It would be hard to find the bright side of having no water, but never underestimate the power of a ten-year-old boy. On Tuesday, we had no water; the drought is making it tough for everyone. Everyone but ten year old boys. Slowly, the revelation struck them, and the euphoria swept through the dorm like a fire:

WE CAN’T TAKE A BATH!!!!

I am sure I have seen more rapturous joy before, but where escapes me at the moment. It was as if the principal had proclaimed `School is canceled for the rest of your life: Play Soccer!!’ The excitement lasted until the next day, where, unfortunately in some eyes, gratefully in our noses, water pressure was restored and the horror of bathing restored.

We celebrated Multi Cultural Day on Wednesday. They began the day with a flag presentation ceremony, with students from the countries they live in carrying flags in, one by one, as their national anthems played. The obvious pride of the students, the fact that 19 countries and 22 African nations are represented here at RVA, and the thought `I may never have an opportunity to be in such a varied group of people again in my life’ brought tears to my eyes.

After all the flags were presented, I began to softly sing:

If I die
I may not go to heaven
(At this point, dozens began singing along)
I don’t know if they let cowboys in
If they don’t
Just let me go to Texas
(At this point, everyone is singing along and standing on their chairs)
Texas is as close as I’ve been

(Actually, that didn’t happen, but I did think about it)

We had a presentation about the famine, and it really touched our kids. Most of our dorm kids get a seventy cents a week for spending money. It is so moving to me when ten-year-old kids decide not to spend that money on a coke and candy bar so they can give it to famine relief. But they wanted to do more, so we thought about what kind of fundraiser we could do. The obvious stuff like washing cars won’t work in a place with few cars and a drought. So we thought and thought, and they went to bed.

And it hit me. I have had two marketing ideas capture the attention of the nation before, but that was the states, and long ago. But I think I came upon the greatest fundraising idea ever.

Some of you might remember that all of our dorm boys have received their band instruments. They have been playing for two months now, and their enthusiasm has not waned.

So we named ourselves `The Joyful Noises’ and we began to go to dorms or residences and play for free.

We charged a small fee if they wanted us to stop.

The response has been overwhelming. Reviews include: `I’ve never heard anything like that before.’ The first song was the warm up. The second song was `Hot Cross Buns.’ I can assure you that it was hard to distinguish the two songs. The third song was the RVA Fight Song, which two of our guys yelled `We don’t know that song’ but boldly entered in to play it anyway.

Besides the joy of appearing at dorms, gift certificates are becoming popular, with friends giving them to their friends that they might have recently had a small tiff with, probably as a way to make up. But we have raised enough to buy a bag of maize, and they are so excited to deliver it.

We had a national school visit us Friday. I was to show them the computer room. I had originally intended to show how we had set up the network, our future plans, and our immediate intentions to replace our routers.

But none of them had ever seen a computer before. Or an aquarium. Or a piano.

They had seen pictures, and they knew what they were, but they had never seen one before. One of the teachers gasped when she saw our eight year old Macs and said `Are these all for the children?’ She is attending a university, taking a computer class, and she is eight weeks into the class and has not been on a computer yet. These were nice, bright kids, and richer than most: I only saw two toes sticking out of shoes. But they had never seen a computer. When I showed them how to save work to a disc and bring it home to work on, one of the kids looked at me and said `You have a computer at home?’

I put on a good face for them, but when they left, I had myself a real long cry. I just want those kids to have a shot. How does a nation compete globally when their kids have never seen a computer, let alone know how to use them?

YOP

S