Friday 12th April - Thursday 18th April 2013

Friday was moving day! We were taken over to meet our host families late morning. Clo and I are staying with the most amazing family! We are living in the flat about their garage, so we get to climb stairs everytime we go to our flat which is so exciting! South African houses are normally one storey, so having stairs (and a shower, and a washine machine and Western food!!) is such a plus. After we met Steph and the family we went to HCC for a meeting, and then stayed for Junior and Senior youth.
Woke up on Saturday morning and the first thing we did was shower! Definitely the small things we take for granted! Steph and the kids took us to Midmar Dam in the afternoon and we spent a lovely few hours geting to know them and enjoying the view, the dam is so beautiful! We had dinner in Pmb as a team with Sarah and Hilary at the yummiest Italian place! Was incredible! We went out to celebrate Hilary's birthday that had been earlier the same week.
We went to HCC on Sunday morning and had a lovely worship session, and the sermon was great. We went to a friends for lunch and had roast dinner! Was so nice, a lovely reminder of home! After lunch we came back to the church early and I skpyed my family and grandparents which was lovely. After Skyping, we headed back upstairs to Church for the evening service.
Clo and I were going to go for a run when we woke up Monday morning, by it was already really warm by 9. Instead we spent the morning planning some more pre-school and worked out the details of our first Women's Night. We walked into Howick (which felt so good as for our safety we weren't allowed to walk around in Mpophomeni). It took us about 45 minutes to walk to the centre of Howick where we met up with some of our team. Clo and I went to use some of our Women's Night budget to buy nail varnishes, removers and such things. We spent ages trying to figure out which colours the Aunties would like the most! After a few hours in Howick, we walked back home and spent time with our family.
Headed to work for 9, on Tuesday morning. Xolani was about to go on school visits to check up on some of our children from the Family Centre. Clo, Esther, Hilary and I went with him. We visited 3 different schools in Mpops, a high school, a higher primary and a lower primary school. We got back to the Family Centre just before lunch and so managed to eat before the younger children got back from school. Philo and Snow came and sat outside with us, and we sat with them as they tried to eat their lunch (being little they get distracted very quickly!). Some of the girls found us and so started to Zulu plait our hair - this has definitely got less painful as time has passed! Got home at 4:30 today as Clo and I were going with our family to Stuart's grade 5 Prep School Orienteering Evening! We had a family picnic on the field and then when it got dark we headed out with a map and torches to find all the clues! It was a really fun evening and we managed to find 37/40 hidden clues.
We were in work early again Wednesday morning, but weren't doing an English lesson until the afternoon as there was an important meeting at the Care Centre first thing. We had a really nice team planning meeting and devotion instead, working out what we were going to do over the next couple of weeks. After the meeting, Clo and I collected some ideas, did some research and got together some images that we wanted to use on the walls of Grace Chapel. After the children had left Grace Chapel we went over to start drawing the animals onto the walls. Some of the children aren't picked up for a few hours after the centre closes and so there was a handful of 2 and 3 years old playing by the side of the road when we arrived. They all came in to watch us draw and to chatter at us in Zulu. They are such sweet and happy babies! When we got back from work we spent early evening playing card games before dinner.
Thursday's and home visits always seem to come round so fast! Potentially because I love them so much.. We were picked up at 9 and drove to a lovely, local cafe where we meet up with all the Howick volunteers. We chat over coffee, catch up on the past week and have a devotion together before heading to Mpophomeni. When we arrived at the Care Centre we needed to split up all the food into the number of houses we would be visiting. It's is so lovely to go and visit the same ladies and families each week. Although there is a huge language barrier I really feel like we are getting to know each other. It's so hard to even try and understand what these women's lives have been like, but it is such a blessing for me to know that although each one is a single mum, HIV positive, completely reliant on charity due to lack of work, that they have given their lives to Jesus, and that they know Him, trust Him and love Him. The girls headed to Howick after home visits to get some juice and snacks for our Women's Night. Women's Night was a huge success! We did a devotion on beauty, and all we wanted to do wad simply remind each one of the Aunties how beautiful they were... They really enjoyed it, and all wrote down Proverbs 31:30 as a reminder! We had watched 3 chickens walk in at the start of the event... Turns out they were dinner!! So we had super fresh chicken and Zulu bread to finish up our lovely evening.

