Last night was lovely. :) About nine of us went out for drinks at an Irish Pub yesterday evening. Go figure, you go all the way to Africa to go to an Irish Pub...riiight...but, Dan the Irishman was driving, so it was up to him I guess. When we got back, Albertina, Lisa and I gathered up as many blankets as we could carry and headed out to the swinging bridge that is in the kids' playground. It was a perfect, starry night...clear as far as the eye could see...which is pretty far, when you're staring up at space.
Anyway, there were no mosquitos, no rain...beautiful. We cuddled in and fell asleep. Well, that's sort of how it happened. We may have woken up a time or two to shift around so that the planks were digging into the other side of our ribs, or to wonder why the night guard was yelling and waving his flashlight around and leaping into the van to race over to the gate...just more robberies. It was so...magical...to wake up to the birds starting to sing and the morning sky just starting to glow. :) It reminded me of sleeping in the hammocks at North Knife, or the igloo at Dymond Lake, or on a blanket with my little brother and sister on our front lawn...:) Speaking of the robberies, I think that it's just life around here. I'm pretty sure that a robbery has happened every single night since I've been here. Last night they were after the land lines, which is pretty standard.
:) I think that we've just stopped worrying about it. They've put up barbed wire in some spots, and palisade fencing in other places and locks on all our doors, so none of us are very worried. :) We also got a new baby, a preemie. She is the smallest human being I have ever seen. Her entire foot is smaller than my thumb, and I don't know if you've ever seen my thumb, but it's small to start with...She weighs less than two kilograms and the smallest clothes we have are too big on her. When you pick her up, it almost feels like you're not holding anything. Her name is Beka and she's adorable. :) But there are so many rules for preemies.
Apparently, if anything at all goes wrong, they stop breathing. If they get cold, they stop breathing; if they get over-stimulated, they stop breathing, etc, etc....So, it's a little nerve-wracking to be in the nest, but so far no mishaps. :) Anyway, I'm about to be late for work. I hope you are all having a wonderful week. :) Much love.
Karli
Saturday, February 20, 2010
Thursday, February 18, 2010
The end is near....
Probably the most exciting thing that's happened to me so far happened just the other day. 'Tina and I were listening to one of her CD's and, after years of hearing my dad sing it to us late at night, accompanied by his trusty guitar, I finally heard the song 'House of the Rising Sun'. I've never been more excited in my life. Ok, that's a lie, but I was pretty pumped. :)
Oh my word, one of the dogs just attacked one of the TLC drivers. He's fine, but all of our hearts are pounding. The dog that attacked him is named Baron and he's a huge mastiff, bigger than any dog I've seen. He only ever attacks black people and he doesn't give any warning, which is what just happened. But everyone's okay, so we're good...But scary...
After I finished my last nightshift (*sniff*), I spent the night at Kim and Rob's place again. It was so wonderful. Over lunch, I sat around, not worrying about any babies, listening to Kim's dad tell me about his pet lion that they owned before the war days. Yeah, he's cool. Afterwards, I had a nice long shower, gave myself a face mask and soaked my feet in Kim's foot jacuzzi...thing...It was bliss. :) I got a chance to go on the REAL internet. Checked my facebook for the first time in almost 3 months. It was disappointing. :P In the evening, I talked to my family on Skype for a bit, then went with the kids to their school to watch a comedy show put on by their teachers. It was so hilarious and if it had been performed in Steinbach, all the teachers would have been fired and it would have made the news. :P Let's just say that it ended with all their male teachers performing the full monty...in glow-in-the-dark underwear. :) Classic. :P It's funny how 'history repeats itself'...yes, this may be totally insignificant to you all, but the next morning, I tried a traditional South African breakfast cereal for the first time, that my dad first tasted on the Churchill River 20 years ago. For some reason, that was important. :P
Anyway, I have to go help figure out a way for us to get to Lesotho on March 1st. For some reason a 1-hr flight costs R5000...so we're going by bus. :) Much love, wish us luck! :)
Karli
Oh my word, one of the dogs just attacked one of the TLC drivers. He's fine, but all of our hearts are pounding. The dog that attacked him is named Baron and he's a huge mastiff, bigger than any dog I've seen. He only ever attacks black people and he doesn't give any warning, which is what just happened. But everyone's okay, so we're good...But scary...
