It will never let me go
22 Jan 2009 at 00:53
After being one of the first volunteers (2 months) at MOP in 2007, I had to go back one day and see 'my' kids again. 1,5 year without their smiles, hugs, love, jokes, honousty and enthusiasm was too long:). That day arrived the 23th of december 2008 when I could celebrate Christmas and New Year at Mother of Peace!
So you probably wonder if I am happy I went back? How many things have changed and what still was the same? If I am going back again and again and again and....?
Let me start by confirming that I am very happy I went back! It was a bit scary, since you are not sure how it will be and the memories I had were so great, you don’t want to dissapoint yourself or MOP. But going back was one of the best choices I could have made. Thank god the children still recognized me and were happy I returned:). The great memories I had, became real-life again and even greater memories are in my head now!
A lot of things have changed, mainly tangible things: a new...
Splash & Skydiving
07 Jan 2009 at 21:30
Finally the sun has pleased us with some frequent visits over the last couple of days:). So it was time for some wateraction with the kids. Sometimes kids are very easy to amuse. Ingredients:
*Water
*Soap
*A slide
*Some foam
Result: Splash!!!
Extra result: the foam (that we didn't knew we had) was cleaned very well by the kids afterwards and can serve perfectly as yogamats;)
Extra extra result: The children get very tired:)
I also did something that was already a while on my 'what to do in life list' but for which I have been way to scared: Skydiving! I decided to face my fears and jumped for joy today! I don't think I have ever been so scared in my life. But it was a great experience. They also made a movie, which is to big to upload here, but which you are more then welcome to come and watch!
Tomorrow we will take all the kids and the housemoms to the beach and on friday I will already fly back to Holland (which I heard was -21 C degrees...
Pictures!
02 Jan 2009 at 12:12
First of all: HAPPY NEW YEAR! May 2009 bring you lots of love, happines, health, fun and much more!
No long story from me this time, things are going very well. I think the pictures will speak for themselves and show it. Enjoy :)
Love,
MJ
Picture 1: All in one tire
Picture 2: Pretty girl
Picture 3: Handsome boy
Picture 4: In the pool
Picture 5: Diving
Picture 6: Almost diving
Picture 7: A bridge over troubled water
Picture 8: Yoga
Picture 9: Miss, I like the sleeping excersize of yoga best:)
Picture 10: Playground
Picture 11: Playground thinking
Picture 12: In the grass
Picture 13: Jumping!
Picture 14: Beautiful faces
Picture 15: On the swing
Picture 16: Playing netball, very competitive!
Picture 17: Tired
Picture 18: Walking home after a day of playing
Picture 19: Working in the vegetable garden with a beautiful dress
Picture 20: Hungry, eating a sausage!
Picture 21: New years eve with the volunteers
Picture 22: Toasting to the new year together...
Same, same but different!
28 Dec 2008 at 13:15
It is good to be back! It is very nice to see all the kids again and it feels like I haven't been gone for 1,5 years. Besides the fact that the children have grown older, some of them went back to their families and some new ones arrived and Mother of Peace has had some very good changes.
I am very impressed by the homeworkroom, computerroom, theatre, English classes, new houses, new church and offices. It is all very professional. However these things are all material things. And despite the fact that these are all in place, some of the same problems and challenges still influence the behavior of the kids. Of course these tangible things need to be in order to help the kids, but it feels like now is the time to start focusing on the causes of the challenges instead of healing the effects.
Thank god MOP has some incredible people working here. I am very impressed by two of them: Wilma and Brie. Both were volunteers last year, who after returning in Holland, couldn't quite...
My last day in South-Africa
16 Jul 2007 at 23:12
It seemed like yesterday when I was writing my first weblog about going to SA...and now this adventure is already over!
The goodbye was hard, I tried not to cry, but had to. I preferred the children to remember me with a smile on my face, but when the floodgates open, they open! So with tears in my eyes I was leaving Mother of Peace.
