More MET

I am realizing that I haven't taken pictures or posted about our second group of MET students. That would fall under the list of things we missed about home while living in Paxot II. Any way, I will get some action shots of Esther, Holli and Nathan this week. They have be great to work with, and are adjusting to their new families really well.

We have been having low turn-outs in clinic this week due to two government give-away programs in full swing around here. The first few days everyone was signing their families up to receive a "scholarship fund" of Q150 per FAMILY (about $20) per year to help buy school supplies/books/uniforms. The qualifying families (no one knows how they were chosen) and those who didn't end up on the list were meeting with the government rep to hash out the small print, and things were getting a little heated. So several families have decided to opt out. (One guy told us that they were having to pay the committee members a fee per family to fill out the paperwork and travel to the capital to enroll the town). They were afraid they would end up paying more in committee fees than they received in "scholarship".

Then came the fertilizer give-away. Everyone was busy standing in line to receive or sign up for bags of fertilizer at buy-one-get-one rates. We had one clinic with normally around 20 people, where 7 people showed up and they were all in a hurry to get seen so they could stand in line. Turns out the final price is no cheaper than the stuff you can buy at the local ag coop. Oh well. Next week should be good. All the kids are home from school on a Swine Flu break until July 1. I'm sure we will be seeing more concern over cough and fever.