If you want to check it out, I’ll be blogging on

www.inbetweentheteaandtoast.wordpress.com

from now on.

Hope to see you there some time.

As you can tell I am super excited, appart from the fact that I have uni all day and haven’t been able to pack as I am having my 21st party the day before.

But I thought all this was blog worthy, since I haven’t really blogged at all since returning.

So just so you know, new house, new traditions that will include starting blogging more regularly again! YAY!

I returned safely home to a rather large party that had beautiful signs up for me at the airport.

Not truly sure how I feel about being back.

I am sooooo happy to see family and friends again. But PMB is still home, as I hear myself constantly referring to it in stories.

I have changed, but I have come back to something that hasn’t necessarily done the same. Things have been pretty stable for everyone back here, where I feel my life has been sort of torn apart and put back together. I’m not sure how to fit the new me back with the old me.

Ow… in the title… it hurts a little still, I miss my PMB home, I miss my friends and family over there. I miss just being whoever I want to be and not what I am expected to be.

But it was always going to be this way… I think it’s called culture shock and I am going through it slowly.

But I do love this sunburnt country, it’s just going to take some getting used to.

On the 5th of November it was my 21st birthday. I had a very good birthday with many celebrations. I started off with a party with the kids at Kindawo. That was a lot of fun, bring cake and junk food to little kids and they get very excited. I got sung happy birthday in English and Zulu which was lovely. I brought cake to bible study and after bible study was over we chatted over cake which was lovely.

On Thursday for my actual birthday I worked, Klaske came to Swapo that day and we had a lovely day taking photos, painting the container, getting sunburnt (opps) playing with the children and then eating cake with the children in the container. In the afternoon after work I went shopping with Klaske for a present for Martine for her baby shower, baby shopping so much fun! Then when I arrived home, I was quickly blindfolded and lead into the living room where upon revelling was decorated with streamers and balloons and the table was set beautifully for a 3 course meal. I felt very special. Mona, being the darling she is, stayed home all day preparing food and the house to make me feel extra special. She is amazing! So that evening I celebrated with the house, we played silly games that were very fun, I got sung happy birthday in English, Dutch, German and French and we finished the evening with some terrible karaoke which provided more laughs.

I had an actually birthday party with people I invited on the Saturday for an afternoon tea. I bake a lot, a lot of things and got a little frustrated when I pulled out the over tray with my non tea towelled hand in a hurry and burnt myself making my dying minutes before the party started very unproductive. But it was a success and I think everyone had fun. I did so that was great.

The house was very busy for that entire week, the new couple from Holland arrived in the middle of my party, I felt a little bad for making their arrival so busy, however considering they were meant to arrive 3 days earlier I couldn’t really plan around their changing timetable so I didn’t beat myself up too much.

So when I had to get ready to leave on Sunday for Brittan and my’s ultimate road trip, I was more than ready for a holiday, except I also wasn’t because new couple meant moving out of my room just before my party into a room where there are pretty much no cupboards. So Sunday, I was frantically sorting out my new shared room and attempting to pack to be ready to leave.

So you may be asking who is Brittan and what is this ultimate road trip Marita is talking about. Well great question.

Brittan is a volunteer with a different organisation called Thandinani which is just down the road. She is volunteering there by herself and also lives by herself. So her organisation and mine (NGO’s here are pretty tight nit) linked up to give her some friends, namely us at the YDC! As pathetic as that sounds, she is super cool/tizzight/awesome/hip, yo (as typed by current subject). Brittan is from the US, California namely, went to Harvard and has just finished up her degree. She got a fellowship from her Uni to come over here for a year to work with non government organisations. Since Sarah has left it has been lovely to have another native English speaker as a friend who I can use extravagant English with, speak fast and know that she’ll understand, well until we start arguing over pronunciation. Tom-a-toes, Toma-toes etc.

The Ultimate Road Trip – is just the title of this particular road trip, because it is both of our first real road trips as we headed all the way down to Cape Town from Durban along the coast.

So our first night we stayed in Durban, we travelled by the Baz Bus which is a backpackers bus in which you can pay for a 7day ticket and hop on or off anywhere they stop (which is most towns). So we overnighted in Durban being boring people and not partying but going to bed early as we were both wrecked (seemingly to set a trend for the rest of our trip).

Next stop was Coffee Bay. Wow! Located on the wild coast (named so because it is still pretty wild and fairly undeveloped) Coffee Bay was beautiful! A lovely relaxed beach / surfy vibe, a stones throw away from the beach the backpackers there was awesome! The best one of the entire trip. We took R40 ($6) surf lessons, bargain! We got a tour through a Xhosa (x is a click in Xhosa so very difficult to pronounce, click like you would a horse to giddy up and then say hosa and you have the pronunciation) village, visited a Sangoma and had a traditional lunch. We went on the sundowners (as in the guide to a speci spot to see the sunset) twice, once on a cliff watching whales jump in the distance as the sun sunk over the grassy hills. We hiked to Hole in the Wall (a cliff in the ocean with a hole in the middle), this was a 3.5hr hike on a goat track along the cliff face over the undulating hills sharing our track with sheep, goats and cow and local villages. So beautiful!!!! We met backpackers from all over the world, made some new friends (Brit found an enemy (a ex Yale student, Harvard’s biggest rival)) had interesting conversations.

We stayed 3 nights in Coffee Bay before continuing on to PE (Port Elizabeth). It was strange coming from such a rural spot into a city that could have been Melbourne. We didn’t actually spend much time in PE as we paid for a game tour of Addo Elephant Park and a private Game reserve called Schotia. Addo was incredible for Elephants, I saw hundreds, including a baby only a couple of days old, so cute! So many photos! Schotia was also amazing, we saw Lions!!! We had a massive lunch and dinner there and got to see Zebra, lions, rhino, buffalo, giraffes, mongoose, warthog, impala and so many others, but the lions were the most exciting. We got so close, within a couple of metres of a big male and a female and her cubs. So many more photos!!! Such a good day!

From PE we went to Storms river, where Brit did the biggest bungy jump in the world (213m). I wanted to but thought that since I have already bungyed in NZ that to pay the money just to say that I’d done the highest wasn’t a good enough reason. Very proud of my self control that day. I did however do a flying fox across to the bridge with Brit which was very beautiful and high!! That night after paying for accommodation in a backpackers that turned out to be more like a lodge (as there were only older people there and it missed the backpacking vibe we’d grown to love) we decided not to waste a night sleeping in one place then waste our day getting the bus to Cape Town.

