It's been sooooo long!!!

I am so sorry I haven't written in over a month! Life has been so hectic here, when I finally get a chance to blog I just want to sleep! :)

So a lot has happened in the last month and I will try to give a recap of everything.

We started service sites on March 9th. I became a member of the team that goes to Project Gateway, which is a program that converted the old Pietermaritzburg prison into about 20 different projects devoted to helping people in the community get on their feet and start organizations. The people are so amazing and devoted to helping and loving on others. We were able to choose from 4 different service sites and Gateway stole my heart. I fell in love with their mission and their ingenuity.

Every Monday, Tuesday and Thursday we go to Gateway Christian School in the morning. Each of us have different jobs (There are six incredible people on my team) and my job is to work in the office for half of the morning where I do secretarial jobs and just help out the secretary wherever she needs me. Then after that I visit a classroom. Most days I visit classrooms and just talk with the students. They really like to know about America and the culture there. They ALWAYS ask about celebrities. They have no idea that celebrities live in centralized areas and people like us don't normally see them or talk to them. But they would swear that we are best friends with every single star! They also ask about Obama every time. They always want to know if we think he's doing a good job and what kind of changes are going on in America. They also think that we all know him personally. We have to explain that we only see him on TV, just like they only see him on TV. They also love learning about our families, schools, pets, cars and fashion.

In the afternoons we visit the Esther House, which is a battered womens and pregnant teenager shelter. This is where we apply most of the developmental tools that we learn in our supplemental class, community engagement. It has been such a privalege to work with these women. They have been through so much in their lives, yet they are joyful and happy! They sing and dance and smile everyday, it just brings me so much joy! Some of these women are 15, 16, 17 and they have children. They have no where to go because either they families beat them or their boyfriends beat them. Then they must go to the Esther House where they have shelter and food, but not much else. They can't find jobs because they have to take care of their children. They are just stuck in this cycle that is so heartbreaking. So our goal of helping them was to just love on them and show them that people care about them. We also had a guy in our group which helped show the women that some men are actually good. We cooked with the women, played games, sang, danced and colored. We also just held their babies for them. They don't really get a chance to be young girls because they have children, so it has been a privalege to give them some time to themselves to just play and be young!

On Wednesdays we go to Life Abundant Ministries, which is a feeding scheme in the township of Edendale. It has been great to be able to serve in an incredibly tangible way. We prepare the food and feed it to the people of the township in the afternoon. The food we give them feeds their whole family, and we aren't able to give them much food. It's heartbreaking to know that on other days they might not eat at all.

On Friday's we are in Community Engagement with our professor Francis. We is so sweet, he's from Kenya. We've been learning a lot from him.

On our excursions we have been on a canopy tour where we ziplined through the canopy! It was so much fun! We also have been to a waterpark/marineworld.

This weekend we went on our SAFARI! It was INCREDIBLE! I saw all of SA's big 5, which are the Lion, Leopard, Elephant, Rhino and Cape Buffalo. We also giraffe, impala, codu, hippo and crocodile! It was an AMAZING trip! Once in a lifetime.

Well, that was the quick recap. I'm so sorry it's been so long since I've written. I wanted to thank all of my family and friends who have sent me cards and packages! I have so appreciated the love you have all sent me! I so enjoy the food from America too! :)

I hope you are all doing well! Love you all!