And then the rains came

Since I arrived, the days have been sunny, hot, and dusty but Monday we awoke to our first rain. And it rained and rained…

Cassandra, Sibu, and I loaded up in the Land Rover and headed up to Etshaneni Creche. Though we had been to the school before, this was our first visit with the kids, and we were excited to get started. The school sits on the top of the mountain, through rough terrain and dirt roads. With the fog rolling in it was a bit difficult to get there but the Land Rover did its job and we were so excited to start the day. 

Because of the rain, only six children made it to school. Those who did were quite wet from the rain and had to take off their clothes to dry out, so they were sitting huddled in blankets. The roof of the creche is tin with a seam running down the middle and the windows do not have glass so the wind and rain were whipping through the small room.

When I first arrived, the kids stared at us with big, round eyes so I made my way over to them and crouched down. I began smiling and talking to one of the boys. He was so scared of me, he literally began to shake and he sank as far into his chair as possible. I was determined to win him over. This is that boy…

Since there were so few children, we decided to pull out the fun stuff - we got out tennis balls and began to toss them back and forth which brought out a lot of smiles. Then the good times kept rolling because we had bubbles. That caused serious excitement - popping them and letting them touch their skin. And finally we blew up a bunch of balloons and hit them around the room. 

The comment of the day - one of the local adults stopped by on his way to a meeting and saw us playing with balloons and he said, “this is like Christmas.” Something as simple as a balloon, something almost any child in our lives would have access to whenever they wanted and probably be bored of playing with after 30 seconds. 

By Wednesday, the rains were over and we went to our other school - Mama Grace's Creche and we had 37 children attend. By Thursday, word had spread that we were coming and 57 children came to school that day. It was a bit overwhelming. 

One of the things that is most striking (other than the fact that the children are extremely well behaved) is that most of these children walk themselves home at the end of the day. 

I discover a hundred humbling moments like this one every day.