So we took an overnight bus to Cape Town instead, arriving at 6am when everything was still shut. After resting in some chairs in the bus station for a couple of hours we hitched up our packs and walked to long street where we tried to find the backpackers we’d read about with a free dinner that evening. We eventually got let in after sitting on the curb for half an hour. The backpacker was on Long St, which is a very touristy street with lots of cute, quirky cafes and restaurants and designer shops.

In Cape Town we met some more international tourists (as you do) however we really like these ones (not to say we didn’t like the ones we’d met previously). So we heard that our new friends were hiking up Table Mountain the following day, so we asked if we could tag along. The next morning early, we left the backpackers walking towards the mountain to save the taxi fee. An hour later we arrived at the base of the mountain. Stupidly we decided not to take the stairs up a 2.5hr route because we reasoned that it would hurt our leg muscles more. So we opted for the 4.5hr track that meanders up the back of the mountain apparently a lot less stairs. I’m sure that track would have been lovely but being the adventures we were we took a side path off this track and ended up scaling in-between the mountain cliffs up a steep raven, often climbing up the little river / waterfall falling below. It was a little stupid decision for sure but the views were spectacular!! 4hrs later when we arrived at the top the view over Cape Town felt especially well deserved and was even more speci. The swarms of tourist that had taken the cable car up, we felt didn’t deserve the view and probably didn’t appreciate it as much as us. However I have heard that the line for the cable car up can be hours long and therefore maybe some of them did deserve to see the beautiful view God had created below us. We took the cable car back down, knowing our already shaky legs would not survive the descent down the mountain. A few of us window shopped Long St that afternoon which was fun.

The next day Brit and I hired a car and drove to Stellenbosch (the wine region). Wow that was pretty spectacular too. We stopped a winery and had lunch and wine tasted (yum) we saw some cheetahs too, there was a cheetah education / rehabilitation centre there. After wineing and dining, we jumped back in the car and drove up through the rest of the wine region, up through some spectacular mountains. We went over the mountains and driving down towards the coast felt like we were on a car advert. The road meanders around the mountain side, with wild flowers and golden grass on our left and right. Cruising through those mountains was a lot of fun! After a short freak out when Brit had a bee hit her neck and die on impact causing a lot of screaming and jumping in the back seat, very amusing, we continued down to Hermanus. This is the region famous for whales and it is currently whale season. Unfortunately due to car rental trouble that morning causing us to leave a couple of hours after our original departure time we were a little late for the whales and didn’t know where to find them. The drive back to Cape Town we saw a spectacular sunset which was a lovely end to a real road trip day.

The next day we went with our friends down to Cape Point. We stopped to see the penguins, then drove to the point only to get blown away by the wind (not joking I nearly fell over because of that wind so many times). It was a lot of fun standing at the point, wind making your hair stand straight up (dress not the best choice of clothing!) watching people battle to get the view. We drove round to Cape of Good Hope, the most south westerly point of Africa and crashed a wedding. Random, yes! There was a Korean couple getting married on the point and we were invited to join in some wedding photos, drink Champaign with them. It was very funny and really lovely! The wedding photos with the sign were quite classic with a massive rock having to be put on the dress to stop it flying away. We then drove along, apparently one of the world’s top ten prettiest drives along the coast. It was pretty amazing, the road cut into the cliff and the view were stunning. After battling with the wind to get the doors open we took some pics and went for a very late lunch / dinner at Mariners Wharf were we had heard had the best fish and chips. Well it was expensive but soo soo worth it! I wouldn’t say the chips were the best but the fish melted in your mouth. So delicious. We then ran back to the car, running in all directions attempting to avoid the sand burning our skin from the wind, very funny, and drove back into Cape Town. Spectacular day!

That was about all our adventures in Cape Town. It was very strange to be in a city again. I felt like I was back in Melbourne, just with a big mountain watching the city in the background. It felt like home (which was nice) but I felt distant at the same time. It felt too clean, like it was all a ‘face’. A little culture shock I’m sure, something I’m not looking forward too back in Melbourne, but that I’m sure I will have. I find it nice sometimes when I feel so disconnected with and repulsed by the pride of the rich. But I’m rich too, so I supposed when I am repulsed by my own actions and non thought in my spending it sort of evens out.

So I’m back home in PMB now. It really felt like I was home when I came back, as much as I wish I could have had longer in Cape Town it’s nice to be back. The house is very busy with 9 people living here now. The new couple are working at Swapo as well, they are getting used to the Africa timing and general different way things work here, which can be understandably frustrating a times.

I had a waterfight with the boys from the shelter on Sunday, so so much fun! Brit took photos, so beautiful. The boys are so different and come from such heartbreaking backgrounds but are so beautiful in so many ways. I so want to take some of them home!

So I have not long to go here now 16 days as Blair informed me this morning. I’m looking forward so much to seeing all my friends and family again, but at the same time dreading leaving all my friends and foster family here. I’ve been planning my last trip which will be hiking in the Drakensburg which I’m looking forward to immensely. This weekend all the YDC are going down to Shelly Beach. Should be a fun weekend.

So until I blog next, God bless and much love. Xox Marita.

*Halala means congratulations in Zulu – referring to my birthday in this use.

1. I had to go to hospital with Klaske Saturday morning for a guy she’s friends with from the street who got stabbed. Interesting and eye opening experience.

2. Went shopping and found a heap of bargins which I am not good at saying no too. So spent far too much money (well Rand wise) for my budget. Have decided that money is annoying!

3. Saturday night I went to a church formal (not the church I’ve been attending but one of the other volunteer’s church). Was interesting and a lot of fun.

4. Had a beautiful relaxing Sunday morning, talked to my family for ages and had a heap of dnm (deep and meaningful’s) with house mates.

5. Swapo has still been super busy with 70-80 kids in the afternoon’s which is a challenge. Haven’t painted the container yet due to weather and other situations.

6. Donated some clothing to school boys in the Ezinkethini primary school, so satisfying to see how excited they are to receive second hand shirt and shorts.

7. Found out another rape story that was really quite horrible (don’t read into lengthened version if you don’t want to know details, really is a horrible one, so you’ve been warned).

8. Got my hair cut yesterday, is heaps shorter than I expected but looks nice. For all the females interested, it’s still longish, but now not down to my belly button as it was but sitting short of in the middle of my back.

9. Bought a soccer ball for the kids at kindawo, something I should have done long ago especially when you see the massive grins on their faces when I gave it too them.

