I feel as if I'm in a transition time of sorts, here in Empangeni and at Ikhaya. Things are settling, children are being adopted, and the potential for a lot of change is upon me. One of our most lovely babies has been placed with her new family from Canada, one of our infants (who I visited today) is in the hospital with Meningitis and TB complications, and the number of children at Ikhaya is down to two. It will be a quiet place tomorrow when I go back to work for the week. That said, we are welcoming a new long term volunteer, John, from the states as well (yipee) and hopefully starting a new feeding/cooking program. My job is ever expanding but my feeling of "grasping" has come to a new level, so its a good feeling to bring to this new chapter. Its almost April! I have many things I'm going to miss about not being at home for this month, because of the holidays and two very special birthdays (hello lauren and maria), but I'm thinking that the new challenges will be enough to keep my occupied and motivated. Despite major plumbing problems at Ikhaya recently, we now have phones and a printer and are close to having internet. We are also making some headway with several of our children's cases that have lapsed beyond reasonable expectations and our causing major problems in placing children into families. Hopefully we can clear those up with visits to the commissioner this week and then we can focus on potentially getting new kids into the home!
Other than the Ikhaya happenings, things are strolling along in my life outside of work. The road-trip-of-a-lifetime was out of this world and I still can't stop staring at the beautiful mercedes in the driveway. We made it over 1400 kms in two days of driving and managed to eat our selves silly at fast food restaurants (who so generously sold us their used oil for very cheap). Gas station coffee here is luckily far better than the states and if there is ever a comfy car to take a road trip in, an old mercedes is it. April brings possibly more trips, to Pretoria for a weekend, and a really awesome lady who helps at Ikhaya (who I have recently bonded with) has invited me to Mtunzini for exploring and a day with her lovely family.
This upcoming week brings more visits to Ngwelezana Hospital to visit and care for Sipho, new volunteer training, handing over some cooking to someone else (finally!), and hopefully some cooling down of the weather. That's all folks.
-C
Me
Bring it on!
2 comments:
I'm really excited to hear that you are going to have some men and a friend out there with you. Time sure is flying.
Hi, I stumbled across your blog - I typed in Empangeni hail & walla you were further down the page. I too have a blog, scrapyard queen. Our place is in Empangeni and behind the Boxer Rail area down Tanner street.
You are doing real good work, we feed the street kids here in Richards Bay but on a small scale. My hubby and I have just managed to pay for a guy to do his welding certificate, also just off the street. My daughter (18) is involved with visiting the orphans in Babalango and my other daughter (26) teaches Ballet. Our shop is in Empangeni but we all live in Richards Bay. My husbands son (33)is involved with the laying of water pipes to Esikhaweni. Well I am not too sure why I am adding this to your blog other than to say great job and let me know if you need anything, or if you come to Richards Bay pop in for coffee.
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