Week 8 (Nov 10 – 16)

This week was probably the busiest week I have had so far. Thank God that the ticket details all came together so Danielle and I could get back to Home Affairs Monday to begin the process of my passport extension. When we got there many people were standing around waiting for their passports. Since I had everything with me a small part of me was hoping that I could get my stamp that day. HAHA…wishful thinking or what! I gave all my documents and was told to come back in 3 weeks. I certainly hope that all goes well because I will be past the 30-day deadline to be approved for my extension with a changed return flight! Since it took so long at Home Affairs I had to go straight to Ocean View in the afternoon and was not able to work on the presentation at all.
I worked on my presentation Monday night and Tuesday morning and night to have it ready by Wednesday. It was a lot of work but I was pretty excited about it. I haven’t seen many of the other LSE since the training session we had way back in week 2. Wednesday morning came and was I ever nervous. Some of the Living Hope “high-ups” came for the liability portion of my intro where I explained EXACTLY what this course was and was not. It was purely informal and they would get their accredited course in the New Year. This was more of an informational session that would serve purely as an intro to any course they took. Since they don’t have a lot of first aid training it would help them out, and if something happened during the Christmas Holiday Clubs then they may choose to use some of the info they learned in this course to try to help one of the children. (Basically covering Living Hope and myself…the LSE understood what was going on). The training went SO WELL! I was able to get some songs for the compression timing. From what you have read in previous blogs you will know that these guys LOVE music and thought that doing CPR on fake people to the beat of the music was pretty entertaining. One of the PR reps came in and took some pretty good pics. They all got it after the first day, so I gave them paper to write 3 things they wanted to go over for the second day. That however, meant that I had to go home and prepare it ALL THAT NIGHT!!!! :S
The next day was review of choking/CPR, the Secondary Survey, and some of the minor First Aid they wrote on the paper from the day before. They also had A LOT of questions about how the body works and why certain things happen (for example, why do the lungs close when someone gets stung by a bee on another part of their body?). I certainly don’t need a South African First Aid certification to explain that! Basically, it went really well again. They can be a bit tough to handle sometimes since they (and I) have a bit of ADD (I think all people who work with children do) but most were really interested in what I was speaking about since they really see the need for it in their Clubs. Apparently quite a few of the Clubs have epileptic children and of course like back home they have heard everything from sticking your fingers in their mouth to hold the tongue back to trying to restrain the person by holding their arms and legs, etc, etc (which you DO NOT want to do…unless you want to be fingerless and have a choking seizuring child). Even after the day was finished I had people coming up to me asking more questions. I was very glad when it was all over though so that I can actually get some sleep again!
Kids Club is getting better and better. Meagan and I are starting to form a routine which is really helping with all the craziness. We usually do a big lesson 1 day a week, a craft one day, and just hang out one day (the days change though so we don’t have the kids just coming to the hang out day). Everyday though we have some play and game time, review of the lessons (we are doing the 10 Commandments now), some prayer time, the roll call, and they get their snack. I have been using my guarding whistle to bring the kids inside and have them sit. They know that 2 whistles means 2 lines (one boys and one girls) and Meagan made it a game the first week where if they weren’t in perfect lines then she would run to the other end of the room and blow it again, then run back…and so on which they thought was pretty hilarious. There are still a few children (the older ones with attitude) that are causing a bit of a problem but things are generally going really well.
I spent most of the weekend with the OV girls. Melissa’s friend Diego plays for one of the pro soccer teams and he had a game nearby so we all went to watch him. It’s basically exactly the same except for one thing which made me laugh hysterically every time I saw it. I think most people know that soccer is infamous for its dives…you know when the guys roll around on the ground trying to draw a penalty…and then bounce right back up completely fine. Well here every time someone even TRIPPED and fell on came the EMS crew with the stretcher. Even if the player got back up they HAD to sit on the stretcher and were promptly carried off the field. Then they were put down on the side lines where they got up and walked right back on the field. This happened without fail EVERY TIME!
I also got to experience some of the popular weekend spots. Friday night Leanne (family friend of Avril and John Thomas) took us to Happy Hour (6 – 7p.m. Friday nights) at the little pub down the street from the Teamhouse. It was PACKED! People here are just so much more relaxed and less intense though so it had a great vibe and I think we are planning on going every Friday from now on. Saturday night Ryan, Brenda, Al, and I went to a Tappas Bar called Pilanas. It’s RIGHT on the water with huge windows and has live entertainment weekend nights. It’s a really good place to unwind although it’s really expensive here).
I also sorted out getting my car for Monday (YESSSSSSSS). I will not be able to stay with ACTS much longer due to finances. I will be moving out of the Teamhouse soon so I will need to rent a car to get myself around. It will be from Best Beetle, which has a fleet of 70’s Beetles with ridiculous names and paint jobs. These cars have CHARACTER! Ryan has one named Booger. A previous volunteer had one named Bumblebee (you can guess why). I am pretty stoked about getting my car tomorrow so I can drive myself around Cape Town and get some of my independence back. Oh, for those of you who don’t know this the Bugs are standard not automatic. So I will be driving around a strange place with a standard (I haven’t driven stick in like 7 years) on the opposite side of the car on the opposite side of the road. HAHA. It’s ok though I’m used to the opposite side now and many volunteers (Ryan and Danielle included) have made the change just fine. Still though… I think I will probably be praying the entire dive back from getting my car!