10. I have finally planned my holidays!!!! Well at least when I am going to take them. I am planning on going to Cape Town driving down the coast for a couple of days to get there so we can see the coast on the way. Possibly flying back to PMB or driving around through the middle of SA and around maybe through Lesotho! So excited. I am going with Brittan (the American volunteer from Thandinani) and maybe others. I am also going to hike in the Drakensburg (which is the really beautiful dramatic mountains that lead to Lesotho) for 1 or 2 nights with Mona and Brit. And hopefully we’ll make it to Mozambique in my last week here (as it’s school holidays and there isn’t much to do around here) for a week. It’s going to be so much fun and so tight on the budget I have (which I think I will blow) but I figure I’m here now, who knows when I’ll return, see as much as possible while I’m here. Help stimulate the economy as a tourist.

11. The YDC house was getting a little on edge for a while with food and cleaning issues but we had a big discussion the other night and smoothed everything out for a little while at least.

12. I have been more creative with my budget and I’m actually having more fun and feeling less guilty about spending money on certain things and giving money away which is nice, because I was really beating myself up there for a little while. Living where I do and living how I live from the culture I’m from and the way the world is here. The constant struggle between poverty and wealth, inequality and equality.

13. Tanguy (pronounced Tongie) from the Durban YDC has moved to the YDC here. There isn’t room in the house here as we are about to get a married couple next month who get their own room and then there are only 2 rooms filled with females. So he’s sleeping at the boys shelter next door and eating and generally living here. I feel sorry for him a bit, living with 6 females but he’s really nice, 18, straight out of school, from Belgium (speaks French) here for 9months and he shares some of my taste in music which is lovely!

So let me elaborate on the points that I would like too.

1. Wow this was a drama and a half. Woke up to Klaske talking on the phone sounding worried, she came into my room after she got off the phone and said ‘Nkosi’s been stabbed, he was crying and he wants me to go pick him up. I don’t know what to do.’ I was worried, it was 6.30am Saturday we didn’t know whether they drunk or what. So I decided to go with Klaske, we called an ambulance then drove to where they were staying on the street. Turned out that he had been stabbed but only in the hand, not the life threatening wound we assumed. We cancelled the ambulance and drove him to hospital as the wound was fairly deep and big and bleeding a lot. It was strange to have to be so careful about getting blood on you for HIV etc. even though Nkosi has been tested for HIV once and it was negative (apparently you have to have the test done twice to be more certain). Apparently he was stabbed by a guy who just came up and started pushing him then pulled out a knife and went to stab him in the heart but Nkosi grabbed the knife and either when the knife was pulled out of his hand he got cut or the knife was then stabbed into his hand. Apparently the guy who stabbed him thought that Nkosi and his friends still had a problem with him because he killed one of the guys they lived with on the street 2 years ago. He went to prison for a while but wasn’t convicted. We took him to Northdale hospital, a place I knew I didn’t want to see up close. The government hospitals here are disgusting because there isn’t enough money for them for how many people they are serving. It was fairly gross inside, cleaner though than stories I’d heard of feral animals fighting under patient’s beds. We eventually worked out where we needed to take him, we had to open a file so while his wounds were being dressed we stood in line for a file. While we were in line we noticed a guy on the ground surrounded by blankets, clearly unable to sit up or stand properly and struggling to do something. We saw it was his work clothes, Klaske went over to help him while I was in line. I was amazed to see doctors and hospital staff step nearly over him or around him not asking what was wrong or if they could help. He couldn’t speak English so Klaske got a lady to translate for her what he wanted and needed. I got called to the front of the line but knew none of Nkosi’s details so I swapped with Klaske. I helped the man struggle into his shirt then went to the main desk to make sure that he got help. He was then attended too by the lady at the desk who came out to see him. I pray that he got the medical attention he clearly needed. Nkosi eventually got stitches, we were first in and I was frustrated with how slow it was. So I can’t imagine what would happen for those who are 15th in the cue. We got too see Nkosi’s wound, it was deep and the skin had parted a lot so you could see the tissue under his skin. I found it fascinating, watching the stitches and wound, won’t go into to detail cos I don’t want to gross anyone out. Anyway that was my hospital drama, very unlike Grey’s Anatomy or House.

2. Money is a constant annoyance because it’s really hard to budget what is really necessary and not. For instance, airtime (or phone credit) now Sarah’s away I’m sending like 8 sms at a time, which is not that cheap. Opps.

4. Its really nice living in a house where really meaningful talks happen a lot. It’s nice to share what your struggling with housemate because chances are they are struggling with it too, or have wrestled with it already.

5. Swapo is going really well but I am really struggling with the amount of little children ranging from 2 – 13yrs old, having 1 intern who speaks Zulu and me in charge of all 60-80 of them. What do you do with so many kids that you can do with them all? It’s really hard. At the moment we have been singing and playing games because their attention spans are very short and this way you can keep most interested. I would love to do a craft with them but we have no space other than a dusty oval space across the road which makes craft hard. I don’t know, suggestions are welcome!

7. On Monday we were at Swapo, we being Klaske and I and a little girl of 2-3years with a swollen belly was playing with us in and around the centre. Zeh told us that this little girl was actually one they were trying to help a couple of months back because she has been getting raped by her father. I was so disgusted I wanted to throw up and cry all at once. This beautiful (even if she was a little dirty from the mud) little girl had been raped by her father and her situation probably won’t change for a long time until she is so abused, emotionally and physically that she’ll probably never fully recover. Apparently Zeh had tried to get the mother to report the case to the police but instead the mother begged for the father to come back. I don’t know what you do with something like that. How it is going to change? Those are my questions… seemingly going unanswered.

10. So excited about holidays!!! So hope it all works out as planned. It’s hard to not beat myself up about being selfish and wanting to travel and see this beautiful country when it does cost a lot of money and it could go to some of the places I’m working. However as I’ve discussed it with others, I don’t think it’s fair to only see this side of South Africa (the hard side) and not see all that it has too offer. Also it’s not like I’m only travelling, I will have a tight budget to stick too but still have set aside money for people in need and donations. I’m not sure if this is justifying my experiences but at least you now know that all of this hasn’t happened lightly or been not thought through very deliberately.

Well that is actually about it for me! I know it was a lot of writing so my apologies but if you’ve read any of my other blogs you’ll know I struggle to keep it short. I will hopefully be posting photos at the same time as this of the last month or two what I’ve been up to. I hope you enjoy seeing them. Oh, also I have decided to extend my stay here in South Africa. I am now leaving not on the 20th of November but on the 9th of December, so just for an extra 3 weeks that way fitting in a little more and making it closer to my original goal of being here 6months.

