Drakensburg Mtns pics

 

spaceless

When you have about 6 x 2 of walking space to share with your husband—bed, dresser, and closet taking up the rest—you learn what you’ve been overlooking at home. Leaving clothes on the floor becomes very irritating. Tidiness seems ABSOLETLY essential (to the female obviously). At home, he had his side of the bed and you had yours. What he did with his side was basically up to him. The occasional stacks of clothes you could turn a blind eye to—the unwashed dishes—there was space for them—the random screws, nails, coins, etc laying in small piles all around the house—no problem. But when there IS no space, conversations about these former insignificant things take place pretty often. They usually go something like this:
1)Do you need these screws?
I might.
2)Are you done with that book—can it get put away-aka can YOU put it in it’s place?
Sure (aka—go ahead!).
3)Are these clothes dirty?
That’s why they’re on the floor.
—I attempt to put them in the dirty clothes bag—
Wait—they’re not washable dirty—they’ve just been worn before!
4) Do these live here?
Why not?
Because there’s no room for it here—why can’t they go with the rest of your clothes?
Because they’re there.

Yes—living with your spouse in a one-room location for two months sure can get interesting…let’s just hope he survives ☺

lowering my standards of hygiene

When I know that the only people to impress while working are babies and the occasional person dropping off donations, I rarely bother with the formality of make-up, mirrors, or matching (the Aunties already think I’m weird for eating peanut butter on my apples as well as pb & banana sandwiches). The only reason I change my shirt daily is because I really do get tired of smelling like baby vomit (fresh vomit is bad enough, I don’t need day-old vomit). I wear the same shorts three days in a row (they’re not as close to my nose and therefore don’t warrant the smell change). I stop washing my hair but for my day off, or if I happen to be going out that night (not to the grocery shop of course—even though it’s in the mall—that’s too much trouble for not enough time). These are the things I lay out to get ready in the morning: yesterdays shorts, new shirt, flip flops, hair tie, lotion (it’s incredibly dry here even though it’s the rainy season), vitamins (trying not to get sick and therefore get all the babies sick), water bottle, watch (have to write down everything about the babies—when they ate, what, how much—when they peed/pooped), and room key (though I lost that today, so guess that’s not on the list anymore—I’m pretty sure the chair in the baby room ate it), and my current book (I’ve read 3 in the 2 weeks I’ve been here and on my 4th—I get to read on my coffee and lunch breaks—and my days off when there’s really not all that much else to do, since I can’t drive here). It takes me about 10 minutes to get ready cause all I do is dress, pull my hair up in a ponytail, and brush my teeth. I have become ADDICTED to the instant coffee here. When I go up for breakfast the first thing I do is put the kettle on to boil. All the coffee here is mixed with chicory, and I LOVE it! I drink maybe 1 cup a day at home and rarely finish them—I drink at least 3 here down to the last drop!
I wake every morning about 5:30, cause that’s when the sun comes up. I can usually fall back asleep for the next 50 minutes before my alarm goes off at 6:20 to get up and get ready for work. I am off today and still woke up early, guess it’s a good thing I go to sleep before 10 pm! Anyway—I’m famished and need to get up and go get some food (and the yummy coffee of course!). Then Maybe I’ll snuggle back in bed and watch the rest of the 1st Harry Potter movie I started last night ☺. Love and miss you all!

Overall Sunday Best!

 

Alive and Well--from the rainy season

A week and a half we’ve been here now, and I know all my babies’ names by heart. I can tell you who needs to eat later and who likes her bottle very hot (very picky of her if I do say so myself ☺). I know who always needs more attention, and who plays well with others or alone. I know the boy who can’t be let out of your sight for one minute or he’ll be crawling all over the little ones, stealing their toys and pulling their hair. I have worked 4 ½ eleven-hour days this week, and I’m TIRED, but today seems to be flying by. Everyone but my problem sleeper boy took a nap this morning (poor boy—singing, cuddling, rocking—nothing seems to work and he’s so mad he can’t stand it!), a miracle of large proportions. I love them—each and every little face! We got a new set of twins in last week—they were only 4 lbs each and already one month old. I never thought I would hold babys that small, much less feed them, but now it seems to come naturally and I barely think about them being too breakable to touch. Honestly if you could see the way the aunties (and now I’m doing it too) pick these babies up, you would think their arms would come out of their sockets—but no—their just fine! The durability of children amazes me every day! Just today I heard someone saying one of our little ones was 18 months old, and the doctors said she wouldn’t live past a year! Steph (the baby care manager) said, “He doesn’t know the God we serve!” AMEN!

