Hazyview {Saturday, Feb 21}

Sanibonani! That’s hello from Hazyview, a small town in the Mpumulanga Province of SA. Here the language is Swahili. I’m amazed at the amount of languages in this country. So far I think we’ve heard some Zulu, Afrikaans, Swahili, Sotho, and English. Unless it’s English they all sound the same to me. I try to mimic and it makes the kids laugh.

It was a five hour drive in our Condor SUV… luggage behind us in a little trailor. Hazyview is a beautiful town bordering Kruger National Park. The drive here was gorgeous. We drove through small rural villages where women carried food and water on their heads with babies strapped to their backs with towels…. We drove through grassy plains with no civilization in sight…. And we drove through the mountains, which was my favorite. I tried to do some taping, but it just doesn’t do it justice. It was weird seeing elephant caution signs as we drove into town. I haven’t seen one yet, but I think it will happen here soon.

This week has been awesome!! Everyone is safe and healthy. We are staying in someone’s vacation home in a gated community. It is the nicest missionary accommodation I’ve ever seen. We are working with Reverend “Tevey” and his orphan care ministry. Friday morning we got to visit 2 schools and do presentations. Each school had probably 200-300 learners. At the second school about one-fourth of the kids raised their hands when the headmaster introduced the Reverend’s work with orphans and asked how many did not have parents. It was heart-wrenching. Rev. Tevey supplies 5 (going on 6) central care giving centers with food and water for orphans in the community. Each care center usually feeds at least 100 children. These orphans are usually taken in by a grandmother or neighbors. The black culture here does not embrace the idea of orphanages.

Today was one of the most impactful days yet. One of our responsibilities this week is to assist Rev. Tevey in assessing living conditions of the orphans he’s helping. Our group split up into a leader, national, a guy team member, and a girl member and visited the homes where these children are living. Wow, heart-wrenching stuff. It’s what you hear about, but can never quite imagine. We walked through grassy brush…on dirt roads…climbing mountainside… passing communities of wooden shacks or small brick buildings with tin roofs (sometimes). It was one big third world neighborhood. One thing we did recognize though was the Justin Timberlake and Beyoncé blaring from random houses. Gio and I made a game of naming the American hip hop as we walked through. That much was entertaining for sure.

Our goal was to document living conditions (we had an observation chart) but also to have fun!! It was depressing seeing living conditions like this… homes that had no access to clean water, people literally devoid of emotion from the poverty, homes with one outfit for every family member (with huge holes all over the place), one mattress for 8 people (aka children sleeping on dirt floors), a boy with a large protrusion from his belly button (probably a parasite or hernia), and children with sores (most likely from HIV/AIDS). So yes, lots of depressing stuff. But it was our job to make those kids smile and laugh. To bring a little fun and a lot of love into their day. While one of us sat with the translator documenting conditions and speaking with the caregiver, others played games with the children. At one house we had about 8 African kids teaching us dance moves. At first, it was us teaching them like… oh, the shopping cart, or the lawn mower… Then one of the girls started break dancing and looked at us to repeat after her. Oh my gosh, it was a riot!!! They thought our dancing was funny and we loved theirs. There was a four year old boy getting DOWN. I so wish I could’ve videotaped this for you. It was hilarious. But for safety reasons we only carry our Nalgenes (water bottles) in these areas. So I’m trying extra-hard to imprint everything in my memory.