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