Birthday and Beach

We had some fun filled days with the girls to start off the week! On Sunday Macintosh was celebrating both of his children's birthdays and invited us to attend. This was also my first trip into the slum of West Point. As we went off the main road we began taking many turns and walked through some very narrow areas until we can to what seemed to be a communal area of the housing units that was not too big but filled with about 100 people! Most of these people were children and many of them girls from MTM.

There was dancing, oh, lots of dancing, at this party! There is a song/dance really popular here called Azonto and it was played at least five times during the afternoon. I asked one of the girls to teach me the dance and well, they can certainly dance better than me!

Monday was beach day! We took about 60 girls to Myrtle Beach (no, South Carolina does not have the only Myrtle Beach in the world). For some of these girls it was not the first time to a beach (as there is one on the edge of the community they live in) but it was their first time in the water as very few people ever go swimming. Each of the adults took two girls at a time into the ocean. Sometimes only my hand was held and other times I had one girl on my back and another clinging to my front! We had a volleyball and net and some other beach games but the focus was certainly on the water. This was such a different beach trip than I have ever been on but no question will be one of the most memorable.