Missing you all. Xox

 Sarah and I went away last week. We had a really lovely time, even if the weather didn’t co-operate. It rained / was windy dreary weather all week, meaning that we didn’t get to do the beach holiday we were planning. Actually we only made it to the beach on our last day in Widenham where we were staying.

We stayed with Sally (the YDC [youth development centre/ international volunteers]) co-ordinator who was kind enough to invite Sarah and I to stay with her and her family when they were on holidays. It was a small quaint town about 30minutes South of Durban only 5minutes walking distance to the beach (so very slack on our behalf to not make it down there till Friday). It was lovely staying with Sally and seeing her in a more family role as a mother to her two beautiful girls.

Sarah and I were intending to go diving however we found out that it was more deep sea diving and required a permit that neither of us had and therefore decided that it was going to be too expensive and too much of a hassle to bother with. I will hopefully go diving at some spot here in Africa on one of my future travels.

So instead of diving we decided to get a massage, which was very lovely and relaxing! For the rest of our holiday we puzzled (ie. Doing a beautiful 1500 piece puzzle of Southern Africa and it’s multiple people groups), visited nearly all the cafes in the closest town, skyped finally with friends, relaxed and read the bible together something I don’t do often enough but when I do I enjoy it so much, I often ask myself, why don’t I do this more often? Something we have been working on together, as in reading our bibles together more often.

 I actually applied for University and finished submitting various forms that were required. I have applied for an Arts Global degree at Monash Uni wanting to Major in International Development. The Global part of the degree referring to the fact that you have to study a semester overseas… yes I have caught the travel bug! My second, third etc preferences are for similar courses to study international development which I am super excited to hopefully start next year! It’s so exciting to finally have found something I’m passionate about and really want to study and learn about! To have some direction for my future wherever it’s leading me.

 I also found this cool wool shop with a million awesome buttons and have indulged once again in making button earrings. Another hobby of mine that Sarah has taken on. So we crochet, knit, I bake, make button earrings and cards. Feeling very crafty and old fashioned but I enjoy it. Crocheting especially is a good response to Africa time where you forever feel you are wasting time where as for the Zulu culture you aren’t wasting time because you are building relationships. So crocheting helps my western drive to feel like I’m doing something but doesn’t prohibit building relationships like reading a book would.

 On Friday we headed up to the Durban YDC. This was were I was originally meant to be and Thank God that I am not. It feels like a jail! They are on a highway under a bridge, there is a guard on duty all day and night and they can’t walk out of their courtyard. Driving in Durban isn’t fun either as the taxi are more crazy than here in Maritzburg, not to mention the big increase in traffic and confusing one way streets. The only advantage Durban YDC have is the internet which they have access to whenever they want… a little jealous especially because time difference to Australia means that I need to be at the internet café in the middle of the day when I’m at work or a night when it’s not safe to go out. But for that advantage I would so much prefer living here in PMB where I can go for walks in the morning, to the shop, internet café whenever I want during the day. So a really God’s guidance and blessing that I ended up here. I moved out of my room today and into the single room!! Yay, room to myself… the advantages of being here the longest!

Anyway I have gotten us all side tracked… YDC Durban, we stayed there for the weekend hanging out with the 3 volunteers there and Marieke and Jackie came up for the weekend too. We had a lovely weekend. Went to the beach, went swimming, shopping (more on that later), for a picnic and out to dinner at this fantastic modern South African restaurant. It was lovely just hanging and getting to know each other better, was really a lovely weekend.

 A new girl, well old girl technically (she was here in 2007) came on Wednesday so when we arrived home on Sunday night I met her for the first time. Her names Klaske from Holland, she is lovely and it’s really nice to have someone to chat too who’s experienced going home and balancing what you learn here and your experiences and meshing them with your life at home.

 That leads us to this week at Swapo as usual. Sarah and I were meant to teach our last English class on Monday as I can’t work at the school by myself. Turns out the teacher who was meant to be teaching the year 8’s or their replacement is back and therefore there is no longer a need for us. So that made us feel a little better about not being able to continue there. It was a little sad, because we really wanted to help there and because of exams and holidays we only got to teach for 3 Mondays. But it was a good experience and I think the kids were helped a little, if not in English than hopefully in the fact that some white ‘rich’ people are willing to spend time helping them out.

 The rest of the week was Kindawo; when it was a really hot day so I took the kids to McDonalds for an ice cream as a treat. I was a little annoyed with their lack of gratification, asking for the most expensive McFlurry’s and hamburgers when I had told them I was taking them to get an ice cream. Made me wonder whether that was just these kids being ungrateful for any special things (they never get McDonalds) or if that’s just children in general. So Mum and Dad I hope I didn’t do that and sorry if I did!

 Sarah and I took the day off Wednesday so I could help Sarah get ready for leaving on Saturday morning as our week was too full to have any time off elsewhere. It was nice to spend the morning doing random jobs and errands together. Marieke had a party that night for her 21^st which was a great success and a lot of fun.  

 Thursday was Sarah’s last day. It was a really lovely day that started off terribly for me. I was so tired and a couple of things in the house in the morning pushed my buttons harder than usual. So I wasn’t very happy in the morning but as the day wore on it became fabulous! Sarah and I Zulu worship songs with the older and younger kids which was lovely. We read a bible story to the younger ones and played some games. It’s lovely to see them so eager to hold your hand, but sometimes worrying when they get into fights over it! We handed out lollies at the end and that was fairly full on. If you can imagine 50 kids pushing and shoving with their hands up to you all yelling ‘Sweeties! Sweeties! I didn’t get one! (whilst they are clearly chewing the one you gave them)’ I felt swamped and in the end couldn’t even run away from them as they just mobbed around me as I tried to escape. I ended up throwing the lollies away, felt like I was throwing a stick for a dog to fetch, but it worked as it freed me up a little! In this time I also got a message from Blair telling me that we did get tickets to Big Day Out (a music festival)!!! So so so excited!!! One of my favourite bands will be playing and as it sold out in 10mins we were very worried we were going to miss out! But we didn’t so now I will be seeing Muse live! As well as many other artists that are high on my ipod rotation list! So happy about that!

 So this week has been a really really fantastic one! I have enjoyed nearly every part of it (apart from the breakdown I had yesterday morning). I have gotten to talk to Blair, Kyla, Emily and Jess on skype (a brilliant invention!) Will hopefully talk to mum and dad in the next hour. I have had a stack of amazing talks with people from the house on so many really important issues, something I’m really enjoying. Especially living in house where everyone is a Christian so even if there are disagreements we can come back to our similarities in Christ. I also have had a really positive working week and lots of fun.

