being okay with shuffle
I really dont know how to start this blog. which is really weird cause i've been like thinking about what i was going to say all week.
oh my gosh this is hard!
okay since thursday myself and all the other footprinters where placed in a orphange headed house hold in the community of maysoi.
I lived in a sector called manzini with a lovely young mom named virgina, her birthday was on sunday and she just turned 18, she takes care of her two siblings who are twins and 16 years old, she also takes care of her 93 year old grandfather, she also has a daughter who is 3 years old who was concieved not through virigina's choice (if you understand what i mean..)
even after having today to debrief i still have alot of mixed feelings over what i just experiances and im still trying to process and understand what exactly just happened. So i will probably just write some facts rather then getting into it.
We each sepratly arrived at our host families homes on thurday evening after we had been working at K2 (which is basically a orphange day care) all day, I brought three bags of food, mazie meal, tomatos, onions, fish, cabbage etc, and my backpack with my stupid missinary skirts, her home is three seprate (small) buildings, i stayed with virigina in her room which had to beds so that was nice (better then dustin who had to share one bed with 3 people) south africans in the community sleep with the lights on and i think its gives them like a feelings of safty or something cause there is alot of crime.
they eat the mazie (when its cooked its called pap) at ever meal and its kind of like a very bland porriage and then the like cook up the beans of cabbage or something else to go with it.
They are very community orrientted and i swear i meant like 28314679543751234189327524365 people on my first night because everyone was very curious about a white person who would come to live with them.
on friday we went back to work at k2 and then the weekend back to our host families, the weekend, we didnt really do alot, there isnt really anything to do.
But i did learn that if a south african tells you something is close they mean they are going to take you on a hike....that happened to me twice!
so yeah saturday we just kind of hung around, virigna made chicken for dinner, and i kind of turned my eye to how it was stored cause i wanted to eat it (oh i should mentions that i wasnt really eating any of the food i guess because of ignorance)it was stored in a bowl of water just on the floor for a good half the day....but i didnt get sick so that was good.
then on saturday night we just sat in the yard with some neighbors and talked and eat boiled peanuts? they where good though....and they taught me ALOT of siswati which was really cool.
then on sunday we went to church (which they told me was close and it soooo wasnt)
and i guess i should explain about the water now, if your not use to it the well water in the comminity makes you really sick, so you have to boil it to make it okay to drink, but my hosts where okay to drink it, and because virigina cooks on a fire i felt bad asking to boil water, so i was like living on the 2 liters i brought from k2 but by sunday i was pretty much out so i hadnt drank any water and they took me on the hike to church i was mighty dehyrdrated, Dara one of the other girls who i am working with was there and she had some boiled water and let me have it which was good but when we got the the churh i needed more, so i decieded to risk getting sick and drank some of the bad water....well about 10 minutes later i started projectile vomitting outside the church with everyone watching me....it was not okay hahaha but thank God Dara was there.
um yeah then on monday i was back to K2 to paint, it was weird how happy all the footprinters where to see each other! everyone was so stoaked.
painting was really lame and we had to do it tuesday agaain.
then on tuesday we came back to our house which was so nice, a shower (cause in the community you take bucket baths) and food im used to, and a langues that i understand being spoken.
I had alot of confused feelings as i was living in the comminity, cause at first i was like "okay they have food and clothes they are okay right?" but like you can just feel that there is something so wrong there, in the community they are just surviving...they are just like physically living but there is a huge feelings of hopeless-ness, like they have food they have cloths but there is nothing past that, they dont have skills to have a job or anything....
but yeha i dont know any answers or anything like that
all i know was the past 5 days where a definatly a experiance that is going to bring me closer to empathy and it was amazing.
next time i will post pictures of my host familiy and of my team.
I miss everyone at home...its kind of weird cause i havent even been gone from 2 weeks but it feels like a very long time.
so yeah,
oh! okay this is juts a funny little. when i was younger my uncle brynn went to africa and all i remember about him talking about it or whatever was this picture of a frog in a toilet...this morning there was definatly a frog in our toilet and i totally took a picture.
hahah.
so yeah i think im going to leave it at that, but yeah that blog doesnt even begin to explain what africa is like...i just cant put it in to words, but its been awesome and i know im suppost to be here.
oh my gosh this is hard!
okay since thursday myself and all the other footprinters where placed in a orphange headed house hold in the community of maysoi.
I lived in a sector called manzini with a lovely young mom named virgina, her birthday was on sunday and she just turned 18, she takes care of her two siblings who are twins and 16 years old, she also takes care of her 93 year old grandfather, she also has a daughter who is 3 years old who was concieved not through virigina's choice (if you understand what i mean..)
even after having today to debrief i still have alot of mixed feelings over what i just experiances and im still trying to process and understand what exactly just happened. So i will probably just write some facts rather then getting into it.
