Tuesday at Walk in the Light

I forgot to tell more details from this weekend which I thought i should include! Saturday night before the talent show our chalet had a final chalet dinner. It was led by the two senior nurses in our chalet-"power mom" and "mom". They have been our older sisters and RA's throughout the entire trip and two people that Kat and I have become closest with. They prepared us bread, and spaghetti which are two foods that we have all been yearning for, we just are a tad sick of lamb! They finished the evening by giving us "kitten" awards. I received the "kitten that makes us always laugh" award. This is code for that I am too loud when they are trying to sleep. :)

Today we had a good day at Walk in the Light. It has continued to be exhausting though. It's been high eighties this week and I suffered a sunburn on my strap lines. Don't worry, I applied sun screen, I just missed the spot RIGHT on my tank top strap (this is before my nurse Auntie Nancy sends me an email lecturing me on skin caner....). I have found that doing some many days of labor is exhausting! We finished the trench after we had to go back and dig it again on Monday. Now we are working on the care center that is going to be finished by the time we are out of the work site by Friday I think! This is record time for ANYTHING in Africa. We had to clear out all of the trash that was taken from the care center to out front, and now is on the side of the building. We have been gardening and getting the ground ready to be gardened! That includes, shoveling cement and picking through to pull out tons of rocks. Racking, more hoeing, shoveling, wheelbarrowing and then repeating the process. It's tiring. This afternoon though I was thrilled when the time with the Go-go's came together. Last night I created a large 4x4 puzzle that had sixteen pieces and was the size of a chalkboard. We had the women draw pictures of their prayers, dreams or anything that was on their mind. There was a reoccurring theme of women drawing schools, homes, kids, and trees (something that Africa lacks in a township).  We connected all of the activity by talking about Jeremiah 29:11 and Romans where it talks about the body of Christ. Essentially, that each puzzle piece is not perfect and has to be put together in order to complete the puzzle. It was a fun activity to design and even more fun when it goes well with the women. Thank you Kurt and Peter for helping me learn how to teach  bible studies this summer. Pictures soon to come, they wouldn't all upload!

Swimming in South Africa waterhole at night..TMI?

Tonight Kat, Emily, Christina and I decided to cross off from the South African bucket list of Christina's past friend who was in South Africa and went swimming at 11pm. This was no average swimming experience, it was in a swimming hole that had a waterfall and fast moving water. To add to the experience it was late and night, dark, and full of hippos, monkeys and snakes. Maybe not, but I was pretty sure that we were going to get eaten. As we snuck down to the hole, Kat began to giggle non-stop. To be fair, I think we all had the giggles, but I have never heard Kat so nervous to go swimming. It was a thrilling experience that has left us little rebels very proud of ourselves. Unfortunately, no pictures were taken for the occasion so you will have to let your imagination do the work of our thrilling night. TMI?

Battlefields and Walk in the Light

Today I finished my theology paper that is due at the end of the semester which means a student has to annoyingly figure out how to complete a paper while doing service sites and experiencing the last few weeks in Africa. Not a fun combination so I am excited for it to be nearly finished.

On our adventure through town!

Last weekend we went on a Battlefield Tour. It was quite interesting but more exciting was the bus we took! It was a comfy bus that teams in High School get to take to state. It included extremely comfortable seats, a TV for movies and a lot of space for 44 of us. We drove about four hours and then began making stops. The Battle’s are pre-apartheid but essential to understand for what occurs many years later in Africa. It has to do with the Bour’s, British and the Zulu. Essentially, we were able to understand what we have been learning in our history of South Africa class that will be continued in Cape Town. They were eerie places to visit where a lot of blood has been shed. My favorite story is where 70 Zulu men are trapped inside of a hospital and 4,000 Zulu men are attacking from the outside. These are also interesting monuments because they were built during the African rule to glorify white’s accomplishments against the Zulu. Post apartheid their have been monuments made to “equally” glorify the Zulu side of the story, but quite frankly it’s still very splitting of the country. I was frustrated to be another white tourist since there was only white people visiting the site. It’s hard to explain some of the underlying tones present at each of the battlefields However, that night we got to stay in the cutest little hotel! It had unique rooms that were all different and creative. It was a bed and breakfast from the 1800’s I believe and therefore had a very homey feeling. We basically filled up the entire hotel and so it was a very fun afternoon of exploring all the nooks and crannies, secret passages, variety of rooms, reading, and exploring the little town we were in. That night however was by far the best as it was the “Ask Reg Anything” session. Every semester, the group gets about 4 hours to ask “Papa Reg” any question and he will answer anything and everything. I have a deep amount of respect for Reg and it was incredible to hear what he had to say about life, relationships, moments in his life and advice for our futures.

