And so the bonding begins!

(Above: The little girl's name is Synothanda!! The first day we met her, she was shy and distant.. today she was filled with smiles and wanting to be held!!)
Wow! So today was day 3 at our service site. In a nut shell, it was a day filled with laughter, tears, getting pee on my shirt, dirtied clothes, and the beautiful start to deeper bonds and relationships with the staff and kids at Ethembeni. With all of that, I could not have asked for a better day.

This morning, we continued with our usual routine of playing with the children. My goodness, I cannot get enough of them! They are so cute!! It is amazing to see how far we've come along with memorizing there names. There very "difficult to pronounce" names, I might add. So the time usually flies when we are playing with them because we, too, are having so much fun.

Today, I met my mentor named, "Samke." She is a very sweet, shy 40 yr.old woman. I helped her with the cooking that needed to be done today. We chopped up vegetables for the beef curry rice dish that they served all the kids later that day. During this time, I had a chance to get to talk with her a little bit and get to know her. But at times, I found that it was a little awkward because she was very shy and couldn't fully understand me and the questions I was asking her. However, little did I know that things would change in the hours to come ;) I am very excited for tomorrow because I will be alongside her as we go to a home visit in the community. (The boy above is one of my favorites ((even though I love them all)).. His name is Tukelo!!)


Throughout the morning, also, we were working on our world map mural to add an "educational and informational" aspect to the four walls in the main room. We struggled a little bit with sizing the countries and spreading it evenly across the whole wall, but it worked just fine! We then added in the verse, John 3:16, in isiZulu. IsiZulu is one of the many languages they speak in South Africa. It was exciting to make progress on this mural... Now we are going to start painting in the countries within the next few days! (The girl in the pink is Claire, our very helpful social worker from England!!)

Now during the time that the kids were eating, we gathered up the staff to play a game with our group. It is a big goal for our team, to mesh both the staff and ourselves as we are serving these kids at Ethembeni. In order to do that fully, we thought that it would be great for some bonding to occur! What better way to bond than to play some fun games! And the cool thing was, we wanted to share with the staff what we were planning on doing with the kids in the afternoon and wanted them to be a part of it, also. The first game we played involved two teams. And each time had to try and make the longest line with their bodies, clothes, shoe laces, etc. You could use anything that was on your body to make the longest line. So all of us layed our bodies across the floor and used material on our body to make the line that much longer. There was much laughter involved as we were covered in dirt. After we announced the winner, we told them the bigger picture of this game and what it represents. The game is suppose to teach us that if we use the resources we have in front of us, we are able to accomplish big things and go far in life.
The other game we played invovled everyone being side-by-side (very close) and one individual in the center. There would be an object being passed around the backs of everyone in the circle in secrecy. The individual in the center would have to point at someone and guess who had the object in their hands at that specific time. After the person in the center would guess, they would show there hands to display the truth. This was a VERY FUN game and EVERYBODY loved it!! Also, my mentor, Samke, really started breaking out of her "shy" shell and was laughing hysterically! This game really allowed bonding to take place!
(Above: Alex, Cynthia, and I loving every moment of being surrounded by these kids!!)

Then a bunch of the kids started showing up after school was let out. I enjoyed this afternoon so much because we played the same games that we played with the staff and the kids loved it! They were a little confused with the "resource/make a long line" game but loved the circled one with the object behind your back. I had a moment, while playing the game, where I could not stop smiling because I was soaking up the moment. It is so amazing that we can come together with these kids, not being able to understand them fully, and enjoy a game like this with so much laughter and smiles. It was definitely one of my highlights so far being here.

After the game ended, everyone gathered in the main room to learn the "Diski Dance." Now this is no ordinary dance. It is the dance that millions of people in South Africa, both young and old, will perform while watching the world cup this summer! It is huge here, apparently! And so a bunch of us tried learning with all the kids. The music turned on and everyone simultaneously danced the "Diski dance." I was having so much fun and being a goof ball trying to learn the dance moves. So many of these kids have rythym.. and I just don't. haha That's the truth. So I was just going with it and having a ball!

I definitely could not have imagined a better day! I am so happy and blessed to be at Ethembeni and am always looking forward to the days to come and see how God will work!