leave it at this

Hello and Hello,

I am 19 today. A fairly laid back day, thank you all who sent me some love.

I bought myself a new skirt and made myself a necklace for my birthday. Bernard surprised me with a bit of a surprise party, quite nice of him. Nothing too different today, we went up to the care center. The kids all helped to make me a card, and the people at the fruit market gave me some delicious grapes and mangos. This evenning Wim and the family took me out for cold drinks, then we just ate dinner here.

Tonight I realized a new something that I love about being here. I absolutely know that at home in Calgary I enjoy sitting and having tea with people, and spending time crafting, or being outside, but in the last bit of time before leaving, I had no time to really do any of that. It is tough to adjust at first, makes you stress, with your mind insisting that must be some place you need to be. What a break though, to go from an 18 hour day of go go go, to a 12 hour day where you wonder if you need to move at all that day. To go from a day where you find your tea cold at the end of the night, to a day when you can sit for 2 or three fresh cups. And my most joyfull: Going from a day that you have to walk past laundry that has sat for weeks, to a day that you can stand outside, pin up t-shirts on the line, and listen to the trees.

Thats a good birthday present... a fresh smell, and a big breath out.

I suggest you try it, even if all you can do is a day, go take that breath.

Some news, I am going up to Qwa Qwa to stay on the mountain for a couple of weeks. We leave on Sunday, and I will not have access to anything in the internet family for a couple of weeks. I am excited to spend two weeks in that village, I do believe I will have some experiences to share when I return.


This our craft of the day, showing the kids rain.


Some pant-less, some with mush on their face, who else's class could they be?


do take care of yourselves, and eachother

because I love you.

Dee-mel-ah!

Happy Valentines day everyone!! I hope this entry finds you with a smile today. It has been a good one for me. (Daniela if you are reading this I must warn you.. I am not wearing shoes in a single picture here)


This picture was taken last night at bible study. One of the guys brought us all flowers, that was a really nice surprise.

I spent most of today and yesterday in a house at the care center. I had about 10 big carboard boxes, and 10 big garbage bags full of clothes to go through. I sorted them into male and female, then it was adults, teenagers, primary school, and toddlers. After that each stack was sorted into sizes.




These pictures were taken when we got to give our kids first dibs on all the clothes.


This one should show a lot of what was sorted


I did enjoy doing that. That was all in preparation for today, when we held an Indaba. Indaba means a meeting of people, or news. All the familes in our village within QwaQwa came to the care center for a gathering. We talked to them for a while, told them about the soccer team, and the bible studies we are having and then began to give them all some gifts. Each woman that came got a 10kg bag of rice, (about 40 of them), which they then proceeded to plop on their heads.


This is a picture of everyone that filled the hall to hear our announcements.

After that, in a fairly organized chaos, the chief directed about 4 women at a time into the house that I was setting up. He told them, and struggled with them, to take only a few pieces of each type of clothing, and we got all 40 or so women through within a couple of hours.


This is big chief, trying to direct people around my 'shop'

After that we had a few piles left and so we brought them into the main hall. People starting crowding around these piles and their eyes got really really wide. Then all of a sudden, the Cheif said go, and it was the wildest thing. Ladies started screaming, and just dove right in. Grabbing for anything they could get. Then, no more than 2 seconds later, it was all gone, the boxes were torn to shreads, and there were many people left with one shoe in hand, trying to bargain for its match.


so first this photo shows the people inching their way towards the leftovers.


and then they are off!

That was quite the site. But it was really nice to see all those people at the care center at once, I got to see the moms and dads of a lot of the kids I am with everyday.


ah yes. This is me and Wim with the outfits we managed to tear away.

enjoy yourselves,

cali-boo-ha

the space between

Why Hello,

Just a quick post, a few things to say today.

I have learnt some more words. In Sutu, a-when-a means Hey you!, shay-ba means listen, kali-boha means thankyou, and boo-ya means come here (I thought you might like that last one dad)

I am having quite a nice time with Ilene here. She is the lady that I stay with. We rent movies to watch together and last night we watched Sweet November. It was very sweet, sappy and such, but necessary. Today I got to have my favorite meal that she makes, pasta with a simple meat sauce, Also she always makes me a coffee at what seems to be the exact time I need it. She is so great to talk to, she reminds me of sitting with one of you girls in my kitchen. (lindsay like when you sit on the stool), I just sit on a chair while she prepares dinner or we do dishes and we really can just talk forever, about anything. I usually go with her as well when she needs to drive somewhere.

I think I told some of you about the strange boy that takes half an hour to ask me if I like tennis?? Ilene is laughing at me because she thinks he has a big question stored up for valentines day. I really hope not. Today though, the man that is kind of working as our pastor type told me I could be his girlfriend. Haha, he didnt ask me, he just said I could be, and that mom you could visit only on christmas, never any other time. That got awkward so I laughed and started coloring haha.

sorry, no pictures today, I am on the wrong computer for that.

