Busy days and sleepless nights

It’s been way too long since the last time I updated my blog. I’ve been extremely busy in the last three weeks, especially with our Amy Biehl Winter Soccer Cup.

The South African schools began their winter break on June 9, which was also the last day of my Afterschool program at Siyazingisa Primary School. On the second to last week of school, my debate class competed in the final round of a debate competition in the township. After two weeks of training and practicing with my class, their hard work finally paid off…my kids won 1^st place! It was a perfect end to the semester.

Since the start of winter holiday, we’ve been busy planning and executing our Soccer Cup. We had a lot of organizing to do before the start of our tournament. And thank you very much to everyone who was able to help us out by donating! With all of our donations, we are able to provide each child with a team jersey, food after each day’s matches, trophies/medals for the winning teams, and a nice sports complex in which we will hold the Finals and Semifinals. These kids are definitely having fun playing in their own World Cup. We began the group stage of the tournament on Monday of this week and tomorrow is the final day of the group stage. The quarterfinals, semi-finals, and finals will be held next week.

I’ve also been kept busy with the Amy Biehl Winter Holiday Camps. The Amy Biehl Foundation is holding two Holiday Camps during the holiday break, one of which was held this past weekend. The second camp will be held from July 2 – July 5. Sunny and I are facilitators for both camps, so we’ve spent a lot of time planning out the camp schedules in addition to planning out five educational sessions that teach the kids life skills such as public speaking, teamwork, decision making, and goal planning. Sunny and I left Cape Town very early Saturday morning and didn’t return until Monday afternoon…and we were exhausted by the time we got back. It was a very, very tiring, but extremely fun weekend! The kids are so crazy; they keep you awake all night. The boys, especially the older ones, either try to break out of their rooms every night, put toothpaste on someone else’s face while they’re asleep, or beat each other with belts. I loved being able to mess around and play with the kids. I know them all a lot better now and most of them now feel more comfortable around me. Also, the location of the camp was a huge bonus. The location of the camp was actually on a wine farm about an hour and a half east of Cape Town in a place called Grabouw. The scenery surrounding our lodges was some of the most beautiful scenery I’ve seen yet. Check out my pictures on Facebook!