Dental Kits and Roofs

Dental Kits for the kids in Janella

One of the projects that we have started is to donate dental hygiene kits to school children.  A week ago on Saturday we visited the town of Janella on the Island of Santo Antão.  The school district has started a program of dental health and nutrition and has contracted with dental and health care professionals to teach children. LDS Charities is partnering with the school district and is donating kits that contain a tooth brush, tooth paste and a bar of soap for each child.  Many of these children have never had a toothbrush before.

This is one of the pre-school classes receiving the instruction.

Laura Lisa, a dental professional, is showing them how to brush their teeth.

My grandparents had a set of these.

Open wide!

This is what the area looks like outside the school.  What a beautiful time of year on Santo Antão.

Roofs 

We were asked by Bishop Timothy from the Mindelo 3rd Ward to visit two families that need new roofs on their homes.

Sister Erickson talking with Odeth from the ward Relief Society presidency and Nilsa Maria.

Nilsa Maria lives here with three of her children.

The home of Ines Martias who lives here with her daughter and six grandchildren.

We may smile a lot for pictures but compassion fatigue is real and does take its toll at times.  This was one of those days.  How ironic to see the cruise ship on the horizon.

You can take the lady out of the garden but you cannot take the garden out of the lady.

Sister Erickson is excited about her tomato sprouts.

One of the activities that we have always enjoyed at home is growing a garden. Living in an apartment is a new experience for both of us. Here in Cape Verde the homes and apartments are so compact, that each dwelling shares at least one common wall with the next. There are a few planters throughout the city with flowering bushes, but mostly there are just cobblestone roads. In fact, it is even hard to find soil to create a garden. My goal is to learn how to successfully garden in containers, so that I can share that skill with the saints here in Mindelo and maybe encourage them to grow food as well. For the past month I have been attempting to grow lettuce, cucumbers, and tomatoes. I have tried everything to get my seeds to germinate. Finally, on Thursday ,my tomatoes sprouted. Our friend Jorge (our Taxi driver) took us for a drive out of the city yesterday, to a dry riverbed where he told us we could find fertile soil. The top 1/38 of an inch had a fine dark silt on top and the rest was very course sand. Actually, it’s probably more like really fine gravel. We got several buckets full and brought them home. I mixed the sand with some potting soil, which cost about $7.00 a bag (about 15 pounds).  Anyway, the plan is to grow my little tomato seedlings in buckets on the roof of our apartment.

Sister Erickson with her lemon tree on the roof of our apartment building.

Another wonderful Sunday dinner with Sister Jipus from the Philippines and Sister Silva from Recife, Brazil