Almost incident free...

Hey Folks,

So...let me fill you in on the last few weeks. Since returning from Cape Town, work has been extremely busy. With most of the Teen Club staff away on leave or at workshops in Gabs or out of country. There is just Lorena and I to man the office and the little projects and assignments that keeping popping up, particularly the last minute deadlines assigned to us on friday afternoon and due on Monday...typical!

However, besides that I am really enjoying it...this Saturday is my last Teen Club event before I leave and its a big one. This teen club event is particular cool, because I came up with the activity for the life skills session. The younger kids will be wokring with me on an introductory activity on Human Rights and HIV. This was one of my projects I was assigned to while here and I am looking forward to see how it goes. The older ones will be working on clearing the plot of our adolescent centre by clearing the overgrown grass and brush to make way for the new portable caravan that should be arriving soon and all the Teen Club staff will be moving into. After both sessions the Teens will also be having there Teen Leader elections and will be voting. Approximatley 35 teens will be giving speeches and 10 will be elected (5 boys and 5 girls). Its going to be interesting coordinating over 150 kids to vote, but it should be fun nonetheless.

I will let you all know how it went after saturday...

However, not all my news this week is as positive or exciting, but still important to mention.

Firstly, sad news from our morning play group. One of our adult volunteers who was pregnant with twins has passed away after giving bith on Saturday. Turns out she was sent home the day after her c-section with Pneumonia and passed away a few days later. Really sad news, but the babies are perfectly healthy.

Secondly, with only two weeks left in Gabs and being incident free in terms of losing anything, break-ins, being robbed (even after being in Joburg) I had a incident at my house last night.

At 2:30am Magali and I were woken up by the blaring of our two alarm systems. The first from our electric fence and the second from our family room/kitchen alarm (which is activated at night and allows the alarm to be on when people are home and asleep in their bedrooms).

Now we have had quite a few false alarms where the fence alarm has been tripped by a branch or a lizard, but we have never had both alarms go off. When we woke up we turned off the alarms and opened the door to the living room. We looked around and noticed that one of the windows was wide open and the burglar bars had been broken. The security company arrived within 5 minutes and thats when I remembered/noticed that I had left my backpack that night in the living room with my laptop, which was now missing. So within a 30 second time frame that they broke in and tripped the second alarm they culprits had just enough time to get in swipe the bag (wipe down the window with a wet cloth - to remove finger prints, very CSI of them).

Security and police arrived, filed some reports about what was stolen and what it looked like.

To tell you the truth I am really glad that nothing worse happened. It really sucks that my laptop is now gone and that I was planning on moving out of that house this weekend, but again nothing worse happened (like them coming into our rooms or even having to see them, which would have been pretty terrible).

The thing I am actually most upset about is not the laptop itself, but all my work from Baylor in particular The Human Rights Guide that I had been working on the last few months which was due for submission next week. ALL OF IT GONE!!!! I can start again, but it wont be ready next week! Luckily all my pictures are still on my camera and a lot of my documents are save in my gmail account. I am also really upset about my backpack...I LOVED THAT BAG! haha. So if I see anyone walking around Gabs with a brown bag and a little canadian flag sown on the back I might have to ask them where they got it...lol

But yah thats life, no point of dwelling and getting all upset about it. My time here has been great and it doesnt spoil anything

That being said I wouldnt mind having a drink or two tonight and I am also very much considering doing a one night two day safari, just to be out in the bush and see some awesome animals and take my mind off things!

So yah...I am going to enjoy the rest of my time here and then I will be seeing you guys shortly. I think there is some talk of me stopping over in Greece on my way home to pick up some Tsiporo for my dad, but we will see. This whole Volcanic ash thing is making it really difficult to get throught to BA to try and change my flight.

So that has been my last few days. Hopefully, the next few get better and that I can get that safari trip in order.

until next time....