23 on the 23rd

Greetings from Southern Africa,
Today is indeed my 23rd Birthday and coincidentally I am 23 today. Today has been a mixed bag really but an awesome day. We got up at 5am and spent the next 4 hours helping out at a feeding scheme in a local hospital where we bring soup (from the US Government) and bread (from the local commercial bakery) and go down to give it out to the locals who are queuing for medical care. It was the first time here where we’ve seen a relatively high level of poverty, but even that wasn’t what we’ll see when we head out to what are called ‘townships’ which are basically shanty towns that surround the big cities and towns. But anyways, it was really enjoyable. Amusingly Jenny my team mate asked me if I’d ever been up this early on my birthday before and I remembered that I year ago at that point I was on the top of Beacon hill will just my PJs and dressing gown on (thanks again to everyone who did that!), so although I was up early again, this one was a lot more meaningful.
So we finished there about 9am or so and I will confess to feeling somewhat blue at this point. I didn’t think I’d be sad being away from my parents (as opposed to my home, because I wouldn’t say I really have a home at the moment, but that helps because I’m not homesick, Africa is just my latest home) but I really was. My mum text me about 8am (8.11am to be precise) and I had to wait a while to read it because I thought it might not help the situation! But it was fine and it felt good inside to be doing something I love on my birthday. I said to our co-ordinator Becky that if I could pick my birthday activities I would be doing that I did today, so that’s awesome really.
So after the feeding scheme we headed to Esther House which is the project looking after abused women. We were quite nervous about this simply (well me and Jonno were) because it was full of older women who had been abused my mostly men and so we weren’t sure how we’d fit in at all. When we got there there was actually already another team hanging out there too. There is an American team working here at Gateway too and they were saying their final goodbyes to the women. So we hung out with all them for a while, and they helped us get to know the women a bit and the kids running around. We played some quality games and then did some Zulu dancing. It was amazing! I’ll tell you one thing, you know when you’ve found a major life calling when you enjoy doing things you’d NEVER do elsewhere. Anyone who knows me in England would say I would be one of the last to go join a group of American and African people, who all know each other, and get involved and dance around with them! But I did, and I loved it! Amusingly one of the American girls went up to my teammate Hannah and ‘come look, your boys are making fools of themselves’. We were and the Lord said it was good, amen!
So that picked me right up and then some kids warmed to me and we built a leaf pile together. Then when the leaves ran out it turned to sticks, then from sticks to general dirt. THEN they threw it all at me. They loved it. And it was also cool to chat to the Americans and learn from them about what good things to do and what they’d learnt in their time here.
However joy turned to sorrow soon after just because some of our team are feeling very homesick. It’s someone I’ve gotten to know the best and aside from Jonno, get on the best with, and me being me took it very hard. But I’d been trying to look out for her a lot over the last few days knowing she was feeling bad, partly due to my leader role and mostly due to the fact that I don’t think I could not look after someone in trouble if I tried!, and when she went off on her own without telling anyone, I shared a bit of my thoughts and understandings of her with the others in the group. It was really good to be able to share a bit of my heart for people and them all with them directly. We dispatched Jenny to go find her (she had just gone round the corner of the building to sit in the sun) and then we had a bit of a group hug and pray. But it was quite challenging as it was clear more than one of us were finding things hard but it was a special time to come together as one team in that time of pain. We had talked a lot and hard times and so it was important to put into practice what we’d talked about when those times came along. I’d had guessed a while before I came out that given that my birthday was 8 days in it would probably be tainted with home sickness so that foreknowledge helped me really.
In the end a few of us stayed home while me and three others headed out with Becky to a little waterfalls nearby to chill out and get away from the prison grounds. Unfortunately Becky’s car began to breakdown to we did a quick turn around and went to the Mall instead lol. Top stuff. So we had ice cream. I had too much ice cream. That is bad. I still feel ill and I’ve got half the team cooking Lasagna for me as I speak! But that was fun, and the guys who stayed here picked up a lot. Plus I bought Monopoly and Jenga because they are both team favourites so we can play them together in the coming months.
So yeh that’s my birthday. Last night after cell social everyone sang me happy birthday and I got free ice cream (add that to today’s and the coke float I had before the free ice cream and you see why I’m feeling ill!). Plus various people from church had bought me little cards and gifts or text me today. In actual fact it meant more that they ‘d done that than my friends texting me because the people here don’t know me really so had made a special effort (not that I’m not grateful for my friends’messages!). Kat won the sweepstake on how many texts I got on my English sim. It’s amazing how many people text me ‘I don’t think you’ll get this but…’!
So other highlights include:

- Drew blood for the 8th time in 8 days. I’m quite impressed. I cut my hand open last week when a glass shattered on me while washing it up. I cut myself a lot doing team building, as well as my shoulder and thigh – was a quality day thought! And the other day I went down to hang with the school kids because from 2-4pm they just play on the field. Me and Kat invented this game where they have to crawl through each other's legs (because stuck in the mud is REALLY tiring when you have 20 kids running around and it's 25degrees heat), but me and Kat had to demonstrate. Trust me, crawling through the legs of 3-7 year olds whilst maintaining any concept of child protection is taxing, and indeed blood inducing, as I ripped up the skin on my elbow. Top stuff.

- We sat in some meetings about the finance and strategy aspects of the 9 projects run here and i managed to make a lot of doodles in that time AND expand a algebraic expression ((x + 3) to the power of 4) for the first time in 5 years with my equally geeky maths friend Abby. We're so cool we're basically frozen.

- OOOh, my address. Lots of people are asking for this so here it is. Post would be much appreciated! English chocolate is the best, it's got that non-melting stuff in it here so it doesn't taste so good.

Phil Sital-Singh
Oasis Team
Project Gateway
PO Box 101-071
Scottsville 3209
Pietermaritzburg
South Africa

Right well it's Lasagna time soon and I've been banned from the whole dining room so I'm expecting something suprising. When you ask 'where has my opened birthday card from you guys gone? It was here on the table' and they reply 'None of your business, don't ask those questions', you know something is amiss. I think it's someone else's birthday too and they're recylcing the card. Definitely the likely option.