This morning I woke up with a runny nose, scratchy throat,
and headache. As soon as I entered the
toddler room of the Shelter I had a pretty good idea where my oncoming cold had
come from. All of the toddlers were sleeping,
which is very unusual. Many of them have
runny noses, coughs, and fevers. Despite their colds they are as cute as ever. Feeding
time was a little more difficult this morning, because not only were some of
the toddlers cranky from being sick, but we had to feed them jello. I could hardly get and keep the jello on the
spoon let alone move it to from the bowl to the kid’s mouth without getting it
all over the kid or me. Thankfully the
doctor visited the shelter this afternoon, so hopefully the kiddos will be
feeling better in the morning.
This afternoon Josh drove Tim and I to a market outside of
Rustenburg. We now have the use of a car
that belongs to the shelter. It is
amazing to have the freedom of transportation once again, but it is also
terrifying. The steering wheel is on the
right hand side and everyone drives on the left hand side. It doesn’t seem too complicated until we
reach an intersection and that is when it gets confusing. I often make nervous comments, “I think you
want to be in that lane.” More often
than not I am wrong in my comments, so I am not a very helpful passenger. The strangest thing about the car is that
there are absolutely no locks at all.
At least we thought there were no locks.
Then we pulled up to a gas station to find out that the gas tank is the
only thing with a lock.
Visiting a market in Africa is stressful. There are no fixed prices. Everyone wants you to look at everything they
have in their booth, “Don’t be in a hurry; take your time and look.” Everyone has a “special price” for you their
new, “friend.” Today the same item started
out at 15 Rand in one store while it started out at 4 Rand in another. In order to get the best price you must
bargain, while you have no idea what the item should actually sell for. The vendors do not take no for an answer; if
you look at something they assume you want to buy it and will follow you often
for 5 minutes trying to convince you to buy it for a “discount”. Josh, Tim, and I were in the area for a
couple of hours and were offered Marijuana six times. Josh was also offered some crack. We had to pull
away as a guy leaned into the window trying to get us to buy.