 Sarah leaves tomorrow morning, and I will be so so sad to see her leave! We’ll never have a time like this again, but we are going to keep in close touch and she’s coming back to Maritzburg with her Boyfriend at the end of the month so it’s not goodbye goodbye for a little while. So I’m hanging out with her as much as possible today. We’re going out for dinner tonight which should be really nice.

 Tomorrow after I drop Sarah at the airport we (the PMB YDC) and the Durban YDC and Brit (another volunteer down the road) are going back to L’Abri to help do some work to fix up the place. It should be a good weekend. But it will be sad without Sarah too!

 So that’s me! God bless until I write again!

 So I will try and do a really quick catch up for you all of general events.

 A quick disclaimer: if the below doesn’t make any sense / is terrible english could you please excuse it as my being sick when this was written.

3 Weekends ago (man I really have been lapse in blogging) I went on the 10km ladies race around PMB (Pietermaritzburg). Sarah, Marieke, Jacomijin and Lisa (lady from the main office) and I all went in it. We completed the run (cough cough / walked most of the way) in just under the time we were meant to; completing it in 1hr and 28mins. It was really fun to muck around and just do it for fun.

 The Sunday we went for lunch at Sally’s (the volunteer co-ordinator) house. I successfully made lemon meringue pie for dessert (which turns out to be extremely hard to make without an electric mixer, stupid egg whites) and we had a lovely afternoon at her house.

 That week I worked a little a Swapo where the children were busy practising some traditional dances for Heritage Day. I also worked at Site 11 with Sarah. It was lovely to work there for a day. Muma Nana who runs the centre is very organised and the day was really full which was lovely to feel like you are actually working for an entire day. I also changed my day for working at Kindawo from a Thursday to a Tuesday as Jackie and Marieke are going to work there on Thursdays. It always a pleasure to work there even if it does try my patience with the children’s homework most of the time.

 Wednesday Sarah picked up the new girls, Mona and Isabella. So there are now 7 people living in the house. 6 women and 1 male. The girls moved into our room (as it is the biggest) so there are now 3 other members sleeping in my room, which can make for frustrating nights where you wake up every time someone gets up / goes to bed. Mornings are the most frustrating especially if you can sleep in because you won’t. But the new girls are lovely and have actually had a really positive impact on the house in terms of dynamics. I feel we are all a little less clicky which is good. Mona and Isabella are both 19 and finished school last year and are both from Germany.

 That weekend Sally had organised for all of the YDC volunteers to go to YFC’s campsite for the weekend. Joe didn’t come due to basket ball commitments however the YDC from Durban (where I was originally going to be) came along as well. So we were a party of 8 females and we had a ball! The campsite L’Abri is so so beautiful, set in a fairly damp forest with a river and waterfalls all around. I took nearly 700 photos that weekend which will be upload on my photo blog soon so you can understand just how beautiful it was. We did activities on the camp, in which we felt like little children especially when we were asked to talk about what it meant afterwards and how we could apply that to our lives. But it was fun especially when we just started mucking around something cronic. We went for a walk to a waterfall which took us like 5 hours (but only because our guide wanted to stop talk and reflect far too much) but was so beautiful. From climbing up an entombing forest path to open grass plains on top of the mountain. We went on a swing out over an embankment that overlooked the valley which was beautiful. We also went on a swing that was over a waterfall and some of us dared to jump into the freezing cold water, which when you rise from the water makes you sound like the biggest idiot spluttering and saying ‘Oh it’s cold’, ‘man’ ‘oh’ ‘freezing’ etc. The landscape was so dynamic and beautiful, the whole weekend I was in constant awe (fear and wonder) of what God has created. We brought a guitar with us and sang songs together around a fire on the first cold night and had amazing deep talks about God and life. It was an incredible weekend of real fellowship and bonding.

 This past week has been fantastic. Monday Sarah and I were at Swapo and arranged a Bible talk to give to the younger children. That day we had over 50 kids and we attempted to gather them into the church next to the centre sit them down and give a short 10 minute talk on an overview of who Jesus is in English and then translated into Zulu. We sang some Zulu songs and taught the kids an English one too. We were really busy that day by our own initiative and we were both so inspired and encouraged by what we achieved which may seem small but could have made a real difference.

 Tuesday I worked at Kindawo again after spending the morning seemingly wasted driving around town dropping people off with my co-ordinator.

 Wednesday again at Swapo, the children were practising for the Heritage Day celebration we were having with another centre on the Thursday. Heritage Day is a day in South Africa to celebrate the different cultures SA is made up of. It is so lovely to see all the kids get together singing traditional songs and helping one another with some traditional dances. We are really starting to build some good relationships with some of the children which is lovely.

 A girl volunteering for an organisation down the road called Thandinani from America called us. She is the only volunteer for them and is living by herself. We invited her to join us on Thursday for Heritage Day which she was excited about. 

 Thursday was a public holiday because of Heritage Day but we went to Haniville for the celebration. All of the YDC (excluding Joe) came as well as Brit (the American) and it was an amazing day of culture. I was so proud of our centre’s kids and their exceptional performances. There was a special guest there from the department of Arts and Culture for the area and he was very impressed with all the performances even giving out money as incentives for the children to continue dancing and doing dramas. The children were in traditional clothing as well. Traditional clothing being brightly beaded skirts for the females with necklaces and no top; for the males its animal skin skirt (I think, not as many males dressed up as females). I will hopefully post some photos on my blog but there is a photo policy here that I can’t put any photo’s of the children’s faces (which is completely understandable) so there probably won’t be many. I took far too many photos that day which I am yet to process, but the kids love having photos taken of them. I think I will print some of them and give them to the kids (a luxury many would not have).

After the celebrations were finished some of the girls asked us if we would play netball with them. We said that would be interesting due to the fact that apart from Sarah and I none of the girls even knew what netball was. We played anyway (most of us opting bare feet over thongs, which in hind sight due to the massive blisters most of us got might not have been such a good idea) and lost miserably but it was fun.

Friday morning was prayer meeting in which due to Heritage Day we prayed in all the languages represented in the room. English, Zulu, Xhosa, Sotho, German and Dutch. It was lovely to pray, even if I didn’t understand the prayers, in so many languages a really different experience for me. The YDC girls from Durban (Elke from Germany and Annet from Holland) have come up for the weekend as they can’t drive yet and they aren’t allowed to walk anywhere from where they are staying due to safety. We (all the YDC and Brit came along as well) went out to dinner at this lovely restaurant which on first glance looked super expensive but was exceptionally priced, it was nice to go out and feel a little bit like I was home.

