the end is here

I’m so sorry it’s been so long. The last week and half has been insane, busy and amazing. I apologize for the length of this!

The end of work sites and our community development class
Our last three days at Walk in the Light were amazing. We were able to complete all of our projects. The whole place looks incredibly different. There are now two playgrounds, a sidewalk, a cleared shed, and an awesome rock climbing rock wall. All we were able to accomplish with such limited resources amazes me.

We concluded our time at Walk in the Light in a very special way. Our last day there is one I will never forget. In the morning we put finishing touches on our projects. We went out to a goodbye lunch at a local restaurant called the Crafty Duck. It was delicious and a wonderful time of fellowship. By the time we got back, all the kids had arrived. We played with them and hung out. A few of the people on our team brought a bunch of plain colored t-shirts and decorated them as jerseys for soccer teams. The kids were so excited for them and immediately organized teams and started a game. All the other kids gathered on the sidelines to cheer. It was a really fun afternoon, because our whole group, senior youth and junior youth were all gathered in the same place together having the best time.

In the evening we had our closing service. Bruce, the founder of walk in the light and one of the most giving people you will ever meet wanted to end the day with a communion service in the community. One of the long-term goals for Walk in the Light is to have a community center in Haniville (right now walk in the light is located across the street from Haniville). So we our communion service became a sort of ground breaking for the community center. We took a big wooden cross that the guys had put together and with the help of the senior youth carried it across the street. Bruce wanted the foundation for the center to be Christ. We put the cross up as the sun was setting which made the whole thing just that much cooler. After communion, we all sung songs together. It was pretty emotional as this was the last time we would see these people. I cried so many tears, but I was so happy at the same time. Walk in the Light is such an amazing ministry that is going to do amazing things for the community of Haniville.



The Safari!
Last Friday, we had our last community development class, officially ending the academic part of our semester. I’m happy to report I made out with decent grades all around. Praise the Lord!

Saturday we took off for a three-day African safari. It was incredible. We drove four hours to Imfolzi where we stayed out in the bush. Our campground was not enclosed, so we had to be extremely careful at night as not to be attacked by any wild animals. The safari was amazing. We had a total of 7 two to three hour safaris over the three-day period. Both nights we went out on night safaris, which are so neat. The guide uses a spotlight to find the animals. We got pretty lucky and saw five cheetahs one of the days and two male lions another day. We also saw buffalo, elephants, zebras, giraffes, black and white rhinos, warthogs, hyenas, impala, and nyala. It was fantastic.

Reflections

Today has been such a hard day, it being our last day here. I have already cried many tears and I’m sure I’ll cry more. I’m full of mixed emotions. I’m excited to go home and be reunited with friends and family, but I’m incredibly sad to leave this place I love and the friends I have made here. I have grown so much here. My worldview has been changed and formed. I have seen the face of AIDS and poverty. I made friends with some of the most beautiful people you will ever meet. I have fallen in love with a country and a people and I will never be the same.

I want to thank all of you who have read this and joined me in this journey. I have appreciated your thoughts, prayers, and support so much. I hope to see all of you this summer so I can share my experiences with you in person.

Pictures!

Sala Kahle!

Only a week and a half left....

As many of you know my asthma has been acting up quite a bit the last couple of weeks. I'm happy to report that I doing much better! I went to the clinic last week and after a cortisone injection and breathing treatment, along with some antibiotics I'm able to breathe once again! thanks so much for your thoughts and prayers!

Update on last week!
I think pictures really do the best job here!
here's are pictures of the jungle gym we constructed for the younger kids!

we built this whole thing from scratch! before there was a garden here.

Pictures from Walk in the Light!

Another week has gone by and I promise a detailed post about all the happenings of this past week but I'm gonna post a few pictures for now.

This is a picture from last week. These are a bunch of the kids who come in the afternoon. We had a bunch of chalk so we all went a little crazy and smeared it all over our faces. It was so fun.













working in the hot sun clearing weeds.






















Above: A few of my new friends.



Packing fruit! the bags of fruit are put into food packages and distributed to the community.

a week gone by

So much has happened this last week! I know I mentioned I would update more often once work projects started but the days are so busy and long now. The weekends are really the only time I have to catch up emails and blogging. I've also been using my free time to rest. Ive been having some issues with my asthma this past week which has not been fun. So if you think of it, keep me in your prayers! I want to breathe easily once again!

I'll start on last weekend. We had a day trip to the Drakensberg Mountains on Sunday. We took a 45 minute hike up to see some ancient cave paintings. It was pretty incredible to see something that was painted there thousands of years ago. It was also a beautiful day.

