MMM- SOUP!

It’s amazing how life here has become “normal” for me and I am finding it harder and harder to find subjects to blog about. So here I will just give a couple snap shots that will explain what I’ve been up to.

Note the baby on her back!

I am so amazed at how the women can carry these large loads of fire wood on their heads for extended periods of time. I told my counsellors that I wanted to try carrying wood on my head before I left and asked if they would go with me, all three girls immediately said, “no”. Haha, so simple. “No Les, that’s hard work, we don’t do it.”

Here, one of the ladies that was carrying fire wood when we passed asked us what we were doing and invited us into her home to test her.

After leaving a home we went out onto the street for ‘lunch’. My team was having sandwiches made of cheezies and white bread while I was snacking on trail mix. The man whose house we had left called us in saying he couldn’t let us just eat bread for lunch and invited us in for soup. It was so nice to go in and visit. The soup smelt really good and I was really looking forward to it. Naively I was thinking something like ‘beef vegetable’.... nope it was oxtail and fat. When I received my cup of soup I thought hmm, maybe those floating white chunks are dumplings.... nope. Turns out you can go to the butcher and simply buy fat. The broth was tasty.... I actually couldn’t really decide whether I liked it or not... but I nicely let my counsellors eat the fat for me. 

This photo is cute, shows how we definitely include the whole family in the counselling and testing process. The children are always so curious.

Although I don’t have a photo for this (thank God) my least favourite quote recently has been a very simple statement from one of my favourite counsellors here, “Leslee, you’re getting a big bum.” She then went on to say that I look really nice – I’m turning into a true South African. As my heart was sinking I managed to say a, “um, thanks?”