Gil and Kelvin again traveled to Georgia in September 2008 to inspect the completed renovation work and plan for the new heating system. We took with us a large duffel bag of clothing for the children, and three footlockers with socks, personal care items, craft supplies, cleaning supplies, and some tennis balls and frisbees.
We met with Lali, the new director at Saguramo, and formed a good relationship quickly. She is professional, deeply committed to the children, and they obviously love her. There are now about 70 children at the orphanage, up from 35 on previous visits. Lali identified some specific needs: warm clothing, shoes and boots for the winter; a van to make transporting the children to and from after-school activities possible; and school books. The village school is so small that half the children go to school in the morning, the other half in the afternoon, and most of them have no school books at all.
There is no heat at all in the building now; the small heaters they had last winter have been removed because they were unsafe. The government apparently has no plan to install heat of any kind, so we will make that an immediate priority and get a new system installed as soon as possible. The renovation work is partially complete, although there are still holes in the roof. We met with the contractor and pointed out a number of places where he needed to go back and fix the work he had already done. We met with several heating contractors who will bid on the new system. We also made repairs to the electrical system to make it much safer, although more remains to be done.
As always, our visits with the children were the best part of the trip. Kelvin spent some significant time with them, talking with them about life in the orphanage, school, and the village.
