Chatham Hall in South Africa

OK – still can’t add pictures yet, but a quick update for the last two days.  On Thursday we were back at the Recreation Center, working mostly with the day-care kids they have there: playing with them and fixing their lunch, then bagging up bread, cracker, and cookie crumbs that they take home to add to their breakfast porridge.  Thursday night was a completely different view of Cape Town, as we enjoyed dinner at Bishops school, a stunning boys’ prep school in the shadows of Cape Town’s mountains.  The girls enjoyed the scenery, I believe (and maybe the mountains, to0…).

Friday was an incredible day – an emotionally draining one.  We divided into two groups: one stayed at the Rec center at first, preparing food, and the other went into the Township (Bloekombos).  There, the group met with several women and their children (Carol’s “clients”) at a care clinic and talked to the director of the clinic, then walked through the Township and visited a couple more clients in their homes.  Late morning, the groups switched and the second group walked to several client homes in the township while the first finished cooking.  Then, all of us went into another neighborhood and served lunch to children coming home from school.  (Did I mention it topped 100 degrees today?)

Our late afternoon was spent traveling to Robben Island – an intense and moving experience of its own.  To stand at Mandela’s cell, being guided by a 20-year political prisoner whose cell was four down from Mandela’s…unbelievable.

Tomorrow and Sunday we’re off to De Hoop nature reserve for some environmental work – I assume no internet and no blog updates, so I hope to have some more students add their voices in on Monday.