something i’ve learned about myself throughout the race is that i love celebrating people. big or small, people deserve to be celebrated. just something i’ve found that i’m so passionate about!
my team works at a carepoint in a community called mabatenini 1. shoutout to the 50 kids there, been to a few other carepoints and y’all are definitely the best, but i may be biased. over the last three months, we’ve gotten to know the kids there and spend time with them for a few hours every day. we feed them the same meal of rice and beans every day and once a week we’ll share a lesson. we do house visits almost daily and spend time pouring into our shepherd, sithulele. in the last three months, my whole team has grown a love i don’t think i’ve ever seen before for this community and all the people there. so we wanted to celebrate them.
we threw a party on the last friday at the carepoint. we bought cookies and nik naks (the african version of cheetos just a little stale), taffy and fizz pops and we made little rice krispy balls and got different juice mixes and we wrote letters to all the kids. they’ve never had a party before.
kids showed up in dresses and fancy shoes. parents came and watched as their children ate food they had never had before, biting into rice krispy treats and giving it the weirdest look before shoving it back into their mouth, and watching their mouths pucker while they drank lemonade. we had hung balloons around the carepoint but ended up cutting them all down because the kids were so fascinated with them, so we had 20 balloons flying all around with kids jumping up and down in a tiny room filled with 90 people, for a party planned for 55.
i pretty much was on the verge of crying the whole time, between kids giving sweet goodbyes even though we still had a few days left and the joy coming from such a small thing for us. $40. it cost $40 for us to throw a party for 100 people and see the biggest smiles i have ever seen from our kids before.
and sithulele, apparently he used to be a dj or something so he brought this huge set up with speakers half my size and had all the kids dancing. he’s always surprising us.
and before our party ended, we played kickball, because they LOVE that. they really go crazy. so we set up cardboard from the food boxes as bases and make teams of 30 because there’s too many people. and the parents on the tires by the playground have their phones out and are taking videos, some of them are using ours, and just taping all the fun that’s happening. and every time the inning switches, there’s always only like half the team in the outfield because the other half hides at home base because kicking is more fun, but no one stops them because the joy on their faces is priceless.
and that’s why celebrating people is so important. because of the joy it brings them. that no one has celebrated them before, so a small snack and a game of kickball could bring them smiles that literally wouldn’t go away the whole day is priceless. and it fills you up. it gives you so much hope. it makes you feel like that’s what you were made for. and it’s just the best feeling in the world.
