another week!!

Sawobona friends!
Has another week already passed?? I'm still very happy here and am already dreading leaving this place.

It's funny, people always say two things about change: change is good and change is hard. I've been reflecting on change this week trying to come up with my own "change is ____" sentence. I miss my life in America but that's not the hard part for me here, strangely enough. Actually, the most challenging part is that, although I am the same person, the people here do not know that person exactly. hmm... that was a confusing sentence. Let's try again. In linguistics, there is a hypothesis that says that your meaning needs another person in order for it to be meaning. For example, if I want to be funny, I need other people to laugh at my jokes. If they don't laugh, I cannot be funny no matter how hilarious I think I am or want to be. (See, Dr. Butler, I do listen in class!)

Anyway, I guess what I'm getting at is that you all in America have had 21 years to try and figure me out and understand who I am. I've spent 21 years developing who I am and who I want to be but I cannot be that person exactly without all of you here. My "meaning" cannot be "complete" without you all. (Am I making any sense Hannah?) ok, enough of that rambling...

Before I got here I kept asking the director, Yvonne, what I would be doing here at Rehoboth and she kept saying, "we will use your talents." I figured that was her way of saying, "I dunno, we'll figure it out when you get here." Turns out, she meant "we will use your talents." (a whole other linguistic conversation...) I am amazed at how perfect the work is here for me. I've spent the last couple weeks observing, helping where I could jump in and learning how to live in SA. After looking in, I've worked with Yvonne to figure out how I will use the next two and a half months. Now, tell me if this isn't exactly what I love:

After a Zulu praise and worship and a devotional with the entire staff and all of the kids in the morning, I get to go help out with the toddler "creche," a daycare of sorts. Then we all break for Rooibos tea. (I'll be bringing boxes of that back to the US.) After tea, I get to teach crafts for the 13 preschoolers. The teacher has given me full reign over the craft cupboard... can you imagine?! My dad has always said that I'd end up going bankrupt because of crafts- not jewelry, cars or clothes. :)

It gets even better! Next week I will begin doing ABA therapy with a few of the disabled kids here. I could not be more excited. Because of the kid's rocky starts at life, most kids are developmentally, socially or physically behind. (about 80% have low IQs and we basically assume that any kid over the age of 5 has been sexually abused.) I will begin working with Aphiwe (the blind boy that I blogged about last week) to help him begin to learn his alphabet in braille... which means that I've been learning braille myself this past week! I'll also be helping him with other developmental skills, etc. I will also work with Nana, a 19-month-old girl who functions at about 5 months. I'll be working on her head stability, eye contact and language skills, etc. I will also be working with Mihlali who is 21-months-old but is behind because he was born very prematurely. His mother was trying to have an abortion by herself and accidentally delivered her baby at 28 weeks. That one's taken me a while to deal with. So at 21 months, Mihlali is not making any sounds and still cannot crawl. All this to say, I get to continue using ABA this summer. God is so good.

Many of you may not know this about me, but I am a talented potty-trainer. (shout out to Kendra!) Last summer, Kendra and I potty trained sweet Adam (a four-year old boy with Autism). So strangely enough, I will get to put those experences to help the kids who are very behind in potty training. Yvonne did say that they would use my talents...

I wish you were all here to enjoy this saturday morning with me. It's "winter" here and today its "cold" (21 degrees celsius) which basically feels like the best autumn day in waco, tx. Think baylor homecoming weather. I woke up early so I decided to make some lemon poppy-seed muffins only to find out that our kitchen did not have measuring cups, a muffin pan, or a mixer. I'm pretty proud to say that I made those dang muffins into a lemon-poppy seed cake all by eye-ing (how the heck do you spell that?) it. Tasted pretty good with my hot tea outside in the fairyland that I call my front yard. :)

Here's your weekly list:
Things that I didn't know that I was thankful for until now...
1. dishwasher
2. power stirring
3. automatic cars
4. three-ply toilet paper
5. indoor bathrooms
6. my entire kitchen

So, enjoy those special blessings this week for me! ;)

One last thought from the week. One of the Zulu songs that we sing in the morning says simply, "You [God] deserve the best." (repeat for about 5 minutes with different ladies soaring above the rest of us with their incredible Zulu improvization (sp?)!)

Miss and love you all.
-Brigid