Tuesday 8/4

Good Morning from South Africa - It is Tuesday morning here and it is a beautiful sunny day - our first real sign of the sun since we have arrived! Yesterday was a full and wonderful day for us! We intended to visit 3 schools but because of the rain and the fact that the roads to the schools are mud/clay we couldn't visit the first school. Our trip to the second school became quite eventful when our van, driven by our skillful driver Troy started to slide down a hill on the mud - we were watching from the car behind and it was quite a harrowing thing to watch, Barb, myself (Colette), Jonah and Adia from our group were in the car behind. Our visit to the first school was overwhelming for me, the kids were all so excited to see us - they sang for us (I am a little nervous because I am suppose to share songs today and I am hopeful they can deal with my crooning). It was very emotional for me to see the conditions that these children learn in, broken windows,only 4 very full classrooms, toilets that we in the U.S. would never use and a building that the parents of the students built out of scrap lumber - it leaks when it rains and has many areas where the wind blows in - yet through all this adversity the students still make it to school everyday to learn - Our second school visit was just as emotional and amazing - they are a high school that is run by a student parliment - these kids are incredible - since I am on a time crunch I will have someone else share that - one more tidbit from out traveling adventure - we were running late it was getting dark, none of us (girls) had gone to bathroom all day because of the toilet conditions so we were desperate to get to the can man ASAP - unfortunately that was not God's plan - Barb hit a whopper of a pot hole and blew off two hub caps and flattened our front tire - after we read the manuel and changed the tire we discovered that we had a second flat - way to Barb!!!! I will end my blog with a quote from my sister over 25 years ago - "We are having some fun now!" I would also like to put a shout out to Julie and Barb wants to know if you are wearing your Drug Town smock!!! Love Colette