Often villagers enter our farmyard to greet us, to have a chat, a question…

- A sturdy woman, now stumbles with a found baton. Gasping, sweating and cheeks red of fever sits down. She pulls over her leg and lifts her skirt: open wounds full of pus. The overloaded cart she sat on, knocked down in the ditch. With her wounded leg she walked over 9 km home. I apply a bandage on her wounds, provide painkillers and call one of the strong boys of the village, who carries her on his back to the road. Together they leave for the hospital.
- A burning hut, a two year old died, a ‘lost’ father.
- A by a fire deformed young girl, does not react any more, refuses to speak, stays indoor….

The day I leave -5 hour drive on a very bad road-I hear on the road about the eruption of fire and ashes in Iceland.
The next day when I have returned home I hear good news: the physician decided not to amputate the woman’s leg and in a few weeks she can walk again in her farmyard. The strong boy decided to train handicapped children in swimming and foremost to offer them an hour of fun in the water.

Back in the village: my hesitation  to leave feels right, just, I could never presume its cause..
A more detailed report: see How, ‘travel stories’, but just in Dutch version!

These communities have only  water in the early morning and even not enough, from a large well bored for a factory in the environment. Because of the small amount of water the quality of the water deteriorates. Four of the five wells are dry. We bored one of them thoroughly, renovated it and supplied a well functioning pulley block installation. Thus many women can simultaneously draw water from the well and it is available all day.

The first group are deaf children, who – until they could join our school- just sat down at home and hardly came outdoors. Now they are radiant children!
They were frightened but thought it to be thrilling as well. Even the most frightened child wanted to jump in the pool for a second time. Swimming is such joy for deaf children. They do not need words: there is not much talking in a pool and everyone understands each other with simple gestures.
A second group are children with severe burns (they do not want to be photographed).
A third group consists of children with poliomyelitis.
A fourth group: the so called albino children. The groups are small but all these children had to overcome the shyness to show their handicapped features. We do respect that, that is why they are divided in small groups. The pool is small, but situated in a beautiful  protected spot between the trees. A heartwarming experience to see  frightened withdrawn children change in radiant enthusiast girls and boys.

In 2007 started a Karate training in some small villages without any activities available for youngsters and kids. The trainer gets a small compensation from the government. The children, a group of 45 boys, and girls as well this being very special, train twice a week. This group performs so well that we are very proud of their participation in regional contests. They needed the special outfits for it, awarding them status and respect from the environment visiting their competitions. Silent work found a donor who provided for the outfits. These are made by another Silent Work project in Senegal. Mutual cooperation between projects creates development and good contacts.

Deafnet-NID South Africa developed a gestures-DVD containing 500 gestures in Burundian sign language. This DVD has been spread all over in Burundi. Schools for deaf, parents of deaf children, communities and organizations working for deaf people can use it to communicate with deaf persons. On top the possibilities and restrictions of being deaf are explained. This will provide more understanding around the difficulties and misunderstandings deaf persons meet in daily life. Because lots of people do not possess a computer or DVD installation, this collection of sign gestures has been published as well in the shape of drawings.

Deafnet-NID South Africa developed a DVD with 200 south African gestures of sign language for children, pictures added. When you cannot read yet or/and write, you can still learn the gestures. Posters were made with south african photographs of sign language, f.e. a visit at the physician: thus you can clarify, and the physician to you, what kind of problem exists.