But the reason I posted today haha was just to let you all know that I love the emails I have been getting. Often times they are so unexpected and they really brighten my day. Also, if any of you would like to speak to me, because I would love to hear from you, please please contact my mom. We have a free service set up in my house and she is welcoming you in if you would like to set up a time for me to call there.

you can call her at home,
or email her, pamritchie@shaw.ca

(I just realized, if you are reading this and you are some sort of internet wierdo... please do not contact my mom.)

just a thought

valleys of love,

good monsters

Hello!

Three things today.

1) I am looking forward to tommorow. haha. Fridays are nice here, feels like a different attitude in QwaQwa, people are preparing for the weekend. And as I told you sister, I get to visit some nice fruit factory workers as well. Also I get to eat my favorite food. Meesely (granola) mixed with yogurt and fruit slices. my my.

Oh!! Also. There is a big rugby deal going on right now. It is like a football fix for me. It is called the super 14, it is spanned over pretty much the exact timing that I am here. It involves only austraila, new zealand and south africa. Each of those countries has some teams, for a grand total of 14 teams. Each week, usually on a saturday, our local team, the cheetahs, play. It is so fun, everyone that you watch with yells and jumps like folks do at home about hockey and such.

2) take a look at this picture. I described Kokobela to some of you. He is the boy standing in this picture. He gets kind of cross like this when I leave. The girl in the picture though, oh my. I have tried to describe her before. Her name is Moleboheng, and seriously she walks like a duck, or an old old spanish lady. She is the one who (no longer) hates white people.




3) And three. I will try and phrase this as closely to how I felt today. Imagine yourself, the song Beautiful Day by U2 has just come on. Now you are driving through the village of a place that you have wanted to be for close to ten years. Is it possible, that some how, in that moment, you realize the great importance of a few things, and you loose the value in worrying about a few others?





These two pictures are of some of the less crowded hills in Qwa Qwa.

bia bia dankie,

and dont forget, I would love to hear from you about all of your lives!!

handshakes, hugs and kisses.

some photos for you croutons

Hello again,

So far I have learned roy which is red, dankie which is thankyou and lekker which is nice. Everyone here uses lekker so very often, kind of like I use 'like' or 'interesting'. I also learnt, kind of the hard way, that you cannot use lekker to describe a man or a woman. Appparently in that sense it means delicious.

Just an quick explanation of a typical day for me. I get up, using no alarm, usually its a rooster, around 7. Then I eat some miesely, kind of like granola. I usually read for a while, then head up the mountain with bernard just after eight. Sometimes we stop for something called Maquena. Really nice, just fried balls of doe for about 25 cents canadian each. We get there around the time that the kids are being fed breakfast. Then we brush their teeth and start with the school day. I go through numbers and alphabet stuff with them for about an hour. It is quite nice, I point to a sparkly eight and they all say ooote, but still I am teaching them. We have some play times, some outdoor times, some art times, and then it is lunch. We wash all the kids hands then they usually eat pap. It is a staple here, to me it tastes like cous cous, but it is really just crushed up mais.. corn. Then it is nap time, and usually I read to them for a bit. They are picked up after one and then we head back down the mountain. Some times we stop in town on the way home and vat vat vat, then yes, evennings are always different, but I always eat dinner at home here, then most of the time read some more and watch a movie with the family.

ok now are some photos

This is me and winnie on the weekend. We rode in the back of that truck for a few hours on the way home.


This is a view just down the road from our house.



This is our backyard during a nutso storm


I believe I am trying to have them say Feb-ru-ary. Ha


This is me with a girl, her name is pronounced mong-shwesh. She is exactly what I picture when I think of orphan, her nose is always running, her clothes never fit.




This is me with my class and the two ladies I get to work with.


Here is me showing the kids how to color.



And here I am marking the lovely toothbrushes ryan sent with me.


thanks for reading

have a really good day

you know.. its multisexual

Not too too much to say today, there should be a couple of photos posted. This one right above is inside the care center, me trying to read to the little ones. The little girl focused in the picture, she is terrified of white people and starts crying whenever she hears the truck coming. I am really working on her though, sometimes she plays ball with me or holds my hand.

The color one, above, that is not my favorite haha by any means. It is just a good scenary shot.

I suppose I should explain the tittle of this blog. Last night I was at a tea party slash birthday party with bernard and I was talking with this man rudey that I have seen a few times before. He was raving about this store in the UK and being ever so polite to speak in english to me. I couldnt help but laugh however, when he said it was a multisexual store. I had to correct him and say umm I think it is unisex.

Today was another big big storm. I was downtown with Ilene this time, (the woman I stay with) and we were jumping from shop to shop in about a foot of water. Pretty crazy. It was nice though, we sat down in the coffee shop she used to own. That made me want to really run away and just work there. But dont worry mom, I wont. Also mom, you should know that I saw a whole stack of wicker baskets today, all for about 50 cents. Isnt that crazy.



The past few days have shown me even more what it means to be a white person here, white female for that matter. I get told a few times a day now that it is just not ok to walk alone anywhere at any time of day.



Tommorow I am going on an overnight hike/camping type deal with bernard and his friends. These are the same ones from the bible study, multisexual man included.



bye for now

love and love and love

and dankie (thankyou)