A veces solo nescesitas un abrazo muy fuerte :)

Look what I saw on my through The SA Bush...a baby donkey and its mom hugging :)

Things you see ON and OFF the train...going back to site

More memory space clearing...

Here is a To-be-NOT-identified PCV who warmed himself up in one of those marathon heating blankets. All in all a great idea! Since the temperature of the train will plummet as the sun falls and you're stuck a car with screaming babies and people hacking up mysterious-TB-esque coughs...so some windows are open, thus the cold. But haha watching the expression of the other local South Africans as they passed by and stared at this whiped-out-tired PCV hah was hilarious. All expressions read: "What the....?!"

Picture of the house is a PCV's house, yes this full house is his and it's HUGE. Did someone say Posh Corp?! Rumor is he even has a shower with HOT water. Yeah he lucked out...while the rest of us will trudge back to site and jump into our bucket bathes with full PCV glory. I've actually taken to enjoying my time with my bucket bathe. That and the lack of door to door taxi service I'd say are really the only things I feel like are "roughin' it" for me here. Can't complain at all.

And to answer all those questions about how am I adapting back after going home over the break...umm good. I had no culture shock on either end. Here I have electricity all day, water, food from a supermarket which rivals Jhonny's Food Mastah in Charlestown, a phone which keeps me over-connected to what's going on in the world (so connected I often forget to reply to emails), job which I love, smiles from the cutest kids in the world, and sunsets that take your breath away.

Yup, I'd say I'm back home and "sharp!" (Pronounced "shoooppp")

Things you see from the train...coming back to site

Had these on my phone (craming up space) and wanted to get them up for people to see...

These were pics I took when I was traveling back to site from the long March/Easter school break while passing through Western Cape. It just amazes me how beautiful every province is here and how different too. I felt like I was in Europe, definitely NOT Afrika Borwa.

See the winery fields? And the sheep off in the distance in the other pic?

Winter Pudding Day!!

Masego has the biggest heart in the world <3 today she made for all the teaching and admin staff her homemade Malva Pudding a very typical South African dish!! Here's her recipe but I would also Google it to get a another version of it since didn't get a lot of the cooking specifics.

Malva Pudding: (serves 1)
1 cup flour
1 tablespoon margarine
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 egg
1 teaspoon apricot jam

(Sauce) boil milk and then add following:
250 ml cream
1 cup sugar
1 tablespoon margarine
1 cup water

(Custard) boil milk add ingredients and then cool:
500 ml milk
5 tablespoons custard powder
4 tablespoons sugar

www.food.com/recipe/malva-pudding-south-african-baked-dessert-118545

Freedom Day

On April 27th, 1994 ALL South Africans were finally about to vote. People age 18 and older entered lines at the poles to vote for their first time.

So this date now represents an official national holiday here in South Africa. I talked to the teachers at my school about the significance of this day and what it was like to vote for the first time. I was shown how the queue of people waiting had extending on and on throughout my small Northern Cape community. They told me how people were fainting left and right from having stood for too long.

At my school the police was invited to show the children how to officially raise the flag. We held a ceremony of traditional dances and songs and speeches by the teachers and students. Here is a picture from yesterday's event.

Soul Buddyz meeting on sexual abuse

This picture is from the other week where I stayed after school with the Grade 5's to show them a video on Child Sexual Abuse produced by Soul Buddyz with the funding of UKAID, SA government, MTN, PEPFAR, UNFPA, CDC, and BP (clearly getting the buy in from multiple funders).

I know I've explained before, but Soul Buddyz Clubs are a Soul City Institute "intervention" means used principally in the South African schools targeting students 8-14 years across all 9 provinces. At Robanyane Toto we have 3 facilitators of this club, including myself, where we meet on different issues that affect children and their community.

Child abuse is a significant problem in South Africa given these facts:

- 1 in 3 girls and 1 in 4 boys are sexually abused under the age of 10 years
- Rape is committed every 3 minutes
- Levels of violence and crime in the urban townships are high

We haven't had time to really deeply discuss the video we all watched about Avril who was abused by her uncle. But my hope is at this weeks meeting as we prepare for Thursday's Freedom Day activities we will talk about the importance of this. And as a teachers we all really need to be educated on the signs to watch in children who may be at risk of this danger.

Masego :)

I took this picture last Thursday of my friend and general worker at my school. Her name is Masego ("Ma-say-ho"). She's been like a second host mother to me at the school and always waits for me after school when I have programs or activities with the kid going on to close up the gates and turn on the security system.

Masego is so patient with my inability to grasp a fluency in Setswana (which most always accuse me of not speaking fluently 9 months into service). She will always ask me easy question about my day or weekend encouraging me to "bua" or "talk" in Setswana. Today she taught me how to say that's "very funny" and then we laughed haha.