Many meals of pap, nights of leaky ceilings, and 500 giraffes later....

Meet my new sister and nephew : )

....and welcome to my house for the week.

Last week I spent six days and five nights with a family in the community of Mbonisweni. My family was made up of a father (I never really officially met him), a mother (Susan), their 21 year old daughter (Sandile), and her three year old son (Ryan). I was expecting an extremely challenging week of very tiring days, many confusing moments, and even many needed times of learning patience. While I did have some of that, more than any other feeling, I left with the overwhelming sense that I had a new sister who, although she was from an entirely different culture and way of living, was very much just like me…

It would be hard for me to write about everything that happened throughout the entire week so I am just going to just put up many pictures and list some of the random things that stuck out from my stay:

• My night of making 500 orange beaded giraffes from 7:00 PM until 2:00 the next afternoon at the Church consisting of: random sleeping on mattresses on the ground, having it rain so hard we were unable to hear each other and then having to move every table because streams of water were pouring through the roof, and doing all this while watching one of the guys pretty much propose to Kacy

After staying at the Church all night....not tired at all of course

...now imagine 500 of these

• Learning to become an African women:

o Fetching water and pushing the wheelbarrow back as my skirt falls off, making dinners of pap, pap, and more pap, eating chicken feet from a stand on the side of the road, watching “Generations”- the South African soap opera that the entire country stops to watch, walking 30 minutes each way to get potatoes from the stand off the road, learning to dance as an African by watching the same music videos over and over and over again, and learning to bathe African style with simply a tub of hot water…

My kitchen- notice our "stove" and lack of many things found in our kitchens

Our sink- similar to the tubs used for bathing

Our typical meal of chicken, beans, pap, and cabbage

Our walk to fetch water- the green tub off in the distance is where the water is

My bathroom- where many times I would be going to the bathroom while hearing and seeing through the door children right outside

• Playing with all the neighbors in the yard until it simply gets too dark to see anything and then everyone taking a quick break to eat dinner before they all came back to watch “Generations” in Sandile’s bedroom

The view from our backyard : )

• Being confused alot like...going to what we thought was a Church service Saturday morning only to be there for two hours and they say we are stopping for a break before we come back for the second session…..what?? Oh wait this is normal in Africa….

• Sitting in our room for hours because we simply had no idea what was going on and what we were supposed to be doing…

• Laying in bed at night with Marcella and Sandile while eating yogurt, playing new games, watching soaps, and talking about life J

I went into my community stay with a stereotype in my mind about “African life.” And I realized at the end of the week that yes, we live differently and don’t do things the same but àlife is lifeß. My new sister Sandile had the same fears, desires, and dreams in a big picture way that I do. She was an only child who was lonely a lot of times and who wanted a friend, or as she got this past week, two sisters to listen to her and share with her. The week was nothing like I expected but God made it even better than my own expectations.

My new sisters : )