A Change of Scenery

Today with haven 2, our older kiddos we did something new. We brought out a small multi-colored parachute, the kind you use in gym class. The kids loved it. We all got around the edges and talked about "up", "down", "shake", "under", "over"...so all kinds of prepositions and some verbs! It was a hit for sure!

Then we split up and some of us did feeding therapy while others did language therapy. 

This afternoon we went to a small orphanage called Seven Fountains. We were asked to each take one of their babies and assess their development. We assessed their fine/gross motor, receptive/expressive language, socialization, etc. Just looking to see if they are where they need to be for their age. Seven Fountains currently has 7 children ranging from ages 7 months old to 2.5 years old. A couple of them were scared of us and others warmed up to us really quickly. We assessed and made recommendations of things they could be working on...but no child there was significantly behind for their age. 

There is a group here from ACU for the medical mission coming up. They are a lot of fun and we all had a game night tonight! Fun way to wind down the evening.

Its so hard to believe that tomorrow is our last day of therapy with these kiddos. Please keep us but especially them in your prayers as it will be so hard to say goodbye. Love and miss you all!

Oh My Goodness!!! :)

Hello!!! It is our last Wednesday of therapy. We said goodbye to two of our awesome supervisors this morning. :( Because we had less supervision our groups merged today. In Haven 2 we each had three or four kids to one adult!!! It was fabulous!!! The kids participated in everything we did and even lead songs they wanted to sing. Haven 3 and 1 followed suit. It seems like the bulk of the sickness has gone away and all the babies were in a good mood. This afternoon we had free choice on either language, feeding, or both. Haven 2 went to the playground as usual - today they got a new play house!! Haven 1 received a new baby today! (He is 10 days out and soooooo very cute!) Tomorrow we are headed to a place called 7 Fountains (a smaller orphanage nearby) to do some assessments and evaluations.

 Some updates:

Joelo - stood by himself today - holding on to the windowsill of the playhouse

Raymond - IS BACK FROM THE HOSPITAL AND LOOKING GREAT!

Lushimo - rolled prone to supine AND supine to prone

Princess and Boti

Jonah

Courtney and Christopher

New Baby!!!

Momo

Ruby

Joelo!!!

Seth :)

Answers to some of the questions:

Shelbey - We have 4 to 5 good language samples total with the ages ranging from 3-8

We are getting around 45 hours of child language and about 45 hours of pediatric dysphagia.   

Make A Good Fashion!

These children have stolen our hearts and as each day passes the emotional anticipation builds that we will soon have to say "goodbye" instead of "see you tomorrow". This is going to be rough (and a lot harder than I expected). Today we were blessed with a little change of pace. After a cool morning and a successful day of collecting language samples, we all journeyed to Jordan's Rock on the outskirts of Namwianga. At Jordan's Rock we had a bonfire, watched the sunset, roasted hot dogs, and made s'mores.
Today was Kara and Caroline's last day at The Haven as they leave tomorrow (Kara back to the states, Caroline to Italy). They are amazing.  We would have absolutely failed without them (Says Kara and Caroline hoping I wouldn't proofread before posting). We have have all been blessed with wonderful supervision and supervisors and gained so much from their knowledge and insight! Seriously, they are amazing and should receive ASHA awards (Again Kara and Caroline). After a day of a few successful (we think) language samples we now have a handful of language samples to bring back to the states. We are already beginning to learn that sometimes you need to change/adapt your research. Our beginning objective was to collect language samples of at least 100+ utterances in children three years of age. With a limited number of three year olds, our research has expanded to include up to ages 7 and 8.
Only three days remain @ The Haven... so bittersweet.

The beginning of the end at the Havens

Today we began our last week of therapy at the Havens. It's a bittersweet feeling among all of here. We are so excited to head to Livingstone for some fun adventures and then head home, but we are so sad to leave the sweet babies we have grown to love so much while being here. Prayers for both us and the kiddos as we begin saying our goodbyes would be appreciated.

Today was a great milestone day with therapy:

Binny began babbling!
Tim spoke something other than "buh bye"!!
Prince said "house" and identified colors in a book!
Joello got his braces and new shoes today. He started walking with straighter legs on the playground!! :)
James came to language group and sat through the whole thing.

