internet....FINALLY

Hi all!

Goodness it’s been a while, sorry about that! We finally have internet at the apartment so I’ll be updating more often I promise. This whole experience has been absolutely amazing so far, I am in love with pretty much all of the kids at Umthombo. They’re extremely talented in fields like art, surfing and soccer, which are the three main programs that are run during the days here; so far I’ve been on surfing and soccer and have observed art. Surfing is a ton of fun because the beginners group is most of the younger guys who are learning to love the sport and lifestyle, the other group “the pros” are seriously pros! It’s AWESOME, one kid well semi-adult, Lucky is sponsored by O’Neill and knows the pro surfer Jordy Smith fairly well and this week O’Neill and the old pro Paul Cannon put on a workshop for 15 of “the pros” along with a black pro surfer Quinton, it was a technical workshop and just yesterday pro surfer named Antonio (?) came in and offered to give 5 of the young but really talented kids workshops on a weekly basis. The surfing community has really embraced Umthombo, it’s really nice to see! As most of you can tell by now, Jonny has completely turned me onto the world of pro surfing and now I am obsessed!

Anyways the apartment has been good and we’ve shared quite a lot of laughs so far! In the evenings we usually hang around here playing cards, making dinner, having a beer or two and relaxing. Most of us are exhausted when we get home from the programs and just being hung on by little boys all day. A lot of us through experiences have been proposed too and Heather (our professor), Tom and S’fiso have all been offered a lot of cows for all of us. Good news: no offer has been accepted.

We’ve also been visiting the townships and discussing the ideology and purposes of Umthombo throughout the trip which has been an extremely important addition to the growth of not only Umthombo but South Africa as a whole. It’s a very interesting country and you definitely learn something new daily, I love it!

Last night we went to a braai (BBQ) at the hostel of two of the UK Umthombo volunteers we’ve gotten to know, Georgia and Greg. They’re a bit younger than us but still a lot of fun  to hang around and “chat with”.

Love to all

-M

P.S. its so easy to grow attached to these kids, two named ntando and hotu are my little buddies so far, hotu is 13 and has the best disposition and ntando is 12 an AMAZING and ripping young surfer who is also a huge rascal. love.