Lazy days....

I feel so lazy right now.  The weather is gorgeous and here I am lying on my bed about to snooze off to sleep!  (Piwi is snuggled under my arm) Its the middle of the afternoon!  I used to give Lee-Anne such a hard time about sleeping during the day, but these days I'm almost as bad!

We have been fortunate as Lindo had two weeks school holiday instead of one, like most other schools.  That all finished yesterday morning as term started again and my alarm was set for the early hours!  (hence the lazy/sleepy attitude today).

In my defense I did spend the whole morning at the Adonis Musati Project office, sorting and tidying the forever-chaotic store room.  We give clothes to refugees that need them, but it is a mission to organise the clothes in such a way that they are easy to find without messing everything up each time!  We have some very generous donors.

I do have to say that with help from one of our volunteers, Patricia, the store room is looking better than it has ever done after this morning!  Some of the refugees that we saw today were women from Rwanda who had fled here during the genocide.  Their stories are sobering and depressing, but what made it much worse is the way they have been treated here in South Africa.  One of their 11 year old daughters was raped a few months ago and the police dropped the case because 'there wasn't enough evidence'.  We were able to set up an appointment with the local trauma centre and hopefully she will receive some much needed counselling!!  My heart breaks.   Could we ever imagine what it must be like to experience a masacre, often of loved ones, and then flea to a country where you are treated like dirt!  Please keep these precious people in your prayers...

On a lighter note we are loving our new house. Lindo has a whole big room and bathroom to herself in the loft, its like a little pink dolls house up there.  Very quirky.  Her two older sisters, Thandeka and Thandiswa (18 and 19) come and stay on a Wednesday evening which is lovely. 

Lindo in Pink, Thandiswa on the right and Thandeka at the bottom

Tomorrow I step foot back into the School of Hope, where I teach tourism to the grade 10,11 and 12's.  These kids (late teenagers actually) are enough to make a person pull out their hair, but for some strange reason I can't help really loving them.  Last term was a rocky one for my subject, lots of the learners decided not to hand in their projects on time.  What can you do?  Besides resorting to bribes and blackmail?  I do kinda feel sorry for them all though, its my first time teaching, and they are all my guinea pigs.  I feel like next year I'll have the secret weapon known as experience!! hahah!  For now I just have to stay patient (mmm) and give as much support as I can.  They are wonderful young people who have had various challenges to face, challenges that I couldn't even begin to understand, and I do believe they are all capable of making it to the end!  Please pray for them, especially our matrics who start writing their finals in a few weeks!  Lindo's sisters also are in Grade 10 at this school which is awesome as I get to see them a lot and help to keep up that relationship between them and Lindo. 

Grade 10's

Grade 11's

Well .... I'd better take that nap....later today I'm hosting 10 wonderful teachers from New Zealand at my house for pizza, they are here giving their school holidays to train up the teachers at the Ark, the shelter where Lindo lived. (see http://www.rata.org.nz/)  They are wonderful, and I am expecting it to be a fun evening!

Sweet dreams on lazy days............