Fourth Day: Wednesday, June 29th

Larry- We finished the priming of the house and completed the second coat on the onside of the house. We sprayed all the shelves for all the cabinets. Paint, paint & more paint. Matt, Tim, Casey, Kinzie and Casey prepped the space where the brick was going to be placed, by plowing and digging up the dirt. We almost had a near disaster when Kinzie hit one of the wires but thankfully she only dug into the coating of the wires. Rosina, Vicki & Kinzie carried bricks to home and brick was placed between the houses and we have started placing bricks behind the home also.


Kinzie- Today was a day full of work. Other than the obvious, work with the home, me, my mom, Taylor, Louie, Rosina, Lerato & Monika went to the girl's Christian school to watch Dieketsang and Motshidis', two orphans at RHI, recital and be honored for making the honor roll at their school. Both made "supevisors honor roll" which means they both recieved a 80% or higher on their books they have to fill out for school work. Also in their ceremony they honored a girl for being the first girl at their school to go to college. Sadly, here in Africa even students with astounding grades still do not make it to college because they either can't afford it or they aren't accepted. Because many people here do not have an education, they have to settle for factory jobs or jobs were you get paid very little, they may even only get paid $10 a day. In these past few days we have all really learned to be happy with everything we have, because some of the people here have nothing.

Rosina, Dieketsang & Lerato

Third Day: Tuesday, June 28th

Kinzie: We woke up bright and early to a great day full of suprises and new experiances. We were informed by Lois that today we would be going to the Thabong Hospice Daycare in which the childreen who attend this day care have parents who are currently dying of TB, Aids or HIV.

On the drive there we watched the scenery change from Welkom's standard nice neighborhoods to Thabongs poverty stricken neighborhoods. While driving we all noticed the strange "auto parts stores" on the sides of the roads in which seemingly unusable auto parts were being sold to customers. We also noticed many small cars with at least six passangers in them. We came to realize that here in Welkom/Tahbong 70% of the people dont have cars, so in order to get somewhere they were forced to hitchhike. As we passed the run down neighborhoods we began to truly understand the enormity of the problem here in Africa. we arrived at the daycare and cautiously walked in, not knowing what to expect.

We walked into a bare white room with six children in it. We were informed that four of the kids decided to stay home with their parents for the day. We got down to buisness right away. Amber and Rosina, two people who co-founded RHI, soon began playing games with the children. Even though the children there spoke little English, if any, they all ignored this barrier and smiled and seemed to really soak in all the love that Amber and Rosina gave them.

I have come to realize, through the orphans at RHI and all the children i have interacted
with, that Love is all they need. All these children knew well what was happening to their
parents, or what has happened, and they really cherish all the love they recieve from someone. I am already greatly changed by these children here.

Children @ RHI: Lerato & Tumi

The children in daycare & Rosina     

   Meredith, Me & Monika

And if you were wondering about the progress of the home...

Jeff: We started off the day fixing doors. We had to plane the doors to make them fit. Westarted priming our inside. The paint sprayer sprayed...then clogged.. Then sprayed again. It was around lunch when we got the sprayer fixed. We were able to prime around 75% of the interior. While we were spraying, others worked on. Louie O'Tool, another perskn who works constantly with RHI and came to Africa to work at The Pines in 2008, built closet cubes then painted them. We primed all the doors. Brian bought a tub to set up soon!

Kinzie paints the trim

                                       

Cassie & Matt prep for bricks

I paint cabinet