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"!