Small changes - big consequences!

After a  lovely swim in the Indian Ocean – with its exciting waves! – and a relaxing time down at the beach we came home to a nice hot shower while Ouma finished preparing a yummy dinner for us. The children were all in bed by 7.30pm and I was very ready to hit the sack!

Aunty Elsa arrived just after 8pm and it was lovely to see her again! She brought with her 2 little fox terriers and they’ve been staying with us while she visits her Mom down in Mossel Bay for a few days. Both Ethan and Aimee woke in the night for various reasons and walked down the passage to our bedroom and were terrified to encounter the dogs walking around in the dark. They hadn’t know they were here and were taken by surprise! It was a rough night’s sleep!

The little ones (especially) had an absolute ball playing with the dogs yesterday morning but gave them most of the afternoon off. We had them running around the house calling the dogs and then trying to hand-feed them and also tickling them under their tummies while they lay on their backs. After lunch we had a 45 min nap before heading out to the Mall where the kids and I explored Game (a large store which sells a bit of everything except groceries) and then bought a trolley load of this week’s specials at Fruit and Veg City. (That visit only confirmed that we get our fruit and veg much cheaper at the smaller store in town!)

I thought the children would sleeper better last night. We closed Ryan and Jed’s door completely and I thought that if the little ones encountered the dogs again in the dark, they’d feel less scared. I was wrong! Shortly before 3am a door slammed, waking me up. I really struggled to get back to sleep. Not long after 3am Ethan woke up and encountered the dogs in the passage. He was besides himself with fear! I found him in Ryan and Jed’s room. He’d woken both of them up: Ryan was crying because he was still very tired and upset that he’d been woken and Jed was standing up trying to calm them both down. I put Ethan back to bed (after a visit to the loo) and closed the door so the dogs couldn’t get into his room. I had just made myself comfortable in my bed when he came running down the passage like a warrior. I took him back to bed and was on my way out when he informed me that I couldn’t leave, I HAD TO sleep in his room. So I closed the door and top-and-tailed with Aimee, sleeping at the bottom of her bed in all sorts of weird positions so she wouldn’t know I was there or else she’d wake up.

Nearly an hour later the door slightly rattled in the door frame and Ethan called out for me  - neither he or I had gone back to sleep yet. We did eventually fall back asleep, but it was a light sleep and we woke often – and were all up early!

Needless to say, we’re all completely ‘out of it’ today and really looking forward to a nice, long nap after lunch. Tonight will be the perfect night to have some home-made pizza and watch a DVD together. I think we’ll watch ‘College Road Trip’!

Our average day looks like this!

Each new day is a blank slate when it starts, with no huge plans being made right now, but each day ends having been filled to the max with activity! For the most part we’re slowly schooling in the morning and much of that has been math up till now. Once the math is done for the day, we can get onto reading other delightfully interesting things. Ryan, Jed and I are learning so much about China and the Chinese people, and are loving it! Yesterday we also started to work our way through the Calligraphy for Kids book that we found at the library, and it was a lot of fun! We started with decorative looking patterns as we try to master the use of the pen and the boys did so well. Ryan’s itching to get to the writing, so he’ll be chuffed when we start learning to write in Italic today – although it will be in pencil at first. Once we’ve mastered the style of the letters, we then move on to the calligraphy pen. Its really fun!

Lunch time every day is preceeded by an episode of MacGyver. The boys LOVE it! He’s such a clever man and very inspiring. In the absence of the Lange boys, we’ll just have to make do with MacGyver to teach us some great stunts and tricks (using every day stuff) till we find some new friends!

The afternoons start with a ‘quiet time’ after lunch during which those who need to can have a nap. Oupa has a short ‘power nap’ each afternoon but Dieter also has a longer nap most afternoons. Entertaining the little ones for a long period of time (and keeping them quiet) is not an easy task, but I’ve eventually decided that that is a good time to put on a DVD of some sort for them to watch. And that works well – for now! Ryan and Jed don’t need to be entertained, they’re old enough to read or play a game together or do something else quietly, which is great! Once the nap session ends, the children spend the afternoon playing out in the garden, or riding aroudn the yard, or something active usually accompanied by much shreaking and laughter. They are really LOVING having a yard! (Aimee has been the first one to get a ‘new’ bike, Ethan is cycling on a tiny bike which has been loaned to us until we find one for him and Ryan and Dieter use Oupa and Ouma’s bikes when they go for a ride. Aimee and Ethan ride in the yard while Dieter and Ryan do much longer cycles around the neighbourhood or to the nearby forest.)

