Africa isn´t Africa without some animal stories... :)
At home we don´t have a guard dog (yet), but we do have 4 domestic rabbits who moved in to eat the grass and generally provide much amusement. Mostly because they actually don´t all get on with each other and 2 of them spend their entire lives chasing each other round. I´ve called them Mopsy (black and white), Flopsy (grey and always cleaning her ears), Topsy (tan coloured) and then there´s another black one that I am yet to name. Mopsy hangs around with Flopsy and everytime Topsy comes near, Mopsy goes quite literally psycho and chases Topsy off, not caring for any humans that might be in their path!!!
Their other favourite activity is taunting the 2 huge dogs that live nearby and can´t get at them. The more the dogs bark, the closer the rabbits lay themselves down in the sun near the fence as if to taunt the dogs! :)
We also had a rooster and some hens that wandered across our land. The rooster will attack if you get too close or try to hang washing out etc. When I was in bed the other morning he started crowing outside my window at about 4am and apparently I later commented to the Lionsraw boys that the rooster was going to die if he carried on like that.
Anyway, 2 days ago there were a lot of white feathers on the grass outside my cottage and all the way up to the front gate. Just under the orange trees there lay one very dead rooster.
IT WAS NOT ME!!!
Some animal had had a fight on its hands. Being English we didn´t really know what to do with the creature but before we had time to decide, something else had taken the decision out of our hands and the bird was gone.
The boys still think I am the chicken-killer though...
Wednesday, 26 August 2009
Visiting old friends
Am writing this from Cape Town, I cannot believe how fast the past 10 days have gone. I´ve been logging all of my dealings with people and progress this week in a book and on Monday I had to just stop and write a list of things to do when I get back because I just ran out of time!!!
It was a great week for networking and for travelling round to see friends all over the Valley of a 1000 Hills, most of whom have expressed a desire to work for me and get involved with Grapevine projects, so when God provides the funding we´ll have no shortage of Zulu helpers.
The most fantastic thing about working in rural Africa is that when you have a question, there´s always someone who knows someone else, who can put you in touch with them. I´ve spent some time visiting other local projects and everyone is willing to offer help and advice.
On Friday afternoon, I took 2 Zulu friends right down to Maphepheteni to visit Mdu´s family. For those who followed my blog before, this was where I filmed a local choir singing and dancing. It´s a stunning drive down past Inanda dam and along some questionable dirt track roads peppered with rocks and mud. My Hyundai Atos did better than expected under pressure!
We stopped en route to chat to another friend of ours who used to be in YZW choir. He was leading a small team of young men building a rondavel (traditional Zulu round house). Only the night before had I been in discussion with friends about how we were going to get British volunteers next year to build rondavels when they had never seen them before, and here was our answer!! The boys offered their expertise in helping out so we´ll see if we can get them up when the time comes. According to them, rondavels are much easier to build as there is only 1 wall (it´s just round that´s all!)
Mdu is not well. He was really very ill at one point and now is slightly better but has something else. As the family lives miles away from the nearest taxi point, it´s incredibly difficult for him to get to the hospital as he could hardly walk at one point. Their homestead that was once incredibly vibrant with lots happening was eerily quiet and showed the beginnings of falling into serious disrepair. The goat pen had gone and so had the chicken coop, although the chickens roamed free over the land. There were no vegetables growing. There were only women, children and Mdu at home. It was hard to see them as they are, this is the reality of poverty, illness and lack of employment. Ironically Mdu had just got his truck driver´s licence a few weeks before falling ill, so his hopes of travelling the country and providing for his family were dashed before they really got started.
We couldn´t spend much time with the family as darkness was closing in and it was a trek back, but we left them with some food and I prayed with Mdu and his mother (who is also bedbound with a broken foot!). Please pray for healing for that family and that things would turn around for them. I´ll visit them again in January.
