Bone Soup

The name reminds me of something maybe my grandma would say she is making for dinner…but it is reality. Never before did I think kids would make “cameras” with left overs-of their dinner. But I’ve been proven wrong. Bone soup is a common occurrence here and the kids love it. Nerdy me tries to always identify what type of bone the different ones are, and usually they are some part of the vertebrate (for those curious ones). Sarah and I are both finding it semi-challenging not to have control or independence in what we eat, but the last couple of nights we’ve been able to make dinner and love it. I (Sara A.) lean towards using as many vegetables and beans acceptable. All the food is mass produced to feed the hungry 16 kids and usually about 8-10 adults. The pots and pans are so huge to make the cooking possible, and great a chore of dish washing. Besides bone soup, we’ve made/had a pasta kolash type thing, split pea/sugar bean/ground beef (referred to as mince meat) soup, rice and some type of meat gravy, sopa (a type of soft corn pellet)…The kid’s breakfasts are either oats or a corn hash mixture.

children, children everywhere

Any suggestions on how to quickly become an authority figure?

As of now, we are seen as playthings to the children. They love to climb on every limb, sit in our laps and laugh when we tell them not to do things. We love them, all 16 of them, but they are completely crazy. It is what is to be expected from young children, but we are struggling to have any sort of power over their actions. We're praying hard for the children at the centre, and that God would give us patience with them and allow us to love them even while they are causing trouble.

Nonetheless, their smiling faces are enough to make your heart melt and their excitement for life is enough to make us realize in the end, it's all good. We are so desperately trying to remember names and pronounce them correctly. We are working very hard on mastering the different clicks in the Xhosa language (said "kosa") so as to pronounce words as best as our Midwestern North American accents will allow. The kids love trying to make us say difficult Xhosa words and laughing at our poor attempts. One day, we will be fluent. Mark my word ;)

The kids have such strong personalities which shine in all that they do. Without even looking at them I bet we could tell who was who based solely on their chosen activites, actions and the sound of their laughter.
Kanya is the trouble-maker.
Solani likes to pretend he's playing piano and singing gospel music.
Ace is the caretaker. He's sensitive, and helps out the younger children.
Shatty is the crier. He is a lot smaller than the rest of the children and doesn't like not getting what he wants.

We love them, we really do. And we can't promise that our suitcases won't be full of them when we return. Or they might just cling to our legs for the duration of the trip home. Yeah, I could see them doing that. They are very hard to peel off once they have latched on.

our excitements

Sara and I (Sarah) have very different lifestyles and excitements we've come to realize. Sara enjoys running and climbing mountains, I would rather take a long walk and be near the ocean. Luckily, Alistair was in town on Saturday and we were able to fulfill two of our different excitements. Two words: Penguins and mountains.

PENGUINS! I was super excited to see the penguins of South Africa. For all of you doubters, yes, they do exist and yes, they are really cute (and a little smelly). We took a drive near the coast to penguin haven. The little creatures are everywhere and they scurried across our path to dive into the cool ocean waters.

What's nice about Cape Town is the changing landscape. Mountains flow into the ocean and you can go from the top of a cliff into the water in about a 15 minute drive. Our next stop on our exciting day was rock climbing; a favorite pastime of Sara and Alistair. We spent the afternoon hiking around Peer's Cave to different challenging courses. Sara was extremely excited to be back in the air, conquering new climbs.

We ended our day taking a hike up Lion's Head; a mountain smack in the middle of Cape Town to watch the sunset and moonrise. We missed the sunset, but we watched the moon come up in between two neighboring mountains to illuminate the picnic dinner we had packed. From the top of Lion's Head you can see everything. Look one way and you've got the ocean. Look again and there's the city of Cape Town. Turn around once more and you see Devil's Peak and Table Mountain. It was truly an amazing sight.

We recounted our adventures over milkshakes and headed back to the centre, eager to get some rest.

Farthest you can be without turning back

(from last week)

We have decided that we are the furthest away from the home as we can be without starting back the opposite way. Our arrival into Cape Town was hectic... an hour delayed because of fog, lost luggage, a nonworking cell phone and our ride nowhere in sight. Being the big girls that we are, we figured it all out and mananged to get to the centre without any trouble at all (Don't worry parents... we bought a new sim card, called our ride and he was at the airport 10 minutes after we talked to him to take us on our way. And Sara's bag arrived safely at the centre the next morning).

