Orphanages, kids and stolen hearts

Final blog in the Africa series....

While we were working on the project we ran a 'Kids Club' twice a week. Word quickly spread around the village that it was on, and the kids trickled in. We played games with them, sang songs (Heads, shoulders, knees and toes was a clear favourite!), did craft activities, painted faces and played sports games. The excitement and joy on their faces when we gave out a soccer ball to play with was a sight to see. And when the thorns on the ground put holes in the ball? No matter, the game went on with a flat ball! We got to know the kids quite well, they would also pop in to say hello on other days. More than once I would hear "Hello Jasmin" and see cheeky boys faces peeping out from behind a wall.

My two best buddies - little ratbags!

During the building process we had also been erecting a playground. The kids had longingly been watching the progress, but had not been able to touch it for safety (and paint!) reasons. On the last day of Kids Club, the playground was finished and ready for action! We left it till the end, then explained that they were allowed to play on it on the count of 3..... 1, 2, 3 - and all that could be heard was an almighty roar of screams and laughter as 50 kids descended on the playground! The entire team stopped whatever they were doing to watch - it was a really special moment for all, as we realised that our seemingly hard work had already paid off.


Chaos on the playground! The kids were zooming around, trying to play on every swing, slide, bar, all at once!


On two of the weekends we were there the group headed out to different places to hand out toys/clothes/food. One of the Saturdays we drove to two different orphanges. The kids were all waiting patiently to see us. Apart from giving out the goods we had, we also stayed and sang songs, played games (especially with the new sports balls) and had lots of cuddles. Personally I feel like that was more important than the material things - as much as those were desperately needed, the orphans are also needy for love, smiles, hugs and kindness.

On another Saturday we went to a ' Settlement', about 4 hours away from where we were staying and on the edge of the Kalahari Desert.  At the Settlement, the locals didn't know that we were coming, so there was a lot of excitement and people running after the bus once they saw it driving up the road! We handed out clothes, toys, food and sports balls - the latter resulting in a soccer game involving about 50 people! Both of these experiences were very confronting, confusing and quite powerful for us. To look into the innocent eyes of a 5 year old child who has lost both of their parents to HIV, and is afflicted with the illness themselves is heartbreaking. Sorry for the heavy stuff!

Kids singing songs with us at the first orphanage we went to. I believe those are the actions to 'Father Abraham has many sons', if anyone remembers that song from their Sunday School days!

Handing out toys to the girls - this one was a beautiful hand-knitted teddy

Gorgeous girls wearing their new clothes, with new toys held firmly in their hands!

The 'Settlement'. As you can see, it's all pretty bare and barren.

My beautiful new friend, who spent most of her time giggling at me - not sure why!

Mike (coach) and his soccer team

I feel like we learnt and took a lot more from these experiences than we could ever give back. Those kids completely stole my heart with their generosity, kind and open hearts, resilience, fun spirits and beautiful faces.

Off to the airport to jump on a plane to Rio, just to contradict everything I have been writing about! Lots of love xxxxx

Africa bits and pieces

Hi there (whoever you are)

We have arrived in Sao Paulo and I thought I better do a bit of a recap on our African adventures (other than the building stuff) before we get swept away in a wave of sangria, sun, sand and samba (ok maybe not samba).

Instead of a long winded narrative, I'll let you take a look at some of our photos and explain as we go - Warning: I have taken a lot of snaps of African animals...cos they are awesome...so lets start with them:

This elephant got a bit tetchy with us invading his space at a delicate time...he is an unusual breed of 5 legged elephant...

This is more of a family portrait

Couldn't resist sorry - Zebra crossing.

Melman(s)

Yas and Lans getting cosy with the cubs at a lion park just out of Pretoria

This guy took a liking to me

Mufasa lives!! Just in a game park now...

