May Update

I realize that May was a long time ago, but a friend of mine just sent out her Christmas letter from last year, so I figured its NEVER to late!!! More current news is on the way!! For those of you faithfully checking for my updates, im sorry for letting you down. Its hard to catch up when you get behind!

• The kids still love coming over to play after work and on weekends. They can play for hours and hours with very little to entertain them. I love their spontaneous performances of songs, dances and acrobatics the most…. Their enjoyment of the simple things in life is absolutely contagious! I have grown to love these kids immensely. Not sure how I will ever say goodbye!

• I’m making a crazy number of cakes, and everyone still loves them! In general the last few months have been big cooking months…. I had lots of people over for meals which also coincided with our worst month of electricity resulting in candelight dinners every second night. So I have now become a pro cooking on the fire outside! Probably also become a little pyromaniac… I can light a fire in no time at all now.


• Work has been busy, the winter months have been a little cooler here, so the numbers have dropped for a while, giving me some extra time to make lots of resources & toys for the kids. As a team it has given us the chance to evaluate some of our programs and look into ways to become more involved out in the rural communities, which has been really exciting. I have been successful in some funding proposals through aus aid to purchase an earmould making laboratory for hearing aids. Yay!
  
• Harvesting season has been and gone, the tall green maize fields are back to their dry dirt state again. . I spent some time during May helping my friends harvesting their fields. Some of the most exhausting work I have ever done, AND a great deal of fun…


• The last weekend of May saw the first ever “Talents of the Malawi child” musical festival hosted at SOS. It was absolutely sensational, heaps of singing, dancing and cheering! Basically it was an inter-orphanage singing competition. The commentators were children from the timveni radio station, (kids targeting all sorts of different childrens rights issues) Fantastic program! My favourites in the festival were the SOS marimba band of course (but I guess im biased!) and an acapella boys group who had the most breathtaking voices I have ever heard. They were from the reform school up in the mountains (which is actually a kids prison) They have done, seen and experienced things we could never imagine possible from such young children, so to hear them sing about their experiences and see the joy when the crowd went crazy…. wow… it was like a movie moment. everyone was crying or cheering or doing both. I will never EVER forget it! And lastly the boys with the home made instruments. Just awesome. The guitar was made from a Gerry can, some wire and a carved plank of wood, the drums were made from bamboo, maize bags, string, tin cans, and wire. They were amazing, they could dance like I have never seen anyone dance before. Unforgettable moments.


• Met some fantastic French Canadian nuns who run a street kids ministry in town, spent some time visiting their project and learning so much more about kids on the street. Learnt a few lessons about the underground begging agents who steal kids from villages, promising them food, shelter and income in exchange for “work” but who never deliver on the promises and take all of their incomes.


• The first Lady of Malawi passed away, so it is officially a month of mourning, there was a big state funeral that was televised on the local Malawi stations. I went to a friends house and we all sat around on the floor watching the funeral which was rather fascinating. I must admit there was a lot of giggling happening from all of us at times. At the grave side ceremony which was HUGE, the played a very cheerful big marching band performance of old lang sine (??spelling?)… which only reminded me of fun new years parties, and seemed rather out of place. There was also a little disaster when the coffin got stuck going down, and THEN these contractors came in with a giant cement truck. Men in bright blue overalls and matching hard hats all marched in with wheelbarrows and shovels to fill the grave with cement before the tombstone was revealed and sealed. Rather bizarre.


• Oh great news about Rhoda!! Things are moving along nicely and rather miraculously! Air Malawi have offered two free tickets from Lilongwe to J-burg, then one of Rhodas sos sponsers has offered to cover the flights to Australia. We are still in the process of communicating with some doctors in Adelaide for the surgery. So that’s all rather exciting. I am continuing to look into other leads as well, because Rhoda will need many surgeries over the years, but every step is exciting! Thankyou to all of you who have responded to this need in some way! You are a blessing to Rhoda’s life!!! I will keep you updated!!!