a yoga ball or a foam roller over so we could work out our kinks at the end of the day.  Do you think I’d have to buy them their own seat on the plane?  Could they at least share a seat?  Could they masquerade as a personal item????