Easter and an Extreme Makeover

Hi Everyone!

I hope you all had a nice Easter! It was weird not being home for the holiday, but I did have a great day here. I went to mass at Stellenbosch Baptist Church in the morning with my service learning teacher (Grant), his mother (Colleen), his foster son (Ashlek), and four of my friends. The service had much more singing and was overall a much nicer atmosphere than I had found at the Catholic Church here. The congregation was very diverse, which was a refreshing change from most other social settings around the Stellenbosch area. After church a big group of my friends got together for a potluck lunch and ate tons of delicious foods. I made roasted potatoes, and the other dishes included lamb, pasta, spicy green beans, mashed potatoes, stuffing, and apple pie. We played egg toss and had a chocolate egg hunt and just hung out in the sun for a few hours. It was a nice relaxing day.

our buffet above and preparing for egg toss below
On Monday we didn’t get to teach because our kids were still on vacation, so Grant planned an optional activity for us. With the exception of the two students who were sick, we all took the 8:20 train to Lynedoch and headed across the street to Kathleen Peterson’s house on the nearby farm. For those of you who didn’t get a chance to read my blog entry about visiting Kathleen, she is the grandmother of Ashlek and she lives in a small 3 room house with her daughter (Ashlek’s mother) and granddaughter (Ashlek’s sister). She’s crippled and can’t work any more because her mobility is limited, but when she was younger she worked as the nanny for the current white farm owner. Our activity for the day was to create our miniature version of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. We had put quite a bit of planning into this day and I was skeptical about the amount of work we’d actually get done. However, the 22 of us, plus Grant and Ashlek, were able to make a significant amount of improvements to their house. We broke up into small groups and put a new coat of white paint on the outside of the house (because the current coat was chipping and/or turning gray), scrubbed all the mold and mildew off the walls and ceiling of the kitchen, painted the kitchen a light blue color that really brightened things up, cleaned and washed the roof, began planting a few gardens in the front yard, took lots and lots of ticks off the dog, washed all of the dishes and cooking supplies; put a new floor down in the kitchen; got rid of all the loose wire that had been buried around the yard; and improved the walkway leading up to the house. A few of my classmates also gave Kathleen’s daughter and granddaughter manicures and pedicures, because Grant requested that we do something to make them feel pampered. After seven hours we left the house looking quite different than when we arrived. It was amazing to actually finish everything we started and get to see concrete change being made in their living space.
Melinda polishing the window frames while Jeff and Terry paint the houseDustin whacking weeds Dani and Paula scrubbing the ceiling... note the not so nice walls and floor

Vanessa and Autumn preparing for the floor... note the new blue walls

the new floor and new table cloth

I also want to include some pictures below from last week’s extra trip to Lynedoch. Last Wednesday I spent the day working on our new garden at the school with my friends Evan and Dustin. We were able to turn up several beds of soil and plant some more vegetables and flowers. We also had a few little helpers who wandered over to our garden and hung out with us all day. There was a young girl and two young boys who spoke very little English but wanted our attention nonetheless. The girl’s parents are gardeners at the Sustainability Institute, and she certainly inherited their green thumb. She knew exactly how to remove the plants from their container gently, place them in a shallow hole, and water them carefully. She clearly had an appreciation for the plants and the beds of soil and was extremely gentle with them. The two little boys were less skilled at gardening, and definitely not as cautious, but we let them help for a while until they lost interest and just wanted to play with Evan. Grant had brought us out some water and chips earlier in the morning, so we offered some to the kids and they seemed very appreciative. Later in the day Dustin and I were busy planting when I looked up and saw the little girl passing me a cup of water. She had gone into the school, refilled our water bottle, and poured us each a glass. Despite the language barrier, my interactions with this young girl were the highlights of my day. It was so nice to form a bond with someone even though I struggled to verbally communicate with her.