Ugh, I cannot get over my urge to look over my right shoulder when I am backing out. I practically turn my head all the way around to see when backing up, then halfway through the process I realize that it would make my life of whole lot easier if I just looked over my left shoulder. It’s amazing how completely habitual these things are and how much of a challenge it can be to get out of them. Knowing me I will finally get rid of all my U.S.-related habits in June and pick up the South African habits in July right before I come home and have to start all over again.
Last night we had dinner with out landlord and his family. It was really nice for them to go out of their way to have us over and get to know us. They have three little girls, one is 10, one is 6, and the other is 6 months. It was sweet; they spoke to us in English and it was adorable because English is not their first language and not the one they are used to using all of the time. We were over at their house for 3 hours talking about everything under the sun. He said he went to Cuba about 2 years ago and I was so jealous. We also discussed all of the places that we should visit while we are over here and when to go; it was nice to have someone who knows the lay of the land give us some pointers. When dinner was over we just walked out their door, took 5 steps, and we were back at our doors.
Work has been decently busy. Mandla is in Bloemfontein for the week and I am set to head there next week. We had a graduation yesterday and we have about 2 interventions a day running right now. I also have been working on switching us over to the new system of doing financial reconciliations. On Tuesday we had a big conference call with the head office in Cape Town so that three weeks into the month they could tell us that there was going to be a new way of doing the financial reconciliation. I start pasting receipts, numbering them, and entering them into the computer week one, so I had to go back and reenter all the receipts into the new form. Luckily they didn’t make me remove all of the receipts, separate them, and renumber them. That would not have been fun. At least they told me this week before I go to Bloemfontein and do it for them too.
At the interventions this week I have had the opportunity to play with some of the kids, sit in on some of the interventions, and get more involved. On Monday I got to play soccer with some little boys during the intervention and on Tuesday I jumped rope with some girls at a school. I feel so stupid because I keep forgetting to bring my camera. Thank goodness I will be doing this for a year. I went into one intervention on Tuesday and all the kids kept looking back at me in the classroom, so I decided to step out so I wouldn’t be a complete distraction. Wednesday morning we had our first encounter with Practice 6: Our Stories. I was excited because I have been waiting to hear some of the coach’s stories and I thought it would also be interesting to hear some of the kid’s stories. Unfortunately, I went into the wrong class. I was in the class where barely anyone understood or spoke English and the coaches didn’t even end up telling their stories. Also, the kids in my class were not taking it seriously and were making up stories as opposed to sharing real stories. When we all met up after the intervention, I was upset to hear that the other classes had really emotional experiences, the kids shared really great stories, and a lot of them were in English. One of the stories was so intense that a coach needs to follow up on the home situation and we have to talk to Mandla about it. They also said some kids couldn’t finish telling their stories because they were so difficult. Fortunately for me, Albert caught one of the coach’s stories on video, so we are on our way to being able to share them with all of you at home.
We are settling into a normal work routine now, so I feel like I have less interesting things to write about. Last Friday on our way back from an intervention, immigration got us. We were late to get back to the office for a conference call (the one we ended up having on Tuesday this week) and ended up in a police/immigration check. First, we are nowhere near any borders. Second, in all of my traveling I have never been stopped and asked for documentation (even when I was backpacking along the border between Mexico and Guatemala). They pulled us over and asked for Albert’s license and he gave them his U.S. and international driver’s licenses. After looking at them for a few minutes, they asked him where he was from, when he said the U.S., they decided they needed to see our papers. Of course we do not carry our passports and copies of them apparently would not do the trick, so Mandla had to go to our house, find the passports, and bring them to us, while we waited with immigration. This is such a foreign concept that we do not carry our passport, everyone (not our staff) keeps asking us why we don't and can't carry them. Hello, it is my most prized personal possession and if I lose it I am pretty screwed.Thankfully they did not throw us in the back of the immigration truck like they were doing with everyone else. If we had let Albert continue to talk to them, we might have ended up back there. Now we have copies of both the passport and the visa in each car, stamped and signed by the South African police, in case this ever happens again. You live and you learn.
Tomorrow we are off to Lesotho for the weekend. We are going down to visit Doug and Emma, the interns that are working in Maseru. Yes, my first passport stamp since I’ve been here. With all my new pages I have to get on this stamping business.
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