Wednesday afternoon we were able to visit two of the three volunteer sites that we have the options of attending. Pendla is a primary school that has grades R (K) through 7. The classrooms look a little rough for wear. I read online a while back that Pendla is in the top 5 poorest schools in the country. The second place we visited was called the House of Resurrection. This is a home for orphans who are infected or affected by AIDS. The little kids who were not yet attending school loved seeing us and playing with us. They even sang a song called "Jesus Loves Me" for us as we toured. It was precious! Here they all are. Watch out Mom and Dad, I may be hiding all of them in my suitcase on the way home!
Thursday we were finally given a tour of our new hometown. We took a psychedelic double decker bus and had a wonderful tour guide who has been with us for the past week on and off. He knows anything and everything. His name was Bradley and he was a curator, a coach, a student, and knew all about the history of South Africa. My question at the end of the day was "what doesn't this man do?" We started off by seeing the downtown area and seeing the political hub of the city. We eventually made our way out to the townships where we were finally able to see the third world side of the country. My mind was blown by what we saw. People living inside four pieces of wood haphazardly thrown together, no food, no water, in the middle of trash heaps. But the amazing thing is is that all of these people are still incredibly happy. They still are so excited to see people and open their houses and lives to complete strangers. We stopped at Missionvale, which is the third volunteer site and the one that I was hoping to go to. It is in the middle of the township and everyday they give out food to the families of the communities. There is a school that the kids from the township can attend. They also have a clinic and areas where people can pick up clothing if they need it. The best part of the whole visit was seeing that Missionvale is a drop spot for TOMS shoes. For those who don't know about TOMS shoes, basically you buy a pair in the States and another pair gets sent to a third world country. It was awesome to see that the people were actually receiving what is said that they are receiving. On the way back, we stopped at a house in the township at a friend of Bradley's. It wasn't a planned stop, but the man who owned the house was an artist. And some of his paintings have been shown in some of the most grand museums next to van Gogh. I will post pictures of his artwork on facebook sometime soon. One of our last stops was at a community center in the townships. This center was run by a few women called "Mamas." Their story was amazing. The community center used to be a store that sold liquor. All of the men would come home from work and spend all of the family's money on liquor and come home drunk and with no food for the family. These women were so upset that they burned the place to the ground. A few of the women we talked to even got sent to jail but are back to tell their stories. They now run the community center and have a family atmosphere to the place. My mind was completely saturated with all of the information we took in that day.
Today, Friday, we went to a leadership conference called "the Champion Within." It was based on the ideologies of Nelson Mandela and was incredibly boring. Learning about Madiba (Nelson Mandela) was very interesting, however the rest of the 8 hour lecture was not. I am quite exhausted from such a busy week and am looking forward to a weekend of relaxing. No big plans as of right now, but I'm sure something will pop up in this hoppin city!
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