Friday 22nd Feb

Sawabona ! (This means 'hello/ we see you' in Zulu)

Over the past 4/5 days we have all been doing various things to help out in the community of Mpophomeni through the Ethembeni charity. Each of us have been given an individual mentor, (or a mother as they call themselves!) who we will be with most mornings doing different things, mine is called muma Tutu and she is lovely!
Living with Dudu and her family (and Nicola!) has been great, she's very generous.The foods a bit odd and hard to finish but apart from that it's all fine :) Her grandchildren are brilliant and although they don't speak any English we've managed to play with them in the evenings and teach them card games like snap, 5's and rummy. 

I have spent most of my afternoons in the family centre looking after the young children who are in there all day and everyday, they love playing with us and teaching us Zulu. Some mornings I have been at the care centre, this is where there are two large rooms with patients in who are very ill and unable to look after themselves due to their condition of HIV. 
The anti-natal visit we went to near Howick falls on Tuesday was quite a shock, after being in Mpophomeni for a couple of days I thought that was a very poor area and as bad as it got, however I was proved wrong. The houses here in Shizayali shanty town were made out of wood/cardboard any metal scraps that could be found, with no space at all separating each house and no electricity either. Not many children here went to school as it was too far to travel or they were needed to help out at home, as we arrived we saw lots of young children and toddlers gathered together sheltering from the heat in the smallest bit of shade! During the day there, we encouraged the pregnant women to sign up for anti-natal classes and taught them how to prevent HIV/AIDS and how to also prevent it spreading through childbirth and breast feeding. It was quite difficult seeing the conditions these people lived in, but I also found a sense of hope in the Ethembeni ladies living in Mpophomeni township, going and helping others, the poor helping the poorer. 

Wednesday, Nicola and I went with Tutu to a similar anti-natal class however this was in Mpophomeni. It was very informative as many ladies there barley knew anything about pregnancy.. how the baby's formed, what to eat, and all about giving birth etc.  - has put us off having children slightly!! 
Yesterday, we each got paired up with some other Ethembeni workers and went round doing home visits. This is where we went door to door delivering food rations for the weeks coming. Then we chatted to them about there health and asked them about there relationship with Jesus and if there's anything they wanted to pray about, we then read scripture and prayed with them. in the afternoon we had lunch at the family centre and played with the little children that are left there everyday, there's so many teenagers that come to the centre and sing and dance and praise God after school (lovely but loud!)

This weekend we are staying with Sarah, in Howick the nearest town to Mpophomeni. Sarah came to South Africa and did this trip last year, and has now flown out to live here! 
The weather's been lovely between 34 and 27 degrees, on Tuesday night there was a huge storm which was very noisy on our tin roof and had to put a few buckets down for the leaks! Amazing lightening though! 

Lot's and lot's of African lovin'
xxx