Starting to See the Last of Africa

It’s weird to think that I’m nearing the close of my time here. Sure I have almost 2 weeks left, but today was actually my group’s last day of true ministry. My half of the group taught at Limakatso this week and the other half will next week. The half on base has just been oiling cabins all week. My group will finish that and start on the fences next week– which just leaves less than a week in Africa yet, and the last couple days we won’t even be on the base because we’re goin north for warmer weather for debriefing.

So, to recap, this last week, my group taught in Limakatso. If you don’t recall or haven’t read it previously, Limakatso is a disabled children’s school in Intabazwe. And you probably don’t know this, but Intabazwe is the closest town to us– it’s a nice short 20 minutes away. Anyways. As with everything in Africa, even the disabled children’s schools are different than in the states. Currently, this school of 11 students doesn’t even have a teacher, because the one from this last year quit, but I think finished out the year. P.s. the schools have a short break in the winter and a longer one in the summer (THEIR summer and winter that is). So this last week was their first week back in school and since they still don’t have an actual teacher, just an amazing woman named Topsy who takes care of them, we hung out and taught them for about three hours each day. The crazy thing about disabled children’s schools though, is how mentally disabled people are regarded in this culture. They’re so neglected, that their disabilities are far worse than they should be because no one’s truly worked with them closely enough to help them along.
Each of us was partnered with one “kid” to work with them this whole week, though the kids ranged in ages from about 11 years old to… around 25-30 (I’m guessing that’s how old Fetsi is, but he looks much older so I don’t rightly know). Teboho, who was my friend this week, is 17 years old and, I admittedly don’t know what disability he has, I just know what it looks like. Teboho’s disability is mostly physical, but yet, because of his limitations and because of how poorly the society helps disabled children, he’s on the level of all the rest of the disabled children at the school. Teboho has very limited motor skills: he can move his arms for the most part, he can grip things when you put it in his hand correctly, he can speak, though it’s labored (and in Sesotho, that didn’t help me at all), but besides that, he doesn’t have much control over his body. The great thing about Teboho though is his mind. Since he speaks Sesotho and I do not I didn’t really get to talk to him, but when his mom, Topsy, spoke to him and he responded, I could see there’s likely not too much hindering his mind besides his virtual total lack of education.
He even can speak a slight bit of English. Every day when we got there, part of my greeting was to ask him how he was doing, and every day he responded with “I’m fine.” Besides that, when I asked him questions, since he always answered “yes” I’m not really sure what he did and didn’t understand of my English. I have to be honest though, working with Teboho was just as tiring as it was a blessing. It’s emotionally tiring working with disabled children, and doubly if not triply so when you can’t even talk to them. I might’ve been perfectly fine working with him if I could at least hold a simple conversation with him.
Despite the difficulties and exhaustion, it’s always joyous working with people that smile so easily. I guess, in their simplicity, it’s easier to find joy. At one point, Tome laughed so hard, she cried. When’s the last time you just walked into a place, made a friend, then had them laugh so hard they cried within just a couple days? It’s always a joyous sight.
While I may be emotionally drained after this week with the kids, I’m still quite sad that I’m done with the organized ministry here in Africa. Although I’ve never been one for organization. Every day I break down barriers when we drive somewhere by smiling and waving at people who’d thought a white person would never do that for them or, after buying something at a gas station, by standing around talking to the four nice ladies behind the counter about anything about ourselves because they find it all so interesting. Truly, ministry never ends because you constantly interact with people no matter where you are, but it’s still sad that the organized portion is done here in Africa. It’s especially sad that I may never see Qwa Qwa again… talk about a beautiful mountain town. Or even that I’ll never see Limakatso again. After rebuilding then teaching there, it makes me sad to have the possibility of never seeing it again. Oh well, such is life.

A quick note on the future.
Since I’m so bad at being regular with my blogs, I should just tell ya a bit about what’s to come.
Let’s start soon: this Sunday, we’re repelling down the back of Everest. Very exciting. I’ve seen the rock we’re goin down, and it’s QUITE tall, so hopefully I’m feeling 100% by then (yesterday and today my stomach’s been kinda funky).
Next week my group will be on base oiling cabins and fences, as I said before. Here, they oil instead of put finish on: it’s just their form of preserving the wood. I’m not really looking forward to oiling because it’s some REALLY nasty stuff, but oh well. I should mention that that and Limakatso just take place before lunch (1:00): after lunch we have some classes.
I think that next weekend we’re going someplace with other mountains we can climb, but I don’t remember for certain…
For our last week, I know we have some base work to do such as oiling fences and such and perhaps some other stuff, but then we start debriefing. I believe we have a day or two of debriefing here on base, but then for the last two days, we head north for warmer weather and a REAL AFRICAN SAFARI! Woot. We’ll do some debriefing up there, but I think it’ll probably end up being mostly unofficial and involving some late-night cabin talks aka, the best kind. Oh. I should also mention, for debriefing, we get to stay some place with shalays (like many African words, I’m just guessing on the spelling). Shalays are basically larger huts with beds and such. This place has shalays that fit like 6 people, so we’re gettin 4 of em. And if you’re really paying attention, now’s when you go, “6 people? But I thought there were 7 guys?” (I doubt anyone really knew/remembered that though) And yes, that’s correct. We’re all friendly though.
Sometime in there, I know we’ll be hitting up an African market as well, so that should be fun. I just don’t have a clue where or what or when or ANYTHING, just that we will, so the end.
After all that, we’ll be heading directly to Jo-berg and be off to the states again– except for Elder Chu, of course: he’s Canadian.


Hope ya’ll have a wonderful two weeks!
-Love from Africa!