Another interesting and fun weekend in Ocean View!  On Friday, I went with Treswill in a cab and train for a meeting with someone interested in aligning their soccer league with Ubuntu. The cab was this long, narrow van. Inside we fit about 20 people in there. It was a sight to see. One white girl, a bunch of coloured people, and extremely romantic songs like “A whole new world” going on in the back ground at 10am, it was quite comical if you ask me. The train was fine. We were half way through the ride when this train worker came by and told us we had to move to a different kart or pay extra money. Treswill decided to argue with the guy saying that he had made up rules and we were allowed to sit there and all this stuff but they worker demanded that we move and I heard my first set of African swearing. The train ride back there was even more chaos. About 100 of us smashed into the kart. The pushing and shoving was unbelievable. I definitely stuck out like a sore thumb and this older guy made a point to laugh at me and point at me and all this stuff. It was the first real time I felt discriminated against because of the color of my skin. It was a humbling experience. Luckily, we both made it out alive and with no injuries, which is more than an old granny could say that had to jump out of a moving train! The meeting went well. We met with this 21 year old guy who had a soccer league going on in a nearby community called Capricorn. He too knew the importance of instilling life skills to these kids. Unfortunately, due to lack of volunteers and time he was having a hard time maintaining the teams and needed help with that aspect.
On Friday night, the youth from the next door church came over. There were about 12 kids that came, all except one was a boy, aged 13 to 18. I shared a little bit about myself in hopes that if they kids knew who I was and where I was coming from, then they would be more willing to open up and accept me. After I spoke, we all then had to draw a picture about an event in our life that changed us. The youth at first didn’t understand what to do, or so they said. Many were really immature and kept on laughing. We gave them some time to come up with pictures. Most of them took the activity seriously. You should have heard some of the stories. A few different times I just wanted to cry for them. One girl shared about her experience as an orphan after both her parents died. One girl shared about having to give her baby up for adopting. One girl went to talk about her picture, completely broke down, and didn’t talk for the rest of youth group. Another girl talked about how she felt so blessed to be able to live in the flats (really rundown apartments.) And another girl talked about how her grandparents, who were her parent figures, died, and she felt like she didn’t have a place in the world before. It was so sad and so crazy. For many of the girls, it was the first time they had really opened up about what was going on inside and what they were feeling. All of these stories were devastating to hear and made me appreciate so much all the blessings that I have.
On Saturday I went to an Ubuntu soccer game. The team they played wasn’t very good and they ended up winning by like 7 points. After the game, I went to my first African ‘braai.’ It basically is a cookout where you grill different meats on the grill. All the food was pretty good. I’m still not the biggest fan of sausage – American, English(thanks Dan for the bangers lol), or African.
On Sunday I moved into Heidi’s house. It is actually like 2 smaller houses with a courtyard. Heidi and her husband live in the back and her mom and I live in the front. I have been having a great time living here so far and the best part is there is a bed warmer!  Casey and I went on an 8 mile run. After 2-3 miles of straight up a mountain I was basically dead and so glad to have it over with! Later on a few of us went a concert and then to this Mexican place called ‘Fat Cactus.’ I couldn’t get over the fact that I was eating Mexican in Africa lol.
On Monday, I woke up feeling quite sick. I bought a bunch of Vitamin C stuff and took some crazy African stuff that hopefully will kick in soon. It was basically like a hot emergen-c but still kind of odd! I met with some of the people that run ‘kid’s club’ and then hung out at the Ubuntu practice. Hopefully I can load some pictures soon because I took some funny pictures of all the hoodlums piled into the car.
On Tuesday I went to the grocery store and worked at kids club. The kids are crazy and always going about a million miles an hour! Some of them are really sweet though and love getting attention. Speaking of crazy kids, my twin, Tomica, burned the sh@t out of her lip when her and another little boy were playing with a lighter. Luckily it was only her lip that got burned but it is so sad that she wasn’t being watched and that had to happen to her.
Hopefully by the end of the week I will be able to figure out my full schedule! I’ll be back in the states in less than 2 months! Miss you all…keep me updated with what is going on with all of you!