Day 3

The girls hang out in the courtyard before school starts

Lunch at the girls' house

Merline Jean hard at work in the kitchen

Fighting over the extra sauce

Debbie

Nelcia

Hanging out with the girls in the afternoon - chatting about underpants, hair, friends, babies, school work, churches, and shaving.

I got to the soccer field after the boys had already been there for about 45 minutes. Bernadin immediately came running to me and asked if I would take him back to the house to get his shin guards. He hadn't been able to play as well because as a defender, he kept getting slammed in the shins with shots on goal and without the protection, it really hurt! We ran down to the house and back and he put them on as fast as he could. Not fast enough. His team lost the game, just as he finished. Another team came onto the field to play and he didn't get to play again. Poor guy.
Adler and Job taught me a new game. You toss a rubber band on the ground and then your opponent tosses one. If his lands on top of yours, he gets both of them. If he misses, then you keep throwing till you run out. If no one has won at this point, you are allowed to pick one up and keep throwing until someone wins.
Adler is amazing at this rubber band tossing game.
Kerlande has divided the boys and the girls into groups. Each week, one group presents a topic to the rest of their house. Last week, the groups did ‘Table manners’ and the week before ‘How to sit properly’. This week, the topic was ‘How to laugh’. In the next few weeks, they will address ‘How to defeat evil’ and ‘How to please God’. All of the topics were thought up by the children when Kerlande asked them what they would like to learn about.

Bernadin was the group leader. He gave the introduction.
Jude Tilus discussed how to laugh at home.
Reginald explained how to laugh in public.
Wilson read that theatre was created as the one place that you could laugh as hard and as loud as you want. My dad would agree with that! People at the theatre troupe that my sister and I used to perform with always used to beg us to get our dad to come to opening night because he laughs loud and hard at everything. If he's in the audience, other people feel liberated to laugh too and the actors get a major self confidence boost.
Some of the younger boys like TiJude did not do any talking, but they stuffed their shirts with clothes to make fake bellies. Maybe they were trying to demonstrate a real belly shaking laugh?
Jefthe had the best stomach and the best part of the presentation. He gave the conclusion and then gave out a prize to whoever could answer a question about laughter.
The prize went to Miscardet who correctly answered that you have to be careful how you laugh at home so you don't disturb the neighbors.
He very excitedly opened it.
Only to find that it was a mango pit!
I don't really think that the group made much of an impression about how to laugh, but we all got a lesson in when to laugh. If anyone asks, all the boys can tell you that the appropriate time to laugh like a wild person is when 8 of your brothers are standing in front of you with fake bellies and dress shoes.