I also met up with my ex-boyfriend and he told me that his niece Nolwazi passed away last year. She was 7 years old. I´d spent Christmas 2006 with that family and will never forget Nolwazi leading the family in a song of praise and thanks for the gifts that I´d taken. She sang terribly out of tune but it was precious all the same!
So, since I left this area, some things have changed for the worse, and some things for the better. Some, like Nolwazi, have left us, and others have grown up and are making good progress, like the children at GGA. This is life, I guess, and the happy times far outweigh the sad moments. Through it all God remains constant and I´m more and more feeling lead to pray with people in the Valley as they share their story and to encourage them on their walk with Him.
It was a great week for networking and for travelling round to see friends all over the Valley of a 1000 Hills, most of whom have expressed a desire to work for me and get involved with Grapevine projects, so when God provides the funding we´ll have no shortage of Zulu helpers.
The most fantastic thing about working in rural Africa is that when you have a question, there´s always someone who knows someone else, who can put you in touch with them. I´ve spent some time visiting other local projects and everyone is willing to offer help and advice.
On Friday afternoon, I took 2 Zulu friends right down to Maphepheteni to visit Mdu´s family. For those who followed my blog before, this was where I filmed a local choir singing and dancing. It´s a stunning drive down past Inanda dam and along some questionable dirt track roads peppered with rocks and mud. My Hyundai Atos did better than expected under pressure!
We stopped en route to chat to another friend of ours who used to be in YZW choir. He was leading a small team of young men building a rondavel (traditional Zulu round house). Only the night before had I been in discussion with friends about how we were going to get British volunteers next year to build rondavels when they had never seen them before, and here was our answer!! The boys offered their expertise in helping out so we´ll see if we can get them up when the time comes. According to them, rondavels are much easier to build as there is only 1 wall (it´s just round that´s all!)
Mdu is not well. He was really very ill at one point and now is slightly better but has something else. As the family lives miles away from the nearest taxi point, it´s incredibly difficult for him to get to the hospital as he could hardly walk at one point. Their homestead that was once incredibly vibrant with lots happening was eerily quiet and showed the beginnings of falling into serious disrepair. The goat pen had gone and so had the chicken coop, although the chickens roamed free over the land. There were no vegetables growing. There were only women, children and Mdu at home. It was hard to see them as they are, this is the reality of poverty, illness and lack of employment. Ironically Mdu had just got his truck driver´s licence a few weeks before falling ill, so his hopes of travelling the country and providing for his family were dashed before they really got started.
We couldn´t spend much time with the family as darkness was closing in and it was a trek back, but we left them with some food and I prayed with Mdu and his mother (who is also bedbound with a broken foot!). Please pray for healing for that family and that things would turn around for them. I´ll visit them again in January.
I also met up with my ex-boyfriend and he told me that his niece Nolwazi passed away last year. She was 7 years old. I´d spent Christmas 2006 with that family and will never forget Nolwazi leading the family in a song of praise and thanks for the gifts that I´d taken. She sang terribly out of tune but it was precious all the same!
So, since I left this area, some things have changed for the worse, and some things for the better. Some, like Nolwazi, have left us, and others have grown up and are making good progress, like the children at GGA. This is life, I guess, and the happy times far outweigh the sad moments. Through it all God remains constant and I´m more and more feeling lead to pray with people in the Valley as they share their story and to encourage them on their walk with Him.
Tuesday, 18 August 2009
Inchanga Investigations
Yesterday morning Mike (from Lionsraw) and I went down to Cato Ridge and bought some bread, oranges, apples, biscuits and juice and headed to Inchanga Primary School to meet the orphans there. They came down to the playground to meet us, summoned from their various lessons, curious to see these white people who had come to visit them!
I'd taken a photo of them all along with me and they found themselves on it and wrote their names on it and then I gave each of them a little cross on which I'd written - 'Jesus Loves You!' and 'UJesu Nkosi' (Jesus is Lord), they loved them and eagerly wrote their names on them. I reminded them that Jesus does love each and every one of them and they must remember that whenever they look at this cross. It's a Catholic school so the children already knew this, but they liked their gifts as well.
