Monday and Tuesday were a bit of a blur. On Monday, we were given a tour of The GEM Foundation. Unfortunately, I left my phone/camera in the Administration office so my documentation was not up to par. There are four houses for the children, a future clinic and a future learning center (technically not a “school” because it is not anticipated that it will seek accreditation). After the tour, I was blessed to be able to feed some of the children in Hope House. This house cares for children with severe medical needs. Most children there require feeding through tubes connected into their abdomens. Other team members hung out in one of the four houses.

Here are a few photos of the current administration building (and future health clinic), along with the future learning center. They are almost ready to move in!

These are some random photographs taken near the Hope House on Monday. They have installed a very nice playground especially designed to be accessible for children with special needs. In the center of the large picture, one can see a grass hut. It turns out that this is one of the coolest places one can be in the noonday sun! It contained several percussion instruments that were fun to play with. The first photograph shows one of the nanny’s reading to her children from a part of the playground that receives more shade.

The cat also enjoyed the gentle curves of one of the walls in the coolness of the grass hut.

One of the projects that we were assigned was to re-screen the sun room enclosure of one of the houses. The old screen was a combination of 1/4″ mesh combined with a typical fiberglass window screen. Unfortunately, the fiberglass screen gets easily shredded by the weather and the fingernails of inquisitive children. The new screen is powder coated stainless steel that has a pitch that is fine enough to keep the bugs out. We’ve learned that much of the construction is learn as you go. The lessons learned from the building of earlier houses are implemented in the newer ones so they are not exact copies of one another.