Ch-ch-ch-Changes

It's officially September which means that our string of visitors have left, we're now only cooking for 10 (plus dessert for Bibi), and programs begin in t-minus two weeks from yesterday.  Up until now being here felt more or less like summer camp, perhaps because we were running a camp of our own.  However, as August began to slip away and the realization that we wouldn't be going home for another year of school settled in, so did the magnitude of the upcoming twelve months.  

One area that is undergoing considerable change is the physical and operational structure of our library.  Last year's PDs worked their tushes off to obtain, set up, and manage the library space, making it a place for community members to interact, play, and most importantly, enjoy reading.   Now that the foundation has been built, it is our job to transform it into a fundamental piece of the community where we work.  Come September 14, we will be running all of our programs out of the library space, from Art to Children's English to Women's Exercise which will be held above the library in a space we just recently began renting.  

Mike Gabrys and I are co-managing the library and part of our job is to envision what we want it to look like when we leave next summer.  Though it's tough to imagine life a year from now, it's an important consideration, keeping in mind of course that visions are often different than originally intended.   This type of mentality is necessary for every program that we run here at Manna and it's something we've all been thinking about as we begin to draw up lesson plans and map out other programatic ideas. 

Shawn and I explain the wonders of I Spy

In other news, today was an interesting day for a couple of reasons: 

Mike and I took a trip to the mailbox to retrieve a birthday box (thanks Ma!) and to our surprise, a postcard from our dear friend and past PD, Serena!  It appears that she didn't expect said postcard to arrive for several years because in it she introduced herself, explained the programs that she started, and asked us to e-mail her about progress since she left (which was about two weeks ago).  Needless to say, we love you Serena! 

There was also a post-dinner incident concerning a handful of girls and a contaminated bowl of pizza dough that contained twice the amount of yeast than the recipe called for.  For more information please see below...

Krysta, Haley, and Dana mid-battle 

Cheers, 

Jackie 

Advertising and Shananigans

This afternoon Jocelyn, Serena and I headed into the Rumiloma community (where we host our programs) to post flyers and hang posters advertising our five programs which are starting up next week. Of course, we didn't actually get out the door until 1:30 this afternoon, which put us in Rumiloma right around 2. And what happens at 2, you might ask? It rains. Pours, actually. We were being stalked by near bursting storm clouds as we worked our way up and down the streets, soaking up every last dry moments before we ourselves were soaked.

Luckily the worst always seemed right behind us and we didn't get drenched. Tomorrow the plan is to be out the door by 10am so as to avoid the afternoon storms. Tomorrow if I whine about the rain we got drenched by in the afternoon, please feel free to call me out on it in the comments section :)

(Jocelyn and Serena demonstrate the correct way to tag team the tape)

After returning home and meeting Dunc and Dana in the foyer as they prepared to head out to Christian's, we all settled in for an afternoon of lesson planning, syllabus writing, exercise workout-planning (which is hysterical to watch, as it involves Serena playing and re-playing youtube workout videos from the 80's and trying to re-inact them in the living room...I had NO idea Jane Fonda was an aerobics instructor before she was an actress! The things you learn!), until Serena made the mistake of throwing her shoe at Eliah when he walked out of his room.

In under two seconds, Eliah had the front door open, Serena's missile shoe in hand, and was launching it out and over our front wall into the grass far beyond. Serena watched open-mouthed, then sprinted into Eliah's room to find something, which she proceeded to chuck out the still open door. Unfortunately (or fortunately, you choose), since the item Serena chose to throw was actually a pair of Eliah's boxers, they didn't have enough mass to clear the front wall, landing instead on the 10 foot covering above the main door.

Even better, the boxers were lilac.

Holly

(Eliah scales the front wall to retrieve his stolen undergarments)