It was great to meet the staff we have been emailing with for the last 6 months. Everyone who works and lives at the centre has a lot of energy and was really excited for our arrival.

We spent our first day handing out food in Khayelitsha, the township that LCW serves. The pastor of the church LCW is connected with just drives up and down the streets honking his horn and little children pop out from every which way and come running with their empty plastic bags eager to fill them with the fresh fruit and veg in the back of the truck. We found such joy dividing the food among the masses. At least for a while, we know that these children and their families will not go hungry. And we will be back every Thursday that we are here to repeat the process and fill their sacks.

I take food for granted. I have never had to worry about not having enough to eat. I usually have too much to eat and can't make decisions on what I most want to have for a meal. I have come to realize that for some of the world, food is a scarcity. Be thankful for what God has provided for you, big or small.

Halfway There :)

We left our apartment at 3pm on Tuesday, May 29th and did not arrive into Cape Town until 9am on Thursday, May 31. Luckily we had a nice long layover in London to stretch our legs and see the city. We made the most of our short time in London and attempted to tire ourselves out so we would sleep the whole 12 hour plane ride to South Africa. It almost worked...

Our adventure started after getting our passport stamps at the airport. We seriously looked like two lost tourists wandering around with our heavy packs. Train, underground... aren't they the same thing? Apparently not. So we took the adventurous way using the Tube to get into downtown London. A fun French girl named Leslie took pity on us and rode the Picadilly line with us to get to Big Ben. If it hadn't been for her, we'd still be trying to navigate our way through the city.

We walked and walked and walked all over London, getting a beer at some restaurant claiming their portions were big enough for an elephant to eat (Thanks for the pounds, Papa Parker :) and laughing at the ads on the red double-decker buses (especially the one that said in big block lettering 'For the love of boobs'). It was misting and raining off and on all day, but we were so excited to be in London and out of our cramped airplane quarters that we hardly noticed.

All in all, it was a good day. It kept our mind off the 12 hour flight looming before us and tired us out enough that we couldn't wait to shut our eyes and doze off.

The flight to Cape Town was anything but exciting. Luckily the cabin was very empty so we were fortunate enough to each have our own row of seats so we could lay down and sleep most of the time. We thought we might actually feel rested by the time we arrived at Life Community Welfare :) we are so naive.

joy joy joy

Joy. how I love that word. it makes you smile, it makes you get a fun feeling in the pit of your soul. maybe that's a little overboard, but I love it. I love being joyful. Right now, joy is flowing out of me. Okay not literally, that may be awkard, but we just recieved an email from Blackhawk and they are writing checks out to Sarah and I for 500$--EACH! how incredible is that?! God is good. so good. It has nothing to do with us and that's a great thing.
So we're going. 2 weeks and we're going.
I distinctly remember awhile ago, when we were still deciding whether or not to go after finding out the proposal failed. I was doing one of my favorite things: running with my older brother and talking to him about our plans and my concerns. We were talking through the options and the consequences of my decisions. I just remember feeling such a sense of peace about the situation, whether we went or not. I was choosing to be content not going and content going. But how joyous I am that we're going and that the funds have come in.
Good bye Funds Paper Chain! We don't need you anymore!

Next Step: Packing!

We are in disbelief that we leave US soil in under 3 weeks. We are a few finals away from summer... and for us summer means concentrating on the important things in life; like living in Africa with the cutest kids in the world. Sara and I are slowly beginning to realize how impossible packing for this trip is going to be. Even if we share all toiletries, shoes and some clothes we will be unable to pack everything we want. Not because we're planning on bringing our entire wardrobes; complete with matching accessories, purses and fuzzy sweaters; but because God continues to bless us with things the orphanage needs. Our moms have found an abundance of children's clothing and shoes to bring to the kids at LCW. Somehow, I don't think that our limit of two 50 lb. bags will suffice, unless we bring the bare minimum for ourselves.

I think this looming challenge of packing for a 10-week trip will be a good exercise in materialism. Why bring 20 t-shirts and 8 pairs of pants when Sara and I are both extremely skilled in doing laundry? What is the point of us trying to live comfortably for 10 weeks while taking away from the opportunity to clothe God's children? There is no point. I hope that we would become selfless in this activity, putting others before ourselves and literally giving them the shirts off our backs.

Easier said than done, right? Although I've been told that with the proper rain gear anyone can survive a South African winter. No one needs to know what's underneath the coat and rain slickers ;)