Saturday we had another Heritage Day celebration this time at Site 11. Sarah was supposed to drive us however she came down with the flu and had really bad blisters so I finally sat my ‘driving test’ around some roads that week to prove I could drive and I drove everyone around to the celebration. Brit came along to this celebration too and the YDC girls from Durban. This one was lovely but a lot more talking. I still can’t understand Zulu (which is a very complex language with far too many clicks) and had no one to interpret too me so it was a little boring but apparently the message given was fantastic. We had some traditional food afterwards, I ate some of it. There was mealie meal (which is ground corn) with sugar beans and herbs, chicken, and inside and outside meat (ie. Cow tongue and intestine and stomach – which I did not try). That night I went out with Brit, (who is here in SA for a year on a placement supported by her Uni Harvard!) who’s 22 and lovely, to her boss’s house for a braai and to watch Slumdog Millionaire outside on his lawn where he set up a screen. It was a fantastic evening with so many people from different NGO’s here in Pietermaritzburg, lots of interesting conversations about and surrounding the NGO sector here.

When we got home later that night though I started getting really sick and felt quite ill. Turns out that I caught some bug or got food poisoning so today I have proceeded to do nothing other than try and catch up on sleep I lost last night and get better. I am feeling quite alright now and hoping it was just a 24 hr thing.

Tomorrow Sarah and I leave to go on holidays together for a week. It’s her second last week here in PMB much to my sadness but it will be really nice to get away just the 2 of us for a holiday. We’re going to Durban (Mozambique turned out to be too much hassle) and staying with Sally and her family where they are on a holiday (which was so so lovely of her to offer to us). We are hoping to go diving in the sea if it’s not too expensive.

So that’s my events for the last 3 weeks. I am hoping I will be completely better before tomorrow so that we can start both being well again.

I’ve been super encouraged over the last couple of weeks in what I am doing here. I really feel like I am finally getting somewhere at the centre and have been really affirmed in being here. I get frustrated sometimes with how normal everything is becoming, the houses in the informal settlements has stopped shocking me, the dirty clothing that’s ripped has stopped making me sad, the people sleeping on the streets that I sometimes don’t even see. I was really challenged today by some of this, reminded in a conversation about things I was struggling with that seemed to have just halted in my reaction to them. It goes to show I think that we can’t expect our lives to change just due to situation; we have to constantly work at them. Something that should constantly be our challenge to live our lives more reflective of God’s coming Kingdom. That has been my challenge over the last couple of days and something that I am struggling with currently. What is my reaction to where I am working, how can I live a simpler life and be content with that in such a consumerist culture? Can I justify all the money I spend on travel and my want of experiences when that money could help people I know to live better lives? It’s the constant struggle of the knowledge of the poor and the culture and society of the rich in which we live.

Agh the struggles of life, fun hey!

Hope you are really well. Would love to hear some news, anything small, big, funny, ridiculous, made up for entertainment. All is appreciated!

Love to you all.

Xox

* Blair – I finally bought the new Arctic Monkeys CD. It was finally at the cd shop after a month of asking every week if it was there yet. He first told me that they’d sold out, I nearly screamed, after telling him that was extremely frustrating he said to hold on a sec while he double checked out the back. There was a copy out there which made me very happy. It is quite lovely. I also go the new muse CD which is good, and I think will take a couple of listenings too to make me love it but it is quite brilliant as anyone could expect.

10 Pleasures

1. The smell of freshly brewed coffee (especially in the morning)

2. Eating Banana Bread straight from the oven, yum

3. Relaxing Saturday mornings listening to music

4. Meeting friends for drinks (something I have missed extremely)

5. Getting hugs (something I’ve missed Taminka for!)

6. Wearing something you have made

7. Reading a book in Bed

8. Knowing a child has finally understood what you are trying to explain again and again for their homework

9. Going for a walk with friends

10. Finding a photo that you’ve taken that turned out really well

10 Dislikes

1. Meeting someone and getting along really well but knowing they have to leave and therefore the friendship you know would have developed can’t!!

2. Knocking over the bin over a floor you’ve just swept and seeing the dust go everywhere (as I have just done)

3. Crumbs left on the benches that attract ants and knowing they weren’t ones you left, again

4. Running out of wool when your 3 rows from finishing a beret

5. Feeling like you’ve wasted an entire day doing nothing

6. Cold showers

7. Getting so annoyed at others stealing your stuff (food) when you should really be sharing anyway

8. Backpackers not returning your email enquiries

9. Missing out on things back home (although I know that isn’t fair)

10. The dust marks our washing machine leaves on any dark clothes

Well now for this last week.

 Nothing to exciting to report, I haven’t actually done all that much this week.

 Last weekend was pretty relaxed, I actually can not remember what we did at all… no actually I lie. I went to Kindawo on Saturday because I wasn’t there during the week, it was nice to just play with the children instead of focusing on homework.

 Monday and Tuesday we stayed in the office all day helping with the strategy for the next 3 years. It is quite an exciting time for YFC at the moment as all the projects are writing their strategy’s and therefore hopefully reviewing what they are doing right and wrong and what they can do better. It is also a really difficult time at the moment because there isn’t much funding due the global financial crisis. It’s interesting that it seems that giving money to charities seems to be one of the first things to go when businesses are struggling when in reality that is where more money should be going to because there will be more people those organisations will be needing to help.

 Wednesday I finally went to a chiropractor! YAY, it was something that my body was telling me was long overdue the headaches finally pushing me to ask some people if they knew of any. Sally gave me the number of her chiropractor and she was lovely and did a great job. So glad I went. This however made me take a day off work, so I went to the main office to help celebrate one of the staff’s 50^th Birthday. There were cakes galore (enough that I didn’t eat lunch).

 Sarah and I are thinking of going to Mozambique so I sent off a lot of enquiries to different backpackers which I haven’t heard back from annoyingly. It’s turning out to be quite difficult as public transport there is not very good and very time consuming because of the state of disrepair the roads in Mozambique are. There are beautiful beaches and snorkelling and diving but it’s looking a little too much hassle at the moment. We’ll see.

 Thursday I also had the morning off, in which I did pretty much nothing because there wasn’t really anything I could do. That was frustrating but in the afternoon I went to Kindawo with Marieke and Jacomijn. They are probably going to help out on a Thursday from now on which is exciting but means I need to change my days when I go there.

 Friday we started with the prayer meeting which is always good although interesting due to the fact that it is usually in Zulu. That afternoon though, I went to a workshop at site 11. It was really good, I didn’t understand a word of it but it was a great success. We got way more people than we were expecting and their reactions were really positive. It was on Alcoholism which is a big problem amongst many parents, spending their children’s school grants on alcohol. Nearly all the people at the workshop are now going to get counselling about alcoholism! Praise God! One small step in a better direction for those families and ultimately the community.

