I am waiting for Vernon to pick me up to visit a few places before I leave. A couple weeks ago, before Thanksgiving the students and myself went to an orphanage called Beautiful Gates. They are a small facility that takes in children who have HIV/AIDs and for whatever reason their families could not care for them or did not want to. Adjacent to the orphanage there is a large plot of land that the orphanage has given to another NGO who is working on creating a sustainable garden to benefit the local women and children of the orphanage. The point person for the NGO is a local gentleman whose name is Happyboy. Mama works in the garden and does most of the weeding, planting and general maintaining. She is mostly Xhosa speaking so communicating is difficult, however, she is always smiling and very proud of the work they are doing. Some of the products go straight to the orphanage and the other products are sold to a local distributor as a form of income for the people who work the garden.
Vernon wasn't able to join us that day and I want him to see how great the garden looks. We spent 4 hours preparing then planting rows and rows of vegetables that Happy Boy thought the children would like and they would get good prices for in the market. I went to the local nursery with him to pick everything out and was amazed at how wonderful the plants were and inexpensive. I noticed on the property that they didn't have any fruit for the children. Happy Boy and I had talked about the connection between nursing, healthy food, nutrition and what else the children could benefit from. I suggested an orange tree and blueberry bushes. You would think he won the lottery and could't stop thanking me for buying what the garden needed especially the orange tree. He flattered me and said that when it bears fruit he will think of me exclusively.
From the garden we are going to a possible future site for a Cape Town Boys and Girls club like the one in Soweto that we volunteered at during excursion. The gentleman Casey who runs the one in Soweto is scheming with Vernon and I would like to say myself in securing a site for the same facility here. There is a huge need for children, especially teen agers to have a safe place to "hang out" when school is over. My thoughts are racing with the possibilities.
From there I am going to Thembacare which is a palliative care orphanage for children with again, HIV/AIDs. This is a clinical site for pediatrics that I haven't been to yet and the students have continued to volunteer at after their formal clinical rotation started. The director from that facility, Pricilla and I discussed at length last night some ideas we both had for connecting nursing students in Cape Town with our students so they could exchange ideas and learn from each other. Her connection to nursing school is personal in that her daughter is a first year student at UCT.
It is a beautiful day again, sunny, warm, breezy. My office at the beach beckons me as do the mountains of grading I have to do, but I am going to resist both. Ok well, maybe just the grading, I might go sit in my office later. I have so much more to write about but it will have to wait. Be on the look out for pictures from the various sites when I get back.
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