Just like we planned, Saturday morning I went to the Middle School to go with the learners to Sports Day. I arrived at 7am, the appointed time and the bus was (shockingly) already there. We waited for the Principal and a few members of the SGB, and finally left school at 8:15. I went with the Principal instead of on the bus. We had to stop in the next village to help a teacher get ready for the day, waited while she ironed her clothes and ate breakfast. We dropped her off at the stadium, drove on the track looking for a back gate, and finally parked. I saw Mpho and his schools, we climbed to the top of the stadium seats to talk with him a while.
Grace had to go back to Delarey for a first aid kit and I went along thinking I could speed her up. The first thing we do in town is drop off her truck at the car wash. We walk to the grocery store for snacks, and to the chemists for a first aid kit. She explains what she wants to the pharmacist, and he gets out a plastic box and starts to fill it with gauze, band aids, disinfectant, and everything else we might need today. I don’t let Grace stop and admire the new purses or anything, we’re in a rush to get back and support our learners. We walk down to get bottles of water and go to pick up the car.
At this point, I’m proud that we’ve quickly moved around town and have everything we need. The car wash people are another matter, they are painfully slow at wiping down the truck, and go over every section 5 or 6 times. Grace even told them “Oh, I wish you would be finished” and they looked at her like she was crazy. We spent as much time waiting on a clean car as we spent shopping.
When we can finally get back in the truck and go, Grace tells me that we must first stop by her house to check on her girls. Her husband is gone to a funeral today and the 7th grader is going with friends, so the 3rd grader will come with us. We also collect her cooler and her tent so we can have a shade - if only we can figure out how to put it together.
When we finally get back to the stadium, we park and start to assemble the tent. Grace kinda knows how it works, and with the help of half a dozed learners we get it up in less than 20 minutes. The time, noon; the temperature 35°C or 95°F. Then Grace remembers that she didn’t buy any ice for the cooler. So off we go again, to buy ice at a local gas station. She also realizes that now would be a good time to pick up lunch for all the learners who are competing from our school and all the educators who are supporting them. She’s called the restaurant in a nearby village, and miracle of miracles, the food is all ready and packed up for us to take when we arrive!! We load it into the truck and head back to the stadium.
Even though the food is in the truck and the learners have come over to the tent to relax, it’s an hour later before Grace decides it’s time to eat. She passes out boxed lunches and cool drinks and we all dig in. Afterwards, we all piled our empty lunchboxes and leftovers in the corner, and some local kids can and had their own feast. Our tent was set up in the parking area, so we really don’t see any of the races or competitions, but we can hear the crowds. Everyone who walks from the seating area to get a snack or drink passes our tent, and everyone stared at me like I was an alien or something. When Grace asked why they were staring I used one of my mom’s favorite reasons “they’ve never seen this much beauty in one place before” and she laughed until she cried.
The 3rd grader with us played with my hair all afternoon, and a 9th grade girl joined in. The Sports Day lasted until after 5pm, and then we had to wait over an hour for the bus driver to show up. We finally were able to leave the stadium and made it back to Grace’s house exhausted. I continued to let the little one play with my hair, we ate a light dinner and started to drift off to bed. The little one and I were lying on my bed watching a movie when she fell asleep, I carried her to her bed, went back to my room and fell immediately into a deep sleep on top of the covers.
Sunday is Church day, the whole family goes to another town to Church. I don’t know what denomination it was, but the men sat on one side, the women on the other and children in the middle. I sat in the middle with Grace’s kids. We were about 20 minutes late, they were already singing, and 2 hours later the singing stopped so the preaching could begin. I didn’t understand anything, but it was a very passionate delivery. The preacher read a little card with my bio on it that Grace had written, and he asked me to stand up to be welcomed. Then he asked me “couldn’t you just call home and have them send us a little something?” while making money hand gestures. After church outside I heard some woman saying that “now Obama would send them money to live better.” Unless President Obama reads my blog, I highly doubt that happen.
We went to Grace’s in-laws after Church. I greeted everybody and that was the last anyone said to me for 3 hours. We sat in the hot living room, watched My Sister’s Keeper (I did get asked if I was “getting flu?” when I sniffled at that movie) and ate a nice lunch. It was 40°C or 102°F inside the house. I’d asked about doing some grocery shopping while I was with Grace in town, and she had to call her husband to leave early so I could go by the store. Back at her house we opened all the doors and windows for the breeze that a storm was blowing in and relaxed with the Disney Channel.
Side note: I’m amazed at how the kids and the adults love Disney Channel and other “kids programming,” it’s like the adults get more satisfaction from a Disney show than the kids do. I’ve seen my host mom watching Cartoon Network when there were no kids in the house, she likes that stuff. Adults seem to rather watch it then anything else.
I tried to show the girls how to make friendship bracelets with embroidery thread a friend had sent me, but they gave up too soon and said they couldn’t do it. I couldn’t even convince them to try, to keep going. The parents grilled out and dinner was amazing. The little one fell asleep on my bed again and had to be carried to hers. I went to bed early knowing that I’d have to get up earlier than usual to get to the village for school.
All in all it was not a bad weekend, just a little more stressful than if I would have stayed in the village or went to town on my own. I appreciate getting away sometimes so it’s nice to have a supervisor willing to host me for a weekend.
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