The teachers distributed the food and it was well received. Then they selected 2 children who lived near the school and we walked down to their house to see what kind of living conditions they were finding themselves in. As it turns out, the children selected were the very ones I had identified from the photo as ones I wanted to find out more about.
The 6 year old twins, brother and sister, S and N, live right near the main road with their mother and 2 older brothers. It would appear that they are not complete orphans, but these 2 are both fairly sick and as the mother only has work for one day a week, they are still struggling. The little boy has been fairly ill recently and his brother told me that he had not been himself for a few days. When we first met him he looked sullen and miserable. However, after about 10 minutes of chatting to him (albeit in broken Zulu) and after taking photos of him and a bit of filming too, he suddenly warmed up and by the end he was smiling, laughing and hugging.
Their house is made of wattle and daub (the same as the Elizabethans used to make houses with) and the sunshine streams in through the holes in the corrugated roof. Great when it's sunny, rubbish when it rains! The 2 kids sleep in the same bed in the corner of their mother's room.
Someone came along and built new toilets for all the houses in that little area, but they omitted to dig the right pit underneath it and consequently the toilet is unusable and used just for storage. Instead, the kids and ALL the families in the area use a tiny shack of a toilet right next to the road that is crumbling and offers little privacy. I don't even want to consider how many bugs and bacteria lurk in there, not good for little children with compromised immune systems.
Back at the school it was lunch time and the kids in the playground eagerly gathered to be in photos or on film. I wanted to pray for S, as he's been ill, but it was impossible to get him on his own as kids just gathered wherever I went, so I got the kids standing round us to pray too and explained in Zulu, but prayed in English. What a privilege to pray with these children - they are so precious!
Oh, and some good(ish) news. The 2 children who died are not from our 40 children. Still sad that they passed away, but we are happy that it wasn't one of ours just yet!
Well, I'm off to enjoy what's left of the sunshine for today - it's still blue skies and warm but there's a vicious wind blowing! You can't have it all ;-)
I'd taken a photo of them all along with me and they found themselves on it and wrote their names on it and then I gave each of them a little cross on which I'd written - 'Jesus Loves You!' and 'UJesu Nkosi' (Jesus is Lord), they loved them and eagerly wrote their names on them. I reminded them that Jesus does love each and every one of them and they must remember that whenever they look at this cross. It's a Catholic school so the children already knew this, but they liked their gifts as well.
The teachers distributed the food and it was well received. Then they selected 2 children who lived near the school and we walked down to their house to see what kind of living conditions they were finding themselves in. As it turns out, the children selected were the very ones I had identified from the photo as ones I wanted to find out more about.
The 6 year old twins, brother and sister, S and N, live right near the main road with their mother and 2 older brothers. It would appear that they are not complete orphans, but these 2 are both fairly sick and as the mother only has work for one day a week, they are still struggling. The little boy has been fairly ill recently and his brother told me that he had not been himself for a few days. When we first met him he looked sullen and miserable. However, after about 10 minutes of chatting to him (albeit in broken Zulu) and after taking photos of him and a bit of filming too, he suddenly warmed up and by the end he was smiling, laughing and hugging.
Their house is made of wattle and daub (the same as the Elizabethans used to make houses with) and the sunshine streams in through the holes in the corrugated roof. Great when it's sunny, rubbish when it rains! The 2 kids sleep in the same bed in the corner of their mother's room.
Someone came along and built new toilets for all the houses in that little area, but they omitted to dig the right pit underneath it and consequently the toilet is unusable and used just for storage. Instead, the kids and ALL the families in the area use a tiny shack of a toilet right next to the road that is crumbling and offers little privacy. I don't even want to consider how many bugs and bacteria lurk in there, not good for little children with compromised immune systems.
