busy bees

Wow things have been crazy for about the past month and will continue so for the next week and a half until we're off on vacation. Here's just a few of the highlights:

Party for our host mom - The schools threw a party thanking our host mom for all she does to host us. Each school's principal came as well as a teacher and a member of the SGB (like a PTA). They braaied some meat and among other sides was our favorite - chakalaka which is like a spicy bean salad. Everyone had such a nice time that people keep asking us when we'll do it again.

Two parties for my clubs - For the community service club, we had a party at school, and I made everyone little gift bags with candy and snacks inside. They were most excited by their certificates and showed them off all over the place. For the magazine, it was another party at our house. They raised money selling magazines so they were able to buy some meat to cook. The boys took over the braaing which was very cute to see them very excited about doing a job normally reserved for men (there were no men there until James arrived late), and I made a chocolate cake. We played Sardines and Red Light Green Light and it was super fun.

A trip to the snake park - As you might remember, we really enjoyed a field trip to the snake park last year so we were excited to go back again with a different school. The animal situation was as ridiculous as ever - jaguars and lions pacing around their cages, ready to pounce on you if there were no bars, and a Western Diamondback Rattler also ready to strike, but other things were a bit crazier. I agreed to take kids photos and print them if they paid me the cost of the printing which turned into a disaster with kids throwing money at me and no paper in sight to write a list on. I'm still mucking through the photos trying to figure out which ones to print.

Learnership Dinner - We invited our friends who did a learnership with the department of education over for dinner to congratulate them on their year of service (though now they are doing the same job without getting paid.) It was fun for them to try new things (we made french onion soup, flatbread, pasta with a red wine based sauce, and apple cobbler for dessert) and most of them liked the food even though they really thought we were going to have meat.

Thanksgiving - We had a quiet Thanksgiving at home with two other volunteer visitors. Though we'd didn't do actual thanksgiving until Saturday because we were busy at school Thursday, it was a lot of fun and we had a LOT of food.

Water project - After being turned down at the bank the first time to pick up my money because I didn't have proof of residency with me, I was successful the second time around. The girl at the bank felt bad when she saw me again because she could tell I had been pretty upset by the whole situation. We bought everything we need, and now we are just waiting for it be delivered to install it.

Making beer - We've been making lots and lots of beer for this New Year's party we will be attending in a different province with our host mom. We have to keep the bucket of brewingness in our refrigerator so all of our stuff is regulated to the frig in the house. And we probably won't drink any of the beer ourselves, oh well it's a different kind of community service.

Camp - We've been crazy busy getting ready for our camp next week. It's ended up being much more of a headache than we could have guessed because we forgot how busy this time of year is with other things. It seems like the camp is not at the top of people's lists. Oh well it seems to be coming together at least sort of, and as long as kids show up on Monday it will be fine.

So after the camp we'll be off to Botswana and Victoria Falls then to the New Year's party. It's crazy to think 2010 is already coming to a close.