Friday, May 24

Today we didn't have school due to it being a feast day, and from the hectic week

Our flooding bathroom water problem is now“solved”; we now know that the flooding in our bathroom was actually from the ceiling, as we believe that the water was turned off again last night for a little bit, because there was more water on the floor of our bathroom, and the ceiling is now falling down a little bit.

We were up for mass for 7:30, and walked to the Priest's house where the three “brothers to (maybe) be” also live. It was the Feast of Mary Help of Christians, which is the most important feast day to Salesian Sisters and Brothers. We sang in one of their languages today at mass and had the words in front of us. It was still hard to follow along at times because sometimes the words were repeated when they were only printed once, but it was still better than at church when we don't have the words in front of us.

At 2pm every Friday, the girls and “brothers” host an “Oratory” session in the park in Finetown for any child who wants to come. We picked up the three “brothers” and because we have a small pick-up truck to use, we had to have me and the three boys in the back while two girls were inside in the front. (I should say right now that there is always one of us in the back of the open truck bed when us three girls travel. Totally unsafe, but perfectly legal here. (Sorry, mom). When we got to the park (a really nice green space with trees and some playground equipment), all of the boys there started to play soccer, while us girls waited for more to join us. None ever did, and Magda and Anezka said that this is mostly the case because even younger girls in the area must help their mothers with household chores like washing and cleaning. Magda had brought with her embroidery thread for the children to make bracelets (and she passes it out at school for the children to make bracelets after school as well). So we were making those, and then I ended up playing soccer for a little bit until a 2 year old boy came to us with his older brother, so of course I abandoned soccer to go play with him. His name was “Innocent” and he just sat on my lap for over an hour, and almost fell asleep on me.

After Oratory was over, we went to one of the shopping malls in the area with the boys, and while we were pulling into a parking spot, a man was saying how wonderful a site we were, since we conveniently were in the truck “coupled up” in three rows of African boy and White girl.

I finally got cash out of the ATM here. (I've just been using my debit card here). Their money here is in “Rands”, and Nelson Mandela is on the front of all of the bills, with different animals on the backs of them. We all got ice cream cones for 40 cents US from a fast food chicken place, and ate them on a picnic table outside.