After supper in the evenings, we usually put the little ones to bed just after 7pm. Its then that the TV comes on a we can watch the news, sometimes followed by a travel or game show. Ryan and Jed really enjoy that slot of the evening. Two of our favourites are ‘Noot vir Noot’, a musical game show which is really well put together, and ‘Voetspoere’, a programme which journals the travels of a group of men through Northern Africa – they get up to some really interesting stuff!

The highlight of our day today was our Skype chat with the Langes in Cyprus. Oh, how we miss them! We’d just been talking about them and things we’d learned from them during our Bible reading together when the phone rang and Jacob reminded me of the Skype date we’d made! I’d forgotten! It was WONDERFUL to see all of their smiley faces (all except Joern who wasn’t home) and to hear their voices. Its really hard not to want to be back there right now so we could visit with them instead! Ryan actually said he’d far rather have played a game with them than have to be stuck behind a computer screen making conversation! All the hugs and kisses and catch-up on Lange News will keep our emotional tanks filled for another little while.

PS: We have another exciting moment planned for the day: Auntie Elsa (one of Ouma’s sisters) is travelling a long way to come and visit us for a few days. She will probably arrive after sunset after a loooooooong day on the road. It will be so good to see her again, and for her to meet the little ones.

Three Cups of Tea

I’ve just finished reading ‘Three cups of Tea’, One Man’s Mission to Promote Peace …. One School at a Time. Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin team up to tell Greg’s life story, and what a story it is! One often hears the cliché sayings about how much difference one person can make in this world, and Greg’s story proves it.

Greg was an avid mountain-climber and adventurer. On one of his attempts to climb K2 in Pakistan, Greg wandered off and got separated from the group he was with and came close to death as he was exposed to the extreme cold without food or drink. He found himself in the tiny tucked-away village of Korphe where the villagers showed him kindness and incredible hospitality despite their poverty.

‘Here we drink three cups of tea to do business: the first you are a stranger, the second you become a friend, and the third you join our family; and for our family we are prepared to do anything – even die’, said Haji Ali, the Village chief. And the people of Korphe did become like a family to him. Greg was moved by the circumstances of their lives, especially the fact that the children didn’t have a building to school in and were schooling in a group under the trees. Greg promised to return and build a school in the village

Greg returned to America after that expedition determined to raise funds and return to this village and build a school, especially to offer the girls in Pakistan the chance to get an education. An average citizen, Greg didn’t have the necessary resources or wealthy contacts to make this project possible. His is a story of true determination and self-sacrifice as he braves the unknown in every possible way.

Greg does return to Korphe to build a school and then builds another and another in the many poor, forgotten villages across Pakistan and also Afghanistan. In the end, he built not one, but 55 schools together with the local people in each village. Married with two small children, Greg has never considered his own life even when caught in the cross-fire between opium traders or kidnapped by the Taliban. He was actually in Pakistan when America was attacked on 9/11 and first finished his mission for that trip before heading back home. His message to post-9/11 America was that the real war of terror could not be won through war and murder, but by educating the children of Pakistan and Afghanistan. What an incredible investment!

Greg’s projects were sometimes resisted in Pakistan by religious and village leaders who thought he was coming to indoctrinate the children with Christian teachings or devalue the teachings of Islam, but time and time again their resistance was met with great support from the Sharia court and Leaders in power. They could see that this was not the case at all. At a time when the government resources for village schools did not find their way to the schools or when teachers weren’t being paid their salaries, Greg’s Central Asia Institute (CAI) was paying salaries and providing the resources needed for children to be educated.

I’m really inspired by Greg Mortenson’s story! While there are sections of the book that I found tedious to read, this book is one I really struggled to put down each night before bedtime! Seeing lives changed because of the kindness and commitment of one human-being is very inspiring! I really want to get my hands on ‘Stones for Schools’, the continuation of this story as Greg works to see schools built in Afghanistan in the wake of destruction left by the Taliban.

You can find out more at www.threecupsoftea.com and find out more about the pennies for peace project at www.penniesforpeace.org