Saturday
Saturday was a nice early start... We all headed to the Care Centre for the Ethembeni Jumble Sale. Arriving at 8, there were already queues of men, women and children outside, so excited to get in! Clo, Est and I were placed on the "tills", so unprepared what would happen next. The gates opened and the people outside ran in, grabbing as much clothing and bedding as they could, they next came to us and threw the items on our tables. We had to add up so fast! It was much harder then any mental maths test we'd ever done at school... After 2 long hours, we ran out of clothes, shoes, bags, bedding ect. Clo and I sat outside and added up the morning's takings. We raised R3514.40 (around 260 pounds - give and take the exchange rate). After the jumble sale, we went back to the girl's house and had a well deserved sit down, and ate lunch before driving up the highway to Hilton for another Andy & Jenny Flannagan concert. The team left early as we were going to The Barn's house for dinner. We had such a lovely, lovely evening with the family, everyone here is so welcoming! It was nice just to be able to sit in a kitchen and chat, and join in on family time... and we got to shower (showers are very taken for granted at home!).
Sunday
Sunday is a relatively relaxed, chilled out day. It gives us lots of time to recover from the week and prepare ourselves for the following. Esme and Ann had us for lunch and we had bangers and mash! Mash potato is seriously under rated! It was incredible and something Clo and I had been craving for ages after we horrifically mistook pap for mash... I love HCC, the services are always so good, and I love the people there are so nice and amazing, so great to us "POM's".
Monday
Monday was an interesting day... Living in Mpophomeni means if there is no transport for us, or we don't have anyone to walk us places, we can't leave the house... Londy gave us Monday off to collect thoughts from the conference and give us the chance to have some girl time. However, we forgot about the whole no transport, no leaving the house rule, and so were stuck there all day! It's hard to understand the concept that it is for our safety and sometimes you just need to leave, but you can't. After a few hours of feeling like caged animals we realised we just had to go sit in the yard, or walk around the edge, or just sleep.
Tuesday
The girls had such a great day today! We went to visit a preschool called Grace Chapel Educare Centre which is our first big project. The preschool looks after 180 children aged 1-6, and these children are taught by only 5 teachers. The building is small and dark, the walls are bare, cracked and concreted, and the children's school bags and jumpers lie on the floor of the corridor. We loved Grace Chapel, and we are so excited to work there and help them! We are going to fill in the walls, so they are crackless. The corridor is going to be painted by us, and will be covered in large, colourful murals of animals, safari scence and a large tree that will be made from the children's handprints. The toilets are bare and cracked - they will be transformed into a little underwater scence, with crabs, brightly coloured fish and other sea creatures. Wooden bars are going to be put along the walls of the corridors and the classrooms with hooks attached for the children's bags and jumpers.. This is all so exciting, but it will also cost money. Although Ethembeni can provide some money, they won't be able to cover the cost, so if you feel like you could help us to help these children and change the preschool please donate as little, or as much as you feel you want to! The link for our page is http://www.justgiving.com/transformsouthafrica every penny will go such a long way here!
After work, we went back over to the Barn's house and had our first proper South African brie! Was so yummy, and so nice to relax and chat with our friends.
Wednesday
Clo, Est and I worked from home this morning, planning the murals and working out what we would need. We are so excited to start the work in this school, and so the planning seems to be taking ages (when actually it's only been a few hours!). We are choosing the scenes and the animals, and trying to work out all the logisitics of how we will actually be able to paint with 180 little hands trying to help us! We have decided we will work in the afternoons, as the children leave after lunch!
Hope everyone is well, and the snow isn't too cold!!
Loads of love, hugs and kisses, Nicola. Xxx
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