Day 2:
I didn’t sleep a wink last night. There was a wind storm so
bad that it was setting off car alarms and making dogs bark. Never any rain, thunder, or lightening – just
Wizard of Oz style wind. Then the alarm went off (even though I had been awake
for hours listening to wind whistling and dogs whimpering) to start
our day at 6:30am, we realized that the winds knocked the electrical lines
over. There is no power. We get ready in the dark and head out to
start our day at the eLangeni Primary School.
The cook, Susan, is the most hardworking incredible lady
around. The girls helped her cook sour
porridge for the school lunch and as we were dishing out the 150 bowls for the
1st and 2nd graders, we realized that the “window” that
opens to allow kids to walk up and be served was broken. The wood rotted through. This was a travesty because now the cook will
have to dish on the inside of the building and carry all 150 bowls out 2 by 2
by herself and somehow still manage to serve all 150 children in 12 minutes so
they have 8 minutes to eat and wash their bowls before they have to return to
class. Mission impossible.
So, thanks to your donation dollars, we hired the most
charming rural carpenter to fix the window.
His name is Bheki and he has grown up in eLangeni but studied to earn
his carpentry license. He said he would
spend 5 hours today fetching the materials from a neighboring city, cutting the
wood, painting it, sealing it for the weather, affixing it to the hinges when
the paint dried, and attaching it to the kitchen all for a whopping $10 USD (don’t
worry, we paid him more than he asked for).
He did a beautiful job using his own tools and then carried his own
power saws and paint brushes via wheel barrow up the steep mountain to his home
afterward. I told him that when I return
in December with my father in law Garry, we will hire him to help us build furniture
for all of our child-headed homes. When
Ty, Garry, Teresa and I are here for New Year’s we are going to perform Extreme
Makeover Home Editions at all of our child-headed homes so they can have
tables, chairs, and beds in their now empty homes. And when I say “we” are going to do this, I
mean Garry and Bheki are going to do this while Teresa, Ty, and I watch and
play with the children! Ha!
We then went to deliver more food since the kids will rely
on it until the next time we return in November (Thanks Mitali!). We went to deliver to Nkhosingiphile’s house
while she was still in school (I found it, barely, after driving up and down
multiple treacherous dirt roads with people giving me directions along the way
such as “ohhh, they live over on that side” – while pointing off into the ambiguous
distance), but her deaf and impaired mother didn’t realize we had pulled
up. She couldn’t hear me knock or yell “Sawubona!!” Just as I thought we’d give up for now, she
came out randomly and saw me. The first
thing she did was order her son to climb her avocado tree and pluck while she
stood below with a blanket to catch the amazing edibles, our gifts. She did this all while coughing
ferociously. Her TB is back and she said
every time she eats, she throws up. I’ve
been terrified for years that she was going to die, but she always pulled
through. Praying for another miracle…
When we reached Sanele’s house, he was ready for us with a
smile and a gift. He had painted two new
beauties for me… A ship scene with dolphins swimming around it and a sunset
scene over water where the sun reflects elegantly in the lake below. I am so proud of this kid for his effort in
school, his effort working to build the teacher’s quarters at our secondary
school to help pay for his school fees, and his effort caring for his
physically and mentally impaired brother who spends his days on a blanket on
the floor while his loving brother is at school working hard in hopes to
brighten both of their futures. It was
in Swaziland where I learned to love and learned what was important in life. I often tear up when I think of our Give
Hope, Fight Poverty kids and the amazing people they are. I learn from them every day and I hope to grow
more and more like them over the rest of my years. I simply cannot imagine a better feat to
aspire to.
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