0 Baking cupcakes at St Mary's

This Monday was a school holiday and I could finally fulfil the promise that I made to the St Mary's children to come and bake with them. During the normal school weeks it is always difficult because there wouldn't be enough time between coming from school, eating and doing homework. So when I arrived on Monday morning everybody was happy about the extra program because normally the children are often bored and don't know what to do on free days. They were even happier when I showed them what I had brought for decorating our cupcakes and I think that actually was the part that they enjoyed most of our baking session. In the end our results looked quite good even though I had to stop my assistants from burrying the cupcakes under a thick layer of colourful decor.

I also had my personal photographers that captured every step in pictures - sometimes maybe a bit blurred, but it's the memory that counts!

0 Finally new work!

After many worries about our work we finally found something to do! In the mornings we still go on working at Cotlands and the amount of work is still changeful but in the afternoons we are working for St Mary’s now.  St Mary’s is a children’s home near Cotlands that gives home to 60 children aged between seven and 21. Some of them are orphans, some were abused or neglected and some have been infected or affected by HIV. They live in six different cottages together with a house mother. In their cottages they have their bedrooms - single rooms for the oldest kids and 2-, 3- and 4-bed rooms for the others - a cosy living area, a dining area and a kitchen. The hole premises is quite big and they also have a lot of space to play outside.

Since last week we are going to St Mary’s every day at two o’clock. The children are going to many different schools so their homecoming times are also differing. When we’re arriving only some children are already back home. We look after them while they are eating their lunch and wait until the others gradually arrive. When everyone finished eating it’s time for homework at half past three. Stella and me both have our own cottage where we always help with the homework. In my cottage the children are aged between seven and sixteen and they are all very cute and nice. Somewhere between half past four and five when everyone finished the homework it’s time to go home for us. When there is some spare time in between lunch and homework there are many things to do with the children as St Mary’s has a very nice premises with a small soccer field, a basketball area and a little pool.

So far we really enjoyed our work in the children’s home because the children as well as all of the housemothers were very nice and welcoming. Furthermore after working with babies for half a year it is also very nice to work with some older children again because there is so much more that you can do with them. So far they were especially interested in German music so that we always had to bring our cell phones for playing Cro or Helene Fischer for them – only the best of course! They also tried to learn some German so that they are now always seeing us off with a cheerful “Tschüs”.

I’m really happy to finally have some satisfying work again and I already fond of all of the children!