Crazy week 4

Feb 18th to 24th

Clinics with OTs
So this week at work, Renee and I had our first meeting with Shona. At the end she told us that she thought it would be a good idea to go into the clinics with the OTs to see what they do to help us design the chair for them. So Monday we got to go into the townships with the OTs. The first place we went was in Mitchell’s Plain, one of the townships in the Cape Flatts, and it was a little house where they take care of disabled children while their parents are at work. There were about 8 or 9 children in wheelchairs there that the OT were going to see. The OT’s job is to check the alignment of the children and if their alignment is off they have to modify the chair by cutting the metal or foam. It was really cool because Renee and I got to hold one of the children. She was five but she looks like she was two, she was so tiny and so adorable! But we also got to help modify the foot rest on her chair and then I got to help one of the OTs modify another child’s chair. They also teach the caretakers how to stretch the children so that they are healthy and don’t become stiff. It was really informing to watch them. It was also really impressive because they worked really fast and got through all of the children. Next we had to go to another caretakers place in another township(can’t remember the name to this one). This place was not in a building but a shack built outside the ladies house. However, when you went in it looked like a normal house inside. It was really cute too! The walls were yellow and they had pictures up that the children had done. I couldn’t believe it! It just goes to show u that it doesn’t happen how big a house is, its what you do to it that makes it home.

Braai on Friday
We decided to have a braai again and everyone brought food over. It was nice because there weren’t too many people. Plus some of the girls, like 8 of us, and some other people we live with sat in the living room and played some games Renee came up with, like this game signs. It was really fun to just relax with everyone.

Market in Woodstock
So all the girls decided that we were going to go to this market in a town closer to downtown called Woodstock. Well since there is like 13 of us, we had to take two cambies. Well lets just say I chose the wrong cambi. Our cambi driver, first forgot to drop us off in Woodstock, so we ended up going all the way into downtown to the cambi station. Then they turned around to take us back and you could let they didn’t know where they were going. We turned around a couple of times and then they dropped us off in front of this random warehouse, what they thought was the Old Mill. Well I just we need to be at the Old Mill Factory, so we weren’t even at the right spot. So we went into a couple of shops and asked directions. No one seemed to know what fair we were talking about but they did know where the mill was, it was like 15 blocks away… and people keep telling us to be careful. So here we were walking around in a sketchy part of town, five girls in cape town, it was not good. But we walked quickly and with confidence and we finally made it. I was so glad because it was really hot out and I was sick of walking. It turned out it wasn’t a fair but an outdoor shopping center with a section where people were selling a ton of food. It was cool though. They had this really awesome bead store that we went into, so in the end it was worth it and we learned an important lesson, Cambi drivers don’t always know where they are going.

Dancing on Long Street
Long Street is the place to go in Cape Town. Since there isn’t really a dance club in Obs, the girls decided that we wanted to go to Long Street and go dancing. We all got dressed up and ready to go out, Julia you’ll appreciate that I made my roommate listen to Britney while we got ready. Anyways we took a taxi downtown to this club we heard about. Well it was more like a bar and there was a ridiculous cover charge so we decided to walk around and see what else was on Long Street. There were a lot of really cool looking dance clubs and bars but everyone had a cover charge. We finally found this bar called Jo Burg that had a little dance floor. It turned out to be just the right place! We all danced together, it was hot and crambed but it was fun! And I meet a lot of random people. I meet this guy who was visiting from Saudi Arabia and we played pool with this random people from Cape Town. It was nice to take a break from dancing. But I spent most of my time either talking with random people or dancing with Ashley and Adria. But soon a lot of the girls left. Well Renee, Mandi, and I were not ready to leave. We stayed and danced until 4 in the morning. It was so much fun!!!! And we got a free ride home because our friends from Obs, these crazy French guys, took us home. I love having a night out to dance!

Brunch at Judy’s
After dancing all Saturday night we had to get up and go have brunch at Judy’s, she is the lady who started to South Africa program. It was hard to wake up but Judy made an amazing breakfast!!! This was also the first time that we had been to Judy’s. Her place in on the waterfront and has an amazing view. She has two balconies. One overlooks the city with Table Mountain in the back and the other looks over the Waterfront, the harbor where the mall and all the really nice restaurants are. Along with the amazing view, the inside was really nice, very bright with a lot of light coming in from the windows and it had a nice modern style, white with a lot of accented colors. It was unbelievable. I would love to live in a place like that, but it is def too expensive. Someone asked Judy how much her one bedroom was and it was 500,000 American dollars! Wow, looks like I wont be living there in my life time. But anyways Judy definitely deserves a place like this. She is an amazing woman. Her husband died like 3 years after they got married and through a series of events she ended up traveling the world and helping refugees in a ton of countries. She has worked for the president, written ten billion books, traveled to so many countries, and meet so many amazing people—she knows Desmond Tutu personally. Her story was really cool to her because everything she did kind of fell into her lap, it was so cool to see how things turned out! But she def worked hard to get to where she was and she ended up losing one of her legs when she was helping refugees in Sudan, so life hasn’t been easier for her but she def knows she is blessed. It is so inspirational because it just goes to show that when you put your trust in the Lord and understand that his plans for you are ten times more amazing than yours are, then you will end up living an amazing life like Judy with so many stories and so many amazing friends. I’m excited because I cant wait to see how my life turns out. As Judy told us, its already started to become interesting because look at where you are now, you’re in South Africa!