Start building workshop

O yes we started building the workshop. We got some wood and now we need to start the building. It is not as easy as it looks but with Gunters ideas we will get there. It needs to be finished by saturday 21st of june because we have a big event coming up. We invited a zulu lady who is going to tell her life story. In the zulu culture it is not allowed to talk about horrible things that happen in your life. But everyone has their story and think that they are alone. To break this chain we would like to let people talk. During the preperation we found out that there are even more people willing to talk, so we are letting even two other people telling their story. One of the other ladies is a white woman. It will be interesting to see different cultures telling their stories. After this event I am sure more people will come out to tell stories. It even happend during the preperation so "sadly" more will come.


Here some pictures of the start up building the workshop place:









Huib, visitor from Holland giving a big helping hand.

What am I doing? Making pictures and cleaning up.......someone has to do it..... ;-)

People within the community helping each other

On saturday we were invited to visite a friend. He lives with his family in a township in the beautifull Valley of trust. He lives there with his wife and two kids and mother in law. They have a little house but already give to 5 orphan kids a roof above their heads. During the day, one of the rooms (what is already dining room and bedroom) is used for the orphan kids, (27 kids !!!!!!) of the whole community, as a pre school. He, and with help from people of the same township, teach the little kids some pre school stuff. So during the day the kids are not just hanging around out side. He also gives them food. He does this al for free, out of love. They have also a vegetable garden and they make their own bread and cakes. They also share it with the community and only accepts donations not payments. This is a Zulu family taking care of other people within their community. On saturday he had a day organisted for us and another couple to show what he does and what else he wants to do. And the children did some performances.

The children singing:

Dancing:

Drama about aids and abuse:

Dancing of the care givers:

After this great performance we were invited for lunch. Great south african food. Chicken and rice with salads. And the dessert were the home made cookies !!!!

We did not go there empty handed, we gave them some fruit, toys to make soap bubbles (donated by some friends from Madrid) and kids jewellery (donated by friends from the Netherlands) Thank you all....

Another beautiful day !!!!!

Agape 2008 will they remember me?

Yesterday I went to Agape. No expectations, just wanted to see how they are doing. I knew there will not be a lot of children around because we went during the day. Already from the out side the place looks much better and bigger. Once inside we went to the "kitchen" where as first saw Aunty Gogo.....She was in shock !! She smiled and started to say "I am so happy !!!!!" and ofcourse a big hug. THEY REMEMBERED ME !!!!! After that a lot of hugs from all the aunties.

I have made some pictures of how it looks now....They did a lot of work.

I also saw some kids back, as it was during the day only the little babies and children were there.

Ofourse they did not remember me, but I did !!!!!!

Some pictures of the little ones....

She is not a baby anymore !!!!

He speaks english now.

She is very open and tall

Somethings never change......

Also I saw the group of older children that are going to London in June to sing at the concert of Nelson Mandela.They did remember me. Was nice to see the look on their faces when they saw me.

Some more pictures.

I had a present for her from my mom and she loved it. She is wearing the neckles on this picture.

Was good to be back and I will see them soon again..........

Help where needed

On saturday Gunter received a message...Hi Friend how are you ? We are hungry we do not have food. I asked Gunter who it is.....A lady who takes care for 32 young children in a little house. First she had "only" 25 children but a woman died which left 7 children homeless. 32 children in need for food, clothes, school fees and books ect...O yes 32 children, that´s a lot.Why don´t they have food? Well she can not say no if children need help altough she has no money...........Who can??? My dad would say if you can not take care of yourself financialy how can you take care of someone else ?.............Well he is right but here your heart is working overtime and finance comes on second place. I thoughed about this lady, I thoughed she is not responsible enough, but on the other side I perfectly understand what she is doing. Ok I desided that we need to get there some basic food. We did some shopping.
6 bread
2 x 10kg rice
2 x 500gr buter
4 x 1.5 kg apples
2 x 1kg oranges
2 x 10kg potatoes
2 x 1kg onions
2 x bags meal
1 x 10kg flour
1 x 2 kg sugar beans
1 x 1kg peanut buter
6 x brown bread
Total 60 euros
I just want to let you all know that I took it out the sponsor money I got from you all.
I know this is just for one week, but we can do this more often as needed. She will try to get help from the goverment but it will be dificult as it is a lot of children in a small house with one person in charge. At this moment she can not pay any other care giver but I will see how the situation goes and maybe we can help her out with sponsor money given by you....... I hope you agree.
I met her on saturday and she is a great and responsible woman with a big heart......She just needs a little help.

To young to have a funeral

This weekend we went to a funeral of a young boy (18 years). No, I did not know him, I met him when he died. He was a young boy hanging around with his friend and did what most boys do at that age. Unfortunally they got in to a fight with other young boys which they knew, and the other boys had to "finish unfinished business" from two years ago. They finished it with a knife. So this weekend we went with a lot of children of the boys school to the funeral. The ceremony took place at the parents house in a tent. A lot of singing and praying. The ceremony took hours but still to short.....the same as the boys life.


The boy (17 years) who killed him is in jail.

The lemon tree

To much for us and so easy to share. Just from two trees in the garden of Gunter and Lizzy we got all these lemons. As we like lemon a lot we do not want to over do it. Lemon drink, lemon cake, lemon ice cubes, lemon sauce, lemon fish, lemon tea, lemon icetea....Ok enough, we need 15 lemons for all this....what do we do with 30-50 kg of lemons? well let´s bring it to people in the townships. Great idea and big fun !!!! And even one guy who help us out we discovered he is a great sales person. He just shouted FREE LEMON FRESH JUST FROM THE TREE, LEMON JUICE, FOR MOTHERSDAY......and yes they all wanted.....bags full with lemons. They use the lemon especially to mix it with the porridge so it tast better.

What a beautiful day........

A bed that fit in a house

Through an organisation that work with orphans we got a request for a bed. A family of 4, two parents two children sleep on just a mattress on top of some bricks. The floor is humid so the mattress as well, and when they sleep they all roll over to the middle. So as we have beds to distribute we went to bring this family a bed. Although the bed fills the whole house they are very happy with it.

This is the house, not just a roomYes Gunter I will help you I am not just here to take picturesThis is the house but just half of it is for the family of fourThe bed is big or the house smallThe happy couple
and we are happy too. Sweet dreams