What better way for me to spend my birthday last year, than doing exactly what I love, wrapping children in warm blankets and sharing with them hope and love for the future.
Bright and early on the 12th August 2014, Wendy, Estelle, Wandi and I headed off to two schools to distribute:
Moharu Day Care
We visited the little ones first – what a riot of colour when they are all wrapped up!
Doesn’t this little girl look lovely with her hand warmers on?
The older children were in a classroom next door and posed with their blankets and toys. Wandi and Estelle are behind the children with the care givers from the school.
Happy Toddlers Day Care
We then visited a delightful little school where the children all sang happy birthday for me and I was caught in the act, by Wendy with the camera, encouraging everyone to say “cheese”. Can you tell?
Blessed Assurance Day Care – 22 July 2014
A few weeks prior to this, Wandi and I visited this lovely day care centre in Dobsonville. Because it was school holidays, there were only 15 children there that day, but ordinarily the Blessed Assurance Day Care cares for around 36 children in a very small, but well run space.
The Day Care is run by a lovely lady called "Ntombizodwa" which, Wandi explained means "girl - ONLY girls" obviously given to babies born after a LONG line of girls only and not a boy baby in sight. African names are always descriptive and obviously Ntombizodwa was named by a disappointed father ... but he must be very proud of her now, seeing she has become a pillar of the community!!!
Zodwa (her shortened name) was delighted with the stationery we left them.
A quick update on our current activities
We haven’t managed to get through the piles of mail we have this end yet, but we are working away furiously and will catch up. Our current priority is distributing blankets, because now that we are in the middle of winter, with the night temperatures having dropped so drastically, we are desperate to get as many blankets to children as we can.
So, admin is taking a back seat, and we are splitting into two distributions teams in order to reach more children in July.
Lindi, Wandi and I have teamed up on one hand, and Wendy, Sarah and Mabel will get together and distribute in a different area, this coming week.
All being well, we will do this more often until the weather warms up.
Replies
Such a lovely way to spend your Birthday:)
I would love to spend my birthday in this manner, too.
After reading the additional note from Linda, above, I am reminded, once again, of how lucky my family and our country is.
Oh my goodness. Look at those little darlings wrapped up in rainbows. Can't think of a better way to spend one's birthday.
The colour is amazing especially when you think of the greyness of some of these children's lives. Heartbreaking to think you can't even give to some children. I am so pleased that some of them sang Happy Birthday to you Ronda ! I see the :cheese". It reminded me of my son's wedding in the States when we informed the photographer of that trick to get smiles. She was very impressed. She had not heard of it before !
The fun hand-warmers look great!
I'm so glad that lots of squares are getting through .. such a need !
Ronda, what a lovely way to celebrate your birthday ! There is great joy in giving. It is difficult to imagine the sadness these children experience, these gifts would brighten their lives.
Here is an example of what the children experience as explained in a note from Ronda:
The government are conspicuous in their absence and the residents (according to Maria who runs the crèche) are absolutely fed up as they have no electricity, no running water, no refuse disposal, no municipal services at all in fact. Raw sewage runs in the streets, and there are children everywhere – I took photographs of children in the streets who were not part of the daycare, and what a desperate sight they were. We gave them apples but could not give them anything else as we are told it puts them at physical risk from the adults in their lives, most of whom have alcohol and drug issues and could become violent if anything is “out of place” around their children. Ghastly – how much suffering there is in this country.