annie in swaziland: I LOVE introducing new people to my amazing home away from home

Today Sydney and I woke up early and rode the kombi to eLangeni. We promised the cook we would once again help her prepare the meal for our 634 children. As we walked up to the school we saw all of our adorable little kids walking to school - coming from here there and everywhere - carrying large logs that were going to be used to cook their school lunch. The little tots walked up to donate fire wood larger than their tiny adorable bodies. I thanked them and lit the fire under our cook pots. Today we cooked sour porridge. Just as I was getting excited to cook something new, a teacher came in and was upset. She said that she was hoping that a more filling and nutritious lunch was on the menu today as many of her students commented that they haven’t had food since school lunch on Friday. It broke my heart. How can some have so much and others literally have nothing? At the end of our busy day, today we went to the wholesaler and purchased almost $400 worth of nutritious beans for the children (Thank you Mitali/FOODOM)!

But I am getting ahead of myself! As we were about to dish out the meal, I hear a rumbling and knew it was our driver with the new Give Hope, Fight Poverty volunteers. I ran out to greet Liz and Andee and immediately put them get to work. Within minutes of reaching Swaziland, they were already busy handing out 634 meals to hungry students. Afterward we went to set up our GHFP library. It is the very first of its kind! We have the “FUNDZA” (to read in siSwati) canvases painted by volunteers from our AIDS Candlelight party in Indianapolis (Thank you!!), a large carpet, handmade pillows, donated stuffed animals, and hundreds of books in our custom-made bookshelves! As soon as we were done organizing the books we invited 50 of the grade 1 students to join us. When the door opened, the teacher and children were breathless. The kids quickly removed their school shoes and found a place on the carpet with a pillow and stuffed animal preparing to listen to the stories. Liz, Andee and Sydney read the children books that have been donated in the States (Thank you all!!) and the children sat eagerly looking at the pictures and listening to our funny accents. When the books spelled the alphabet or counted numbers, the children delightfully joined in to show off their intelligence. Thank you for helping Give Hope, Fight Poverty create this library/English Literacy space for the children to enjoy for years to come. We are so grateful. If you’d like to sponsor one of our orphans’ education you can do so here:

http://www.ifightpoverty.org/orphan-education-sponsorship.html