This past week at Walk in the Light has been extremely busy and productive. Monday, we cleared a shed. It was a huge task as the whole thing was packed full of wood and other random things. After some walls and doors are added the shed is going to be used as gym/hang out center for the youth.

On Tuesday, we spent the morning whacking away at knee high grass. We've clear quite a huge area. Let me tell you, using a dull machetes and pitch forks to clear that much grass is quite the task. We've cleared it to build a playground for the kids from Haniville. There's this perfect tree right center of the grassy area that were going to using for tire swings. We've even begun construction on a tree house. I'm really no help in all these construction projects, due to my complete lack of real construction skills, but it's been fun to see the progress and encourage the people with construction skills. Another exciting thing about the playground project is that the senior youth have gotten really involved with the clearing of the grass and building the playground. We're learning in our community develop class about the importance of empowering the people of community by working a long side them.

Tuesday afternoon, we attended the funeral of one of the ladies who died last week. It was a heart breaking and eye opening afternoon. Being at the cemetery was unreal . There were so many graves only feet apart from each other. We were told that the cemetery is running out of room and are forced to dig graves extremely close. There are up to 10 to 15 funerals on saturdays and sundays. It's a painful reality.

Wednesday and Thursday we continued the playground project. We have the start of an awesome tree house. We also got to feed all the kids lunch both days. The afternoons are my favorite part of the day when all the kids come to play!

okay it's super late here so I'm gonna end this, but i'll be sure to put pictures up this week. I miss all of you!

Crazy Intense Week.

This last week has been very busy!

We started our service projects on Tuesday. Our group is split between two work sites, Walk in the Light and Gateway. Both are community organizations that each have several different programs aimed at helping the community. I'm in the group that's working at Walk in the Light. Walk in the Light is located across the street from the Township of Hanibille, with a population of 10,000. Walk in the Light, is a Christian based organization that does basically everything it can to help and assist the people of Hanibille, although have extremely limited resources. They provide food and clothing for the community . One of the main way they the assist the community is to provide transportation for individuals to and from the hospital and clinic as well as home visits. They also perform funerals and assist with the costs invloved. It is estimated that 80 percent of the adult population is HIV infected. So much of Walk in the Light's works includes working with individuals suffering from HIV/AIDS.

Tuesday, we went out to help with transport. Our team of 20 is split up into smaller groups of four. Each day a different group goes out with Rod, one of the directors of Walk in the Light, to transport people to the clinic and to get their pension from the government building. We transported 5 different women, two which were gogos (grannys) who were extremely weak and could not even walk on their own to the van. We later learned that out of the five women, we transported that day, four of them were HIV positive. It seemed so unreal. It was the first time in my life that I had put a face and name to HIV/AIDS. I know i have worked with HIV positive individuals on my previous trips here, but I guess I had never faced the reality of how wide spread and horrible HIV/AIDS is for the people and their community. It's heart breaking, becuase I know that those two gogos don't have much time left could very possibly pass away before we leave in the next three weeks. This week alone two people have died. The funerals are planned for next week. I think this is going to be the hardest part of the service project as we feel so helpless. These people that are dying have families. I'm at a loss.

As apart of Walk in the Light they work to supply food to people in their community. On Wednesday we helped out with this, by packing dried fruit into individual bags. We bagged about 20 buckets of fruit. In the afternoon the senior youth and kids came and we did some activities with them and played a bunch of games. It was really fun to play with and get to know the youth.

Thursday we whacked at grass all morning. They asked us to clear all the weeds and tall grass from the entrance of walk in the Light to the actual building. Probably 1/4 of mile. There was not enough money for gas for the mowers so we used "pushes" or extremely dull machetes. It was physically exhausting , but we were able to whack down quite a bit. In the afternoon the kids and youth came back and we played bucketball and led games and crafts. Working with the kids is definitely going to be my favorite part of the next three weeks.

Today, Friday, we have class all day. Which isn't very exciting. I'm learning so much about community development though! I didn't mention it yet, but we have been working to implement the tools we're learning class with the community. Especially with the senior youth that come.

Ngiyajubula!

I'm so sorry it has been so long! I wish I had a worth while excuse, but honestly I've just been busy. Much has happened though so I will do my to fill you in. This past week and a half has been full of transitions and fun. I think the easiest way will be to make a list.

THE TOP 10 THINGS i think you should know about.

