Fi's South Africa Trip: Day 4 - Belfast - Lunch

As we sat under a tree eating our lunch, all these children started to appear from no-where. Everyday 100-150 kids turn up to the compound for their lunch. They are all orphaned or vulnerable children. As I looked around I saw a girl in school uniform breast feeding a toddler that I'd seen running around earlier. I caught my breath because she was so young and naturally the school uniform made her look even younger.

As the children all gathered together they started to sing and pray before their lunch. Doris the leader of the project called to me and said 'Fiona, come and teach the children'. And I'm thinking, have I missed something here? Teach them what? Did I miss the bit on the schedule that dropped me completely in it?!!!! 'Fiona gives a 10 minute presentation on ........' Yikes! So I turned to Cat, let's face it she runs the children's ministry in our church - an automatic qualification I think! 'What shall we teach them?' We asked Doris. 'Just teach them' was her reply. So Cat gave them a short talk on personal hygene and then we sang them a song. Let's face it we'd been through the humilation in church, we were getting used to it! They did start to try and join in and looked fairly enthusisiastic, bless them!

They then all queued up for their lunch. Everyday lunch for them is a third of a plate of pap (pap is a kind of white sticky substance, like a cross between ready break and rice. It didn't look great!), and a third of a mug of broth or stew. We watched whole families called up for food and realising that some of these children were looking after their younger brothers and sisters single handedly was emotional. After a while, we noticed that the the queue was still increasing and the food very much decreasing. We realised we were going to run out. Panic started to set in amounts us, although it was only us, English people who were panicing. Everyone else wasn't bothered. The food runs out, that's the way it is. We had 20 children left, the food had gone. They didn't cry, shout or throw a tantrum, they just looked at us with acceptance. We were distraught! We started to ransack the leftovers of our lunch to see if we could find food there to feed them. We found tiny amounts of pasta salad, apples and buscuits. Each child ended up with salad or a few buscuits or an apple. It was horrible. Later as the children played I watched a boy with his apple. A two year old boy was hanging off him and jumping up trying to get a bit of his apple. Earlier I'd seen the 2 year old having a good meal. However the boy still broke a chunk off his apple and gave it to the 2 year old.

In the afternoon, a group called Love Life came to do some work with the children. They are 6 men and women all in their late teens who live in the area but have volunteered to organise games for the children and act as positive role models, mentoring them and teaching them. Their moto is 'Learn To Love Your Life'. They blew us away. They were so enthusiastic about bringing change to their community. They were confident and eager. In the picture with them is Krystal who was our Hands@work contact (I should perhaps mention that her hair is not normally like that, the kids had 'restyled' her!)