A few quick stories!

I've been very proud of my adventurous eating here, so I thought I'd put up a quick update. Today my house went out for our weekly "family dinner." It was raining, so we decided to splurge on Marco's African Place in Bo Kaap. Three other girls and I shared a platter of crocodile tail, warthog & springbok with a side salad and two desserts. It came out to about 17 USD each... which was amazing. The food was really good, the live music and dancers were great, and overall we had a fantastic evening.

Myself and the other girl who are working at Yabonga are in a bit of limbo right now, because we won't be able to start our work until next week. Until then we've been visiting everyone else's sites. On Tuesday, I visited a juvenile detention center in Ottery. We played team-building and getting-to-know-you games with the teenage boys, which made for a very fun afternoon. Wednesday, I paid a visit to Brooklyn Chest TB Hospital, where three of us played with pre-school aged TB patients. The day was a little hectic because several nurses were out that day and the toy closet was locked, but the children were adorable and we had a lot of fun with them.

Today I paid a visit to a high school in one of the townships. They're in a really tight situation there, because the classes often have 40 kids in them, but they're so tight on teachers that all of the administrators are also teaching, and oftentimes teachers don't show up to classes. One of the girls who is working at the school and we literally found classrooms of kids with no teacher in the room and taught impromptu English classes throughout the day. She has already learned to come every day with English exercises prepared for exactly that situation. I also helped her prepare & run her after-school English program with eight absolutely fantastic grade 11s. I have to admit, I had never appreciated South Windsor's school system as much as I do now. As much as I want to start at Yabonga, I'm glad that I had the chance to see a bit more of my housemates' service sites too.

We've also done lots of cool things outside of our service work. Last Saturday alone, we went to Old Biscuit Mill in the morning, spent the afternoon at the Waterfront, and went to an indie rock concert that night. At the Waterfront we saw the Real Housewives of Atlanta filming their vacation episode!