 Friday night Sarah and I went out for drinks with Vicky, a lovely English young lady who we made friends with at a Women’s Convention. She has also been volunteering but at an orphanage called lily of the valley, which originally started up as a place where HIV + kids could die in a good environment. However since starting the kids have been living longer and longer and so now it does all sorts of amazing programs and activities with the kids. It sounds really amazing and Sarah and I want to visit before Sarah leaves (4 weeks time, sadness!). We had a lovely evening chatting but it was sad to say goodbye because we got on so well and I’m sure given the chance it could have been a really nice friendship there. But praise God for facebook, where we’ll still be able to keep in touch.

 That brings us to today.

So all in all a not very interesting week, but have had plenty of time for awesome conversations, thinking time (something I tend to do too much of), and general building relationships with people time.

 Oh an interesting thing to note just about general life. Living with more people is turning out to be very interesting. I am really getting a taste of community living here, especially with 4 women with different views on how things should be done. It is hard sometimes to not get frustrated at small things like people leaving all their dishes, leaving food out etc, which you then feel like your mothering them by cleaning up after them. But most of the time it’s just me getting frustrated over nothing, and having to remind myself that it really isn’t worth getting worked up over. But I love the people I’m living with its just taking some getting used to.

 Oh another interesting thing, tomorrow I am entered in a 10km race around Pietermaritzburg with Lisa (a lovely YFC staff), Sarah, Marieke and Jacomijn. We ticked the run box for some reason and now have to complete it in 1hr and a half or something so hopefully I won’t die. We won’t be disqualified if we don’t complete it in that time though so I’m not too worried. But I certainly won’t be running the whole way it’ll be more walk then run a short distance then walk again. So hopefully that goes well.

 So enough from me. I hope you are all spectacular and have a lovely weekend.

Love muchly. Xox

 *Title refers to the fact that I am beginning to learn that I need to sieve thing in my life. Like what I get frustrated by, what I am going to let mould me, what I am going to value and the flour in that cake I made the other day.

First let me say that last weekend I missed a very important lady’s 21st! I was so sad to miss one of my closest friends 21st Birthday and so wish I could have been there for her to help celebrate what an amazing person she is! Sorry Emily! I was there in Spirit!

 Let me start from 2 weekends ago. So after helping those beautiful little children from their horrible situation Sarah and I did a little bit of relaxing that weekend. We went to the Braai (BBQ) (not Bra as I found out) which was a stack of fun and lovely to eat some steak. It was really nice to just hang out with young adults my own age as a group, it’s something I’ve really been missing doing!

 That next Monday we started our English classes. We went into the school oh so prepared, some notes jotted down on our note pad, and received the curriculum after arriving at the school with 15minutes before we were to teach… so let’s just say it was an interesting experience. Sarah and I with our experience in teaching (both nil unless it can be genetic then I may have some) went into the first class with much confidence. Being the only white people in a school and having Australian accents is quite a novelty for most of the kids, they quite like us (well if you can judge from how much they mimic us anyway) which is a positive.

 The first class we taught had only 15 students as half leave for zulu, so we got eased into it, the second and third classes being around 40 something students! We just taught some simple English things to do with grammar and spelling which is apparently where they are struggling. We thought we did ok, and after asking one of the students at the drop in centre later that day we were given feedback that half the class probably didn’t understand us and that we went much to fast.

 We taught again Monday earlier this week. We decided to just focus on commas and split the larger classes in half between Sarah and me so we could hopefully assess who was and wasn’t understanding. We got a better understanding of where they were at and felt in the last class especially that we were actually making a difference which is so uplifting and encouraging. It gives you such a buzz when you can see the concept of something actually being understood in someone’s head.

 So teaching on the whole without going into more detail than most people will want to know, is going as well as one could expect. But it’s nice to feel that we are actually doing something even if it isn’t amazing and we aren’t qualified teaches, it is better than the no teacher that they were having, well I’d like to think so anyway.

 Work other than that has been really good. At Swapo we have continued to get more children coming to the centre. We attempted a craft with the younger ones the other day which was a little difficult with 50 or so children with paper and only 24 pencils… I think we might need to buy some more before we try another craft. I feel that the centre is getting more motivated, ever so slowly, but I am encouraged by what’s happening there more, and attempting to look at those positives instead of getting frustrated with South African timing and culture.

 Kindawo has been great! I love it there. Helping the kids with there homework requires a lot of patience at the best of times but it’s nice to see them understanding and growing. Unfortunately they’ve all been sick this last week, some suspected  with the dreaded swine flu, so I didn’t go last week but will go tomorrow to visit the kids.

 The house has acquired two new house mates, Jacomijn aged 21, and Marieke aged 20 (pronounced Yacomain and Mareeka) both from Holland. They are lovely and we are getting along really well. It is interesting getting used to living with new people though and there are frustrations that come along with that. I think more so I have just been getting frustrated with the house and being constantly around the same people all day long. But that is to be expected.

 The four of us along with an YFC staff named Lisa who is lovely have all entered a 10km race here in Maritzburg which will happen next Sunday. I am looking forward to it and dreading it all at once. We have been meaning to train for a least a week or two now to no effect as something always happens the day we organise something. However we will be going for a long walk / run tomorrow. 

 Today I came back from a camp that Sarah and I attended / worked at from Wednesday to Friday. It was awesome! We both had a ball, felt more like a holiday than work as we thoroughly enjoyed whatever we were doing (which was more observing than working). It is this beautiful campsite down a dirt road in a canyon situated next a rather large river; which we got to swim in, jump into from cliff, and flying fox into. It was an amazing site! And the owners also own a bed and breakfast which is situated over the river in the middle of the bush, with wild game wondering around on the verandas and cooking areas. So beautiful and peaceful and awe inspiring! The mountains surrounding the huts and cottages, Impalas galloping around, the river running below… so amazing! So wanted to hire one of the huts and do some hiking in the mountains… will definitely look into it as a possibility for one of my weekends here!

 The school that was on camp was the Year 11’s of a very good and rich private school / boarding school. It was so different from any school I have ever had anything to do with. The girls were taking about Prefects (head girls) and Boarding and leadership and School Spirit, and wearing your uniforms proudly and remember to wear your hat at the mall… all apparently very important things. The girls were so lovely however and I think they really enjoyed having some younger ‘staff’ around to talk to and relate too.

