Night shifts, dirty nappies and new adventures

Hi there you all,

My time at the new place is almost done, I had a wonderful time and happy to have this new experience, now more people and get to know more and more about the country.

I’m really glad that I get the chance to get to know this country, the problems and the different people. It is so different comparing it to my holiday in April. I know so much more now, mostly in the bad way of sad stories but I also get to know people who do the most wonderful thinks over here. This whole experience is really interesting en enriching for me.

Today a new baby girl will arrive; I hope I can come along to pick her up. She is now in another place, so would be nice to see how they do it over there.

The other place was very different, but again, met some great people! I’m happy that I could help them out these days. I’m also happy to see O en P back at Tshepo Ya Bana.

I get to know more and more about the problems in this country, most of all it is the dis knowledge. People simply don’t know thinks. Ok, image an African woman reads an article about budget in an American magazine. This is a whole new experience, becauses she has never heart of the word so doesn't know what it means although she is 62 years old. I didn’t make up this story, this is how it is over here. Image: teachers in day cares who aren’t able to make puzzles. Not because they aren’t smart enough, they just never learnt. If no one teaches or tells other people, they will never know. All changes count, but for the big chances they will need a lot more time.

At my new temporary place I work with 3 babies from under 1 year and a girl who is 1 year and 8 months old. The stories vary from found in a sports bag in front of someone’s house to mums who were pregnant at 11 years old. You know but if you really see and experience how it is, I can tell you it is different. All of the sudden it gets’s really real. You realize that these problems can’t be solved in 1 day and changing things isn’t that easy. This because people don’t know any better so they wont just chance their way to yours over night. So you need patience, time and a positive view on things.

Besides this side I meet a lot of people who try to make a difference. Who set up programmes to teach day care teachers, get 4000 breakfasts sponsored at day-cares, work on their projects everyday and so much more!

I now have the experience of taking care of more babies at the same time, more baby’s equals more dirty nappies. Which is always a party! Night shift are full of dummies, poo and milk. With this amount of baby’s, its milk and spit all over the place. What makes me very happy is to see them happy and loved. They had a rough start on life, but now they have a future.

I was happy that they were able to wake me with their crying, sometimes I can sleep really deep so I was a bit concerned. There was one baby (2 months old) who always began crying just before I got to sleep. I was almost sleeping and that exact moment he would start to cry. I did survive in the end ;)

The other day, someone took me for a little drive in the reserve. We didn’t see many animals (apparently I scare them away) L. We did see a white jackal, which was special cause they are rare.

Yesterday I went for a dusty walk in the wild over here. A few children took me; they live at this new place to. The woman who started this takes care for them cause the mum isn’t able to. I will post some pictures to let you see how this looks like.

One boy is sort of neighbour and friends with the kids. The cows are his and his brothers. Their parents both passed away and now the cows are theirs. The story is so sad, but he was so nice and proud about his cows.

They have orange trees over here, so I enjoyed a fresh picked South African orange.

I will go back end of the day, so I will have to say goodbye to all the new people/kids who I met over here. Maybe I will help them out another time again….

Hope you enjoyed reading, can’t believe on Tuesday already a month has gone by, time go's so fast it's unbelievable. 

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