After I finished my last nightshift (*sniff*), I spent the night at Kim and Rob's place again. It was so wonderful. Over lunch, I sat around, not worrying about any babies, listening to Kim's dad tell me about his pet lion that they owned before the war days. Yeah, he's cool. Afterwards, I had a nice long shower, gave myself a face mask and soaked my feet in Kim's foot jacuzzi...thing...It was bliss. :) I got a chance to go on the REAL internet. Checked my facebook for the first time in almost 3 months. It was disappointing. :P In the evening, I talked to my family on Skype for a bit, then went with the kids to their school to watch a comedy show put on by their teachers. It was so hilarious and if it had been performed in Steinbach, all the teachers would have been fired and it would have made the news. :P Let's just say that it ended with all their male teachers performing the full monty...in glow-in-the-dark underwear. :) Classic. :P It's funny how 'history repeats itself'...yes, this may be totally insignificant to you all, but the next morning, I tried a traditional South African breakfast cereal for the first time, that my dad first tasted on the Churchill River 20 years ago. For some reason, that was important. :P
Anyway, I have to go help figure out a way for us to get to Lesotho on March 1st. For some reason a 1-hr flight costs R5000...so we're going by bus. :) Much love, wish us luck! :)
Karli
Friday, February 12, 2010
Zoo excursions
I'm writing this after just coming off of another night of night shift, so if my typing sometimes seems a bit discombobulated, that's why. :) Night shift is going well. I just finished my....second? Third?...night. I'm worried though, because once I finish this night shift, I have only two weeks left here at TLC. Not a happy thought.
I got a chance to be a real mom the other day. Mairi, Lisa and I each brought one of the kids along to a petting zoo/farm about 20 minutes from TLC. I brought a little girl named...Tessa. :) She's about 8 months old and the cutest, sweetest little thing. I got to carry along nappies and bottles and mushy food for her, feed her, let her sleep on my lap...We were in a restaurant for lunch and I gave her little sugar packets to play with to keep her happy...then she figured out how to bite them open and was most of the way through her first mouthful of sugar before I noticed. Perhaps I'm not quite cut out to be a mom yet...:P Anyway, the 'petting zoo' was interesting. When we arrived, we paid our entrance fee and were directed by the desk lady towards a man who was going to 'show us around'. We walked over to him and I asked him where the animals were and he shrugged his shoulders and went back to his shoveling. Not a good sign. We found out later though, that he had a point. After about an hour wandering around the massive yard (nice manicured lawn, pretty play structures...not very farmy looking) and playing with their ample supplies of exotic ducks like...mallards...we finally found two cement pillars with the words 'Farm Yard' stamped into them and a variety of pens behind them. We were quite hopeful until we walked past the pillars. Here's how it panned out...Pen labelled 'sheep': two sheep in the far back corner of a pen large enough to keep 300 sheep in, not quite within petting distance....Pen without a label: Possible sighting of a pig laying in the shadow of a pretty miniature roof...Pen labelled 'horse': one chicken...Pen labelled 'camel': Poo. Strong suspicions that there may once have been a camel in there. And...that was it. A little disappointing for something we paid the equivalent of 4 dollars for. However, we had a lovely day anyway, sitting in the shade under the trees, playing with the kids, chatting and working on our suntans. :) We called the driver early...and that's when our next adventure began. You know when you drive into a parkade and they have horizontal poles hanging down to tell you whether or not you'll fit? Well, our driver seems to think that if the pole scrapes, drags and bangs against the top of the van, that means that we won't get jammed under the cement cieling once inside. He was, of course, wrong. Gotta give him credit for having perserverence though. :)
The water is out at the cottage and I haven't showered in...I'm not sure...three or four days? Luckily I'm on night shift and people don't have to spend much of the day smelling me. It's also 'high' fly season...so as you can imagine, it's not pretty.
I guess that we all talked about needing a change in groups long enough that they got sick of it and decided to completely rearrange the nursery. CAROLINE is WALKING! Can't remember if I told you that, so I figured I'd just throw that in there. :) Anyway, back to rearranging. Today, Quester (get this, his name means, 'one who asks questions'...never would have guessed...) moved from Nest to Fledgies, Ilana moved from Fledgies to Grubs, next week Caroline is going from Grubs to Creepies and Mbali will go from Creepies to Lions, taking Khensani's place who is going to her new home in Finland tomorrow, which is the same day that Nerina (nestie) is going home to her new mom. How's that for change? Crazy that Khensani, who is three and well rooted in TLC, can go from never having met her family, to living with them in Finland in one day...A bit unsettling I'd imagine.
