Grocery Shopping for the Little Ones

Yesterday I went with Auntie Barbs to the grocery store, where we loaded up two shopping carts with food for some of the Early Learning Centers. When we got to the ELCs the children were very excited to see us with so much food and very eager to help us take the food out of the jeep. We started at the Zamuphila ELC in Willowfontein and paid a short visit to the Zamokuhle ELC in Pata, where I had made good friends with the children a couple weeks ago.

After we picked up a 15-year old girl who had been identified as needing help by one of her teachers. After her mother died she went to live with her grandmother, who died recently. We took her to where she remembered her father living in hopes to get some help or at least some documentation so that we could help her apply for a government grant. We drove and drove all around until we found the spot she remembered being in when she was little. She went to the house where her father lived only to find out that he had also passed away. Now we are on a big hunt to find the rest of her family members in order to find identification documents and death certificates so we can things going again.Our last stop of the day was Sunfield Home, a place for the disabled. We came to visit Smangele, who happened to be the first child helped by Thandanani in 1989. She was abandoned at Edendale Hospital and it was hard to find a home for her. The women who worked with the then still-developing Thandanani took turns bringing her home every weekend and finding places for her to stay. Today she is 28 years old and the women who were there for her 20 years ago are still going to visit her regularly now. She was so excited when she saw Auntie Barbs walking through the door-- it just shows a little compassion can go a long way.

I am going to announce that I have officially gotten my first South African injury... a precious milestone in my new life. Last night I went to the grocery store to get a snack and while walking back a sizable piece of glass went through my shoe and into my foot. Then I also managed to cut my finger trying to get the glass out, and hobbled home as fast as I could before the blood got everywhere. But not to worry-- the fifty or so alcohol pads my mom made me bring and the delightfully thorough first aid kit Melissa made for me fixed it all up. I am supposed to go running today with a woman from church, so hopefully I can stand the pain and it wont decide to bleed everywhere.