OOKH!

(Written Monday, October 27)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MAJA! Tom Maja is officially 2 whole years old. He likes to position himself belly down on the tire swing and stare at the ground while his body drags behind him and gets covered in dirt. He also enjoys shouting ‘look!’ which sounds like ‘OOKH!’ and then pointing at nothing over and over again. He also just learned the word yes. Maja likes to hug legs and he and I stood outside yesterday for at least 10 minutes looking at and listening to the thunder (I know that looking at thunder might not be possible, but we did it, just trust me). He just got some new shoes a couple of days ago and likes to stare at them and sometimes he wears a little sweatshirt and the hood has two little ears on it that stick up and make him even cuter, if such a thing is possible. I was once again in charge of cake duty and with the help of 4 of the kids actually accidentally made brownies instead of chocolate cake, but I didn’t hear any complaints. I have been trying for 3 days to teach Maja how to blow so that he could blow out his candles, but he froze under the pressure and couldn’t stop staring at the candles long enough for anyone to tell him to blow them out. Unfortunately about halfway through his birthday brownie little Ayabonga (who is chubby and a trouble maker) stole Maja’s brownie and ate it before anyone noticed. We finally noticed Maja’s defeated look and quiet tears and immediately know what happened so he got another one and all was right with the world again.

Other things to mention:
· I am the next Open Arms birthday! Two weeks from yesterday I will be 21! My 10 year old BFF Asekhona has promised to make me a cake, but I told her that I only like ice cream, so maybe she will just convince Rita to buy some ice cream. Also I think there will be a little bit of South African Beer drinking after the kids go to sleep. Ooo la la.
· We are dressing our littlest baby in doll clothes! That is not even a joke. She has been wearing clothes that belong to our other baby and they are just SO huge on her. The aunties (me, Tally, Rita) stole away to East London yesterday to go to a market and we saw some doll clothes and I joked that they would fit little Lindo, and then today we got a donation of baby doll clothes and they DO fit her and so she is wearing them.
· I had tonsillitis and was miserable all last week but finally got some good meds from the nurses at the clinic and am back to normal!
· I officially heard from the American University in Cairo a couple of days ago and am most probably officially going there next semester
· The pool is clean and almost full and ready for happy swimmers! I am so excited!
· The Flowers family wins the award for first birthday card to make me cry (Sahara Desert- I am SO excited about your concert and I wish I could be there and I miss you TONS!) Also my Uncle Bob will surely win the coolest uncle award for trying to get me The Office season 5 episodes!
· I finally got Nelson Mandela’s book and it is huge and I am super excited to read it.
· In a strange series of events the police brought some victims of domestic abuse here yesterday (who were not children- which does not make sense because we are a children’s home…) and just left them and while we were trying to get the police to come back the power went out because of a storm and the mamas had to finish making supper on top of a paraffin heater, which was comical and then the power finally came back on at 9 pm(ish) and the kids were all grouchy this morning and apparently the boys called one of the girls a cat and she was really offended and everyone was mad and crying. Thank you, Monday.

LOVE!
kb

p.s. I like hanging my clothes out on the line to dry. Dryers are overrated for sure.