Some of the kids and housemoms wrote me a farewell note, which was so sweet. One of the children didnt want to give me a hug, as if she new it was going to be the last one... It felt like I was abandoning them and that was the last thing I came here for. Then again, if the goodbye would have been easy, the experience wouldnt have been so great as it has been! Despite the warning of my volunteer coordinator there is one thing I failed big time: Do NOT get too attached to the children. I got attached to them and to the housemoms and caregivers and everybody concerned with MOP. It made the goodbye hard, but the experience unforgetable....
Saying goodbye...
03 Jul 2007 at 22:02
The time has come to say goodbye. I knew it was coming, but how can I ever be prepared to say goodbye to 55 children, 20 housemoms, colleagues, fellow-volunteers and all the other people I got to know here?
The last week has been full of fun (and the sun is back!), we went to a musical of the Jungle Book, had a goodbye BBQ, with lots of singing and dancing and I went for dinner at one of the houses! There was also still work to do, mainly consisting of follow up phone calls to the people that visited the Open Day. I need to make sure that we not only create awareness, but also get some funding out of them !
On Wednesday (tomorrow) the inevitable will happen, giving 75 hugs and saying 75 times ‘bye, hope to see you again soon’… I keep saying to myself that it is a good thing that it is so hard to say goodbye, it means I had a great time! It truly was an experience of a lifetime, which I would recommend to everybody. You do not only have the possibility to make a...
Sometimes it feels that the only thing different is the colour of our skin….
18 Jun 2007 at 17:04
It amazes me time after time how open and friendly the South African people (and especially the Zulu people) are. Comparing my place in the group now and 1,5 months ago, makes me realize that I really am part of the Mother of Peace community. They have taken me in and accepted me without any judgement or conditions. ‘Come as you are’ seems to be the motto and it doesn’t matter if you are white, black, Asian or purple. I can already see that the other volunteers are welcomed as open as I was and can only wish for them the same great experience. I sometimes look at my skin and am surprised that is hasn’t turned black yet, as I feel such a good connection with Zulus
I also realized how much I learned in the last 8 weeks. I know almost everybody’s name (a big task here ), can explain about the Zulu culture and the part HIV/AIDS plays here, I can differ between the cries of the children and know which ones are fake or real and I learned that people in SA or Norway or...
Read more: Sometimes it feels that the only thing different is the colour of our skin….
Already half way in SA…..
07 Jun 2007 at 14:43
Time flies when you are having fun and that I have! The last weekend of May Inge (fellow volunteer) and me went on a weekend trip to Lesotho. Lesotho is a Kingdom that lies as an island in SA, totally surrounded by it. It managed to stay a separate country mainly because its boundaries consist of high mountains (circa 3000 meters). Everybody kept on warning us to bring warm clothes, because at night temperature drops below 0? C. For all the Norwegian readers this is not cold at all and sounds more like the beginning of spring , but for South-African and Lesotho standards this is winter at its top! To be sure we packed our hats, gloves and an extra fleece sweater and were on our way!
We stayed at Sani Lodge, just on the border with Lesotho but still on the SA part. This is a true backpacker hostel and an ideal place for me to get used to a backpackers lifestyle . The first night was actually very cold, but a fire and some extra blankets did the trick.
On Friday we went of on a...
Adrenalin is pumping!
20 May 2007 at 18:32
After some relaxing and refuelling days at the beach last weekend, I was ready for another week at MOP. It definitely consumes energy to interact with the kids at the day-care, help with homework and communicate with the housemoms, so in my weekends I try to do as less as possible and reload the battery. But although I try hard to plan nothing, at the end my weekends are busy too: Indian banquets at the Indian Church (see picture 1), beach visits, writing letters with the kids, cleaning my house and updating my weblog.
Last week was an interesting week with adrenaline pumping through my body:
First of all the teacher of the day-care was sick for 2 days so I was in charge! Fortunately a chair dance and a puppet show kept the kids pretty quiet. I even came around making motherdaypresents for all the housemoms (see picture 2). A bit to late, but better late then never, right?
The housework room is up and running and had a successful first week (see pictures below)! Kids...
Name: Mirjam Haenen
Age: 29
Volunteered at Mother of Peace from 30 April 2007 to 30 June 2007.
About me:
After volunteering at MOP in 2007, I had to go back and see 'my' kids again. So the end of 2008 I went back and it was
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