Unspoken heartache.

For the first time since I've been out here the utter desperation of the situation in this country has truely hit me. It's hard to explain how I feel, and impossible to truely convey the suffering and heartache that characterises this town; its so hard to comprehend when you're living right in the heart of it so therefore impossible for those who have never experienced it but here is my attempt to explain.

The hardest thing about this place is so much goes unspoken and therefore unnoticed. Sometimes we forget that the majority of people here live in homes without running water and electricity, even people that work with us. This hit me hard when Tim was telling us about a lady that we work closely with whose tiny home has a roof that leaks directly onto her bed. She just deals with it, no fuss, no drama. If Tim hadn't have been to her house it would have continuted to go unnoticed. Next week we're going to help rebuild her roof, with roofing donated by a man who read Tim's blog. Its great that we are in a position to help but still heartbreaking that this is just one person out of millions who are suffering in silence and the hardest thing is knowing you are unable to help everyone, a fact that seemed to hit us all hard this week. 


The feeling of desperation increased as we got on with our daily activities this week. When driving to sports on Monday we passed 'chicken', a boy involved with our sports programme, whose younger brother Siphe attends our rainbow smiles group. Their mother is a patient at Thembacare, Thembalitsha's hospital and she has just come off her medication, meaning she does not have long to live. Its absolutely heartbreaking that she will soon be leaving her two young sons behind and yet the boys don't sit around feeling sorry for themselves they just get on with everyday life. It is clear that heatbreak and loss has just become a fundamental part of life here, with around 34% of the town living with the virus,  its so easy for death to just become another statistic. Yet when you know the family personally, its so painful to see the effect this virus can have. At rainbow smiles, we were talking about who we can trust and when asked who the kids trusted most in the world, Siphe said his mother, my heart broke in that moment for that boy who will soon be without his mum, the one person he trusts most in the world. 


Continuing onto sports we picked up one of our amazing sports mentors who told us about a 15 yr old boy from his school that had been stabbed at the weekend, another invisible tragedy that we would not have known about if it weren't for the words of someone involved. And to top it all off at the end of the day, when dropping one of the house mums off in one of the townships we witnessed a boy being beaten by a man, presumably his dad. There was nothing we could do but to drive on. What are the chances that the boy would tell anyone of this horrific abuse. Its highly likely that his suffering would go unspoken and that no-one but us would ever know of his pain that night, and probably many other nights.   

Kids

One of the most amazing things about this country, and a massive reason why we're here, is its children. Currently, I am sitting in a fully furnished house,  eating, using my laptop, listening to music on my ipod and playing 'draw something' on my phone, yet just 5 minutes down the road there are kids who don't have any of these things, the majority do not even have any electricity or running water. And yet these kids don't sit there feeling sorry for themselves or make a fuss about it they just get on with life and make their own fun. A few days ago we were driving around the townships and I saw kids skipping with a dead snake! It was really gross but also pretty amazing because they were all just having loads of fun, until the boys started chasing the girls with the snake ! 

The sports clubs here are run for kids 9-15 but yesterday over 35 little tiny kids turned up so me and Jess took the little ones off to play so they weren't in the way. As there were so many of them we struggled to know what to do to keep them entertained. We soon realised that we didn't actually have to do anything, because they entertained themselves using absoutely nothing.  We started doing 'the hokey cokey' which the kids found hilarious and after that they just began singing endless songs and showing us all the actions. It was so cute and so humbling to realise that these kids just didn't need anything to have a good time and that it wasnt about what me and Jess did to keep them entertained it was just about us being there with them. The consistancy of the sports clubs that happen once a week in each township are so vitally important to these kids, many of whom are from broken families, as it shows them that someone truely cares about them and wants to spend time with them, its hard to put into words just how important that is. 

