Kayla practicing compassion and patience when working with children

For my activist project I volunteer at Heaven’s Nest Child Care with Maria, Isabel, Emily, Paige, and Sydney. Starting off, we had mainly been doing fun activities for the children like conduct an Easter egg hunt or helping the caretaker with the day-to-day duties. We have all gotten really close to the children and it’s been amazing. This has been my first real time working with children, ever. I am the youngest in my family and neither of my brother have children yet. So, this has been a learning experience to say the least. I’ve learned simple things like how to properly hold a baby and also more practical things like talking to a child in an adult voice will get them to listen to you more.

Working with the children has been really interesting because I have been able to clearly see how their difficult upbringings have led to serious problems within them. Some children have trouble sharing toys or become very possessive of us when we are playing with them. Other children are completely opposite and cry after being held for too long. A caretaker explained to us that this is because the child associates this behavior with a mother, whom she misses desperately and rarely gets to see. Another child smiles extremely rarely and is very disinterested in playing with other children. When we are playing outside, she usually sits on the grass by herself without toys. I’m not qualified to diagnose children however, Maria who works with children often pointed these things out as issues and so did the caretakers.

Being at Heaven’s Nest has taught me to practice compassion and patience. At moments it can be easy to be frustrated with a child acting out but when one considers the negligent homes they have recently come from, it’s clear it is not their faults. In fact, this just shows more reason to treat the children with kindness and love. Even while they may have their problems, the children exude so much love to one another as well. When a child cries, often times I see another child offer the other one a piece of their snack to make them feel better. It’s really beautiful to see the simple acts of selflessness children demonstrate without thought or question.

Recently, we have begun really getting involved in improving the Heaven’s Nest facility. We have started painting a mural outside the facility with extremely bright, beautiful colors. After doing that, we have to really sit down and think about the items we will be investing our fundraising into. We have raised $900, which absolutely amazes me! When we first made our fundraising page I would have never imagined that. Since we have been so successful with our fundraising, we all realize that we need to take care when choosing what to invest the money into. I’m really excited to see what the final project of what we are able to do turns out to be!

Isabel's multidimensional week

I have been doing my activist project at an orphanage called Heaven’s Nest along with Maria, Emily, Paige, and Kayla.  We have been spending our Friday afternoons there with the kids.  The kids range from age 3 to age 7 and they have all been put under Heaven’s Nest care by The State Department of Social Services because of neglect or abuse.  In some instances, you can see the neglect physically.  One of the littlest girls has awful blisters on her skin from negligent care of her eczema.  It is such a shame to see such happy children put through so much so early in life.

           

I recently received an email from the house manager of Heaven’s Nest, Wendy, stating that they were robbed right after our last visit on Friday.  Someone stole the motor for their front gate around 1am.  It made me cringe to think about this organization being put under yet another burden.  Heaven’s Nest struggles to even supply bread or milk for their kids each week.  A new motor is nowhere in their budget, although it is necessary for the kid’s safety.  For anyone reading, please think about donating to this cause.  This is an amazing outlet for children who need a roof under their head, food and water, and simply some attention and care.  Our fundraising page is https://www.youcaring.com/heaven-s-nest-child-care-and-recreation-centre-536314#goto-fundraiser-details.  Anything you could offer would be more than appreciated or simply sharing the message will help in our efforts.

On to a slightly more uplifting note, I have been serving as a well-versed Cape Town tour guide over this past week.  I am so happy to welcome my friend Kate to this amazing country of rich culture and beautiful sights.  It has been a great experience to see her excitement as we travel around, and it has given me a second round of first-time excitement for this magical place. 