A few photos from the past 9 weeks!

Friday 5th April - Thursday 11th April 2013

The past week has been as hectic as usual!

On Friday we had the chance to go over to Durban in the pre-evening to watch the Sharks play at King Park. The game was really good, and it was so lovely to be out doing something as a team, and with friends! It was a lovely, relaxing way to end the working week. 

For the last 4 weeks that we have been living in Mpophomeni and this final week that is up and coming, we have been "self-catered". We have a weekly budget which can then be split between the girl's house and the boys. The first week we were living in our nice pink house, we got the weekly budget and we're able to go and buy ENGLISH FOOD! We were all so looking forward to the next 5 weeks of eating food that we could actually enjoy... and swallow! However, for the following 3 week we were back to Zulu food which wasn't quite what we planned. However, yesterday we managed to get the budget and so Clo, Ruth, Esther and I spent Saturday doing the weekly shop in Howick. We had a nice time to just chill a little, spend some time as just girls and talk about the week we had had and the week to come. 

Sunday was certainly a landmark in all of our lives... Londi invited us to her Church in the morning, as we usually go to the Church at the Family Centre. We are use to Zulu Church now... or so we thought.. The only word that was spoken in English in the whole service was "hallelujah"... and the service lasted from 10am to 1:40pm!! It was the longest service any of us had ever been in, and probably ever will be in! It was a really good experience, and although I don't think I will rushing back, I was so glad that we went. After the church service we went to see some of our friends in Howick (washed all our clothes and showered!!!) and had a braai and a lovely afternoon of fellowship before HCC in the evening.

Clo, Esther, Poppy (our puppy) and I were dropped in Howick on Monday so that we could buy and plan some more stuff for the pre-school. We spent the day planning out how we wanted the paintings to look, what colours we needed, what colours we could mix! And all trying to keep the price under our budget. It was a really productive day, and we got to go home and make bangers and mash for dinner! 

Tuesday morning was spent planning the English lesson for Wednesday morning, we sat on the floor in the front room of our house and spent ages trying to work out how we could cover everything we needed to cover, without sounding patronizing, or not pushing the Aunties hard enough! Teaching adults is much harder then teaching children, so at the moment we are all just learning as we go along! The Transform team (from England) had come over for a week, and so we filmed a video about our experiences out here, what we have done, how much we love it, and encouraging other people to take a Transform Gap Year and chatted to them for a while. After lunch, Clo, Esther, Hil and I headed over to Grace Chapel where we painted in the green hills on the wall and filled in the missing blue skies, it was so nice to just paint and know that what we were doing meant so much to the children and staff. Clo and I made dinner, and then drove into Howick to go to a bible study at the house of a lady from HCC. We met Esther there, and then all came home together afterwards. 

Wednesday morning is when we do our weekly English lesson. We start each English lesson by getting the aunties and male staff up on their feet and doing some exercise!! It's a fun way to start the lessons, and the aunties love it! The team were all doing their own thing on Wednesday afternoon, so when Clo and I managed to get transport we headed over to Grace Chapel and drew some trees and giraffes on the wall of the pre-school (will try and upload some photos soon!). We had to be at home and be ready to be picked up at 4:30 as Sarah was coming to get us to take us to her house. We spent a lovely evening at Sarah's, ate a  dinner, made popcorn and watched a film together. It was an early birthday celebration for Hilary as she was turning 20 the next day.

We woke up early on Thursday (Hilary's birthday) and tried to make pancakes, these failed and so we made her fried toast instead. After breakfast we went to Calabash Cafe where we met up with all the other volunteers from Howick to chat, chill and talk about the morning's planned home visits. Grant gave us a quick devotion and then the team all headed to Mpophomeni. There we sang "Happy Birthday" to Hilary and did some exercises, and had a devotion before we split into our teams and headed off to visit our friends and see how they all were. I went out with Esther and Zonky today as they didn't have a legal driver.. It was so lovely to meet all the families that Esther sees on a regular basis and so it was a lovely experience  Esther and  I led the devotions on Proverbs 3:5-6, and then after we had visited all the families, and delivered all the food we drove back to the Family Centre. We spent the evening in the house, packing and running around like headless chickens trying to make sure that we hadn't left anything behind! 

