Hi everyone from Gail this time,
  All is well here - I had to go to the peace corps office for medical checkups and am enjoying time on their fast and free internet service.  Small pleasures.  All the checkups went fine, so I have peace of mind.  I find I'm actually out in the sun less here than during US summers, but am in it some everyday, so the cumulation does count. One good thing about peace corps is that they do take care of you medically & so far I've been extremely pleased with the care I've been given. 
   I thought I'd talk a bit about Bambanani and how these 3 income generating groups are going.  The US sales were beyond expectations - both in actual sales, donations, and most importantly the positive feedback from everyone who saw the improvement in quality of the products.  This past spring I was able to facilitate an 8 week sewing class for 1 of my groups.  I was surprised to see how many had machines, but sad to learn how many needed repair.  Apparently, finding a reliable repair person is rare here.  So, I helped with that, and then they were off to the races.  I could focus on product design, and the teacher was able to impliment these patterns into good quality bags.  We'll continue to work on improvement, but so far, the products are selling well.  I've had to learn that my tastes do not always translate into what sells.  In fact, a few items that I have my doubts about have sold very well.  My third group is working on making products with used plastic bags.  They've learned how to cut up a plastic bag into one long strip and then crocheting with it.  They've made some cute hats which sold well to an Australian visitor.  Now we are cutting up bags and laying them flat into several layers.  Then we fuse the plastic together by sandwiching it between heavy duty foil and ironing it together.  Before that we add an "african" touch by cutting out animal figures - elephants, zebras, monkeys, etc.  I've had to provide patterns for these African images and then have had to "teach" the ladies how to put them together, because most of these women have never seen an elephant, zebra or giraffe.  How sad that these animals are so familiar to us, and speak Africa to us, yet those who live here have no idea what they look like.  I was looking at the blog of our newest grandson, Ben, and he is sitting in a bouncy chair with an elephant & giraffe on it.  Soon he'll be pointing out those animals and saying the words correctly.  What's wrong with this picture?  So - I have to teach my ladies which fabric to buy that "says Africa" to our western market, even though to them, Africa speaks a different language of colors and fabrics.  Thankfully, these women seem to get how important it is to make products that will sell, so they defer to my judgment and opinions of others who bought from me.    Our third and newest group is very enterprizing and really wants to learn to sew.  Unfortunately, only one of the group of 14 has a machine.  So, I'm in the process of getting the community and the other non-profits organizations which support this group to come together so we can get machines to them.  That means finding a safe but accessible place to keep them to that these women can take advantage of the 8 week sewing class taught by a local Swazi teacher. So far, things are moving forward & we hope to have things rolling in the next month or two. 
    We received communication about a new UN initiative - International Day of the Girl Child.  We were asked to set aside a day to focus on girls empowerment.  Since we have a captive audience at our children's home, that was easy to do.  We had our lower elementary students participate in a "battle of the sexes" spelling and math bee.  It went well, but the girls defeated themselves by not believing in their abilities beforehand.  Thus, the importance of continuing such a practice.  For the older kids - we broke them into 4 teams and had them select prominent African women to report on to the group.  Again, some of the boys snickered and made negative comments regarding gender equality, but they really embraced the achievements of these women, esp. those who took initiative to change an inequality within their community.
We'll keep on expressing the message - girls are clever and strong.  Hopefully some will believe it.
    Mike celebrated his 60th birthday this week - he got cards from all the kids.  The homemade artwork is precious.  They will all get ice cream - a special treat.  I made him a chocolate cake which we enjoyed at our fellowship dinner.  We feel so blessed to assigned to this special place, that just being there is a gift in itself.  We hope all of you can experience the joys of small pleasures as we have.  Bye for now, Gail