On Monday, I went to work and let Kate catch on some much-needed rest and get a little more settled in after the weekend we had.  Yesterday, she joined me at Surplus People Project and at our workshop in Atlantis.  SPP was there to instruct local farmers how to prepare their soil optimally for planting.  Agriculture is nothing I have ever put much thought into, so the workshop was very informative for myself as well.  After the workshop, Kate and I tried to squeeze in an evening full of exploring.  We went out to a region called Table View and witnessed an impressive display of wind surfing at Bloubergstrand Beach.  The name of this region is quite fitting, as the views of Table Mountain, Devil’s Peak, and Lion’s Head are crystal clear from the beach.  On our way back home, we had yet another Uber driver experience worth sharing.  The man driving us home was a little old man who was originally from Durban, South Africa.  On his arrival to Cape Town many years ago, he wrote a book about his very ambitious adventures.  He had actually climbed Table Mountain 68 times in a matter of 72 days.  His name is Ebol if anyone is interested in purchasing his novel.  Like I said, always make conversation with your Uber driver!

That same night we set out for a sunset boat ride with a few others.  What an experience it was!  I grew up with my father always boating and teaching me about boats, so this was the experience I enjoyed most this week.  We got on board the vessel and immediately wrapped up in oversized windbreakers.  Good thing we did because the waves were more than happy to come up and drench us every couple of minutes.  It has been a pretty jammed pack week here in Cape Town.  I still have got to put Kate onto a minibus taxi before she leaves.  I will definitely share her reaction when we find the time.  Looking forward to Jo Burg next week and the opportunity to explore even more of South Africa.  Until then!

Abby "not much happened this week" except . . .

Not too much happened this week. Work was a little weird because we were trying to speak to nurses about the history of the clinic to get information for a paper for class, so we had a lot of down time while we waited for them to be free. Therefore, we didn’t have set rotations so I ended up in a lot of different places this week. One place I was in for a little while was triage, where we take vitals and ask patients why they are there that day. I had never done triage before so when I got there, I asked the nurse to brief me on the different protocols. However, she was not able to give me any help and threw me right into. I had to keep asking questions to understand the process but after a while I had a general understanding of what to do.

Besides that, I spent a lot of time shadowing doctors, which is amazing. I definitely learn the most sitting with them. They make sure to explain everything they’re thinking and doing and ask for my input sometimes to get me thinking like a doctor. I’ve also learned a lot about the healthcare system here through speaking with them which is really interesting. There are a lot more similarities to home than I had thought. The other thing I haven’t really considered before is that the clinic I am working at is drastically different from home because it is a government funded clinic that provides free health care in a poor area. There are private clinics that are very similar to what we have at home, but I just haven’t been exposed to them. For example, in a previous post I wrote about how the nurses are much less likely to give medications to patients. Beyond them not wanting to fall to the demands of patients and give them what they don’t need, they don’t even have the resources to frivolously give out medications. Whereas at the private clinics here, the patients have to pay for the medications, so doctors/nurses are much more lenient writing out prescriptions.

Beyond that, I’m glad to finally have a free weekend. I really needed time to relax and to catch up on class work and my thesis. A few of us went to the movies Thursday night, which was awesome. We saw Deadpool and it’s one of the funniest movies I’ve ever seen in my life.

Then today was the first day of my activist project! I’m working with the Fire Fighters Football Club in Khayelitsha, which is an extremely poor township in Cape Town. This club is a place for the boys to go to keep them out of gangsterism and drug use, which are very prevalent there. Unfortunately, they have minimal equipment and money, and their parents can’t afford transportation to get to their games. So I will be spending my time helping with practices and supporting them at games, which I love! We went to games today and got to coach one of the teams for their warm up. The boys are so amazing! I hung out with some of them while we watched other boys play a game and I had so much fun. As part of the project, we will also be fundraising for the team to get the boys shin guards and other equipment we find that they need. We also want to put money towards tournament entry fees and food for those days as the boys often can’t bring food. So, if anyone reading this is interested in helping out, please check out our Go Fund Me page! (https://www.gofundme.com/FireFightersClub/)

Back row: Eric, Derek, Mariko, Abby & Coach Power
in front of them--so amazing Fire Fighter football players