Valentine's Day Highs & Lows

It has been a weekend of pretty intense highs and lows here at Botshabelo!

I'll begin with Valentine's Day. Now, the kids here are absolutely nuts for this holiday, although they seem to lack any romantic affiliation to it, which is just fine by me (especially for children)! Everyone wanted to wear pink, red, and white at school yesterday, but were unjustly forced to stick to their school uniforms of light and navy blue. Tragic, no? 

Anyway, Anne, the recently arrived volunteer, cooked a lovely meal for the Cloete family, the head school administrator, Gift, our handyman, Harold, and me on Friday night and it was then that we learned that we would be judges at the Valentine's Day show the following day. Say what? We didn't get any more details than that, but were intrigued and eager to see what the kids would be doing and sharing in their excitement for the holiday.

The following morning, I chose to do my daily workout on the large deck outside my house since the weather was nice and it was much better than taking up all the common space in Dipuo's and my house. I noticed some of the kids peering at me from the path in front of the house and invited them to join me. Within ten minutes, we had about a dozen of us exercising together! It was fantastic and spontaneous and really freaking fun. Nothing takes your mind off of how hard it is to get through a minute of "froggers" like watching a little girl squeal with glee as she imitates the movement and delight in being a frog for a whole minute. As we were nearing the end, I had a brainwave: we should do this regularly! I had a way in with some of the kids that would be fun, physically active, and free of obligation. What better way to build rapport, forge a therapeutic alliance, and just play?

I was on a pretty serious high from the morning's workout and still grinning from ear to ear as I was hanging my laundry out to dry in the early afternoon when a child ran up and said that she was sent to fetch me for the Valentine's Day contest and that I must come now. Now??? I had thought that it was in the evening. Anne was still in the kitchen, where she spends most of her time, but I happened to catch her on my way out. She was just as surprised as I was, but we hustled over to the classrooms where the event was apparently taking place. People were still milling around when we arrived and we were then asked if we had pens and paper . . . Well, no, we have no idea what's going on! So I ran back to the house, grabbed some stuff, and ran back, only to discover that they'd found pens and paper in the nearby classroom. We proceeded to wait around for about 45 minutes before anything really started, but also without ever really receiving any information about what on earth we were supposed to be judging. Some kids started dancing, so we asked if this was what we were judging. No, it was not, they were just performing for fun. Ok . . .

So, Anne, Harold, and I sat and waited for whatever it was that we were about to judge. We had an ever-changing list of children broken up into older girls, younger girls, and boys laying on the table in front of us. Suddenly it began and a line of about 20 girls suddenly walked out in front of us. There were no numbers, they were not in the order on our lists, and I have, at this point, maybe 25 names down of the 160 children here. I felt so flustered and I was trying so hard to make sense of everything! It was frustrating, but at least it looked like the kids were enjoying themselves!

Some of the contestants in the Valentine's Day contest!

We suddenly took a break, for reasons I didn't completely understand, but I was glad to have a chance to step away, even for just a moment. I was able to recognize that I wasn't going to understand what was join on and that I could just let go and let it be and make some choices and try to enjoy it!

I was starting to feel better from walking back to the house while taking deep breaths, when Anne noticed that her wine was missing from on top of the fridge. Then she realized her cigarettes and lighter were also gone. I went to use the restroom and discovered that my toiletries were also absent. Later we also identified my chicken breasts and Diet Coke in the fridge as casualties. We'd been robbed. SUPER.

Mercifully, my bedroom was secure and my computer, iPhone, camera, passport, and wallet were untouched. I'd have cried if any of those had gone missing. But little items from the kitchen were easily replaceable. The icky feeling I had in the pit of my stomach was from the thought of someone being in my space when I wasn't there and without my knowledge. We determined that they'd waited for everyone to be occupied by the Valentine's Day celebration and managed to get in through an open window I'd left when I locked up in my rush to hurry up and wait for nearly an hour at the start of the event. I felt a little sheepish, but rested in the knowledge that it could have been so much worse and that I wouldn't make the same mistake twice.

My roommate, Dipuo came back to the house in the middle of this discovery and expressed genuine empathy and compassion. She said she hated it when stuff like this happened, especially with visitors. She said that she would tell Nicole, so she knew. We thanked her and collected ourselves to head back to the pageant, hoping to leave the sour moods behind.

When we walked back in to finish judging, the first words we were met with were that I was told in my induction to always close and lock the windows when I leave the house . . . I was overcome with the care in this statement. It was defensive and absolutely not the reaction we needed right then, but we were already in a mood, so it just confirmed that the day was going to be a mixed bag.

Eventually we did, in fact, judge the contest. We kind of managed to get the kids in the order they were on our lists and see the entire performance, but even now, more than 24 hours later, I can't tell you if we judged a fashion show or a beauty pageant. All I can tell you is that we chose winners and the crowd seemed pleased by our choices, so I guess we can call that a win!

Waiting to hear who the winners are! 

We also had a fantastic performance from a pair of gumboot dancers who were incredibly talented and (apparently) very funny (although they mostly spoke Tswana, so I didn't understand about 95% of it)! (I still can't upload videos without bringing the whole system down, but it's something to look forward to when I get home!)

Thankfully, today was mostly a win. I had lunch with an old camp friend, Melody, who has been living in Pretoria for a while with her husband and who is, in her own words, "pregnant up to here!" She was able to meet me in a town that's not too far from Botshabelo for ease of transport on my side and, although the outing was cut short, it was so pleasant to catch up with her. I don't think we'd actually laid eyes on each other in nearly a decade and it was just delightful to see her in South Africa and expecting a baby! She is due soon, so I hope that I will be able to see her again and meet her son before I have to go home. Fingers crossed! We didn't get a picture together because I'm an idiot, but next time . . . and with a brand new baby boy in it with us!

I have no idea what the week ahead has in store, but I'm crossing my fingers for a restful evening, and more positives than negatives on the horizon.