1. Zulu is over! and i survived :) I took my final oral Zulu test tuesday and the written on Wednesaday. Both went very well. There's a pretty good chance I'll be receiving an A in the class which is very exciting, considering how ridiculously hard the class proved to be. . After our final on Wednesday the Zulu class got to embark on our first and last field trip which was lots of fun. Our Zulu teacher took us to a Butterflies of Africa where we got to see all kinds of beautful butterflies. We also went to the Pietermaritzburg Museum as well as the muesum of art. After that our class took Winn, our Zulu instructor out to dinner. It was really fun to celebrate the end of an intensive and challenging five weeks. Here's a picture of the whole class at butterflies for africa :)

2. Now that Zulu is over, were going into the last part of the program which is an community engagement class that includes an intensive service project. Our instructor is a community developer from Kenya. He has worked for the organization World Vision for 14 years. He now works in Kenya as independent consultant for community development. We had our first class today and I really enjoyed it. He took us all outside and had we sat under a tree and discussed aspects of community development. Later he had us all stand up in a circle, then he announced that in 3 minutes there would be a fire in the middle of the circle and we would create it, then he said go. Sure enough our group rush into action and using the sticks and paper close by plus a few matches and created a small fire in 3 minutes. The activity was to demonstrate how a community comes together and how they must work with what they have, just as we worked with the resources and knowledge we had way. . It was a fun activity and definitely unique. Since I've never been in a class where were required to go outside and build a fire. I'm excited for the next month.

3. fall break 08! Last weekend was fall break . Spring break, really but it's of course fall here. A group of 12 of us venture off to Durban (about an hour from PMB) to stay at a backpackers hostel for the weekend. The hostel was incredibly nice with pool and everything. It was also about two miles from the beach front. The street our hostel was on was full of amazing restaurants, even a Mexican one! It was amazing! the restaurant was called taco zulu and after 3 months of no Mexican food our group was in heaven. On Saturday we went to a professional soccer game. the pirates vs. the royals. We cheered for the more popular team, the pirates. We told by several locals that we should cheer for the pirates if we wanted to be safe and be liked. People were a lot nicer to us once they knew who we were cheering for. It was quite an cultural experience as our 20 person group made up the entire white population. The audience gets pretty intense as well. We made friends with a few of the people sitting next to us and i got to practice some of my zulu with them. It was fun to yell out Zulu phases like "woza" the whole time.

We spent quite a bit of time relaxing on the beach which was much needed. We also went to a few different markets. I got a little too much sun, but luckily I didn't get burnt. Overall it was an amazing weekend and a complete blast.

heres a picture of group after the soccer game:


4. It's summer no more. It's turning into fall here which has meant a lot less sun and a lot more rain. Last week we had several thunder-lightening storms. The last couple of days haven't been to bad though and it's still gorgeous here even when it rains.

5. Canopy tour. On thursday, our group went on a canopy tour which was absolutely amazing and breath taking. I zip lined through the forest basically. It was really scary and intense but so fun. I'm not terrified of heights but I don't love them so it was pretty crazy. Here's a picture of my group before we headed out.


6. Only five weeks left. I can not believe how fast time has gone by. Now that we are beginning the last leg of the trip I feel time is going to go by faster then ever and it's completely insane!

7. We had visitors! Last week we had a bunch of american vistors. Five of the people on our team either had their families or friends come visit. It was fun to see people with their families and to have new faces around. It was especially exciting for one of the ladies on our trip. Jenna's boyfriend of two years come visit for the week. Jenna's a senior and was my roommate in Cape Town. Anyway her boyfriend proposed the in the middle of the week! So now their engaged which is extremely exciting. Needlessly to say it was an quite an exciting few days.

8. The monkeys are attacking! Now I'm just thinking up random things to tell you about because I'm running out of important things. Anyway the monkeys we share our home with have gotten quite aggressive recently! They are now chasing after us and making extremely odd hissing-like noises all the time. My theory is they've all gone sugar crazy since they are always sneaking into the dining room and stealing all the sugar packets they can get their hands on.

9. I miss all of you! It's been so long since I've seen any of you. As sad as it's going to be to leave this place, I'm getting really excited about seeing all of you and catching up on life.

10. Have I told you about tea time? I'm not sure if I have. One of things I love most about living at AE is tea time twice a day. We have tea time in the morning at 10:30 and in the afternoon at 4. Usually in the morning we have the most amazing muffins and in the afternoons really yummy cookies. It something I'm going to for sure miss once I'm back in America.

Sorry this is sooo incredibly long!

Let's Play!

So I just got back from visiting a preschool about 25 minutes from where we're staying. It was so fun. i could have stayed there all day. We sung songs with the kids, played around, and ate snack.

We also went to a Muslim elementary school before the preschool. We didn't stay very long, but it was fun to meet them and play games. Here are some pictures from my morning!