Christmas

Blog Post 3:
It will be Christmas morning tomorrow. I'll be waking up the same time I normally do on Christmas day, but it will be my alarm clock, not my little brother who gets me out of bed. I don't care what anyone says though, they're not going to convince me that it's Christmas. Thirty-four degrees Celsius is not Christmas...
We had a small Christmas party tonight. All the volunteers had a secret santa and we all made a dish that we would normally eat at home. It was all really good. I scrambled around trying to get the ingredients for cranberry cake because apparently they sell cranberries here, but I had to change my idea at the last minute because if they did sell cranberries, I couldn't find them. I made fruit cocktail cake instead...still good. :) My secret santa present was from Dan; a bottle of Chardonnay and a chocolate bar. Apparently he knows what women like. :P There were a few protests though; "Who gave alcohol to the minor??"
I've moved up in the world since night shift. I'm now allowed to do Fledgies and Lions. Fledgies are so incredibly boring. All that happens with them is that they each get fed every four hours and changed nappies in between. They aren't small enough to be as cute as the Nesties and they aren't big enough to have as much personality as the Grubs. They're just boring. The Lions are a ton of fun though. This may sound terrible, but I think all my years working with dogs has given me just the right authoritative voice for the Lions. It's amazing what kinds of trouble they can get into in the course of three seconds or less. Today, we took them to the Memorial Garden to see the tortoises (torti?) and since the sprinkler was on, we were all soaking wet in a matter of minutes. It was so much fun though. :)
We went out to some of the squatter camps today, delivering presents. Apparently these people in the camps are people who have never had a country. They're not even refugees; they don't belong anywhere. They were so overjoyed to get the presents though, to the point of desperation, pushing and shoving each other and occasionally ripping things out of each other's hands in their efforts to get more things for themselves or their kids. It was kind of...I don't know what word you would use to describe it....humbling, depressing, uplifting....and then some others. We got to spend part of the afternoon touring the outer fringe of Joburg in the bed of a truck as well, with our hair whipping in the wind. :) It was a lot of fun. :)
Some of us girls went to Southgate Mall the other day, which is considered the 'black' mall. Strangely (or not so strangely), this country is still mainly segregated...and the races don't mix very well at all. Anyway, we were literally the only 4 white people in the entire mall. It was kind of funny. Nice mall though. I had some amazing fish and chips at a restaurant there, which is saying something, because I don't normally like restaurant fish. :)
Otherwise, life goes on as usual. The water pump's been gloriously consistent lately. The internet works most days. I got a cell phone finally. :) I'm starting to make some very close friends. :) Tomorrow we get a huge breakfast and lunch with everyone. :) I'm so excited. I'm wondering if we'll actually get to sit down...that would be strange...
Anyway, it's a long day tomorrow and unfortunately, the clock doesn't stop ticking for those of us silly enough to stay up past nine. Good night! Merry Christmas and God bless to all! I hope you have a wonderful Christmas day. :) Much love,

Karli