Busy Busy

So this past week has been fantastic! We finished our fifth shift at Masigcine, and it was a very eventful shift. I'll try to keep it short though. We arrived on Sunday, so all the kids were home all day.. no school. Jen and I were fairly tired so the day seemed a little long. But it was nice too see all the kids. We don't get to see the older kids as much anymore. Anyways, on Monday we got to visit the primary school. That was pretty fun. It's right across the street, but we have never been in side. So Michelle took us over and we did a little tour and then went to Anale, Kwanale, and Zubenathi's grade 1 class. The kids were all outside on a break so we got to talk to them for a minute. Not sure why I said talking, I actually meant we stood there and gave all the children high fives and such. I noticed, while we were there, that the three boys were pretty much the only kids in their class that didn't have uniforms. Right now Masigcine has 8 children in primary school, but only 5 uniforms for the kids. They have a few more pieces to the uniforms but they are too large for the 3 youngest boys. So Jen and I decided to do a little shopping trip and buy some new clothes. Definitely the high light of the shift. After school, Michelle, Jen and myself took the three boys to PEP. It's the store where you can buy school uniforms. The boys were so excited. They don't get to ride in a car very often, so that was exciting for them. And then once in the store they were dancing around and singing along to the music. They carried around their new shirts, and shorts, and socks while we tried the shoes on them. It was a fun little outing. When we got back to Masi the three boys did a fashion show for us. They put on all their new clothes and showed them off to the Sisis and other school kids and us. They were very proud. We also did a trip to the clinic. Xoleseka (better known as Colleen) has an ear infection and nose infection, so we took him to get checked out. That was an experience! Interesting though. The poor guy had to get some shots and get weighed and such. Actually, he didn't want to sit on the scale so i had to hold him, stand on the scale, and then get weighed all by myself. Fun. The last exciting little chore of the shift was cleaning out the crawl space. They have a storage space under the stairs for all the extra food. However, some little creepy crawlies decided to feast on them. So Jen and I got the privilege of getting rid of them. We got to take each item out at a time to see if there were bugs inside. And mean while the bugs dispersed around us and started climbing up the walls, and up our legs, and up the curtains... and it was so gross. But we got it done.

Anyways, those were the high lights from our shift. It was a pretty good one. Oh yeah, the orphanage also got pets! We now have two bunny rabbits that live in a cage in the back yard. So many of the kids are afraid of animals because they don't get the chance to see them very often. So the orphanage is hoping that having rabbits will help the kid out. They are pretty cute.

So, now for the past three days. They have been pretty eventful too, but I'll try to keep it short. First day, Katie, Alyssa, Jen and myself climbed Table Top mountain... both ways! We decided not to be lazy and actually do the hike up to the top. Then we planned on buying lunch and taking the cable car down. I thought it would be more of a leisurely tourist hike. It was not! It was a 4 km hike of home made rock stairs the entire way. Too make things worse, the wind was enough to blow you off the mountain (no exageration, apparently it actaully wasn't all that safe for us to climb that day, however we saw other hikers). Then we reached the top and realized that since the wind was so strong, the cable car was closed for the day... which also meant that the restaurant was closed. No lunch for us... but we did get another hike! So we hiked our way down. Which was a little easier on the lungs... but brutal on the knees. After we finally got down from our 8 km mountain hike we decided to treat ourselves. We headed straight to the mall... got a cinnabon cinnamon bun and then went to a movie. Probably the nicest movie theatre chairs I have ever sat in. And we got drinks and popcorn and watched the movie (a new release even) all for under 5 dollars Canadian. Not bad eh? The next day we did a little tour. We went to Pat's house. Pat is an 83 year old author, and very interesting individual. I can't so her justice writing about her on here but I'll try to do a quick summary. She wrote the book "A Lion in My Bedroom" and it's about a little bit of her life. Mainly when she owned a lion I believe. Anyways, she has sold the movie rights to her book which is pretty neat I thought. So we had lunch there with her, and some people that work at her house. Then we got to do a tour of her house. She has approximately 35 dogs (saved from shelters), some baboons, a chimp, some monkeys, some peacocks, etc. It was pretty cool. Today we decided to go to Muizenburg. We heard the water is warmer there, and one of the girls is doing a surf school there as her project, so we went for a visit. It's 34 degrees today, so a good day for the beach. However, once we got there it was actually fairly windy. Still had a good time though.

Well, that's pretty much it for now. I have so much more to say actually, but I'm trying to sum it up in something that you will actually have time to read. Hope everything is going well will all of you. See you in like 10 days! Weird.

*This photo is of the boys giving us a fashion show after we went shopping at PEP.