3000 HITS!

WOOHOO 3000 hits! Baie dankie, baie baie dankie almal!

Boredom, Cats and Parrots.

I have tonsillitis and so, am super duper bored. I've made a 3D spinning cat out of card and a tree full of parrots. My mum sent a book of cut out animals that you glue together and they move in different ways. I was in so much pain yesterday I could barely swallow. I woke up at about 4am this morning with my throat so sore I think I was crying in my sleep. I got up and went to the kitchen for some ice water and Sarah left some of her amazing pain killers in there for me. My throat was so swollen I had to cut them up so small they were nearly powder and every time I swallowed it was excruciating. It is my long week this week, obviously, I wouldn't get sick on a short week, that would be considered helpful. So at about 4.30am I texted the shift leader (thank god for night-shift!) to say I was really sorry but I wouldn't be able to work that morning. The volunteer manager has what I would class a phobia of sick volunteers. She's not scared of germs so much as all the volunteers all getting sick at the same time which is fair enough I suppose. But because we all live so close and there's no way of getting away from sick people, if one of us gets sick, often quite a few folk go down with. For example, I share a room with 3 other people, a bathroom with 7 others and a kitchen with maybe 14 people. And there are 150 kids. So our manager has installed a new rule: You may have one day off sick. If you need to take any more off you have to go to the doctor. I think it's half to discourage people being 'sick' because they were out drinking the night before and can't face work and half so that people who are actually sick get medication. If you don't go to the doctor, the extra time you take off get taken off your leave.

So I went to the medi-center today. Being sick here really makes you appreciate what an amazing thing the NHS is. Yes it has it's flaws but they'll treat anyone any time-even if you do have to wait a bit! Anyway, I went to the doctors. The doctor checks my temperature and I have a fever, he then gets his light and one of those little wooden sticks they use to press down your tongue. I open my mouth and he takes one look, puts back the little stick and goes “Well I'm not going to need that and I think I don't even need my light”. He pokes my definitely swollen lymph nodes and announces that I definitely have tonsillitis.

Now I have some MASSIVE antibiotics (seriously, you'd think if it was for tonsils so swollen and painful you can't swallow, they wouldn't give you pills so insanely huge you contemplate not taking them cause it looks too painful) painkillers that take me from unable to swallow my own spit, to barely a sore throat. And a spray that tastes so alcoholic I think I get drunk off one squirt and it burns when I hits my throat. And I'm off work until Wednesday (but because it's my long week I would only work Monday, Tuesday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday) and cause I've not been 100% for a couple of weeks my boss says she might as well just give me the whole week off.

My organisation is coming on Thursday so if I get the whole weekend off, it might be nice cause then I might be the person that gets the free trip up Table Mountain or whatever because everyone else is working this weekend but I;d be so bored if I couldn't work and I miss my kids already!

Right I'm going to make a spinning frog!

Infections.

I has tonsilitis...YAY

The Last Roomie...

My Japanese room-mate leaves tomorrow morning and it makes me want to cry.

But as a surprise for her, we've made a leaving video for her and hidden it in her luggage.

On the plus side, Sarah's moving into our room on Wednesday. Yay.

6 Months Gone/Left.

I am officially half way through my year. It hasn't gone in the blink of an eye so I'm not so worried about my next 6 months disappearing but I can't help but think of all the things I haven't done yet that I want to do.

But today I had a wonderful time! I've been helping at the kids drumming club since October, I have been every single week except one and I love it. I'm the only volunteer who goes, others come to one session and can't be bothered coming to more or don't like it. But because I've been going so long and I go every week I've had so many opportunities come from it. There is a drum circle in the evening on Thursdays that is for members of the local community which I now go to every other week when I'm not working which is amazing, someone always brings me a djembe because I don't have one! Today the CCW who runs the club (lets call him H) took 2 kids and me to his church to do a little class with some of the kids there. IT WAS SO FUN! At first me,  H and one of the kids showed them some basic rhythms and talked a little but about technique like which bits of your hand need to hit which bits of the drum then we put them all in a circle and gave them a black plastic drum each and had a jam. The kids picked up the patterns really really fast, we only had to play the rhythms once or twice and they had them. At the end, H was on the big bass drum and one of the kids was playing his djembe and I was on a miniature skin and H had me leading a jam! I was so honoured he felt I'd picked up enough to lead! And we're doing it again in 2 weeks!

Swallows and Amazons

When working with the child-care worker that I do, I have to work an extra 2 hours every morning. Ok, so that's a small lie. I have to work from 6-10 but all my kids have gone to school by 7.40 every morning, 7.50 if the bussie is late. If you work with the other child-care worker you get your break at 7 or 8 because she doesn't have any more work for you. My ccw makes me work until 10 in the little kids house. It is utterly pointless me being there as there are 4 kids the oldest is 3, and 3 volunteers and 3 ccw's. But I do quite like it. We get to watch 4 babies playing and occasionally they come over and just want to sit on your lap for a bit. When I go in, the littlest (but not the youngest) one always clambers up onto my knee so I can sing her a song. This morning she did that but after one song, two of the others wanted to join in so I had the littlest duckling basically sat on my hips then another two, slightly fatter/chubbier/squidgier ducklings on each knee. When baby duckling realises he's all on his own on the floor he starts to cry and wants to sit on my knee as well! But there's no room so I sit all of them in the floor and Sarah walks in to see me sat on the sofa singing "Mr Rabbit" with funny voices and actions, and 4 kids sat at my feet, completely still, watching me. When I sang it again, most of them sang along (in that one-note-continuous-squeak babies do) and did the actions. (excuse the out of character moment) IT WAS SO DAMN CUTE!

When we took them outside me and Sarah were sat on the slide watching them play and there were so many swallows flying around us and so close. It's so odd that in England you always hear of all the swallows flying thousand and thousands of miles all the way to Africa where it's nice and warm. All of a sudden we're on the other end of that where we are in Africa where the swallows came and soon they will by flying back to England where it's nice and warm! (well sort of).

Alcohol, Drugs and other Undesirables.

Ok. So this post is an interesting one. This happened last night.

Yesterday was the Valentines Ball for the kids, they all get dressed up and look baie lekker. The little'uns went first from 6-7 then the older kids from 7-9.30. In the change over there were a lot of volunteers hanging around and our manager called us into the nearest living area to have a quick meeting. We got the impression it was very important because absolutely everybody had to be there whether they were working or not.

Due to the fact it's a children's home (and it's against the law) there is a zero tolerance for drugs and alcohol on the premises. If alcohol or drugs are found in your room or on your person you get sent home straight away. So were all called into this meeting and our manager starts off with: "What's the children's homes main rule?" And we're all like "ohhhhhhhh" From what I've heard, staff smelt people smoking weed a few days ago and in a different incident also saw volunteers smoking. So yesterday evening during the valentines ball we all had our rooms searched. About an hour later 4 people get called into the night shift leader's office and long story short, they had to have left the home by midday today. It's about as much drama as there will ever be in my time here.

In other news, I did litter picking today with my kids! As part of a project with Cape Town Council (I think) some of the ids are taking part in an outreach programme which today involved picking up litter for a hour. The kids found 2 bras 6 g-strings and 9 wine bottles and I'm almost certain they threw them all away (you never can be too certain) and then we had a lovely braai at someone's house!