Monday

Day 5:
The last two days have been Malindza days…and for those of you who have been here, you know that means hard work and heartache.  But on the drive home tonight we saw the most beautiful sunset over the mountains – shades of pink and orange highlighting endless black mountain peaks in the landscape.  I feel like the beautiful sunset was the perfect end to our trip.  Yes, we have 2 more days of delivering food to homesteads and cooking at our primary school – but the hard part is over. 
Today was a good introduction for the girls to NGO work in a developing country.  We set out to have a meeting at 8:30.  I was rushing the girls to get ready and then rushing to the wholesale shop to pick up literally tons of food for our Give Hope, Fight Poverty: New Hope Primary School.  Then rushing (as though I am playing Mario cart to avoid the watermelon sized pot holes) to our meeting place…only to find him not there.  He calls later to tell us he is held up and is “on his way”.  Almost an hour later he still has not arrived.  Then, when he gets there, we head to pick up two men who are going to represent us in front of the Ministry of Education so that our school is adopted by the government in January (after many hoops and Maseko’s extremely hard work!).  We find that one necessary man is patiently waiting under a tree on the side of the road (and probably has been since 8:30 this morning)… but when we drive down dirt paths for miles to fetch the other – we find he is not there.  Did he go to the bathroom?  Go to lunch?  Go to pick up his sick grannie from the hospital???? No,, he is in South Africa and didn’t bother to tell anyone he was leaving.  So, the meeting will have to be postponed. 
But all is not lost – we head to the Regional Educational Officer for him to draft a letter we will need to start a school bank account.  The letter took around 2 HOURS to type.  Hours. We were running out of precious time.  Our school was about to be over and we would not be able to see our little students if we reached the school after they were released – so we sped to the bank!  Once inside we wait in a long queue and when we finally reach the teller, he counts out 50,000 rands VEEERRRYYYYYY SLOOOOOWWWWLLLYYYYYYY.  It was as if we were in one of those comedies that aren’t at all funny – like that movie “Neighbors” (GOSH was that awful) – because our bank teller counted each bill one at a time and then placed each one under a black light to make sure I wasn’t part of the international counterfeiting mafia or something.  Needless to say my volunteers were bored out of their minds and I was sad that when we reached the school only the cook and teachers remained.  On the positive side, Casey played hairdresser and braided all of the girls’ hair while they were waiting for our bank teller to get his act together. 
At New Hope, we dropped donated refurbished laptops reformatted by Heather’s fiancĂ© Kevin (thank you Kevin!!).  The teachers were even in awe – I can’t wait to see the students using them!! We also dropped off pre-school teaching tools and items for our brand new indoor kitchen!! Afterward we left to make home visits.  We have six orphaned 1st graders who are especially in need.  They are in child-headed homes with only an elderly great-grandmother taking care of them.  At one of the homes, a great-grandma who seemed as old as the earth said that she was thrilled to receive the food care package (Thanks Mitali!) because she has had nothing to feed the (crying) baby for 3 days.  (She raises 6 great-grandchildren under the age of 9 – all of her children and grandchildren are dead). 
When we went to another great-grandmother’s house she pulled out the Swazi couch for us (a grass mat) and told us to sit down.  Then she went on to say “Blessed is the hand that gives” and kneeled to pray for our safe journey home and that we would return again to help her as she and her great-grandchildren could not survive without our donations.  I call her my “dancing great-gogo” because every time I see her she dances and smiles beautifully through her missing teeth.  I explained to her that she too gives!! And even more than we do!! She walks miles to our school to help however she can.  She carries HUGE jugs of water on her head so our builders can mix their plaster.  She waters our vegetable garden so our children can eat their school lunch (Thanks Mitali) and she helps serve that school lunch also.  She is a blessing to me and our children.  I wish they would stop thanking us and start thanking themselves. She said that she is so happy that we built a completely free primary school in her village (the children do not pay for ANYTHING! School supplies, backpacks, uniforms, everything is paid for by you guys – our Give Hope, Fight Poverty donors!).  She said otherwise her 6 year old twin great-grandchildren would not be able to earn an education because she hasn’t seen even a 10 rand bill ($1) in years.  

The new school year doesn’t start for another 6 months and already we have students lined up to register.  They are even coming from 8km away!! I am sad there will be students walking 5 miles each way to our school but I am happy that we are able to give them their only chance at an education – even if their journey to and from school will be a struggle.  Our registration numbers are reaching amazing heights which is so exciting and also so scary – where will this money come from to support them all?  Kait and I are only two people.  But then I remind myself that I have been asking myself this question for 7 years and I have to relax and know that the resources always (somehow) come.  Somehow, someway – we are able to pull through for these amazing children only because of the grace of God and the generosity of our donors.  Blessings to all tonight: www.ifightpoverty.org/donate.html

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