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Return home Mid January, the doors of Siama opened again for our girls. Their holiday of 6 weeks was past. 3 new girls joined the group. 2 elderly girls who are in Grade 7 and the 8 year old daughter of Apolonnia, the housemother. The children were very excited seeing each other again, especially when they saw the new playing ground with the new equipment which Ender (Heike’s husband) built in their absence. Thanks to donations we received, he built 2 swings, a climbing rack ; a kind of a bridge where they can climb over. Fantastic ! All equipment was ofcourse, immediately used by the girls. Ender also created a ground where the children can play basketball. All in all, some great improvements for the girls. The Siama house, has in the meantime, grown considerably with 16 girls, and Apollonia has quite some work to do now. Not only preparing meals, but also more washing up to do, making sure the children are dressed properly, cleaning the house, etc; it is keeping her very busy. Luckily the bigger girls are a great help to her and assist her with the washing up and cleaning their own bedrooms. After Sunshine, there is rain……. December was a very dry month and the vegetable garden had to suffer a lot, despite being watered on a regular basis. The birds also took their share so there was not a lot left of the beetles, carrots and salad. But it is amazing how fast everything grows, once the rain starts…. In no time, we will be eating our home grown vegetables again. So we will keep doing our best to realize a waterpump near the house, so we can sprinkle better during the dry season.
The rain is ofcourse a blessing for the country; for Siama it had also it’s downside… The rain came with heavy thunderstorm and winds. Lightning stroke and for more than a week we were without telephone or internet. A new ISDN box had to be bought. Also the fax failed to work and cannot be repaired in the small village of Omaruru. So we are now waiting for someone to go to Swakopmund (300kms from Omaruru), who is willing to take the faxmachine with him and have it repaired there. You see, not everything is working rapidly in Africa. The rain had more consequences for Siama. It seemed that we had several leaks in the house. The house has a corrugated asbestos cement roof (which is the most common roofing in Africa) which is attached with nails and sealant. Due to the heath of the sun, the sealant dries out after a couple of years and will cause leaks. Anywy, the roof has now been urgently repaired (African urgency of a week) . We do hope that it will remain intact, cause otherwise we will have additional costs!!
Bicycles But we do want to end this newsletter with the good news we received. We wrote on our website that we would like to have bicycles for the children. Our newsletter is read internationally (despite english, we also publish ofcourse in Dutch), proves from a donation we received from Luxembourg. The person donated asked us if we could buy 6 bicycles with this donation. That was a done deal!! 6 Bicycles have been ordered for the bigger girls, we are now waiting for the helmets to be deliverd. The children cannot wait to start cycling; which will cause great fun, as they have never done this before, let alone owning a bicycle!! Besides, the majority of the roads are not paved, and they will need to practice on sandroads and small cobbling paths. Not simple, but practice makes perfect!. As soon as they are capable of cycling, the will take their bikes to school; this is for the elderly girls. It is getting a bit crowded in the van with 16 children driving to school. We will keep you updated with their cycling experiences!! Volunteers Furthermore, in a couple of months 2 Belgian volunteers will give their aid to the Siama Project in Omaruru. Also good news. Well, this is the latest news from Omaruru. We will keep you updated in the next newsletter.
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