Day 4

Today we experienced productivity. After a great night last night watching The King’s Speech (which was good, but I was expecting it to be a little better. Not disappointed, but I still think The Fighter was better), and then right to sleep, I woke up early yet again. Woke up at 7:15 and hung around long enough to get dressed, grab my lunchbox, and find out that Bayern Munich blew a 2 goal aggregate lead in the Champions league to Inter Milan, which allowed Milan to advance to the semifinals and left Bayern clawing for a spot in the league next year. Now all my hopes for the Champions League rest on Tottenham, and no one really believes they’re going to win. That was the headline of the slow start to my day. I sleepwalked through breakfast, and headed out to Walk in the Light. We started by taking a walk through the township again, straight to the house we’re working on. All the clearing we did yesterday really paid off, and we saw how clean and fresh it looked today.

Today we took care of a lot of work: we finished clearing out the back behind the house, completely destroyed the mud house, but piled the mud to reuse, and cleared out the front of the house. Not only did we clear out the front of the house, we actually made giant steps for a garden, so now Maybis can take care of business when she goes to plant. It’s looking great.

I’m trying really hard, but my pride is getting the best of me. I’m becoming irritated with the people who don’t work. It’s not their fault, because there’s only so much that can be done, but I find myself working really hard and being very frustrated. And I’m not even working for any other reason than to take care of these things, so I shouldn’t let what anyone else is doing irritate me, but I haven’t been able to control that. Hopefully I can get my pride out of the way and see who I’m actually doing this for.

After that was lunch, which included an hour long nap and soccer with Spay. We planned, and then, at 2:30, the kids came. We planned for 10-30 kids, but there were at least 50, probably more. It was an hour of soccer for the boys and an hour of singing and dancing for the girls, followed by storytime. We reenacted David and Goliath, with a translator of course, and the kids didn’t seem too involved. They were involved when we sang “Aleko Ofana NoJesu” (There’s no one like Jesus) and Father Abraham, and then we started the games. They loved Simon Says, and loved a game with goats and a fence even more. There were people inside the circle made up of everyone else, and they just had to get out of the circle. The favorite was Red Robot Green Robot (They call stoplights robots here), and things got intense. I got to lead Goats and the Fence, and the final round of Red Robot Green Robot. As soon as the kids got next to me, I turned around and took off running, and was chased by 30+ Zulu children a distance of close to 200 or 300 yards down a dirt and grass road. It was intense. That was the end of the day with the kids, but today’s work was what I wanted it to be all along. We got to do the manual labor, which makes me feel like I’m making a lasting difference in the village. After the manual labor, we got to rest before we spent 2 hours with the youth of the village, which was fun, and is fulfilling because we’re making a difference in the kid’s lives. It’s the perfect arrangement if you ask me. I’m already looking forward to tomorrow.

There’s one kid who bears a striking resemblance to Derek Fisher, and his name is Mongolisa. He’s a small guy, and the sweetest kid you will find at WitL. On top of all that, no matter how many times he asks my name and I respond “Mackenzie” he repeats it back as Mackennick. So apparently my name is Mackennick.