Day 6- Chickennnn!

To start off, we slept in today. I'm so happy. We didn't even really leave the hotel until 9. We went to the school for a tiny little bit and then had Pastor take us to a public school.

It was really interesting to go there and see all the differences. I actually thought it looked almost better there, just because they had better funding to have more supplies and textbooks, and they had pavement instead of dirt and it was really colorful. You could definitely tell that the kids there were poorer then the ones at St. Peter Middelburg though. Not all of them had shoes and they some of them really couldn't even bring food for lunch. They were all still extremely welcoming and sweet and polite. 

After that we went into the Squatter camps. It was terrible. The houses, if you could even call them that, were made of garbage. They only had one bathroom for about 10 families, and there was no sewage or running water. It made the houses in the township seem like mansions and it really put into perspective about what people here have. Basically, the deal with Squatter camps is that they're people waiting in an area for the government to build more houses for them to move into and own. Once they make a house, the family who was in the camp moves into it. The problem is, that once people move out of the camp more people move into it and it's just never ending. You can really tell that the government honestly is trying to help a lot, and many things they are trying are working. 

Something I found interesting was that they had street lights. Pastor Khumalo explained that it was because during Apartheid, they put them out so they could monitor the outdoors for any hiding blacks. The other thing they said was that the check in center they used to have to go to before entering the township, is now being used as a post office. I think I'd really hate having those reminders in a town, but on the other hand it might be a nice way to see how much improvement happened in such a short time after Nelson Mandela became president. 

After that, we went to a radio station and got to talk on the air. It was really really fun, although terrifying, and the lady was extremely nice and it seemed like actually a really really fun job just to have. 

After we left the radio station, we went back to the school. We got to hang out with all the kids, although I personally didn't teach any lessons. We watched them play some dancing games until school let out and then we hung out with them until their rides came or they decided to walk home. They kept asking us to say words in their language and names and stuff like that, and it was really fun and I'm actually getting better at pronouncing their names. They all think it's funny when we scrunch up our noses and kept trying to get us to do it. After that, they pulled our hair and kept asking if it was real or not. Then we had a breath holding contest and I was good for 82 seconds. I ended up winning! 

Then, we went to their aftercare and distracted them from homework again. We had fun passing notes and teaching them how to "rock on" and how to fistbump and what the bomb diggity meant. I'll try to attach videos. After that, we left the school and went home to hang out for a little bit before dinner which was actually really delicious. It was homemade by the hotel staff. They had giraffe napkin holders and we dressed up one like a bride and hosted a wedding and then made up a whole fake family for ourselves. I'm Ishmael, Jodie's Barbeshba/Barbara/Bar-Bara, Gracie's the mom and Bridget's the dad who just sits there and eats. We've had quite a lot of fun. 

I really saw God today in how welcoming the kids were at the other school, even though they didn't even all know Jesus. I was also feeling like God was watching over everything when he gave the public school a teacher who found it in her heart to come back from retirement and volunteer to take care of the troubled children class. Most of them were dealing with Aids, or losing their parents from Aids, or just having bad home lives. I thought that was really amazing that instead of trying to find another job she decided to come back and help kids who really needed someone to care for them much more then a normal teacher could. 

I'm excited for tomorrow because we're scheduled to go see preschool children, and talk to some people in the Squatter area again, since today we basically just drove through. I also really miss my One Direction bracelet friend, whose name I found out was Percy, and I can actually say it. I also learned he's almost 14, and I think it's really sweet that he's so nice to all the little kids and he helps them out a bunch. He's a really nice guy and he finds me and Gracie hilarious when we dance, scrunch our faces up, try to pronounce things, or get mobbed by kids. So basically he finds our whole lives hilarious and I quite like it. He also tied my shoe for me one time, so I mean, that's always a plus. 

BY THE WAY. I called this one Chicken because in the camp we were at there were tons and tons of them and we kept pointing them out and taking pictures. And then at school when one of the little kids was looking through a camera he was really confused as to why we were taking pictures of chickens, which confused me for a moment before I made the analogy that chickens there are about as common as squirrels or rabbits at home. 

But yeah, that was basically my day. We found out that somehow Jodie and Bridget got the room with the good wifi so I actually might be able to get pictures up, but I'm honestly not really sure and I probably shouldn't say I will in case I don't. Here's the other girls' blogs. 

Jodie's: JodieHermann10.blogspot.com

Bridget's: bridgetsafrica.blogspot.com

Gracie's: graciescannellsouthafrica.blogspot.com