Day Four - Blog Post by Grace Dymski

Day 4 by Grace Dymski

Today I began my day with the difficult task of waking Grace Lockwood up to the very cold South African mornings (after spending six years living here you think she would be used to it).  We then quickly grabbed some breakfast and headed out the door to begin our walk to the school.  I was quickly greeted by the children with my new name of “Sheema” meaning pink soap (don’t ask) and I caught on to renaming the kids with the rest of our team (names include: Lilly, Potato, Rachel, Salami, Drake, Batman, and Diego).  What the kids love most about us girls (and Jonah) is the opportunity to play with our hair, which provides a great time to just relax and talk with the kids.  However, along with hair braiding there comes a lot of yanking, including the time today that Jared (also known as Jerry) decided to share my hair with the kids by yanking out five strands.  As the day came to the end, the children played with chalk and settled down to learn about Abraham’s faith (through Ryan sporting his natural red hair and fake black beard and the real Isaac).  Before we headed out for the day we received multiple hugs from the kids and we quickly reassured them we would be here for many more days.  Getting back to the house we played some cards, ate a good meal, almost cracked our teeth on some South African cookies, and here I am sitting reflecting on this awesome opportunity to be with such a close-knit team and loveable children.  Signing off for now and hope all is well in PA.