Albertina and Tori had Wednesday off, so they invited me along to go to the zoo (the reeeeal zoo) with them. Awesome that you can run on such a small amount of sleep. :) It was really nice, huge actually. Their baboons had hemorrhoids....probably the most disgusting thing I've ever seen. :) Nothing really exciting to say about that day...except that I finally got to try a Peartiser...and I had a fruit smoothie that made me think of my dad. :) *sniff* :P
Anyway, I can't think of anything else that I wanted to say. I hope that everyone has a wonderful week. :) God bless and much love. :)
Karli
I got a chance to be a real mom the other day. Mairi, Lisa and I each brought one of the kids along to a petting zoo/farm about 20 minutes from TLC. I brought a little girl named...Tessa. :) She's about 8 months old and the cutest, sweetest little thing. I got to carry along nappies and bottles and mushy food for her, feed her, let her sleep on my lap...We were in a restaurant for lunch and I gave her little sugar packets to play with to keep her happy...then she figured out how to bite them open and was most of the way through her first mouthful of sugar before I noticed. Perhaps I'm not quite cut out to be a mom yet...:P Anyway, the 'petting zoo' was interesting. When we arrived, we paid our entrance fee and were directed by the desk lady towards a man who was going to 'show us around'. We walked over to him and I asked him where the animals were and he shrugged his shoulders and went back to his shoveling. Not a good sign. We found out later though, that he had a point. After about an hour wandering around the massive yard (nice manicured lawn, pretty play structures...not very farmy looking) and playing with their ample supplies of exotic ducks like...mallards...we finally found two cement pillars with the words 'Farm Yard' stamped into them and a variety of pens behind them. We were quite hopeful until we walked past the pillars. Here's how it panned out...Pen labelled 'sheep': two sheep in the far back corner of a pen large enough to keep 300 sheep in, not quite within petting distance....Pen without a label: Possible sighting of a pig laying in the shadow of a pretty miniature roof...Pen labelled 'horse': one chicken...Pen labelled 'camel': Poo. Strong suspicions that there may once have been a camel in there. And...that was it. A little disappointing for something we paid the equivalent of 4 dollars for. However, we had a lovely day anyway, sitting in the shade under the trees, playing with the kids, chatting and working on our suntans. :) We called the driver early...and that's when our next adventure began. You know when you drive into a parkade and they have horizontal poles hanging down to tell you whether or not you'll fit? Well, our driver seems to think that if the pole scrapes, drags and bangs against the top of the van, that means that we won't get jammed under the cement cieling once inside. He was, of course, wrong. Gotta give him credit for having perserverence though. :)
The water is out at the cottage and I haven't showered in...I'm not sure...three or four days? Luckily I'm on night shift and people don't have to spend much of the day smelling me. It's also 'high' fly season...so as you can imagine, it's not pretty.
I guess that we all talked about needing a change in groups long enough that they got sick of it and decided to completely rearrange the nursery. CAROLINE is WALKING! Can't remember if I told you that, so I figured I'd just throw that in there. :) Anyway, back to rearranging. Today, Quester (get this, his name means, 'one who asks questions'...never would have guessed...) moved from Nest to Fledgies, Ilana moved from Fledgies to Grubs, next week Caroline is going from Grubs to Creepies and Mbali will go from Creepies to Lions, taking Khensani's place who is going to her new home in Finland tomorrow, which is the same day that Nerina (nestie) is going home to her new mom. How's that for change? Crazy that Khensani, who is three and well rooted in TLC, can go from never having met her family, to living with them in Finland in one day...A bit unsettling I'd imagine.
Albertina and Tori had Wednesday off, so they invited me along to go to the zoo (the reeeeal zoo) with them. Awesome that you can run on such a small amount of sleep. :) It was really nice, huge actually. Their baboons had hemorrhoids....probably the most disgusting thing I've ever seen. :) Nothing really exciting to say about that day...except that I finally got to try a Peartiser...and I had a fruit smoothie that made me think of my dad. :) *sniff* :P
Anyway, I can't think of anything else that I wanted to say. I hope that everyone has a wonderful week. :) God bless and much love. :)
Karli
Saturday, February 6, 2010
A day off
News from the nursery...We finally got a new baby yesterday. She's two weeks old, a tiny little thing. :) Her name is Naledi, meaning 'star' in Zulu. Which makes eight in the nest now, a bit of a handful for just one person. Oh well, it's worth it for the chance to be with all the newborns by yourself for a little while. :)
I had another day off yesterday. :) My roomie, Albertina, and I woke up, went for a few laps around the track, then came back inside to make ourselves a delicious late breakfast. :) We headed out with three other girls around eight o'clock and drove to Lenasia (the Indian section of Joburg) to pick up our rental car before heading out towards Pretoria and the monkey sanctuary. We got lost in Pretoria, as we often do and ended up arriving much later than planned. We stopped at a Spur (restaurant with 'American Indian' decor/style...hilarious actually) for lunch and I made a friend by telling the waiter that they played great music at their restaurant (U2). He left a note on our bill saying "Thank God there are still people with good taste in the world". I kept the bill. :) After giving a drunk hobo some of our snacks that we brought along, we finally left for the monkey sanctuary. It was...nice. Way too expensive for a 1 hour guided tour...but hey, why not? All of their monkeys are in one massive enclosure and are donated from zoos or from people who don't want them as pets anymore. One of their monkeys was dropped off wearing a pink dress with a dummy/soother in her mouth...wierd. We stopped at the Hartebeestpoort Dam on the way back to take some pictures and enjoy the beautiful view. Above the dam is a pretty little lake surrounded by hills with prim little houses and personal boat garages built into the sides. I would love to live there. :) Next, we did a bit of browsing through the shops along the side of the road, stopped for ice cream and bought a bag of mangoes from a street hawker. We went home with plenty of time to spare, but then spent nearly two hours stuck in Jozi's rush hour traffic...gotta love breathing straight exhaust for that long...The weather had been beautiful and hot all day, so it was strange to hear on the radio once we were back in the city that the rain had caused flooding so bad that areas of the city were shut down, including one area where 10 kids had to be airlifted to safety after their bus was swept off the road.