Pretty and I

The septic tank of death!

Our team in the hole

This week was a very intense week on site for Walk in the Light. How it works is that Monday we had a day in our Community Engagement class. We do a lot of reflections and each group has to go up in front and talk about where they are struggling. It’s a great debrief session and a good way to hear about every team. I try hard to hear from someone from each team every night at dinner but it is also difficult to process and also debrief. As a whole my week had a very difficult Thursday Go-Go session (time with the Grandma’s). Overcoming a unsuccessful and hard week for us from LAST week was our goal THIS week. That we did VERY successfully. Monday night I spent time with another girl on our team and our Zulu professor to really figure out what to do during our Go-Go bible study that is twice a week (on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons). I was slightly weary presenting to our group on Monday night but the ideas worked with our community engagement goals and having a plan for the next two weeks was very helpful. Tuesday when we got on site we also had a great new job to dig a five foot hole for  a septic tank. There also needed to be a twenty foot long trench that was 4 feet deep coming out of the hole. It became quite the task as originally we did not have anything to measure the tank with, no axes to break soil with and a ton of bricks and hard soil to get through. We continued it the rest of the week and by yesterday after many sore muscles and weary diggers, we finally finished the hole (we think, Bruce was not technically there to approve). The tank is for the care center that we are helping to create. The nurses from our campus have designed a plan for patients to come in a building that was not being utilized. Our team therefore has been cleaning it out, taking the trash to the dump, pulling up carpet, washing walls, laying cement and finally painting the center. It has been a lot of work but once the tank is dug that center will be finally used. It has come together very well and has been a complete joy in the process. This week I was able to go visit the first girl that will be put into the care center. She has AIDS and lives in complete poverty. Every morning people from Walk in the Light take her to clinic but besides that she has no visitors and her family does not take care of her. She is just about my age and when I saw her she was laying on a bed. She looks very similar to a girl who has a very extreme eating disorder. I could see the bones on her legs and chest and she had a gaunt face. She barely could use her wrists properly and it smelled nauseatingly of urine and dead animals. I sat with her for awhile and between my broken Zulu and her broken English we were able to pray together and I was able to talk to her for a few minutes. It as heart wrenching because all she wanted was someone to sit on the floor with her, hold her hand and to feel loved. I am sure there are thousand of other girls my age who live the same way every day who I will never be able to meet, pray with or love on for five minutes. What that means for the world and how to move past that thought I am still processing through.

Our group with the senior youth

We have continued to bond well with the senior youth. Our goal is to have the senior youth who are our age help lead with the Go-Go’s for after we leave. Pretty a girl who is 24 and has a 5 year old son who I have bonded with well is who I would really like to take over. The guys who are our age also always hang around and are really great to use during the Bible Studies to help us translate what we are trying to say in Zulu. It was a really encouraging group this week and I am going to feel very sad with next week as we wrap up the service part of the trip.

The high light of our week was Thursday with the Go-Go’s when our group prepared a 3 part harmony version of “In the Jungle”. It included us getting the Go-Go’s to play drums and tambourines. We got the women dancing and it turned into a 20 minute session of singing in English and Zulu. It was one of the more incredible 20 minutes that I have had in Africa blending two cultures together. It was all filmed by Pretty on my camera and I am going to try to post it.

This is why I want to be a teacher...

People are getting antsy for our trip to Cape Town that starts next Sunday. I would like this time to never end and I am going to feel an immense amount of sadness leaving what we consider “home”. However, I am counting down the days until tacos and hamburgers with puppies at my feet to pet!

Videos from Africa!