In the Western World it seems like kids these days need all the latest gadgets to be happy and yet they do not even appreciate them. Last week at sports club we were doing questionnaires to see the effect the sports programme had on the lives of the kids that were involved. The kids were obviously given pens to fill the survey in and when they had finished they were desperate to keep the pens. Its crazy how things that seem so small an insignificant to us mean so much to these kids.

However, something that really annoyed me was when I was going through stuff that was donated to the kids here. Out of 3 big boxes of things only about 10 books and 1 truck were actually worth having. There were puzzles with missing pieces and books with pages ripped out and colouring books that most of the pages had been coloured already. It really fustrated me that people thought that these were good enough to donate. Just because these kids have come from homes that have nothing doesnt mean they dont deserve the best, like every other kid. 

The Second Few Days

So turns out when you go to South Africa everyone wants to know what you are doing at all times, so here is another post to keep everyone happy (mostly mum)


On Friday I went along to 'Rainbow Smiles' which is a group to help teenagers living with HIV/AIDS. The main focus of the group is to raise their self esteem and self worth as in this country there can be a stigma attatched to those living with the disease. Its amazing how just one meeting a week helps these kids develop confidence, self-esteem and reminds them that they are special, no matter what. 


The weekend was very touristy. On Saturday I spent the day with the lovely House family in Cape Town. We went to table mountain and the views were stunning, until the cloud came over and then the views were rather less stunning 

                  
Once we couldn't really see in front of us we decided to go back down and spent the afternoon down in Cape Town, was lovely, its such an amazing country I wish you could all be here to experience it too. 


On Sunday I spent the day with Tim and Maz, we went to church, where there was a CRAZY American man talking and then went to lunch at some friends of theres who by the way, have THE biggest house ive ever seen. This is such a weird concept when half an hours drive and there are huge families living in houses smaller than my bedroom. The drive home, via the beach, was lovely, the country is just so stunning! 

This morning I experienced the veeeeeeeeery boring side of running a charity as I spent my morning counting EVERYTHING in the childrens unit, and I mean everything; towels, toys, spoons, etc and this was made extra hard by all the beautifully distracting children asking me to play constantly. But it had to be done and so I was glad I could help :)  Sports club this afternoon was a lot of fun :) we played a massive game of netball and my team (of course) won, with only a little help from the cheating ref. The kids are just so friendly and you can see how much they appreciate and love you just because you spent a few hours playing with them; its such an amazing feeling. 

The first days

After skyping the family, deleting about a thousand photos of the motorway that Isaac House took on my camera, and doing the nightly spider check of my bed, I felt it was time to start my blog.So I've only been here four days but it already feels like forever, everyone is so lovely and it feels like one massive family, although I have to say i'm already missing everyone at home a lot.


So after getting off the plane and meeting Maz at the airport we set off for the village of hope, doing a huge number of errands on the way back (when all I wanted to do was sleep!) and although I've been here before it is still shocking to see the huge contrast that divides this country. I mean I spent the morning in a shopping centre, which could have easily been in the middle of Aylesbury, and then spent the afternoon with children who couldn't even imagine the life that we live. 

There are 10 children in the unit here, all with different stories but ultimately all without a family that are able to look after them. They are the most gorgeous children ever, all so loving and smiley and some, very cheeky. As they are obviously used to new people coming around, the minute I walked into the room they were all surrounding me, giving me cuddles and wondering why my hair was orange! The way their faces light up when any volunteers walk into the room is so amazing to see and I cant wait to get more involved with them.


On Thursday afternoon we did sports club, which they run in the townships every week from monday-thursday. After spending a ridiculous amount of time driving round picking the kids up and attempting to fit about 15 kids in a seven seater vehicle and then getting locked out the building we finally started sports where we played indoor hockey (because of the rain), or rugby with sticks as it became known. One of my favourite things about South Africa is how laid back it is and that there are no ridiculous health and safety laws that just smother the children back in England. Its just  amazing how just an hour a week of sport obviously means so much to these kids and its great that through sport we can break down so many, social, cultural and emotional barriers that may stand between us and the kids.