Yesterday evening was also Tea with Thea. I don't know if I've mentioned it before, but it's when all the volunteers gather in the main house living room to listen to Thea tell us about her life and the reasons why she and TLC are here. Last night she told us of her brother, a leader in the anti-apartheid movement, who spent most of his life running for his life. After talking and visiting, we move on to the cake...which is of course, the important part. Amazing food...:) Not as good as my mom's or ama's though....:P
Well, that's it for this one. Have a blessed day. :) Much love,
Karli
I had another day off yesterday. :) My roomie, Albertina, and I woke up, went for a few laps around the track, then came back inside to make ourselves a delicious late breakfast. :) We headed out with three other girls around eight o'clock and drove to Lenasia (the Indian section of Joburg) to pick up our rental car before heading out towards Pretoria and the monkey sanctuary. We got lost in Pretoria, as we often do and ended up arriving much later than planned. We stopped at a Spur (restaurant with 'American Indian' decor/style...hilarious actually) for lunch and I made a friend by telling the waiter that they played great music at their restaurant (U2). He left a note on our bill saying "Thank God there are still people with good taste in the world". I kept the bill. :) After giving a drunk hobo some of our snacks that we brought along, we finally left for the monkey sanctuary. It was...nice. Way too expensive for a 1 hour guided tour...but hey, why not? All of their monkeys are in one massive enclosure and are donated from zoos or from people who don't want them as pets anymore. One of their monkeys was dropped off wearing a pink dress with a dummy/soother in her mouth...wierd. We stopped at the Hartebeestpoort Dam on the way back to take some pictures and enjoy the beautiful view. Above the dam is a pretty little lake surrounded by hills with prim little houses and personal boat garages built into the sides. I would love to live there. :) Next, we did a bit of browsing through the shops along the side of the road, stopped for ice cream and bought a bag of mangoes from a street hawker. We went home with plenty of time to spare, but then spent nearly two hours stuck in Jozi's rush hour traffic...gotta love breathing straight exhaust for that long...The weather had been beautiful and hot all day, so it was strange to hear on the radio once we were back in the city that the rain had caused flooding so bad that areas of the city were shut down, including one area where 10 kids had to be airlifted to safety after their bus was swept off the road.
Yesterday evening was also Tea with Thea. I don't know if I've mentioned it before, but it's when all the volunteers gather in the main house living room to listen to Thea tell us about her life and the reasons why she and TLC are here. Last night she told us of her brother, a leader in the anti-apartheid movement, who spent most of his life running for his life. After talking and visiting, we move on to the cake...which is of course, the important part. Amazing food...:) Not as good as my mom's or ama's though....:P
Well, that's it for this one. Have a blessed day. :) Much love,
Karli
Monday, February 1, 2010
Half way point
Hi everyone!! Sorry about the wait! I know I say this every time...but, the time is flying by! I have 28 days, 28 DAYS left here at TLC....I'm not sure how I'm going to tear myself away when the time comes. However, I'm so excited to go traveling and even more excited to step off the plane in Canada on April 1st. ;)
News...news...no robberies at all to report. :)
I went out for sushi for the first time in my life a couple of weeks ago. My favourite part was having them meander by on a mini-conveyor belt...like tiny tasty bits of luggage...The salmon rose was not my favourite. Yes, it sounds pretty, but having a mouthful of raw, cold salmon floating around was nearly enough for me to give them back the sushi I'd already eaten...if you know what I mean...