But there is more to Africa than animals and orphanages apparently.  Two weeks into construction we took a trip to Vic Falls in Zimbabwe and spent the weekend recharging our batteries.  That meant taking in the falls:

Enjoying a beautiful sunset cruise above the falls (as the locals call it "The Smoke That Thunders")

Unwinding at the hostel bar with our mate George, and helping him out behind the bar too...he was 86 or something

And what better way to unwind than jump off a bridge?  So we both did that too. Can't seem to load video on here (which is a bit of a blessing as I stuffed up filming Yas' jump...she should be over it by September I reckon).

After the construction was finished Yas, Tim, Ryan, Laura, Lans and I spent 5 days in South Africa (Sun City, Pretoria and Johannesburg) before all going our separate ways.  It was very relaxing:

So there are a few of our highlights so far, it's time to explore South & Central America for the next 5 months, can't wait...actually, come to think of it, don't have to!

Will post again soon(ish), once we find a beach that has free wifi.

Much love
Mike and Yazzy

Hello!

It's been nearly a month since we left home on our way to the village of Thamaga, Botswana to help out with the construction of classrooms and a playground for the Botswana Orphan Project...probably about time we started this blog thingy then.

Mum(s) we are safe and healthy.

So much has happened in the last 4 weeks that I can't put it all into one entry (I think I have about 700 photos already....only 200 if you discount the pics of Yas with little African kids and my snap happy ways with African animals). So I'm just gonna talk about the construction side of the project now and follow up later with our times travelling and then Yas can fill you in on all the kids she wanted to smuggle into her pack.

Our team of 22 (1 builder and a selection of farmers, CEO's, OT specialists, soft-handed former lawyers, teenagers and anything else you can think of!) had the challenge of building 3 classrooms, a playground, pathways around the existing buildings, painting all sorts of buildings/playground equipment/murals in 15 working days. Some of you might have seen some of the updates Yas wrote for the project and sent around and no one wants to read my ramblings so here are some pictures so you can see for yourself what we did and how it looks now (Kerry, the planter boxes were my idea...i'm sure you're proud).

This is what the classrooms looked like when we arrived...with 6000 bricks ready and waiting to be carried and laid

Lucky we had some special people on the job



Very special...Yas named her tools (taking centre stage in this pic is Neville the level)

Everyone got very familiar with shovels

I even used power tools! Please note that no children or animals were harmed in the staging of this photo.

And it quickly started taking shape!

Once the roof was on, it was time for the internals....so just the tiling, ceilings, gibstopping, plastering, painting, grouting....you catch my drift

so the experts got stuck in!



and got their hands dirty

Until we finished everything! Only a couple of 3am finishes required

 

So there you have it...we did it! I even used some power tools! I reckon it looks amazing and we hope that it will be a place that can help thousands of orphaned and vulnerable kids get a leg-up in life over the years.

We were given Setswani names by the locals, I am Lefika (The Rock) and Yas is Atang (Multiply)...actually Maa Toni said it was "Go forth and multiply the earth"...bit of a tough task if you ask me! But in my new persona as The Rock, I have no feelings on this matter.

We can't say enough about the qualities of our team and the locals we dealt with...even Matusi (we think it means "cantankerous plasterer"). Each team member gave everything they had in finishing what we had to do and it was amazing that there weren't any major personality clashes amongst 22 mostly strangers who lived on top of each other for 3 weeks.

It was great having a good mate like Tim Marshall around (the guy can fix anything...which is lucky cos he broke loads too...just kidding Reg!) and hanging out with my cuzzy Shiv and her husband Tim (the one builder) was great. We have made some great friends from the project that we hope to stay in touch with.

This has already gone on a bit long so I will wrap it up by saying that thanks to the BOP and the last 4 weeks I have gone from a retired lawyer to a bricklaying, roofstrapping, grinding, block chipping, trench digging, windowsill making, bricklifting, cement mixing, tile glue mixing retired lawyer...and that feels pretty good. Yas is now an expert tiler if anyone needs some bathroom work done and has huuuge muscles from lifting thousands of bricks (all the better to hug kids with!).

We are on our way to Durban after spending some time in Sun City, Pretoria and Johannesburg. Hopefully the sun keeps shining like it has nearly the whole time we have been here.

Will post again soon, haere ra.

Lefika and Atang

ps: classic that Samoa beat the Wallys!