Week 6

Well I have quite a few updates for you. I will start with my Housing situation with respect to staying longer. There is a Christian employee of Living Hope named Ursula. She hosts a few international students from the University of Cape Town in her home. Another Living Hope volunteer (Becky) is staying with her right now. It turns out that a few of her girls are leaving so she will have space in her house. It was actually Becky who thought of the idea of my staying with them instead of ACTS to keep costs a bit lower. Normally ACTS and Living Hope don’t let volunteers stay outside of the ACTS organization but due to certain factors such as the length of my stay and Ursula providing a safe Christian home, both ACTS and Living Hope said it would be ok. I WAS SO EXCITED. There were still quite a few logistical things to be taken care of such as my transportation, extending my insurance, changing my ticket, and asking work for the time off, but as the week went by almost everything was taken care of. I will be renting a cheap car from Best Beetle, my insurance could be extended for a reasonable cost, and I could take up to 3 weeks off from work. The only things I have left to do now are change my ticket and go to Home Affairs in Cape Town to get my passport stamped. The total cost for me to stay another month is about $900 including absolutely everything (not too bad at all).
The First Aid program is moving along. I received a few generous quotes from different companies. I looked further into my getting certified and even if they could fast-track me a bit it would still take about 6 months :(. So for now it looks like I may have a qualified assistant to help me teach a quick informal course before Christmas, and then the Life Skills Educators would get a fully accredited Level 1 course taught by a certified instructor sometime early next year. If anyone has any desire to support this please let me know!!! There MAY be some funds available but we are still not sure. They really need this training (in all communities they are involved with 2100 kids in schools and about another 1400-1500 in Kids Clubs).
The Kids Club this week was a bit challenging. Now that the kids are used to Meagan and I some of them are acting up a bit. The fact that I can’t speak Afrikaans really doesn’t help. Most of them are amazing and really are quite helpful but a few seem to enjoy stirring up trouble. For those of you that didn’t read my first post, my housemate Danielle is a schoolteacher who actually teaches the LSE most of the curriculum used in Kids Clubs and schools. I asked her for some advice on how to handle the kids and she was able to help me come up with a few ideas that Meagan and I can start using next week.
Also this week the lease was up on the Crags so Thursday we moved into THE TEAMHOUSE!!! This is the place where we had our Holiday Club training…you know, the one with the AMAZING VIEW!!! I have a few pictures of the sunset our first night here that I will put up as the week goes on. Ya, that’s pretty much how it is here every night now since the weather is so nice (not to rub it in or anything :P). We also met our new housemate Al. He is a 30-something American and he fits in really well. Also staying here is Brenda (an employee of Living Hope from the US) and Leanne (family friend of John and Avril Thomas who is here for 2 weeks). Oh, I forgot to mention the gourmet chef who cooks here. Her name is Nadine and she is a fabulous cook! She also makes desserts!! I am going to need to be careful. Speaking of careful, I was able to weigh myself the other day and I have started running again. I stopped for about 3 weeks because I had a bad cough and my lungs couldn’t handle it but I am better now. The sand at the teamhouse is really soft and I tried running on it and discovered that it is about a million times harder to run on then the trails I am used to. I got the best quad workout I have had in a long time and I can barely walk after my runs. The beach here (Noord Hoek beach) is not as safe as Fish Hoek though so Al and I go together and stagger about 20 secs apart so we will be fine.
A few of you have asked about Halloween here. Halloween is kind of here but it is VERY different than back home. Here it is seen as Satan’s birthday so it’s not quite the fun candy-filled dress-up in costume party that it is back home. In fact, as I mentioned before this is the time kids go missing for child sacrifices and such so to answer you…Halloween is here but I certainly will not be participating in the local Halloween festivities. The American volunteers and I did, however, go to the Talley’s house for homemade pizza’s and games that were really nice.
Construction Day Friday found half of us at Maggie’s to finish her roof while the other half painted the outside of the Living Hope building in Capricorn. It started as 4 containers on a concrete block. They were located at each corner of the cement slab. A team raised funds to close the gaps so now there is a closed-in building with containers at each corner. The containers are not the same color as the rest of the building though so we were asked to paint the containers white to match the rest of the building.
It was a busy weekend for us! Saturday morning was the fundraiser for the Mobile Music Academy (Ryan’s project). Funds have been raised to support 4 kids in Capricorn who have absolutely amazing NATURAL musical talent. One day each week Ryan assists in their training and mentoring. I have pics and video of the fundraiser. The Academy was only just thought up in July and even in such a short time the kids have done so well! Basil is the oldest boy, then Michaela, and Bronwill and Winston are the younger boys. Sunday after Church we went to the annual Noord Hoek Country Fair. It was so much fun and we were able to enjoy doughnuts (yes, they have them here too and they tasted absolutely amazing). We go to check out the craft tables (people here are so talented) and catch some of the shows. The first clown show was hilarious! The second guy was pretty good. I have pics of both of them that I will put up later this week. Make sure you don’t try any of their stunts at home!