I'm in love with this country!
We've visited a few museums in Cape Town, Cape Point, Cape of Good Hope, Fish Hoek, Sun Valley, and Masiphumelele. Seeing Cape Point was GORGEOUS. The view is so beautiful and how many people can see that they've seen two oceans at the exact same time? On the other hand, seeing the poverty that exists in Masi is heartbreaking. I never would have understood the living conditions without seeing them first hand. On top of that, a storm went through a couple nights later and wiped out a ton of the shacks, so people went from barely having anything to having nothing. It's difficult to express something like that because you can't understand it until you see it. The people are beautiful though. Everyone waved and said hello. The children ran and hugged us. They're so adorable, but the things they've witnessed are unthinkable.
I've been working at the Open Door in Ocean View. It's a social work office, so I've mostly just been doing admin work. The days can be very very slow, but I've gotten to talk to a few people with heartwrenching stories. The social workers here have all been very nice and understanding. Hopefully I'll get to work with little kids more later on. We've also been given the opportunity to tutor, specifically in math and science. I was riding the struggle bus...You can forget a lot in a very small amount of time. Who knew chemistry would be something I should remember...I'll work on that. Chantel has basically been our savior. She's shown us everything and been very encouraging from before we even arrived. She calls me her little nunu because I'm the youngest of our team. Her story is astonishing and I wish everyone had chance to hear her tell it. She's been doing amazing things for the community by starting Volunteer Mzansi so if you could PLEAAAASE visit the website, the hits alone would be extremely helpful to her. www.volunteermzansiafrika.com
Life in general... The food oh man. SO good. Last night I almost finished the dinner our host mom, Heidi, made before I asked what was in it. It was lamb. I'm not really one to dig into lamb, so I'm sure the look on my face was priceless when Kaitlyn told me it was lamb. Heidi is an excellent cook though. As for the weather, I was not expecting it to be quite this cold. I've pretty much been wearing leggings under all my pants and a long sleeve shirt with a sweatshirt and a jacket 24/7. We also happened to come at the worst time ever for weather is what I've heard. It's getting warmer as I type! The biggest adjustment is that we have to be home around 5:30 (before dark) and there isn't a lot to do but talk and watch TV so we're working on that. We taught our host parents to play uno last night and they were hilarious! We also taught our host mom to wobble. Classic. Chantel is taking the team to a jazz concert tonight so we're getting pretty excited to go out! By the way, I couldn't have asked for a more amazing group of girls to be here with. I love them all!
So yeah. Life is good, God is great!
