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

Parcel from home!

Hello:

Hi everyone, guess what! I received my first parcel from home today!! It more than made my day, obviously. :) I got...my favourite movie (Chocolat), a new journal, a few bags of my favourite tea and notes from mom and Adam. Adam's was on the back of his newest hockey picture and all the girls here agree that he's very handsome and tough-looking...but don't tell him they said that. ;)

Everything is routine here. The days don't really stand out from each other as much as they used to. Except the other day when I was on 'wishy-washy' for three hours in a row...I got a lot of cleaning done that day. :) We are at max capacity as far as volunteers go, and the office has scrambled to make up a few jobs to keep us all busy. We have four hour breaks every day, expected to increase to five hours this week. I'm off for the rest of the day since I start night shift tonight...another night shift...crazy.

The robberies have settled down as far as we've noticed. We had a locksmith come in and put new locks and deadbolts on all of our cottage doors, every cottage got an air horn, they've finally started putting barbed wire around the top of the wall and the head peoples' phone numbers are now posted in every room in our cottages...so they've upped the security...but just a bit...;P

Anyway, as I'm sure you can tell, nothing really exciting has happened here lately. No new babies, no new adoptions. Although, one of the Lions is finally on her way out. A lady came yesterday to meet her and fell in love with her, so the lady will be back to visit until they get used to each other and Khensani can go home. :) So that's an answer to prayer. :)

I'm supposed to be doing laundry and going to sleep right now, so I should go. Much love. I hope all is well back home. :) xo

Karli