Last day in Shongweni

Today was our last day building the house and spending time with the kids in Shongweni.  It was bittersweet; we enjoyed seeing the progress but were sad  to say goodbye to our new friends.  We made good progress on the inside walls and finished cement-washing the outside walls.  

start of the day today - above

end of the day - below

We also spent some time with the neighborhood kids.  A couple of the girls "helped" me do my hair - the end result being tiny little knotted braids that took me some time to undo tonight.  But they were so happy to be playing with it that I couldn't say no.

Karl is one of our hosts/guides from African Adventure.  They work with the pastor and elders in the village to decide which family is most in need of a new house.  Karl really has a heart for these kids, as you can see:

The kids gave us big hugs goodbye, although I'm not sure they understand that we won't be back tomorrow.  The rest of the group has a later flight on Sunday, so they will be back in the village one more time for church in the morning, but the Gehring & Kostrivas group will already be at the airport.  The church is 2 hills away from the build site though so a lot of these neighborhood kids likely won't be there.  

We also had a dedication of the house, with a prayer by Pastor Twala to bless it.  The family that will live there was there for the dedication.  Khano and Sibusiso are the two teenagers.  They are orhpans and live with their aunt Phindile and her 18 month-old.  Sibusiso especially was a huge help building the house, he is much, much better at mixing cement by hand than we are.  This is the group outside the house after the dedication.

Tomorrow we'll head into Durban for a little shopping and sightseeing.  Karl and Alf tell us we'll be able to put our toes in the Indian Ocean if we want, although it'll be chilly so I don't know that we'll go in much farther than that.

Thanks for reading!

-Rachel