Back at the school it was lunch time and the kids in the playground eagerly gathered to be in photos or on film. I wanted to pray for S, as he's been ill, but it was impossible to get him on his own as kids just gathered wherever I went, so I got the kids standing round us to pray too and explained in Zulu, but prayed in English. What a privilege to pray with these children - they are so precious!
Oh, and some good(ish) news. The 2 children who died are not from our 40 children. Still sad that they passed away, but we are happy that it wasn't one of ours just yet!
Well, I'm off to enjoy what's left of the sunshine for today - it's still blue skies and warm but there's a vicious wind blowing! You can't have it all ;-)
Sunday, 16 August 2009
Sunny South Africa!
Well, I'm actually here! Good journey, despite embarrassing myself by crying at the end of the film 'Marley and Me' (ahem..) It's always difficult when everyone has their own TV so no one is watching the same movies on a flight.
It's sunny but cold, but then I'm staying on top of a mountain so it's going to be a little chilly in the evenings. Have spent quite a few hours with the children at GGA, which is brilliant. They are all doing well and Patches, my dog, has remembered me and follows me round site when I'm there.
My sponsored child, N, is getting to know me a bit better and it seems the key to a beautiful relationship is pants! I bought her some new baby knickers as she's potty-training and getting through a lot at the moment, and she insisted on carrying them round with her all afternoon. When we went for a walk, they had to be put into a little rucksack and come with us. As she bounced on the trampoline she turned round and shouted 'Where's my panties?' very loudly... hilarious!
I also went into Inchanga on Friday and met the Headteacher and one of the teachers who looks after the orphans in the school. Tomorrow I'm going into the school to meet the children themselves. Sadly 2 of our children have recently passed away though. More on the children in my next post, after I've met them and hopefully been to see where some of them sleep at night.
It's sunny but cold, but then I'm staying on top of a mountain so it's going to be a little chilly in the evenings. Have spent quite a few hours with the children at GGA, which is brilliant. They are all doing well and Patches, my dog, has remembered me and follows me round site when I'm there.
My sponsored child, N, is getting to know me a bit better and it seems the key to a beautiful relationship is pants! I bought her some new baby knickers as she's potty-training and getting through a lot at the moment, and she insisted on carrying them round with her all afternoon. When we went for a walk, they had to be put into a little rucksack and come with us. As she bounced on the trampoline she turned round and shouted 'Where's my panties?' very loudly... hilarious!
I also went into Inchanga on Friday and met the Headteacher and one of the teachers who looks after the orphans in the school. Tomorrow I'm going into the school to meet the children themselves. Sadly 2 of our children have recently passed away though. More on the children in my next post, after I've met them and hopefully been to see where some of them sleep at night.
Monday, 10 August 2009
Back to South Africa!
I'm getting packed and ready to head back to SA on Wednesday. Please pray for a good journey and that I'd recover from it quickly and get on with the exciting adventures I have planned... I'm hoping to meet the children in Inchanga and get some photos and footage of what their current situation is. I'll also be re-visiting my little friends at GGA where I used to work, am looking forward to seeing how they've all grown!! Finally, I'm heading down to Cape Town for some relaxation before flying back to the UK at the end of August.
Pray for protection for me whilst I'm out and about and for God's leading on everything I do. He goes with me and before me. At New Wine last week I was struck about how it's important not to run ahead of God and to let the Spirit lead. So I intend to spend time listening and observing where He's moving and attempting to walk in step with the Spirit over these next few weeks...
I'm hoping to find an internet cafe and report back from there at some point during these next few weeks, so watch this space for updates!
Pray for protection for me whilst I'm out and about and for God's leading on everything I do. He goes with me and before me. At New Wine last week I was struck about how it's important not to run ahead of God and to let the Spirit lead. So I intend to spend time listening and observing where He's moving and attempting to walk in step with the Spirit over these next few weeks...
I'm hoping to find an internet cafe and report back from there at some point during these next few weeks, so watch this space for updates!
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