I have to celebrate you baby,
I have to praise you like I should.
My last blog over here! It's been a really hectic week, I've been sick with flu since Saturday and saw the doctor on Tuesday who scared the living daylights out of me by telling me I had all the symptoms of Swine Flu. She treated me for it but told me there was a possibility I might not be able to fly home, which was pretty shocking news. I am all better now and didn't have swine flu, but even if I had, it is just flu at the end of the day. They are extremely jumpy about it over here though, our project leader freaked out because his wife and two kids had flu.
In short, I missed most of this week with the kids and got the A-ok from the doctor this morning so was able to go to the project, and it was amazing. A mad day, but the end feeling was that everyone had gotten something positive out the experience. I can't stop myself smiling at the moment. After yesterdays horrible wind and rain, the sun was shining and there wasn't a cloud in sight which set the tone perfectly. After not having seeing me for two days and thinking I wasn't going to come back, the kids were so pleased to see me, it was wonderful.
Everyone was busy cleaning the toilets; which was amazing to see because it was what we had wanted to do since we first saw them, by the time I got there though, most of the dirty work was out of the way and so I got stuck in sweeping the drains. A few people earlier had been literally covered in faeces, which isn't exactly tasty but I guess that is what happens when 100 kids a day don't flush a toilet.
I had bought balloons, sweeties a big bubble maker and some school stuff like pens, pencils, paints etc... And the kids loved it, all the volunteers had brought something, cake or temporary tattoos or hair accessories. What disappointed us was that whilst cleaning, of of the kids had gone through Marlies' bag after she had given them a sweet and they had taken the rest of the bag and some of the hair pins. Throughout the entire 3 weeks we had not once been robbed, but today was shocking. There was also ten rand missing from the desk drawer and so the last 15 minutes of our day was sadly spent searching the kids. We found out who had taken the money, but nothing else. It made us feel slightly abused, we'd brought presents and things for everyone, so they all would have gotten things, but this still happens. We did have a lovely day apart from that though, there were kids that were new to me as I had been away for 2 days but they were very open and sweet so everyone had a happy day. What made me joyful was the realisation that these kids no longer had to be reminded to use manners, and would automatically say "thank you", for me that is an achievement.
There were a lot of tears though, even the boys were crying, bless them. It was a bittersweet day. The project leader was singing to us and we had received personal messages from his wife as a thank you and we just started and the waterworks didn't stop. Seeing the kids crying on the other side of the classroom was really hard for us all, by the end of the song we ended up holding a few of them. After the song the kids gave us cards they had made for us, which were really sweet. There was a lot of group hugging and one girl in particular was asking me if we'd ever forget them. She was so upset she was shaking. She'd been in my class, Christelle, and she'd had a very hard life having lost her mother as a small child. A very bright, young, beautiful girl with an awful lot of love to give, I wanted her to come back to England with me. I wanted them all to come back to England with me, but I guess that's just the way the cookie crumbles. I really can't believe that 3 weeks have flown by so quickly, and that I've made such deep connections with people I shall probably never see again. I hope to stay in contact with them, there are plenty of photos they will all want to see anyway!
And so I guess this is the end. Tonight we are going out to dinner and then maybe clubbing; just another way to say goodbye! I truly felt like I've learnt so much, not only about myself, but also about the world and life itself, but there is no way I can get all of that jumbled up information from my mind and heart into a weblog. So I'm not going to say anymore, I hope that if you read this maybe you'll get a taste of what it was like over here, but it's very hard to make words come to life and explain things without losing the soul or the meaning within them. The word "perfect" isn't a big enough word to describe something that is truly flawless, "love" is not a big enough word for how much love you feel for a certain person or people. I truly think that if you want to know how it feels, go and do it yourself, don't just take someone else's opinion or experience at face value, go and find your own.
This is Hannah Hayward, signing off and getting off of her soapbox.