Okay, I don't think I wrote about this in my last blog...Last week, three of my bestest friends and I went to Pilanesberg Game Reserve (or is it National Park...oh well :) ) for the day and it was amazing. If you ever end up in South Africa, forget Kruger, Pilanesberg has everything. We had a herd of elephants following our car down the road for pete's sake. Within 20 feet of the car, how sweet is that? It poured the entire drive out there and was sunny immediately after we arrived....coincidence? :P We got there at 9 and by the time lunch rolled around we'd seen a lion, a herd of elephants (with a bunch of adorable little babies :) ) (definitely the coolest part of the day...), three rhinos, waterbuck, kudu, small little...deer...things..., springbok, zebra (also with cutesy little babies), wildebeest, giraffe, bunches of random birds, a limited view of a hippo's rear end, Egyptian goose...etc..etc...it was ridiculously awesome. ;) :D Of course, I took tons of pictures and videos, what do you think I am, crazy?
And this Thursday, a few of us are going elephant riding. I. Am. So. Excited. :D
Going to church and out for supper afterwards has become a weekly thing, which is wonderful. The church that we go to is great, very youth-orientated. As the pastor says, if you like loud music, this is the place to be. ;)
Rhys (Thea's son) got a new puppy. It's a German Shepherd, 6 weeks old, about 2 pounds and all fluff. So adorable. :) Oh, and Rhys got electrocuted...did I write that in the last one? He grabbed a live wire and started convulsing, foaming at the mouth, screaming, etc...landed up in the ICU for a day. As soon as he got home, he went back to work with the electric lamps to finish his work...ha ha...funny. His hand is now infected and swollen from the burns and the holes that the shock left go almost all the way through his hand...you can see right down them...it's gross. But he's fine and in generally good humour about it...:)
Not that you care, but Sulleyman is walking finally, Farren said 'hello' on her first birthday (still can't crawl) and Ilana can sit up by herself. :) :P
Anyway, there are people in line waiting for me so I should go. Love and miss you all. :) Have a wonderful week. :) xoxo
Karli
News...news...no robberies at all to report. :)
I went out for sushi for the first time in my life a couple of weeks ago. My favourite part was having them meander by on a mini-conveyor belt...like tiny tasty bits of luggage...The salmon rose was not my favourite. Yes, it sounds pretty, but having a mouthful of raw, cold salmon floating around was nearly enough for me to give them back the sushi I'd already eaten...if you know what I mean...
Okay, I don't think I wrote about this in my last blog...Last week, three of my bestest friends and I went to Pilanesberg Game Reserve (or is it National Park...oh well :) ) for the day and it was amazing. If you ever end up in South Africa, forget Kruger, Pilanesberg has everything. We had a herd of elephants following our car down the road for pete's sake. Within 20 feet of the car, how sweet is that? It poured the entire drive out there and was sunny immediately after we arrived....coincidence? :P We got there at 9 and by the time lunch rolled around we'd seen a lion, a herd of elephants (with a bunch of adorable little babies :) ) (definitely the coolest part of the day...), three rhinos, waterbuck, kudu, small little...deer...things..., springbok, zebra (also with cutesy little babies), wildebeest, giraffe, bunches of random birds, a limited view of a hippo's rear end, Egyptian goose...etc..etc...it was ridiculously awesome. ;) :D Of course, I took tons of pictures and videos, what do you think I am, crazy?
And this Thursday, a few of us are going elephant riding. I. Am. So. Excited. :D
Going to church and out for supper afterwards has become a weekly thing, which is wonderful. The church that we go to is great, very youth-orientated. As the pastor says, if you like loud music, this is the place to be. ;)
Rhys (Thea's son) got a new puppy. It's a German Shepherd, 6 weeks old, about 2 pounds and all fluff. So adorable. :) Oh, and Rhys got electrocuted...did I write that in the last one? He grabbed a live wire and started convulsing, foaming at the mouth, screaming, etc...landed up in the ICU for a day. As soon as he got home, he went back to work with the electric lamps to finish his work...ha ha...funny. His hand is now infected and swollen from the burns and the holes that the shock left go almost all the way through his hand...you can see right down them...it's gross. But he's fine and in generally good humour about it...:)
Not that you care, but Sulleyman is walking finally, Farren said 'hello' on her first birthday (still can't crawl) and Ilana can sit up by herself. :) :P
Anyway, there are people in line waiting for me so I should go. Love and miss you all. :) Have a wonderful week. :) xoxo
Karli
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