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ANNA'S EMAILS
Anna Gray talks about her experiences in South Africa at The Love of Christ (TLC) Orphanage.
23 July 2005
Hi! Phew, well I'm back again to try and write this email for the third time. The power went out twice last night while I was writing it, so I gave up and went to bed! Sorry it's been so long since I wrote to you, time's going really fast and I never feel I have enough different news, but I do remember you! OK, so I'm happy these days, very glad to be here, glad to be here with these kids and glad to be here in South Africa. The days can be long and yeah they're pretty repetitive, and that does get hard, but they are really good and fun moments too. I know that I'm learning a lot, and you might say 'Of course", but one thing I am learning is that learning and growing all come down to how you deal each day with what you have; it's not circumstances that make you into what you are, but it's what you do with these. Being in a foreign land or doing 'Godly work" is not enough of its own to change and grow you, it's what you do with these, how much you put in... Anyway, enough for now about me, let me tell you about the kids!! I love them, more so every day, and they're beautiful, more so every day!! What amazes me is how much they are all growing! In the seven weeks I've been here, I've seen seven new babies come to us. These are either babies who have been totally abandoned, like Helena, left in a dustbin, or Jolene, left in a plastic bag on the veld, or else they are babies given to us by their family when they feel they can't properly look after them, like Khanyi, daugter of a 17 year old orphan who is already looking after four younger siblings. And in these seven weeks I've seen eight babies adopted out, five overseas, and three back to some relative of theirs. That's always really exciting, although it's sad for us individually, and we try and remember how much better it is for the kids themselves, and for their new families, who can look so stoked to finally have a kid of their own. Woops, I sound like I'm writing propaganda, it's not a perfect place of course, but I think it's great what they are doing. The nursery is very full at the moment, with 35 babies. We've got 17 volunteers helping, which sounds a heap, but when you have to man the nursery 24hrs a day it's actually still really busy! Most of the voulnteers seem to be from England at the moment, but there's also Germany, Austria, US, Canada, and one from Australia and one from New Zealand (they're not actually the same place would you know!). But it's not too monotonous really. Fun stuff happens. This Sunday is a special occassion, South Africa's Midwinter Christmas (July the 24th). So that's going to be great fun, with carols and pressies and food and a tree yay! The older kids in the house will be pretty excited too I think, so it'll probably be crazy! The TLC kids have a soccer team and play matches each Saturday, and I went and watched and cheered last weekend, great fun. One of the photos was of them as we squashed in the van to soccer. And I play with them when they muck around in the paddock here, but I'm finding that once they get to about 8 years old their skill is well above mine! And the sun's already kind of hot. I don't know how anyone runs in Africa in summer! And in Anna style I'm planning adventures for the future, a six day trip to Kruger, Swaziland and the coast in August, and four weeks as a camp counsellor at an outdoors camp west of Pretoria for October. And Lesotho is still very much in my mind! TLC can spare us then because three short term missions teams come from England in the next few months. The other photo I'm sending is of four of our big babies, Nolu, Julia, Manene and Cherry, front to back. They're all between 12 and 16 months. Well I miss you all heaps. Thanks to you for keeping in touch. Can't wait to see you in February, which could well come pretty fast for me! Anyway, love, love, love to you all. And hugs. I think I might get to send this before the power goes! Love from Anna
22 June 2005
Hi! I'm sitting in the quarantine room here at TLC Ministries, with our two new babies, Helena and Isleen, abandoned by their mothers in Natalspruit, a large squatter camp near Johannesburg. I've been at TLC nearly three weeks now, and I'm finding it a wonderful place to be. We have 38 babies in the nursery and they are of course very cute, very demanding, and are a whole range of personalities! Yes all are black African, and they range in age from newborn to 19 months. Already I have seen five of our babies leaving with adoption families, and six new ones come in. I am also seeing our babies growing chubbier, bigger, smarter, more talkative, more mobile!... very rewarding. The days are long and busy, but I'm coping ok. I'm also getting to experience South Africa a little, certainly its huge contrasts, from Gold Reef City theme park to Soweto township Hospital, from big shopping malls to squatter camps. At TLC there's also the interest of the 28 older kids fostered or adopted by Thea and her family; ranging from 4 to 13 years they keep the main house a crazy place when they're not at the wee white painted school across the field. The weather? Very dry, with no rain expected until September; cold nights but the days are lovely and warm. I really want to thank you again, now I'm actually here, with one of the babies you have helped sleeping in my left arm, for all the support in prayers, in finance to get me here, and in gifts straight to TLC. It is so valuable, you are giving life where hope would otherwise have died. Please continue your prayers, and God bless you all.
Love from Anna.
21 June 2005
Howzit! (very South African greeting)
How are you all in New Zealand? I'm thinking of you, miss you of course, the sun will be thinking of coming up in a while for you I suppose, but here, looking out the open glass door I can see the colours just after sunset, really pale blue up high, down through soft yellow and peach and then this pink that you don’t get in New Zealand sunsets. It's very clear. It always is!
Well what's new for me? Some of my babies are growing up!! It's just so wonderful to see, Phillipa walked today, but she was slipping round in her bootees so we put some shoes on her, but they were her first ever shoes and then she just wanted to touch and eat and look at them. Cherry is starting to talk lots, repeating what you say to her, understanding so much, she's just so helpful, so sweet. She's our oldest, and she's getting adopted next week, we'll miss her but it's pretty exciting!! Today we had Litha's adoptee family come and visit, and tomorrow they will come and collect him. They're German, with two adopted Vietnamese daughters, 3 and 5!! They seem amazing people.
