After lunch, another volunteer teacher, Lydia Alder, sits on the sandy ground outside the home while two almost-teenage girls painstakingly plait her long, blonde hair into tiny braids. They've been working on it during recess and free time for several days. The 3- and 4-year-olds try to braid another volunteer's hair. Since they haven't yet mastered braiding, they twist and tug at it, managing to tie some of it in knots.

 At mid-afternoon, an African vet wearing a lab coat cuts into a goat that died from unknown causes. He suspects tick fever. Older children stare as the vet skins and beheads the animal, draping the skin over a wheelbarrow and painstakingly explaining his actions. An assistant sorts through the pile of guts to produce a stomach, kidneys, heart and intestines. The vet cuts open each organ, using his scalpel to point out signs of disease.

 Late in the afternoon, Mark Chiyuka, a Namibian auto mechanic, teaches bicycle repair to five boys in the shade near a sandy drive. On a tarp are a few bicycle frames, flat tires and a box of parts. Each afternoon, the boys come and learn how to straighten fenders, adjust seats, tighten chains and repair wheels. Chiyuka and the boys work side-by-side. He often pauses from his own work to answer their questions and resolve disputes. When two boys start to fight over a wrench, he says: "Don't fight. Why should you fight?"

 Not a bad substitute for air conditioning a Maryland church.