Many people have asked Paul and I what we do for 2 or 3 months when we are in South Africa.  We often glibly reply “whatever”.  I thought I would explain a bit by example. 

Thursday last, Sam and Mark, parents in the Anna house, went away for 2 nights for an elder’s retreat for their church.  They had asked us to drive kids for after-school activities because the grandmother who was keeping them didn’t drive.  Sam arrived with the driving schedule that looked like this:

1:45      get Jessica, Ezra, Harley from school #1; drop them home but keep Jessica

2:40      get Noks and Perseverance from school #2; drop Perseverance at school #1 and find Marcus

2:50      get Casey from school #3

3:15      drop Jessica and Noks at extra English lessons at teachers house; bring Casey and Marcus home

4:15      pick up Jessica and Noks from teacher’s home and we were done!

A common day of driving with a family of 6 kids!  And this is just one family, one afternoon! There is much more choice in schools to attend here and even the government schools have to be applied to. There is at least a $1000 fee for each child in the public schools.  Many of our foster kids go to private schools on bursary (scholarship) if they can make the grades.  So it gets a bit confusing for driving and picking up but it all works!

Another set of parents, Lara and Shane, went away for the weekend so we had the pleasure of Peter and Pene for two nights here.  We told them up front that our aim for the weekend was to spoil them rotten and I think we did a fairly decent job.  KFC for dinner the first night- yes, KFC in SA and it is very popular!  Then their favorite Spur for dinner the next night. It has play areas for the kids when waiting for dinner to arrive and an American Indian theme with South African flair.  Pene made a cake for her parents from a children’s cookbook that she won as a prize for doing well in school last year.  She invited 3 other children to help so we had a noisy, afternoon of cake baking.  (I must pause here to acknowledge that I continue to appreciate my parents- my mom, and Paul’s too- used to tell us that having their grandkids around was great fun but hard to handle because of the noise. They had gotten used to quiet and needed time to adjust when we came to visit. I now understand completely!!) We also rented movies to watch to complete the spoiling. 

Hopefully, that gives a sense of “whatever”.  We help the parents in little ways when we can.  Lara and Shane expressed how long it had been that they had been away together.  They came home refreshed.  What a blessing for us to be able to help in that way.  Little things we do.  But it is fun!