Picking Up

I am sitting here in the lounge in my principal’s home thinking that I am one lucky son of a gun. After long conversations and moving things around a bit, I have finally found a place to live that is suitable for me and for the work I am going to be doing. Most volunteers would hate this set-up because it involves living at the location where you work. However, after being an RA for two years and living in a room about the size of a cracker-jack box, I am sure that this living situation will work out just fine. I cannot give the location of where I am living for security reasons for myself and the children, however, I can say that if you want my address, you can get it from Nida or my family. I will be working at Inkanyiso Special School Monday through Thursday and also at Inkululeko Babies Home every afternoon and on Fridays. I am starting my first two days at the babies home this weekend because they are short staffed. I visited the babies home yesterday and I must say that I have never seen cuter babies in my entire life. I am already so attached to a beautiful four month old baby boy. He is absolutely gorgeous despite the fact that he is missing half of his right arm and is a bit scarred on his face. His cuteness is only surpassed by his funniness. He will mimic any facial expression I make with such precision that I cannot believe he is only four months old. There are some twins at the babies home who are also absolutely adorable and one of them will just throw his head back so fast that it nearly scares you to death the first time he does it when he is held just so that he can crane his neck around to see anything and everything that is going on. Already I can tell that this experience is shaping up to be the time of my life.

Anyone who knows me is aware that I simply cannot be content being inactive. I must have something to do at all times even if that means that I am just reading, writing, or shooting the breeze with a friend. Even though this attitude is changing as I am here in South Africa, my pace has not. I am always doing something. In the past four days, I have been to two braiis (cook-outs for you Americans =), played with numerous HIV positive orphans, visited a school, attended two war re-enactments, made five new friends, found a place to live, seen my first rugby match, eaten pickled fish (sounds gross but is absolutely delicious), enjoyed South African wine with the neighbor, been made fun of numerous time because of my accent, joined the library, and signed myself up for a nearly full time secondary project. I used to write in a journal before I went to college and have begun writing again and I am absolutely amazed everyday at the person I was yesterday. Please do not get me wrong, I am not amazed by me because frankly I am not all that amazing. What I am amazed by is how I am changing everyday. My body is pretty much the same, maybe a few pounds lighter, but my mind is a great deal heavier. There are just so many more windows and doors open in my mind then there ever were before. In America, I felt like the world was open to me, however, after moving abroad I realized that this actually was true. I have realized that I was not born to live inside any one border for the entirety of my life. I am not saying that I will always live overseas, because I have no intention on doing so at this point. What I am saying is that the possibilities seem endless now and I simply could not see standing on American soil.

If it wasn’t so expensive, I would upload more pictures to the internet because I feel like my words are lacking and that pictures just explain this experience so much better. I cannot take pictures of the babies now or disclose much about their status because I am bound by confidentiality, however, I will update this again soon and hopefully I will have lots of interesting anecdotes to share. Until then…salani kahle (stay well).