It has been a long time coming

Well, it has been a long time since I have had power and enough time to sit down and write. One of our cooks is out with the chicken pox, so I have been doing a lot in the kitchen the past few days.

Back to the weekend though. Saturday was a day of rest and I got to hang out with the children some and do my own thing for a while. Sunday I went to church with the mommas and children. That sure was an adventure. I had seen the church on Saturday when I went on a walk down the road, but I failed to look at the inside. Oops, should have done that. So I get to the church on Sunday and realize that the pews are no more than rocks. Granted, they are rocks cut in the shape of benches. No backs. No glass in the windows. No doors. No lights. No AC. Just a pulpit and some rock pews. A good number of people showed up, maybe 75 including our kids and mommas. There were a lot of kids running around during the service. This church also does not have a pastor. The speakers were this elderly man and one of our mommas. Somehow I got volounteered to pray at the end. That was awkward.

Another big thing happening at our village is the construction of our new school building. This is a slow process mainly due to a lack of being able to obtain concrete. This is not because there is not enough concrete is Africa, but due to the World Cup 2010. As many of you probably do not know, as neither did I, the World Cup is being played in South Africa in 2010. There are massive construction projects going on in South Africa to prepare for this event. The stadium must be built, hotels are popping up all over the place, new roads, new restaurants, the whole works. So, they get priority on concrete, and the rest of everyone else gets hardly any. So that is making our building projects go kind of slowly. But on a good note, the walls on the school started going up today! It is wonderful to see. We had a slab of concrete for a while, and now there are the start of walls! Hallelujah.

On Monday we celebrated Africa Freedom Day (I am not sure what this is exactly) and there was no school. I helped out in the kitchen and the laundry room, and I sure felt like I was back at Rockbridge on work crew! It was a good day.

There sure is a lot going on here in my village and around us. It is the time of harvest for the maize. The teacher I work for spent her long weekend harvesting corn, I felt bad that she could not get a break from work. She also told me today about how she washes her own clothes by hand. I am so grateful to have machines to do that for me! I am still learning a lot about the culture here and it is making so grateful to live in America.

Some of you might have seen news about Zimbabwe recently. Since March, there have been huge political battles and oppression. The ruling party for the last many years got overthrown and ever since the parties that are involved in the run off in June have been oppressing their opponent's supporters. Many people have fled to South Africa, but there have also been riots in Johannesburg because of the South Africans not wanting the Zimbabwens in their country. Oh man. I am 38 miles from the border and in no danger from this but it is so sad to hear about it happening.

I am still loving opening my letters and occasionally getting to talk to some of my friends online when I have power and internet and a break from work! I have finished sewing all of the serviettes and am waiting on further instruction to start carving out pumpkins to freeze the pumpkin meat until next year! I can not wait to do that. Tomorrow we will prepare for next week's unit on body parts. Four more weeks of school until we get a four week holiday.

Well I need to get back to cleaning this place up. I love you all very much! Thanks for the prayers and support!