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I was blessed recently by the Brown's (Kathryn's parents) to receive an invitation to spend some time with them at the Kruger National Park. We stayed in a lodge just outside of the park and spent a couple of days over a weekend scanning the South African bush for all sorts of amazing wildlife. Cliff and Kat, Murray and Sue Brown, Claire, and myself rolled out of bed around 5:15am to get to the Kruger gate before 6am for an early morning game drive. We spent most of the three days driving around the Park and stopping at watering holes, observing nature at its finest. We were very fortunate to see so much and this is the best time of year to spot wildlife. Some of our sightings included: elephant herds, wildebeasts, hippos sunning themselves (easily confused with rocks...), a lioness on the prowl for a kudu, impala, giraffes, zebras, buffalo, crocodiles, TWO leopards (very uncommon!), hyennas (and even a baby one on our night drive), rhinos, monkeys and baboons, many types of birds, warthogs, dassies (small rodent-type creatures), and two lion cubs playing on the side of a rocky area with the mother keeping a watchful eye from nearby. It was amazing! God was certainly creative with nature in the African plains. After thousands of photos and hours of watching and waiting, Claire and I came home early to get back to work and Cliff and Kat spent the rest of the week with the parents doing more sight-seeing. The pictures should be self-explanatory, but: elephants crossing the road, sunrise with hippos in the foreground, a leopard in a tree on our night game drive, zebras on the road drinking the rain water from puddles, and Kat and I on a tree vine at a rest stop.
June 27th, 2009 was a very special day for the now Richard and Dudu Bwalya. Richard (our Health and Welfare office manager) and Dudu (the Refilwe receptionist and Godparent of 6 children) finally said, "I do". It was a very fun day, with plenty of reasons for everyone to sing and dance. There was an interesting mix of cultural and contemporary wedding traditions. From the dancing in of the line-up (bridal party) and the knife girl and boy dancing in before the cutting of the cake to the toasts and speeches, it was a lovely event. The ceremony was held at a chapel nearby and the reception took place in the community hall at Refilwe. Richard and Dudu are continuing their work at Refilwe and are automatic parents of 6 teenagers! They are a blessing to this community. Congratulations Richard and Dudu! May you have many happy years together.
Pictures from top to bottom: 1. Dudu and Richard after their vows, being showered with rose petals by Randy, their foster child 2. The line-up practicing their dance on the lawn before the ceremony 3. Nombulelo (our Auxillary Nurse), Shadung (our Auxillary Social Worker), Abram Mohapi (Refilwe driver), Claire (Health and Welfare Manager), and myself--all friends and co-workers to sum it up! 4. The reception
A couple of weeks ago, Cliff and Kat and myself went to stay with Claire and hang out for the weekend (Claire works at Refilwe as the Manager of the Health and Welfare Dept.--basically, she's my boss!). She lives in Alberton, which is south of Joburg and about an hour from Refilwe. We enjoyed a 10km hike on Sunday at a place called Suikerbosrand Nature Reserve. The weather was gorgeous and it's still just surprising to be hiking in the mountains and look over and see impala or zebras grazing nearby. We also had fun making soft pretzels and just relaxing during our time off.
Kathryn's parents arrived in South Africa on June 25th. After a 13 month absence, they have enjoyed catching up with each other. This is the first time that Murray and Sue Brown have been in Africa and they are enjoying this opportunity to see their children and explore the diversity of South Africa. Cliff, Kat, Sue, and Murray are pictured above soon after their arrival, at Richard and Dudu's wedding.
Our days of Voluntary Counseling and Testing (VCT) for chronic diseases in the communities where we work continue. We rotate to each of the four communities presently, changing locations each week. We do testing and education in that particular community on Tuesday and Saturday. We have started in a fifth community, Thabo Mbehki, and hope to do VCT there sometime soon. Also, two new employees are supposed to start this week at our sixth location, Videotown. It's exciting to see this type of growth and changes in the programme. We are transitioning to have caregivers who live in a community also work in that community. This cuts down on extra transportation needs and is really our ultimate goal for home-based caregivers. The pictures above are from a VCT day in Joe Slovo, which is the community directly beside Refilwe. The top one pictures four home care workers: Elizabeth, Elyse, Diana, and Peggy. The second photo is Elyse (the home care worker) with a girl she's hired to work in her small tuck shop (which she runs as a side business). We encourage the home care team to develop other skills and support them in training so that they can develop to a point that will let them move on to bigger and better things. This is the goal of Refilwe and the government in these types of programmes.
It's not just every day that one can say, "I'm going to take a roadtrip to another country this weekend..." Since Swaziland is so close (about a 5-6 hour drive) to Refilwe, Meredith (another long-term US volunteer at Refilwe) and I decided to visit the land of royalty for some relaxation. We had a wonderful time and felt very refreshed and blessed as we came back to Refilwe. Some highlights included: sleeping in beehive huts (pictured above), a walk in Mlilwane Wildlife Sanctuary (which included zebras, impalas, wildebeasts, and crocs--all around us!), some mango milkshakes at Guava Cafe, great sunsets (I think we spent most of the sunrises in bed, to be honest!), and relaxing dinners overlooking sugarcane fields and beautiful gardens. God is good! And His creation speaks of that very clearly...
I thought I would take some time to talk about the actual "things" we give to the communities where we have home caregivers. We had a recent donation of vitamins from a short-term team from the US. We've rebottled them and plan to give them out to our sick clients, specifically those who have HIV or Tuberculosis. They will be helpful to balance out people's modest and inadequate diets while they are sick. The other photo shows some soup and supplement mixes that are part of our food parcels. The government is currently giving us money for 100 food parcels per month. This has food for four people to supplement their diets for one month. Orphans and vulnerable children are the focus of our distribution. We also give out blankets, clothing, Bibles in local languages, shoes, books, and seeds for gardens. Other items that are donated are also distributed through our home caregiver teams. It is great to meet people's immediate needs in these ways, but we continue to work with them to find long-term solutions and promote sustainability for them and their families.
