I'm writing this from my new home in South Africa, surrounded by cloud. It was quite surreal to arrive here after leaving Birmingham at 2 degrees, where they had to defrost the plane before we could take off. After going via the heat of Dubai, I arrived to rain. However I was happy because at least it wasn't cold. The temperature is in the low 20 degrees C. Nice.
Yesterday I was straight into Inchanga School to see what's going on there. It was the Christmas party for Grades R to 3 (the rest of the school get a party tomorrow) and there was much dancing and loud music blaring out. Thankfully the rain held off all morning as the whole event was outside.
Lionsraw had donated money to the school to buy a cow's stomach to cook for the children, which is a special treat for them. A small group of Grade 1 and grade R children gathered around me as soon as I got there, including Sanele and Nontobekho (whose house I visited back in August) and they insisted on giving me a tour of their school. However when we approached the kitchen, even they commented on the ghastly smell coming out from there.
When it came to eating it the children had to line up with their bowls and most of them ate with their hands. The smell was kind of like really really smelly cheese, and thankfully the staff knew that we English people couldn't cope with hardcore stews like that so we weren't given any! Most of the children seemed to enjoy it, although a few of the littler ones didn't really want to have it. We managed to retreat away from the kitchen, and therefore also the smell, but when the kids gathered around us afterwards with little paws fresh from lunch, the smell came with them and lingered on my fleece long into the evening yesterday!!
It was great to catch up with a few of my Grapevine children. So far there are 40 children who have filled in a profile and with whom I will start working. They weren't all there though and I also came across a few other children who looked very much like they didn't have much at home. As it was a day when they didn't wear uniform, it was easy to see whose family had money to buy clothes and who was still in the usual outfit they wore to school every day.
Little Sanele, who I visited back in August, was doing well. Although he did tell me that he is still ill and then went on to say he'd had swine flu recently. He looked reasonably well and nothing stopped him from dancing away to the music later on in the party. These children don't have meat often and there was much celebratory dancing before they went off to have seconds.
Sitting with a small group of kids, overlooking some kids dancing and other ones having an impromptu game of soccer on the school pitch, with the sun breaking through the clouds, I remembered how much I love being in this place and how excited I am to see what God is going to do in this place and with these children, each one precious to him.