It was sad to leave the little pink house that had been our home for the past 5 weeks, and it was also sad to know that we were moving out of Mpophomeni, but we knew that it was time to leave, and time to move to Howick.

Tuesday 2nd April - Thursday 4th April - Zulu Holiday Club...

Tuesday morning started off with Esther, Gideon and I heading up to KwaHaza - a township up the hill from Mpophomeni.. We were told to expect 17 children, and when we turned there were 170 happy, excited little faces all ready for a fun day of games and learning about God! Holiday club was meant to run from 9-1, but taking African time into account the fact that the day started at 9 and didn't finish until 3:30/4 wasn't too much of a shock to us! The day was sorching hot and the children spent all day playing games out in the direct sunlight all day... this didn't bother them at all, but us Pommies and the American's were dropping like flies! The children had a great day and were able to play, relax and just be children for the day.. This sounds like a stupid statement, but actually some children are the head of their households but 13/14, and have the whole famy responsiblity on their shoulders! Being able to give these children a break is something that means so much to them and us alike.
Wednesday's weather was completely opposite to Tuesday.. it was freezing cold and tipping it down with rain (it even rains in Africa!) and so only around 50 children turned up. This actually made the day and the organisation so much easier as there ratio of adults to children was much better. We spent the day inside one of the schools on KwaHaza and played games, did devotions and chatted to the kids. Feeding the children is awlways a challenge as there are soooo many hungry tummies to feed!
Thursday was different again as the team were all together working on the holiday club in Mpophomeni playing games and teaching them about God again. The children on the holiday club in Mpops were children who I knew as many of them were children who come along to the family centre throughout the week. It was a lovely few days, ran off Zulu timing - but never the less it was great fun!

Friday 29th March - Monday 1st Aoril - Easter with a difference!

Easter was completely different this year then it has ever been, and probably ever will be! We spent Easter in Hluhluwe-Imfolozi Game Reserve with some friends from church and Hillary. The game reserve is well known for the "Big Five" (Lion, leopard, elephant, rhino and buffalo) and is about 4 hours drive from Howick up north. After game drives in Kenya I was expecting the same sort of scenery - completely bare and bright red sands! I was so wrong! It was all green, and lively and covered in bush. The views were incredible and reminded the whole team just how incredible God is! The world is the most incredible, beautiful place.
We were so, so lucky as we were staying in a completly private, hidden staff camp, 4ks off the main game drive!! It was so quite, and was perfect for seeing wildlife. The tents were stacked up on wooden platforms so that none of the animals could join us in ours tents at night. This was because the camp were we staying in only had an elephant fence around it (prevents only elephants from coming in) and was deep in the game reserve so the animals could come and go as the pleased. One night when we were sat on the grass by the campfire Esther suddenly shouted "hyena" and there was a hyena literally a metre away from us which was so exciting! From the campfire we could look over the river and regularly saw rhino, buffalo, buck and crocodile. The toilets and showers were in wooden sheds, and the shower was a bucket shower which was loads of fun.
The weather was so good and so this made the game drives so much more fun. We were up at 5:30am every morning to go for early morning drives in the hope of seeing something exciting.... On Easter Sunday morning we were blessed enough to a pack of African Wild Dogs which was so, so, so rare!! There are only around 20 in the whole park, so we were so, so, so stoked to see them! We saw loads of super cool wildlife like giraffe, gazele, impale, zebra, rhino, wildebeast, buffalo, crocodile, elephant, nyala, wild dog, terapin.. Sadly we only saw 3 of the Big five - missing out on lion and leopards.. but we saw so many rhinos, some so close we could practically touch them.
Driving home was sad as we'd had such a good weekend, but it gave us so much time to reflect on creation, and how lucky we all were that we are able to do these incredible things, and see so much of God's World!