Mandela Day - Skate Park Bandits!

For Mandela's birthday we upheld the fine South African tradition of doing 67 minutes of work to benefit others.  We went back to the Orphanage where we did the egg hunt.  This time we took sidewalk chalk, nail polish & brushes (thanks Mom for sending some), soccer balls and a bag full of Charlie's matchbox cars, luckily we had enough cars for all the little kids!

Here is one boy's drawing that he was very proud of!

Katie & some of her customers for nail painting!

A boy sitting on one of our soccer balls the girls used to get at British Soccer camp!

When we got to the orphanage that day there were big signs set up and a large tent and it turned out some corporate sponsors were there to make some donations of mattresses, appliances for their kitchen and cook a meal for the kids.  We didn't know all of that was going on and we didn't quite understand what all of the extra people were doing there! (many were very nicely dressed for playing with kids) One of the little girls grabbed my phone to take pictures, she took this one, it turns out the guy below is a DJ here on the radio station, not sure who the lady next to him was!  (however, I'm betting she didn't get peed on when holding one of the little kids like I did!)

The newspaper had a great opinion piece the following day called "Real change, not charity will honor our Madiba"
my summary wouldn't do it justice so if you would like to read it yourself, here is the link...
http://www.pressreader.com/south-africa/sunday-times/20150719/282106340327119/TextView

We closed out our day with a trip to one of Charlie's favorite places, the Skate Park!  We brought all our all roller blades and hockey gear for a family game of roller hockey.  (when we got there it was officially closed, but luckily we found a way in around the side- just like all the teenage skateboarders that were still hanging around after hours)  It reminded us of all the good times on our backyard rink or at the King Pine Rink in NH.

Finally I must share the rhyme Charlie learned from another kid at school, he is happy to recite it for you live if you give us a call!  "In 1994, Mandela went to war, he had no gun, so he used his bum, in 1994"!

A Great Visit & A Vacation for the Author!

We have all had a fabulous time with our friends and we were very sorry to drop them at the airport this afternoon!

I would write about all of the adventures we have had, but Myev keeps a great family travel blog of their adventures, so rather than recreate the wheel...I'll just let you check out hers...the only part we didn't join them for was their trip to Cape Town, the kids had school. However, they now share our opinion that Cape Town is an incredible city.

https://fillthewall.wordpress.com/

Here is the crew standing on the bridge into Kruger, with hippo and crocodiles in the river behind them!

A few photos from our close up encounters with animals during our stay in a neighborhood right outside Kruger where the animals wander through...we had zebra checking out what Greg was grilling...

Katie, Charlie and I got out near some giraffe, Google turned 3 photos into a little animation, now I need a caption that tells what Katie said to the giraffe to make him wander away!

A warthog family visited us daily, here is the mama resting her head on the step, wondering if I was going to feed her.

Finally a 4th of July party at the community center party, we helped decorate, this is the part Charlie & Katie worked hard on...

We look forward to more visitors and are so happy that our friends were able to make the long trip!