Onto a little about us: we are getting to know our way around the place, or at least Dave is. As the Eddy females last of direction never ceases to amaze me, I can’t seem to figure out anything but how to get to the mall (you laugh, but it’s only 3 turns away and that’s where we shop for groceries too)! Another volunteer is leaving today, which leaves just three of us here at the baby house. I can’t imagine what it would be like being the only one! We get together quite frequently on our days off. They recommend you get off base on your day off as much as possible, otherwise you burn out quickly. I could see it for sure—as much as you love the babies you need time without them to recoup! Dave is working at the toddler house today—fixing something I think, not really sure. The Aunties are all quite taken with him as he’s constantly working and fixing things for them—they are always asking me, “Do you know where Uncle Dave is,” so he can fix something. We haven’t done anything too extraordinary yet, other than getting locked in the game park (yes the one I posted pics of on FB), but it was fine ☺. We both got rather burnt that day though, I’m still recovering, hoping it goes quick so I can get back into the patchy sun. It rains daily here (it IS the rainy season), but then the sun will come out brilliantly and hot (it’s 72 at the moment). We are hoping to take a weekend trip soon when we’re both off (I get every other weekend—and working 3 days on, 1 day off). Anyway—that’s all for now—it’s long enough—sorry about that! Don’t forget to get online at 1:00 pm on Sunday to chat or skype! We miss you all!

The FUN has ARRIVED!

Hey all! Well, we’re here! We arrived about 5 on Saturday and were greeted by Beth and little baby girl G (I’m not supposed to post the names, sorry, I slipped on FB, won’t happen again). Dave fell in love with G immediately and has been with the babies as much as possible since we got here. It’s been pretty rainy—it gets really stormy this time of year, so hopefully we’ll get some nice days soon. As we got here almost week earlier than previously intended (we told the director we would arrive on the 5tth or 6th), we are not on the schedule yet. So, we’ve been running errands, getting our room set up (we’re in bunk beds, but they come apart pretty easily, so we’ve been putting them up every morning and down every night), and helping with the babies in between. This will be like Dave’s orientation week I suppose. He did change a baby right away (he keeps forgetting which way around the nappy goes), but not anything serious yet ☺. Today Dave fed a baby—he got an easy one (he ate his whole bottle, no fuss, and burped without being “burped”)—and held a new, preemie baby girl that came in this afternoon (we actually got three new babies today, 2 girls and 1 boy—two weighed about 3.5 lbs, an average for the DOH babies). After Dave meets Uncle Collin tomorrow, the all-around-fix-it-build-it-guy, and finds out what he’ll be doing while he’s here (along with caring for babies), we’re most likely heading to Bruma (an amazing place of wonder, excitement, culture, and food from every continent), a HUGE open market. Later this week I’ll be training Dave how to bathe, change, and dress babies. I gotta say, I think he’s doing rather excellent, as he had NO interest in doing any of these things in the States. Who knows; maybe we’ll have babies after all some day! ☺ Well, that’s all for now. I’ll keep you updated, though pictures will come less frequently as they take a long time to upload. Love you all!
L

We're away!

Well: It's been awhile since I posted our trip news. And it might be a few days till I tell you more, cause WE'RE LEAVING TODAY! So, before we leave, I wanted to give you our address where we'll be staying cause WE LOVE MAIL! So, without further ado:

15 Barbara Rd.
Glenvista, 2091
Johannesburg
Republic of South Africa

It only cost .98 cents to send a letter!

We'll be checking in soon, but I need to finish packing--LOL--hopefully soon!

Love you all and THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU for all your support!

much love,
Leigh & Dave