One of the evenings we got the girls to mould out of clay something of how they see themselves relating to the past, present and future. Sarah and I ran the small group discussion afterwards and it was so interesting to hear how similar the difficulties they were struggling with were so related and similar across the group, yet they were so scared to share…

Something one of the girls really stuck with me though. She said that is was so hard to look into herself and actually just sit with that for 45 minutes. Then half the girls including this one said how in the future they wanted to ‘find themselves’. It struck me thinking about these two thing that how often do people of this age group, my age group go off to ‘find themselves’, they go looking overseas, in alcohol, in drugs, in study, in relationships, in processions and places. And yet how often do we actually look at ourselves to find the answer to the question who am I? Are we scared of what we’ll find, of what we actually think about ourselves? Is that why one of the girls said it was so hard to sit with ‘her-self’ for 45minutes? I think it might be. Are some of us so insecure within ourselves that we can’t actually accept compliments non superficially, can’t see the positives within ourselves? So we try and drown out all the negatives with the above, ‘finding ourselves’ instead of actually doing some deep soul searching within us.

Is this a fair comment coming from me, who could be trying to find myself overseas? I’m not sure, but it is something I’m clearly thinking on.

I personally think that it is only when we come to terms with the limitations of our humanity, our broken selves that we can begin to move on and understand how amazing God’s love and grace is that he loves and accepts us in our humanity and in Him understand who we truly are. 

 Anyway enough thoughts, Camp was awesome and this coming weekend is going to be a busy but relaxing one with hopefully a little less sunburn than this week… opps.

Spring here seems to be more like winter turned into summer, but no complaints here!

 Missing you all, please send some news of home wherever you are and whatever you are doing I’d love to hear back.

 Xox

 *Title refers to song lyric by Muse, Black hole referring more literally in my life to the massive hole my handbag has annoying developed and grown and revelations is self explanatory once you’ve read the blog.

 The weekend was lovely and relaxing, we did practically nothing. Watched a couple of movies, went to the internet café, church, did the food shopping after going out for breakfast and that was about it. It was really nice to just relax and re-energise.

Monday, Sarah and I worked at Swapo. We had a meeting with the school we want to teach English at and that went really well. We’ll start next week some time. We are going to be teaching the year 8’s. I think we may be taking over a couple of classes from the teachers, not sure how they feel about that but I hope they understand that we are not trying to take over only help. We are hopefully going to run the classes a little more interactively as they seem to be able to write all the basics, but understanding what they are writing and implementing that into everyday life and classes is another thing.

Tuesday was also really positive, although the day at Swapo did consist of much, when the kids came after school we had a really good session. The drop in centre leader, Zeh, is really passionate about the kids and it was nice to see that. We played games and had to go round the circle encouraging one another with positive comments. We have lots of kids at the moment which is fantastic. I think it is due to the fact that we have gotten bread back to give to the kids.

We went to Bible study that night and that was really good. Challenging and really nice to just hang out with some people our age with similar backgrounds and worldviews. We were invited to a BRA on Saturday which translated into Australian is a BBQ so that will fun, a nice Steak for dinner!

Today (Wednesday) however was something else. We were working with Thabo, who took us to the new community, Ezekekeni, he wants a centre to be built in. We took our questionnaires for the community profile we want to compile and stopped at one point to ask 3 ladies to fill them in. Somehow a crowd gathered and soon there were 10-15 people filling in questionnaires and asking Thabo what we were doing and why. They were all really positive and want the centre to be built and working this year not next. As all this was happening a social worker from another area came up to us and told us that she thought we should see this house where some terrible things had been happening and needed some attention.

After finishing filling in questionnaires the social worker showed us the ‘house’, a run down mud hut with 2 small rooms (smaller in total than my lounge room at home), where 3 children were living with their Aunt. They were orphans; their mother and father have both passed away. We met the children, a girl aged 9, a disabled boy of 5, and a beautiful little girl aged 3. We were told that all of these children have been repeatedly raped by a 15year old guy in the community. The aunt doesn’t care and has done nothing about it. The children have also never been to school, are probably hungry and malnourished and left to their own devises most of the time. After a lengthy discussion with some of the neighbours and people from the community (the aunt was absent) we left and went to child welfare. They told us that we would have to get the local social worker to open the case and that basically we could do nothing. This frustrated me so much. The systems that are created to take care of the children instead hinder them from getting help! Thabo wasn’t satisfied with this and we went to another social welfare place who said they could help. We returned to the community and took the children and took them back to the social welfare place where they will now be looked after until someone either agrees to foster them or something else can take place.

My heart broke for these children. They were so beautiful and so innocent, unsmiling no matter how many smiles we tried to share with them. Holding back tears many times as I thought what they had repeatedly gone through. I don’t know how to put it to words what I felt and am still feeling, but it sits deep and heavy in my stomach and makes me feel sick.

Something Thabo said on the way home from dropping the children off at child welfare though has given me hope. He said that he wouldn’t still be in this job if he didn’t see some success stories. Which is true, what we do does make a difference and there is hope for brighter futures. However that does not lessen the trauma these children and millions of other children go through every day. Because stories like this one are common but somehow they hit you a little harder when you’re holding their tiny hands.

Today has put a couple of things into perspective for me. What does shopping for clothing, what you are going to wear, what are you going to do this weekend your so bored etc even matter? Why do we worry about such trivial issues instead of looking and asking and seeing the real ones that actually affect our brothers and sisters to their core? What does half of our shit (excuse the language but seriously) even matter compared to that child’s hand I held today?  

Why are we so worried about our precious material stuff being stolen and not the souls and hearts being torn of people in communities not 10minutes from our own?How do we consume our lives and time with such mundane worthless stuff instead of what really matters?

Sorry if that’s harsh, I’m not trying to make you feel bad but this has been my reality check. These are the questions I have been asking and struggling with. I considered not writing these questions because I didn’t want to be cruel and push my reality onto others. However if I can’t share because I think it may make others uncomfortable then I’m not sure that’s being truthful. So if I’ve burst your bubble I apologise but maybe that is something you should think on. Maybe they aren’t the questions you will struggle with but understand that the story above is reality and as much as ‘ignorance is bliss’ ignorance changes nothing.

 So I am shaken but ok. Seeing what I saw sometimes makes me want to yell at God, blame him for the horrible things we do to one another. But as my heart was breaking for these kids I know God’s has broken many more times. How do we do these things to one another? I’m really not sure. However for these children there is hope for a brighter future. Hopefully now they will be loved and given much needed attention for all of there needs. And I’m going to end this blog with that hope.

 Hope you are all well. Xox