Pool Party

It’s summer in the southern hemisphere, and what better way to spend a Saturday than at the pool?  Several of our kids claim swimming as their favorite activity even though they’ve only been to a pool a handful of times in their lives.  Besides Tony, whose father earned a living as a fisherman working on Lake Victoria, none of our kids know how to swim.  Even though they can’t swim, they’re undeterred from splashing around and causing joyful mayhem at the pool.

So just how do you get 44 kids from a little village in the bush to a small but bustling, dusty city with a hotel boasting the only pool within a three hour drive?  It’s not as easy as chartering a bus, but if you have endless patience, the ability to bargain with the best of them, and aren’t too concerned about keeping to any semblance of a time schedule, it can be done!

At the end of a day at the pool, we usher 44 shivering but happy children back to the Hope Center where they spend at least the entirety of the next week cheerfully reminiscing about their trip.