Vehicle licences, weird names and the hospital

Hello there,

Today I would like to start with sharing a text about travelling, which I really like:

Life is about exploring the moments that matter, moments that no one can take away from you, that will stay with you forever.

Maybe it’s time to leave, discover what you always wanted to achieve, 

Find the places you’ve always dreamt of, but only vaguely imagined experiencing. Perhaps you need to challenge yourself, realize who you are and embrace who you are becoming; perhaps you just have to get lost to find yourself.

There is something out there that will define you.

Some people ask me why I write in English; I want to make it accessible for everybody and it’s a good way to try and improve my English ;) 

My last day at the Butterfly foundation was last Friday. We were supposed to pick up the new baby, but when we arrived there was a paper missing so we couldn’t get the court order. We did see you though. It was a cute little girl. The place where she stays had a ten days old baby too. She was so tiny, too cute. After all the disappointment we went to a post office to renew the vehicle license. I ended up filling in the papers for a man who couldn’t do it himself. Now I know how to renew it in South Africa….

My time at the other place was nice, seeing another way of doing things and meeting different children/people.

At Tshepo Ya Bana I met the family who will live with us for a while. The girl is a bit older than me and is about 8 months pregnant. Her boyfriend and her son (3) are here too. It’s nice otherwise the house is so quit. Now there are some more people around. They will be here for a while, so maybe we will have a little baby soon!

Last Sunday I had a ‘proper’ Skype conversation with my family, the first good one in a month. It was nice, cause now I could tell some more detailed stories about what I see here.

Two days ago I went to the hospital to bring some clothes and hats, which I brought in that SCS bag from the Netherlands. I would prefer not give birth here, the circumstances are not so nice. The hospital is so different from the ones in the Netherlands. All the newborn babies lay in one big hall with all the mums. No private rooms or rooms for 4-6 mums. I could just walk there; it felt so weird. One mummy let me put some clothes on her baby boy, so I could send the picture to the organization. After that I even went to the place were all the babies are born, image how weird it is to see woman in labor and you can just walk past them as the wait in the corridor. This whole experience was so uncomfortable but I’m happy that I brought the clothes and know in what circumstances people give birth here.

One other thing I wanted to talk about is naming your children. In Europe you have weird names, people feel sorry for the children. Over here people call their first child after the circumstances it was born in. Like Flower if it’s spring, Surprise, rain if it rains, apology is a real name over here. This are the meanings of their names, the real names are in Tswana. So in Europe people make a whole problem of names and over here children are called apology cause the parents want to apologize to their parents. I was really surprised by this. It comes from the tribes who called their children after daily things like rain and flower. So I will never look surprised about a name anymore now.

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