Here were some random You Tube videos that Christina posted tonight. I wanted to share some random experiences with home.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ir3IL6Jkrwg
The first is from Halloween when my chalet was the Von Trapp Family. This is our entrance and then the fairwell song that we sang at the end. Yes, we know, we are nerds :).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBI7_XZ_c_s

The second is from our community engagement class. Our task was to come up with a song that represented our community of APU at African Enterprise. This is a song that Brett had already written and we simply added onto the lyrics and put a dance to it. We were given thirty minutes to prepare so this is our lame attempt to sing in front of the class which was filmed :).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smfpxnoNIso

The third is the talking drums group that came to our campus. We had an afternoon where we were taught how to do traditional drumming. It reminded me a lot of my Aunt Deb and Uncle Donny who went into schools doing workshops. I never really appear in this, I am on the other side of the room in my red APU sweatshirt. It was SUCH a cool event though!

More to come this weekend over the week at Walk in the light and the visit to the Battlefields this weekend!

Throw up, Zip Lines and the Von Trapp Family

What if I was throwing up from up there?

I am writing this in my bed which is the first step of a bad sign because it means that I am sick. I have had a cold for the past week here that has caused slight complication, on top of that I started throwing up. I have never thrown up with a stuffy nose and let me just tell you, it’s an experience I hope to never have again. Needless to say, for the past few days a 24 hour bug has ripped through our campus where someone has intense vomiting and diarrhea and after a day of rest stops. There are a few exceptions with this 24-hour rule, Kat had it yesterday so I was bound to get it today.

Our team!!

Dodging the tree

This weekend was a great weekend of zip lining! It was a more than terrifying experience, but nonetheless great. We were able to rip across a mountain. To start it they took us to the top of it in the trees and there was a series of 8 zips to get to the bottom. It was INCREDIBLEY high and also had an incredible view that looked very similar to the Coastal Range Mountains in Oregon. I shared my screams as I zipped across trees, waterfalls and even at times we had to avoid trees (like in my picture). I think my legs were shaky from the experience for just about the next hour, but it was amazing and I wish that it could have continued forever!

The Von Trapp Family

After an exhausting day at zip lining we finished the night by having a bry with a bouncy castle! IT was the final game for the sharks rugby team that ended up winning the championship. It was an exciting game and win and made much more sense this time.

Our course

Sunday we celebrated our own kind of “costume party”. In South Africa Halloween has a very different meaning and therefore we changed our celebrations a bit so that it was more appropriate for the community we are in. My chalet dressed up as the Von Trapp family and learned the “So Long Farewell” and “Do Re Me” songs and dances so that we could perform. It was a very fun Halloween that included a party where people got to eat disgusting mixes of foods. Thank goodness for my lactose intolerance so that I could NOT participate in this part, but instead watch as they ate disgusting contractions.

Oh Africa...

This week was my first week at Walk in the Light. After three days of being in class with Francis our instructor for Community Engagement we FINALLY got to go on site. It’s been interesting being there. I love being on site, but it always fascinates me how differently things work in different non-profit organizations. Essentially, Walk in the Light is on the outskirts of the township Haniville. It’s a township with about 10,000 residents but does not look nearly so packed. Supposedly, it’s a dangerous area which I have seen very little evidence of. It’s been greatly affected by drugs, alcohol, AIDS and poverty which is a tough combination. Walk in the Light is a community center who’s main goal is for every morning to take people from Haniville to the clinic early in the morning. Part of the difficulty is that people who need help are not receiving proper care and so every morning a team member takes those from the community at 6am. Tuesday and Thursdays there are meetings with the “Go-Go’s” (Grandma’s) where we lead a bible study. Friday afternoons there is a time for senior youth group with people who are very close to my age. On top of all these activities there is a dream to create a church/community center which has been drawn up but at this time they do not have enough money and resources to start the project. There is one “head” guy named Bruce who comes in the morning to do devotionals with us and then heads to his farm which is the funding for WITL and his family. This creates some difficulty for our team in having and knowing what to do and how to take the things we are hearing in our community engagement class back into the community.

It amazes me that it is already November and that I am coming back to the United States quicker than I am ready for. I am holding onto everyday at the work site and will be sad when it’s over. It’s nice to get college credit to work hard physically. We have three more weeks here and then will head to Cape Town for the final part of our trip.