I'm getting to see more of the area, which is great! So I'll describe it a bit to you. We're out in what is a farming area/suburb, its called Eikenhof. There are lots of fires these days in the fields, either just burning off the grass, so that it'll come back when the rain comes again in September, or more often, burning of firebreaks around your property. Today Pippa (the eldest Jarvis daughter, teacher at the school) and the older kids (i.e. 8 to 13) were burning off one of TLC's fields, controlled by whacking it with sacks, but it got out of hand in the wind and more people had to go and help and it ended up burning a few wee fields. I was a bit gutted I was busy in the nursery and only came out to smoking black ground, no excitement, but they to me they'll be plenty of chances to beat fires in the next few months!
To drive into the centre of Joburg from here takes 20/30 minutes. If you look to the right through the trees at the first main intersection from TLC you can see the edge of a squatter camp, an 'informal settlement', corrugated iron, sacking, low shed like buildings. It is a large one, established enough that it's not likely to be moved. Otherwise the area is 'boring': flat, long pale yellow/gold grass, small Africany trees and bush, double laned roads with wide crazy intersections controlled by 'robots' (traffic lights!)
Today I went to Baragwana, the government hospital on the edge of Soweto, the Southern Hemisphere's largest hospital. We went to pick up one of our babies who had to go in for a few months on oxygen and in an incubator. He's Thabiso, 7 months old but as small as a man's hand, skin and bones. He was very premature. Baragwana was interesting, lots of spread out brick buildings, felt a bit like a school, all black Africans there, wandering around visiting or queuing for pharmacy, lots of cardigans on the women, and kilts or skirts, a mix of bright colours and black, head scarves, babies in blankets on their backs... They actually think its cold at the moment, South Africans do, but today must have been over twenty, just lovely! Too hot to be in the car, driving past Soweto. 3 or 6 or 20 million people live in Soweto, depending who you talk to! Apparently it is the largest 'city within a city' in the world. It's the old black township, still 99.9% black African, made up of small tightly packed government built houses, and areas of 'informal settlement'. It stretched for miles. I will do a tour soon, it's too unsafe to drive in by yourself, but Martha who works in the kitchen at TLC and lives in Soweto, or a public tour, can take you.
We have lots of volunteers now, about 16!! It's really nice, meeting some great people. It means that we don't have to be rostered on to work so many hours, just eight today, which was lovely. Yesterday, Sunday, it was 12 hours without a break because half had their day off. The nursery can get pretty crazy with people, especially when we have local people coming in to help, as they do in the weekends. Most are from local churches. It's great to meet them too! We're picking up three new babies from Natalspruit tomorrow, the hospital in the middle of Natalspruit, a huge squatter camp. They're babies who have been left there by their Mums.
Well that's lots of news from me. Id love to hear back from you. Feedback too, what's boring and what’s interesting! I could just keep writing forever I find it all so fascinating! I'm really looking forward to the volunteer weekend away one of our three yearly holidays, to a 'surprise' game reserve!! My African animals at last!!! It's great to get a break, it makes you just sooo glad to get back to the kids again, it's incredible how much you can miss them after one day! Not that nappy smell though, that hits you like a rock when you go back into the bathing room!!
Ok. It’s dark now that I'm finishing this, you can see the lights of Johannesburg on the hills, and when I go outside it will be freezing (literally, frosting) but the stars will be just like home! Lots of love to you all. Thanks so so much for all your prayers and support and messages, it really does help hugely!! Bless you all this week. Hope our email server runs tomorrow, or it might be bless you this weekend! Even more love, Anna
16 June 2005
Howdy!!!!
Well it's been almost two weeks since I got here, and I can't decide whether it's passed quick or slow!! Certainly it seems an age since I saw you all, but then it has kinda flown by. I feel real settled now.
I had a lovely birthday on Monday, the other volunteers made it a bit of a special day, which real nice, and we went out for tea ('supper', we have 'tea' twice a day at 10.30 and 3! I manage to confuse quite a few people!). The days here are long, lots of work, but a bit varied by working with the different age groups of babies. I most enjoy the second oldest guys, the grubs, those who can sit, with most crawling and being taught to walk. They are just adorable and really fun!! It's great to already se some of them changing and growing in our care, especially obvious in regards to walking, but volunteers who have been here longer talk in terms of how much they smile now, how they have grown so strong.... Yesterday we got a new baby, 6 months old, whose mother had died, and he had been looked after for a week by his blind grandmother.
I've been thinking a little about the place now that I have got over the first wonder at everything! I realise that I was expecting to see more need and poverty here. Instead, I now realise that while the babies have come from the worst places, abandoned in the squatter camps, left in dustbins, or fields, or just left at the hospital by their mothers after birth, and the would be dead or in a terrible state if we were not caring for them, the thing is that once they are here, they have all they need to be happy and healthy - the food, medicine, clothes, toys. It's truly wonderful, it's a real new life out of the dust kind of thing. But it is realigning some of my expectations, which can't be anything but a good thing! I am really looking forward to seeing more of the area, the different areas of Johannesburg, the camps, hospitals, other orphanages. And of course the game park we are going to in about two weeks for a day or two!!!
I'm meeting some great people here; there are volunteers from Germany, USA, Canada, Australia and UK so far. People are really surprised to meet someone from New Zealand! It's so far to come they say!! And they enjoy our accent and 'funny' phrases! I saw my first snake today, but you can breathe out Mum, it was a dead one, the older kids took me to see it. It wasn't all that big either, but good to see I'm sure.
Hope you're all going well. I do think of you, quite a lot sometimes! If you want to know anything, ask me, coz I find it hard to know what is interesting to you guys, there is just so much here, but then now it's all quite normal too!! Hope winters not coming too fast, especially in Dunedin. There's always the skiing to make up for it though. Not much skiing in South Africa.
Love you heaps. Not forgetting you an ounce. It's by all your support, past and now, that I can give so much out now, so cheers. Love from Anna