Favorite Days

Now I love Tuesdays and Thursdays. Besides both starting with the letter T, both mean food distribution and that means fun. Tuesdays are when Pastor Joseph takes us to the biggest warehouse of fruits and vegetables I’ve ever seen to pick up donations. They fill a trailer full and we head back to the center. I have to admit, the first time we went to the warehouse I was severely tempted to become a crook and steal. Okay maybe not that far, but if I ever go off the deep end, you can find me there in the corner eating lots of mango, pineapple, and oranges. Anyway we head back to the centre and organize/sort through all the food. Some of it is rotten so we have to pick through and find the good stuff. Sometimes this gets messy as Sarah’s potato mush stained pants can attest to. Over 60 people are waiting at the gate to get the vegetables for virtually free (they have to pay 3 rand, which is less than 50 cents for lots of vegetables). Oma, one of my new favorite people, organizes it all and gives us very specific directions of attack.

Thursdays we drive with more donated food to Khayelitsha, the township where most of the kids came from as well as the volunteers at the centre. Pastor drives through in his bucky (pick-up truck) honking his horn. Little kids from all over run and yell in excitement and race to the location where we hand it out. It is beautiful and I love it. The only downside is that we have to play paper, rock, scissors to see who sits up front as pastor really likes the heat blasting on…cooking us to the very core of our beings…okay so I exaggerate a bit.