(origineel bericht op be-more.nl)
Life story
Dear everyone,
Sorry that it took me so long to give you another update from my time in South Africa. Last week I was put on daycare again and I have to say that I know my way around a little better now. every day it’s the same routine so that makes it a little easier. Also I’m starting to learn all the kids names. I’m not very good with names to begin with, imagine me trying to learn zulu names! I actually dared to take care of the smallest babies this week. We have two babaies that are about two months old and were a little bit too small for my liking. But this week I gave the bottle a few times to them an changed their diapers. So whenever I get back to the Netherlands you are welcome to give me a baby anytime and I’ll actually be able to take good care of it, haha! The point I’m trying to make here, is that I’m learning a lot about kids here. Last week we had to say goodbye to one of the babies that are put up for adoption. Even though I’d only been here for one week, I still kinda miss her. She was this cute baby (well baby, she was two years old) that rocked herself to sleep by bumping her back into the sides of her little bed. When I asked one of the people here why she was doing that they told me it was probably because she was never rocked to sleep when she was younger. Now we only have five babies left.
Also this week Ros told us her life-story. I have to say it was most impressive to hear and after that story I’m looking at this place in a whole other perspective. This big family started with the adoption of this one cute black baby J. This baby would have died where it not for Ros who took him home and took care of him when no one else wanted too. She fell in love with this little black baby and soon another five followed. Legally you are not allowed to foster more than six kids I believe, and because more kids kept coming in there was sort of a problem there. So she adopted another one of the kids, so another could join their family. Eventually she ended up with more kids in here care than was legally allowed. Since she wasn’t gonna give up these children she took the case to court and eventually was allowed to keep all the kids, and now it’s one big family of fourteen kids, peter, yvon (dutch volunteers who ended up living here…No worries, I’ll come back ;)), and of course Ros. And now we, the volunteers, are also part of this amazing family for a couple of months.
On a whole other note, this weekend I and one other fellow volunteer went on safari in the hluhluwe wildpark this weekend. It was the most amazing experience. We actually saw four of the five animals from the ‘big 5’ list. Right when we entered the park we saw three rhinos (white ones, for the people that know the difference) standing by the side of the road. After that we spotted a lion, the only one we’ve seen all weekend but nevertheless we saw a lion! We also saw lots of buffalo’s and elephants, but we never saw a leopard, which is a shame cause I would have really loved to see that. Also we were all nearly killed by elephants (exaggeration of course…lol). There was this one elephant, baby really, that was very aggressive towards us, but we all trusted our experienced tour guide and in the end we all got past the elephants safe and sounds. But it was a little bit of a scare for a second. Besides those four animals we also saw a lot of zebra’s, giraffes, one hippo and, impala’s (tons). All together it was an amazing experience, and I definitely have to go back to try and find a leopard and some more lions.
Well that was the end of this week, and this time I’ll put up a new blog on Sunday, I promise.
Lots of love and kisses and hugs!