Kids-gotta love 'em!

I went to the gym earlier and when I came back I had the most amazing greeting I've ever experienced. But first the back story:

When I first arrived there was a boy in the house let's call him B. B is usually really nice, he can be a hassle to work with because he has a very strong personality and loves to be in charge so getting him to do something can sometimes take some imagination! But he reminds me of one of my little brothers a lot, he is very funny, playful and he will do something just to get a reaction out of people (my brother does this ALL the time). He's physically one of the older boys in the house at around 10 years, but he is 10 years old mentally as well which in my eyes makes him the most mature of them all. It takes a while to build up a relationship with him, but once you do he's amazing, so kind and sweet! Technically you shouldn't have a favourite child but it's hard and I definitely have kids I like much more than others-I reckon it's fine as long as you treat them all as equally as you can. But B is definitely my favourite! If I could take him home in my suitcase I definitely would :) Unfortunately for me, he's just been moved out of the house. I think I wrote on my blog about the reorganising of the girls houses where they put all the younger girls in one house and all the older ones in another, well they've now done that with the boys houses so all the under 14s are in houses 11 and 12, and the over 14s are in houses 3 and 4. And my little baby B has been moved out of Stepping Stones and into house 11. I miss his personality in the house but at least I won't have to make him cry when I leave (hopefully) as he's the one child I think that understands the most about how when the volunteers leave, they tend not to come back-not the case for me obviously.

Anyway,

 When I got back from the gym today, I walked through the back gate and I saw him playing on the field a fair way away. I wasn't sure if he'd seen me but I was going to go and say hello because I hadn't seen him for a few days and I wanted to see how he was doing. But after I'd walked a few steps, he flung his arms in the air and yelled DAAAMMMMMMMMSSSSSSSSSSSOOOOOOOOOOOOONNNNNNNN and started legging it towards me! He ran right up to me and jumped into my arms and gave me a massive hug, before telling me all about the football game he was playing with one the other boys who is still in my house. He said he was playing as England and he was winning (YEAH!) and the other boy came up to me and told me he was playing as Belgium (the other boy was very close with my room-mate who worked in the house and who was from Belgium and when the 2 play footie, B usually picks England and the other boy picks Belgium!)

On Thursday (18th July) it is Mandela day and South Africans are encouraged to spend 67 minutes helping others, so I have to spend my break talking to 20 people who are coming to play with the babies for 67 minutes. I love the idea of encouraging people to help others-if only for a short time, but I'm not so keen on the idea of a bunch of people coming in to mess about with the kids for so little time, it just feels like we're using the kids but...there's not a lot I can do, especially as a foreigner, lets just hope we can blow them away and they'll want to volunteer here or offer some other kinds of service to the kids or the home on another occasion.