Working for Eagles Wings (EW) has been an enjoyable time with a variety of responsibilities, so let me share with you some of the things that I have been doing with my time over the last three weeks. During each week there are a number of shifts to cover that each of us have signed up to be a part of in pairs or more:
- House 5, the baby house, requires two of us to be there for a morning shift from 8am-12pm and then another two from 2-6pm generally helping out. This also includes feeding and maybe changing some of the babies/toddlers, but is also just playing with them and keeping an eye on them. They also have a habit of stealing toys from each other – Er Yi may steal something from Yin Si, who unsurprisingly cries about it, but then when Lei Lei takes it from Er Yi a minute later, Er Yi cries, despite that being exactly what he had done 60 seconds previously. Feeding is usually easy, so I help feed Ai Bi, the youngest and the child with a cleft palate, making it the most interesting feeding of them.
- House 6, the kids who are unable to walk, has occasionally needed some cover for an Ayi in the evenings from 5-8pm. This is relatively simple as they are a bit older and we can just put on a DVD but don’t be fooled, these kids are still very energetic and want to bounce about, tickle you, be chased by you and climb all over you, making for an entertaining time.
- The EW school has us come in for half an hour at the beginning of the day and half an hour at the end of the day and teach some English. For the most part this is just vocabulary so we have covered all manner of things including weather, electronics, foods, sports, animals, colours and more. One thing I had them recap was clothes which, much to my annoyance (:-P), was wrong. You see, it’s American English they have learnt, so I had to talk about pants and sweaters and so on, instead of trousers and jumpers. This is an on-going part of banter with the kids I live with too – the different names we call things – and it doesn’t really annoy me but I like to pretend it does 😉
- We have been able to go into the high school that Donna teaches English at part-time and be a part of a couple of English classes. Obviously the level of English there is higher because the kids are older, so it has been fun to role play conversation, have alphabet races, correct pronunciation and so on.
- There’s a Kindergarten I’ll tell you about in another blog, but part of my month has also been helping with Donna’s kids who are home schooled. They spend a lot of time in the house and so those of us living here help out with Maths (or Math as I keep being “corrected”), Science, History, English, Chinese (well, Pete helps with that) and more.
Other jobs completed have included baking, sewing and sorting clothes and two of our group are making a promotional video for EW. Other works I will tell you about in subsequent blogs.
[EDIT: Here's the completed video]
[EDIT: Here's the completed video]
