Photos, almost

These are the photo captions, we weren't able to put them below the exact pic so just read and scroll. Hope you enjoy our stories, and I hope all the photos are up that I wrote captions for.

Here are some pictures of our living conditions, the kids, what we are doing with them, and our Christmas trip to Durban while the kids were away with distant relatives.

The first few pics are of our room and outside our front door, looking at the cafeteria, play equipment and the bathrooms.  

In one of the pictures you can see another volunteer, his name is Will and he is from Michigan.   He has gone home now (He was there for 3 months but we only saw him for his last 10 days).  
You can see all of us with only a handful of the kids.  All the names you read you pronounce phonetically.

The next few pics are of us playing with the kids in one of the trees by our door.  The young boy is Mfundo (3 years), he can't climb so we would hold him in the tree.  You can also see Notile (13 years) and Tandeka (8 yrs) which are the girls in the tree.  There is also a picture of me in the tree with a boy named Kaye (6), and another boy named Snetemba(10).  The little girl with the apple smiling wide is named Zipno (4).

Then we have a shot of the scorpion we found under a tall pill of books with my journal at the bottom.  We caught him in my malaria pill container and killed him on our front step.  The little ones are the most poisonous.  The only remedy is to take pain relievers for four days until the pain subsides.  We check our bed every night.

Then we have some pictures of a common night outside.  It always storms with lightning and thunder, even if it isn't raining.  Every night for the fist 2 weeks there was lightning.  Now I cans says that "I've seen the rains down in Africa..." (By the way, they love that song over here.  Who would have thought?)

The property we are staying on is technically owned by the dead king of Kwazulu Natal, so the land is open for grazing of community cows.  So we have some pics of the cows outside our window, and a pic of Kaye chasing the cows away with a stick.  Throwing rocks at the cows is a good pass time in the hot weather.  The cows don't even flinch when you hit them, unless you hit their horns. 

There's a couple shot of the dog Mango, Kaye, me and Mfundo out side our door.

In the following pics you can see the river that passes the perimeter of the property on one side.  It gets pretty dirty but we still swim in it.  Most of the kids can swim but only a few of them float the river with me.  Heidi leads the rest along the shore to the swimming spot with all the smooth rocks you see in couple of the pics.  If you look you can see the girls wearing bread bags on their heads trying to keep there hair dry.  They also float down the river with empty milk jugs to keep them afloat.  We are usually in the river 2 times a day because it gets so hot.  The boys under the umbrella are just wearing underwear to swim in, that's normal.

Next is a shot of Lulama (7) and Dumi (6) standing on the shore.

In the following photos you can see us teaching summer school.  Every day we read the Bible then ask questions, then we break up in to different reading groups.  Heidi gets 3 groups of little kids while I work with the older kids.  Then we work on the kids math skills.  We then do arts and crafts or play a game of soccer.  Then we inevitably jump into the river.  School usually lasts for 2 hours.  Right now we are just teaching on what they have already learned in school, but come January 16 we will be helping them with their homework and other school projects.

In the next shot, Heidi is holding an HIV positive child named Kwaneli(2).  He is always pouting, and even in a shot where he is happy it looks like he is mad.  There's another shot of them with Zipno.

Next shot we are in the "kombi" (Volkswagen van) heading to JD and Barbara's house for a "braai" (BBQ).  JD and Barbara are long term volunteer that have a house on some very nice property just 20 min drive from the Injesuthi Cottages.  (The meat in S. Africa is unbelievable.  It has so much flavor and is always good.  The most tender meat I have ever had!)

In the van you can see some of the kids and a couple of the moms that help out at the cottages.

There are some shots of the drive to their house.  The large umbrella tree you see is supposedly the largest of it's kind in S. Africa and it is on their property.  They own about 100 acres and a forest that is filled with wild monkeys.
">" border="0" alt="" />

">" border="0" alt="" />

">" border="0" alt="" />

">" border="0" alt="" />

The biggest lightning bolt we captured. Lately there has been no rain or lightning, just heat, but for the first few weeks it was hot during the day and then around dinner time the thunder and lightning would start and the rain would come a couple hours later.

"

Us with some of the children (the teenagers are missing) and Will, the American volunteer who left on Dec. 14th.

This is a pic of our bedroom. The only picture that I have been able to upload so far. Enjoy!