School fees and uniforms for 14 Mammadu kids

Hi to all of you

The new year started and we are operating on full range. It is so amazing how fast our kids are growing. It seams like yesterday to me when Petrus and Aruma were attending our pre-school, and now they are in grate 3 and they are able to read, what a blessing after all the hours spent on practising. It is so surprising to me that it’s them reading now the letters we receive from you, yes only the typed ones because the handwritten ones are still a bit of an issue.

Now our new grate one students have to start with their reading and the numbers. They know the alphabet but to put together the sounds is a huge step for them. They easily memorize the words and so it seams they are already perfectly able to read, but if you then change the order and ask them to read this and that word…. You just see lips shaping for the correct sound and if they don’t remember the word they guess… Sesiria even explained me that one doesn’t read jumping from one word to an other but that you always have to start from the beginning. Girls can be really sharp

We received a new kitchen, well a toy kitchen. It is really very cute with all the small pots, pans, plates and tee cups and even the stove with all the little details. Now the favourite play is “Restaurant”. Some of them cook, mostly Dennis and the others enjoy the food, grass is our spaghetti dish and little stones are our meat dishes. The kids truly put a lot of care in the food preparation and also the tables are laid out perfectly. Maybe you have to come once to our new “Restaurant”.

Often I’m asked what we need and I always say everything. And this is true, but unfortunately not everything can be brought with or sent.

We need water to wash the kids, for cooking and for the toilets, we need electricity for the lights, the fridge and the freezer, we need food, we need petrol for our school bus, we need school fees, we need soaps, brooms and tyres…..we need everything and most of these items are not fancy and definitely not very satisfactory to bring with but still we truly need them.

Mammadu is accommodating now 40 kids and has 3 employees, a teacher, a cook and a cleaning lady. We cook around 100 meals a day, we use nearly 25 litres of cleaning products a month and 2 tubes of toothpaste a week, just some examples to give you an idea.

At the end of the day we need a lot of money to afford all this and it’s thanks to you all, who financed Mammadu over the last years.

I just want to thank you for all your love