May 22, Monday

I had lunch with my good friends yesterday after church. They are professors and friends from the University here. I quickly found out that we have not opened a school but “an informal learning situation” Much more legal here.

I spent this day first at the residence at the French Embassy with Cristina. I got there just in time to taste, for the first time, a delicious pate. I’ll get the name for you soon. They served it with a very sweet wine. We spent the rest of the day enjoying lunch and brainstorming ideas. One of the things I plan to do while I am here this time is to open three more homes. These will be a little different. They will be for the women who cannot be cured. My plan in to put five in each house and teach them to be self supporting. It will be a satellite house and it can very inexpensively be supported. (I will tell you the exact amount soon) I know so many of you are looking for a way to help. These women would know all about you and you about them. I’m even dreaming about how nice it will be when you can come meet them for yourself. My hope is to have them self supporting in teams in less than two years. Cristina had a great idea for a business.

Here many of the people don’t have a way to take a shower or cleanse themselves. How about if we open a public shower and charge for water and soap. Anne Vinolla had the great idea to make goat sop from the readily available milk here and sell it. Hmmmmm…. I think some ideas are coming.

I spent my afternoon enjoying a coffee ceremony with my friend who sells candy and kleenex on the street. It was so fun to be included as part of his family. Now I am on my way to “girls night out” at a Chinese restaurant to say good bye to one of my friends who is heading back to the states.

Tomorrow I am rearranging our center and painting the outside fence. I think I’m scaring everyone here:)