hope house beach day.

For the last few weeks, several of the kids at Hope House have been asking me when I was going to take them to the beach. Even though Libreville is right on the Atlantic Ocean and there are several beaches that are readily accessible, this was not an easy question to answer.

For one thing, there are currently 24 kids living at Hope House (there are several more who are visiting their families during the break from school).

Some of these kids are younger (the youngest is 4 years old), and of course, if you're going to take them to the beach, it's very important to make sure that they don't drown.

Many are teenage boys, and though they all told me that they could swim, I didn't necessarily believe them - because teenage boys are known for overestimating their athletic abilities, no matter what continent they live on.

But several of the people living here at the Envision center were willing to help, so we decided to try.

Then it was on to the next problem - how to actually transport them to the beach.

So we hired a taxi bus.

One taxi bus. Because the other one we planned to hire had some mechanical problems.

A taxi bus is about the same size as a 15-passenger van. In Gabon, these hold 19 people - 17 passengers, the driver, and the guy who opens the door. We crammed 28 people in there.

But we did it, and the kids had a blast!