They may seem small, but to us they are huge blessings!! :)

To answer some questions from the last post:

Lindsay: in Livingstone our group is going to go shopping, go on a safari, ride elephants, sunset cruise on the Zambezi river, high tea at the Royal Livingstone hotel, and Victoria falls. Staci is heading to Wisconsin, Rachel to Tennessee, Jake to California, Makala to Searcy, Courtney to Searcy and then Texas, and I'll be heading back to Conway! We will be back in Searcy the Sunday before classes start in July!!

Samar: African foods we have tried are nshima (their traditional food that they have with every meal..it's a corn meal paste) and some South African stew (the name was too complicated to remember). For fun, the college students like to do pick up games of soccer or basketball. They also really like to get together and sing and dance.

Hope the ending to y'all's offsites go wonderfully! We are excited to share our stories and hear y'all's.

Blessings.,

B.

Down Time!

So today conisted of sleeping in and having a late breakfast..we got ready and a few of us headed to watch a soccer game at the local school. There was a collegiate tournament going on, so they wanted to go and check the teams out. The rest of us decided to figure out who else we needed to buy for and prepare for the market. Reagan was so generous with her Saturday to take us to Kalomo to get last minute gifts from the market. We spent a few hours there and everyone agreed it was an accomplished trip. We were able to spend a few hours after lunch to catch up on paperwork.. or sleep.. which was nice. We ended up having tacos for dinner which we all were really excited about.. we miss mexican food... watch out Casa Brava..when we are back in the states we are coming for you! We had a meeting tonight to go over last minute stuff before we leave.. we cannot believe we have only one week left with these sweet babies before we are wrapping up! Our hearts are slowly, but surely breaking.. its inevitable. We spent the night just catching up on reading, blogging, paperwork, oh and sleeping of course! :) Although we are truly going to miss these kiddos and have enjoyed this experience so much.. we are so excited to see all of you! We hope you have really loved your experiences in your first offsite placement and we can't wait to hear all about it! Love you all! Will update soon! God Bless!

Three down, one to go!

We have successfully completed the end of week three. I think I speak for all of us when I say we have fallen even more in love with the babies this week. We have developed relationships with them and it melts our hearts when they see us walking up the path and they run to us with the biggest smiles on their faces and they say "I miss you." It's just too cute! We finished today with feeding/swallowing so we could get caught up on our hours. This has not been a great week for the babies as a lot of them have been sick. Please keep them in your prayers. 

Shelbey, the babies eat nshima and porridge when they are weaned off of the bottle. Nshima is the staple food for the Zambian culture, which looks a lot like our grits but has very little flavor. They try to introduce porridge around 6 months of age. They eat porridge in the mornings for breakfast, nshima for lunch, and porridge again for dinner. They don't eat baby food like our babies do in the states. Sometimes they will add beans to the nshima to provide protein. We have nshima every Thursday for lunch. 

Samar, we do the same things we do back in the states with the bilingual children if one of the languages is English. We take our language kits from birth to 5 and just talk/ask open ended questions and no yes/no questions. It has been difficult getting 100 utterances for our language samples because the majority of their utterances are in Tongan and they will need to be translated.

We're excited to hear about all of y'all's experiences at your off-sites. One more week of therapy and then we are off to Livingstone. Hope all is well with everyone and we miss you guys dearly!! 

We love our little shupas! (ornery babies :)

To start off..I will answer Rebecca's question. To be  honest, it is hard to give an accurate answer (although Jake says 56 English words +/- 2) as to how many English words they regularly speak. A lot of the English words we hear them saying are parts of songs they/we sing..or basic words and greetings. The Aunties speak to them in Tongan the majority of the time and when they talk in phrases, it is in Tongan. So it is hard to compare their use of English to those in the states.    As far as comparing how much Tongan they speak to how much English kids in the states speak, that is also hard to judge. We don't see them in their natural environment as much as the aunties do. There are a few that we have not heard talk at all but the aunties and Meagan report that those kids do talk, and talk to them.  Does this kind of answer your question? 

The kids are becoming more and more comfortable with us...more and more of them are participating and interacting during language group more. We are all starting to become aware of how hard it will be to say goodbye to them. Sooo keep us but especially the kiddos in your prayers for this up coming week as it will be hard to part with them. Here are some more pictures of the cuties!!!!