We each sepratly arrived at our host families homes on thurday evening after we had been working at K2 (which is basically a orphange day care) all day, I brought three bags of food, mazie meal, tomatos, onions, fish, cabbage etc, and my backpack with my stupid missinary skirts, her home is three seprate (small) buildings, i stayed with virigina in her room which had to beds so that was nice (better then dustin who had to share one bed with 3 people) south africans in the community sleep with the lights on and i think its gives them like a feelings of safty or something cause there is alot of crime.
they eat the mazie (when its cooked its called pap) at ever meal and its kind of like a very bland porriage and then the like cook up the beans of cabbage or something else to go with it.
They are very community orrientted and i swear i meant like 28314679543751234189327524365 people on my first night because everyone was very curious about a white person who would come to live with them.
on friday we went back to work at k2 and then the weekend back to our host families, the weekend, we didnt really do alot, there isnt really anything to do.
But i did learn that if a south african tells you something is close they mean they are going to take you on a hike....that happened to me twice!
so yeah saturday we just kind of hung around, virigna made chicken for dinner, and i kind of turned my eye to how it was stored cause i wanted to eat it (oh i should mentions that i wasnt really eating any of the food i guess because of ignorance)it was stored in a bowl of water just on the floor for a good half the day....but i didnt get sick so that was good.
then on saturday night we just sat in the yard with some neighbors and talked and eat boiled peanuts? they where good though....and they taught me ALOT of siswati which was really cool.
then on sunday we went to church (which they told me was close and it soooo wasnt)
and i guess i should explain about the water now, if your not use to it the well water in the comminity makes you really sick, so you have to boil it to make it okay to drink, but my hosts where okay to drink it, and because virigina cooks on a fire i felt bad asking to boil water, so i was like living on the 2 liters i brought from k2 but by sunday i was pretty much out so i hadnt drank any water and they took me on the hike to church i was mighty dehyrdrated, Dara one of the other girls who i am working with was there and she had some boiled water and let me have it which was good but when we got the the churh i needed more, so i decieded to risk getting sick and drank some of the bad water....well about 10 minutes later i started projectile vomitting outside the church with everyone watching me....it was not okay hahaha but thank God Dara was there.
um yeah then on monday i was back to K2 to paint, it was weird how happy all the footprinters where to see each other! everyone was so stoaked.
painting was really lame and we had to do it tuesday agaain.
then on tuesday we came back to our house which was so nice, a shower (cause in the community you take bucket baths) and food im used to, and a langues that i understand being spoken.
I had alot of confused feelings as i was living in the comminity, cause at first i was like "okay they have food and clothes they are okay right?" but like you can just feel that there is something so wrong there, in the community they are just surviving...they are just like physically living but there is a huge feelings of hopeless-ness, like they have food they have cloths but there is nothing past that, they dont have skills to have a job or anything....
but yeha i dont know any answers or anything like that
all i know was the past 5 days where a definatly a experiance that is going to bring me closer to empathy and it was amazing.
next time i will post pictures of my host familiy and of my team.
I miss everyone at home...its kind of weird cause i havent even been gone from 2 weeks but it feels like a very long time.
so yeah,
oh! okay this is juts a funny little. when i was younger my uncle brynn went to africa and all i remember about him talking about it or whatever was this picture of a frog in a toilet...this morning there was definatly a frog in our toilet and i totally took a picture.
hahah.
so yeah i think im going to leave it at that, but yeah that blog doesnt even begin to explain what africa is like...i just cant put it in to words, but its been awesome and i know im suppost to be here.
posted by Lacey at
5:26 AM
2 Comments:
ahhh I'm so excited you posted!! you made me laugh, silly girl, being dehydrated!! haha well i'm glad you're not sick from that well water, cause if you hadn't thrown it up you probably would have lots of bad germs in you! (or at least that what my mom says) also that's funny that they take you on hikes when they tell you something is close, and it seems awesome that they are so friendly. i keep trying to picture you in africa, but i just can't for some reason (i guess cause i have no idea what africa is actually like) so i'm excited to see your pictures! also why exactly do you have to paint? and yeah and yeah, just so you know, your blog just brightened my day, i'm SO SO EXCITED to read more!!! haha love you lots!!
That sounds pretty excitiiing.
The frog in the toilet story made me laugh!
But I've already been telling everyone stories of you in Africa haha. Well I've been telling people like Sean and Shanna at school.
I shall tell them the frog story. =)
And let me know your address so we can snail mail!!
xo
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