Thunderstorms

Well I finished my first week of service sites and I am loving it already. First I have to admit that at the end of these three weeks I will be exhausted to no end. Service sites are draining but are worth it in every way. To give a little overview of what happened my first two days working at RivLife I will explain what we did. When we got there first we went and met with the boss of the organization and had a mini orientation. He basically briefed us on what we should expect when going out in the community and precautions. What I was surprised about was that our boss decided to ask each of us about our majors and what we plan on doing in our future. He wants to get us involved in the RivLife programs that he feels we will be able to do well in. That made me very excited. 

The last two days have been us doing random things around RivLife. We mainly worked with the preschool and helping the teacher run it. I am still amazed that one teacher is in charge of 30 five year olds. I do not know how she does it. So we helped her with feeding them, teaching them their alphabet and numbers. The little kids are adorable, you cannot help but smile when your around them. I am not even a big kids person and my heart went out to them. I realized being at this service site God is challenging me and putting me outside my comfort zone. You just can't simply get angry at the kids there. Their smiles are absolutely contagious. 

In the afternoons we go to the drop in site which is pretty much an after school program for older kids. We helped in serving meals to the kids when they get out of school. Most of the kids that come there will not get a meal that night so they provide them with food. Everyday there is an emphasis on something. Somedays it will be helping with homework, teaching life skills or having a soccer coach to come in and work with the kids. It is a great site to be working with. The kitchen staff is hilarious and make me laugh so much. They are four older ladies with the best sense of humor. I cannot wait to get to know them better.

I am excited to get out into the community and do the social worker aspect of the organization. We will be able to make it to the support groups in the next coming week. Something I noticed while being at service sites is that I am finally having true culture shock. I am getting out of the APU bubble of AE and seeing what life is among the community. Something I noticed was that at the end of the day when the preschoolers were getting picked up it was not the parents that came to pick them up but was their brothers and sisters. It just broke my heart to see that 10 year olds were coming to pick their little brothers and sisters up after school and making sure they got all their things and signing them out. It is mind blowing because those things would never happen back in the states. I am learning and will soon be experiencing the family dynamics in SA. Most of the children take on the parenting roles in the house because their parents are sick with HIV/AIDS or our working. It amazes me to see how much responsibility is put onto a small child. Something else that is shocking is that physical punishment is accepted in SA. To discipline or punish a child smacking the tops of their hands is completely acceptable. A boy in the preschool misbehaved and one of the staff came in the room and smack the tops of both his hands and sent him into crying. The sad thing is that they expect is and have their hands already out to receive it. It is little things that you experience that make you feel like you are not from there. I continue to take on the challenge of experiencing new things.

Today we went to an indoor market and were able to get many souvenirs. It was fun to go into the markets and be able to barter. I was pretty good at getting the prices down low. I got such fun gifts I can hardly wait to give them. Tonight when we got back onto campus there was an epic thunder and lighting storm. We all sat outside and watch the huge bolts of lighting. Even ran and got soaking wet through the rain. It is one of those nights you will always remember. Tomorrow we are off to the beach and market again and I am just ready to be able to relax! 

Good Night from South Africa.