mga tao (people)

These kids live in a "squatter area" just a few blocks from our house. We take walks in their neighborhood because it's a good place to see and talk with a lot of people. Last time we were there, the girl on the right took me to see where she lived. To get there, we had to walk down a narrow corridor that many people's 'homes' (just small rooms) opened onto, dodging hanging laundry, puddles, ducks, someone else's blind Grandma, and multiple cats. Her mother and aunt were home. They invited me in (with a surprised look on their face like "NOW what did the kids bring home!"), so I stayed for a visit. This week we want to try having a bunch of these kids over for "merienda" (snack) to get to know them.
Elijah is all hooked up for his EEG. He, little darling rascal that he is, decided not to sleep for the entire time we were there (over three hours for a 45 minute test). Actually, he went to sleep twice for less than a minute - the first time, someone opened the door and he woke up; the second time, the lady reapplied a loose "wire" and that was it. Poor guy. We had to conclude that for whatever reason, it wasn't in God's plans for a perfect test, at least not that day. We don't have any results back from the EEG yet, but we'll let you know when we do.
Here's Elijah, "sharing a laugh" with Veronica. As you can see, Elijah is almost as big as Veronica! Elijah 'knows' all the people he sees regularly. He's doing much better on the seizure medication - it seems to be really helping him. We're seeing only a few seizures daily. This is dear Ate Minda and E. She really loves us and him, and is sort of a "mom" figure over here. She also really helps us with learning Tagalog, because she talks a lot! Veronica is a quiet girl. That's nice, since she lives with us all the time. But we like Ate's conversation when she's here (she comes 3 days a week). I like to sit at the table with her in the mornings while I'm trying to feed Elijah and just listen to her talk.