Take 1

This morning our team realized that we only have a week and a half to love on these babies that have taken our hearts! Both language group and ped dysphagia went smoothly today. Milestones and improvements are being noted and recorded in our HIZ-PATH database. This afternoon we were paired off with one another and assigned a child from Haven 2. 

Jake and Staci - Virginia (aka Vigi)

Brittany and Rachel - Maureen (aka Momo)

Makala and Courtney - Seth

As apart of our group research project for the echo class we are attempting to bring home language samples from children ages 3-5. Our goal is to elicit 150 spontaneous utterances from each child during play. One of our team members would record the other would bring toys and ask open ended questions to spark conversation. It was a little rough starting out. The children are wonderful and enjoy talking to us but most of their conversations are in Tongan - making it difficult to interact and gain the amount of language needed. We are excited about trying different techniques to gain the data needed. 

Tonight we had a time to share with each other and discuss what we have seen in our time here. Kara also spoke words of wisdom. We had a pleasant evening and are going to bed early in order to fully enjoy the last week and a half with these precious babies!

Becca to answer your question ( Jake was already in his bunk house so his answer is not posted):

Makala - "The cultural differences were surprising. I have two main food groups - cheese and bread - aka grilled cheese sandwiches. My carry-on has been our market - bring more sweets."

Courtney - "I didn't realize the shower system - it is ice cold after 4:30 p.m. - You have to wear your shoes and hold on to the sides. You can definitely get Malaria in the showers. Even though you shower you may not feel clean. The mosquito nets are also hard to get use to. Also, I'm high maintenance! In all seriousness, I didn't realize how much I would love the babies and not want to leave them."

Brittany - "I didn't expect to fall in love with Tim (he is 21 mos old). I also enjoyed the simplistic way of life here. You can also totally barter gem X."

Rachel - "I wish I had written down every church/preschool song ever written because you need them ALL!!!! I have truly loved every second with the babies and will be leaving a part of me here in Africa!"

Staci - "I wish I had known about all the huge spiders that would be sharing a house with us. I also wish that I could have better prepared myself with more therapy materials for group. The time difference has made it hard to connect with people at home"

Taylor - "The crazies I was going on the trip with!! I wish I had prepared myself for how overwhelming it would all be and like the others have said it has been nice living simply."

Seth

Lincoln

Momo

Brittany and her Tim ;)

Kamwamba!

Kamwamba (Hello!). Today marks three weeks into our travels, time really flys! As Courtney and Brittany mentioned, we've had the benefit of learning some infant massage techniques by Reagan that have already proved to be beneficial (in just two days of implementing some of these techniques!). Thus far, Reagan has taught us face, back, and congestion techniques and it has been a blessing to be able to see her work wonders with some of the children at The Haven and to see their response upon her implementation of these techniques. Reagan has been a wonderful addition to this team (more so family now).

These infant massage techniques has proved to be beneficial for aiding in our goals and objectives for a number of reasons and the children have also responded in different ways. These techniques have aided during feeding therapy as some go hand in hand with the Beckman exercises. Also, implementing infant massage techniques with an infant who is "figidity" or uncooperative may sooth the child enough to carry out and complete the Beckman exercises. Using infant massage techniques has also proved to be beneficial in stimulating and grabbing a child's attention therefore increasing the duration of active engagement and participation in language based therapy approaches. With a simple stroke on the side of the face Reagan actively engaged a group of babies in Haven 1 and had them imitating phonemes. When using infant massage face techniques, I was able to get a child from tears to active participation in language group. Just a small sneak peak into the world of infant massage!

We would all like to know what has been the most challenging aspect of each of your offsites thus far? And looking back, what are you so thankful to have learned in class now that you are all offsite?

Tomorrow we begin recording our language samples for our research! Stay tuned...

"It is not the destination so much as the journey." –Jack Sparrow

African Adventure in the Jungle of Namwianga...

Tonight some of our group went on an adventure on the outskirts of the Namwianga mission to look at the stars and the beautiful night sky. It took us an hour to get to where we were going, with our wonderful guide Mr. Gregerson.

Therapy today went great! Raymond, who is in Haven 3, took all of his bottle (5.5 oz) in 13 minutes!! He has been eating slow, so this was great! Edwin in Haven 1 also did great in feeding today after getting some infant massage from Reagan and mixing rice cereal into his bottle. Joy, Steve, and Brian participated well in language group (usually they are upset).

Here are some photos of cute kiddos!! :)

Blessings,

B.