Life is Wonderful

...and crazy!

sheesh eh...we are busy out here in Cape Town!

These days are jam packed. It's pretty funny because only a week and a half ago Grant and I were saying...gee we really don't know what the next week holds before heading off to Pretoria. Surely enough though we were booked in one second. We continued building with Habitat which was a delight. Last week we did foundations which is seriously hard work...think 36 wheelbarrows of sand, 36 wheelbarrows of stones and 18 bags of concrete all mixed together. It's a day's hard work. Honestly though I've never felt so physically satisfied as I do after a hard day of building. As many of you know I'm not very physically fit and am quite the klutz, but when building I'm capable. It's a really great feeling. This week we're doing another house build. It's been some of the most ridiculous days of my life. Yesterday we got onto the site and it was all corporate business people. There were about 25 people per site (which is about 10+ people too many) and they were all Afrikaans. So our site was run in the Afrikaan's language...The first thing they did was set up their advertisement. Big posters and umbrellas. Then they got out their cooler of cold drinks and crate of toilet paper. I was floored. It was definitely the oddest start to a day. Then we come to find out that every day there is a new group of people from the same company...so today we got 25 new people. It definitely creates a different feel to the site. With so many people the pace is very different as well. I've stepped back from a lot of the tasks because I figure the 25 people who are only going to be on site for one day should have an opportunity to be involved. It's a little frusterating though. On the upside the build is in the same neighborhood as the last house I built so there are a lot of the same faces around. So I'm getting to know the community members which is really a treat. Tomorrow is my last day in Mfuleni though and it's going to be really hard to part with the people and places that I've grown so fond of. I keep thinking, well we'll be back in Cape Town we can just stop by one day, but I know that there is a time to let go of everything and tomorrow is going to be that time for Mfuleni and myself.

On a different note, Grant and I finally got in touch with one of the contacts we'd been emailing. Lindsay. She runs a house called Beth Uriel in Cape town that houses 26-ish guys from the age of 14-26 (the official ages are 16-25). The first day we visited we sat in on a "family meeting" where all the house members met and had announcements and updates. Each one shared a highlight from their day and there was a workshop about the roots of a lot of problems that break families up in South Africa. It was incredible. Lindsay is a 30-ish year old American woman who has just invested her life in these boys. She commands attention and respect from them, joy and love, in a supremely unique way. She makes fun of the boys and loves on them in a genuinly authentic way. I'm obsessed. Later we went to dinner with Lindsay and the other volunteers and got to know them and what they've been doing at BU. I can't even put into words yet the attatchment I have to these people. You think "African street boys" and you think of hardened youth who are cold and hardened, but they are so wonderful. They're immature and silly and real and open to new people and new things. I've seriously been blown away by how quick they are to open up to us. I've had a few really great talks with some of the guys and I've only been around for 2 other days. I'm mostly just really excited to spend more time at BU when we get back to Cape Town.

It shocks me that two months into this trip I still have new and exciting things to be looking forward to. There hasn't been one day of one week when I've been bored in this place. It's hard to predict, but I'm pretty sure I won't be ready to leave. I feel like there are endless lives and organizations that I could pour my energy and time into here and be consistently fulfilled. That pretty much leaves me with two thoughts: One) There will be this feeling in other places of the world. If I can find this environment and satisfaction here I will be able to find it elsewhere. Two) I will just have to come back someday. I'm sure that if this is a unique experience to this place I will find my way back one way or another. Either way I'm excited about the reality of this trip now and am planning to enjoy the last two and a half weeks to the fullest.