If I had a super power...

Another great week has almost gone by, which is making me realize that time here is going too quickly and I would love time to stop because I am still enjoying every minute of it!

Monday I was able to go spend time with the kids at Ubuntu for 2 hours, which was great. They remind me why I put in the busy work.  They are all so beautiful and full of life, and most of the time that I am there I do not even think about the fact that they have HIV.  But then one boy walks in with the eyes of an 80-year-old man who has had a long suffering life, and then I remember that I can hardly imagine what these young children have gone through in their short years.  It is truly humbling to say the least.

Wednesday was a busy and exciting day. First, Brigid and I got to meet with the 15 mothers whom we are trying to set up the income-generating project for.  They were really interesting in crafting, possibly making scarves or bags that we could sell in the States to make more of a profit for them. We are still trying to get them trained, but if you have any suggestions please give me a shout!  After this meeting, our whole group got to go to parliament to see Jacob Zuma, the recently elected president of South Africa, speak.  It was a type of question/answer forum with the members of parliament and we got to sit and observe! It was many things: interesting, frustrating, informative, confusing, hopeful, and much different than I imagined.  But it was such an opportunity to see him speak and I am so happy that we had it.  Right after that we got to go to the book signing of Manuel Castells, the philosopher who we saw speak a few weeks ago.  This man is the 5^th most cited philosopher ever and has done some really incredible things in his life.  He is pretty much a really big deal (described as the “Karl Marx” of our time) and we got to hear him talk about his book! It was really interesting because he worked with the Obama campaign, so he actually talked a lot about that which we all loved of course.

Today Brigid and I had a meeting with another NGO, Home from Home, which was so amazing. They are such an established and inspiring non-profit that we are going to learn so much from to help with the expansion of Ubuntu.  We also met with a woman who is starting an NGO that places long-term volunteers with non-profits in Cape Town, so if anyone would like to volunteer for 6 months to a year and has a specific skill, look her up!!

Tonight we are going out to a club called Hemisphere to celebrate the busy week. It is at the top of a hotel building and is very classy, so we will be thriving for sure!

Love to everyone!!!!