Hey everybody! Hope you all are having a great week and ready for a nice weekend! It has been an interesting few days here in Ocean View with a lot of exciting updates!

I met my host family who seem really nice. My new host mom, Mrs. Heidi, seems like a lot of fun and will be good company. I’ll only be living a few houses down from Sarah and Casey so it’s really convenient. I’ll get my own room and share a bathroom with my host grandma so that isn’t bad at all. My room has a nice set up with a bed and a couch and everything so if anyone needs a place to crash you are more than welcome to here in Cape Town! Lol.

On Wednesday, I also had a meeting with the Volunteers Coordinator from the health place I am going to work with. He was a super nice American dude and I am so glad to be able to see direction for the next two months. For a few weeks I am going to try everything out and then zone in on what I really like doing.

With Living Hope I am going to be… 1. Shadowing Sarah’s friend Amy. Amy works as a nurse for Living Hope so we will go to visit patients at home as well as support groups and eventually I will be helping with promoting healthier eating habits and that sort of thing. 2. Make a health curriculum for programs to be used later on. 3. Do “Kid’s Club” a couple days a week – basically a ghetto YMCA with a bunch of hooligans, some games, and a little bit of Jesus thrown in there.

I’ll still be helping with Ubuntu…I’ve been going to practices which are quite fun and the boys, although some a bit shy, have all been quite nice to me. As Casey puts it, “They need to learn to be around women and respect them so they don’t become womanizers later on.” Touché lol. There will be a fundraising event next month that I’ll be able to help organize as well.

I am really pleased with all the experience I will be getting and I’m hoping that it will really help me to see what I am passionate about and hopefully find a job in that area once I get back to Raleigh.

I got to go to an HIV support group on Thursday. Luckily, Sarah came with me and helped me feel more comfortable. (I swear she feels at ease with everyone).  It is a bit unnerving being in a group like that for the first time but I am definitely glad that I went. I couldn’t understand much of the conversation because they weren’t speaking in English for a lot of the time but I did catch a few things. Some of the people didn’t even know how they got HIV. They thought they had gotten it from TB. I couldn’t believe it. In a country where HIV/AIDS is such a huge issue, how can adults not know how they got it? It was worrying to think if people do not know how it is spread, it will just continue to get spread, and they also will not even be able to educate their children about prevention. It almost seems hopeless but I know with God all things are possible and although people may not be as educated and/or as healthy as we would hope for them to be, they still deserve and can give out such love. The message I got from the leader today was that we are responsible for our own bodies and as long as we respect them and keep them healthy than we can use to help and love others, which is really what matters after all.

Later on in the afternoon, I got to hangout more with the Ubuntu boys. While soccer is the name of the game and Casey and the other coaches (Mike and Treswell who are super cool) put much time and effort into improving their skills, they do it for such a bigger cause. The crazy thing is, is that these 12 year old boys get that. Some more than others, but they understand that they have been given such a great opportunity. Although some of the boys have grown up in nice homes and nice families like you and I, many have not. Many have seen things that no one should ever have to see, in places that no one should ever have to live, and they know that they could so easily fall into the streets like so many others have done in their same situation. Coaches and supporters give these kids the opportunity to succeed by putting them in a great school (if funds are available), feeding them after practice, as well as engraining characteristics of being successful. It is such a God thing that these boys can come together and look past their different backgrounds and gain such success. Literally, they actually are ranked top of their league, way to go coaches!

A big thanks to Daniel for putting my blogs up, since I have limited internet and can’t upload things. Hope all the UNCW soccer boys have a great preseason and ready to beat some you know what! Good luck with the early morning practices (boo!)

Miss you all, please come visit J

Lots of Love,

Amanda