One Month Down

Greetings all! I must apologize for the lateness of this most recent blog entry. It has been a crazy last week or so. Part of the reason for the craziness is that my computer is currently dead. The problem seems to be with either windows or the hard drive but regardless of the exact issue this has been very frustrating and quite inconvenient. Thankfully, we have been able to track down a Toshiba shop where they are currently working on the issue and have informed me that they are able to honor my current warranty. Right now I just have to keep my fingers crossed, hope that things won’t take too long, and be very gentle as I use Simone’s computer.

But of the last week, I am happy to say that not everything I have to report is of the negative nature. Simone and I have been getting along well at Sparrow Village, bonding with the kids and helping to make their days more exciting. The South African teacher’s strike has just been surrendered as of this Monday and today is the first day in over two weeks that the kids are back in school. While the strikes were on, we found ourselves doing our best to get the kids in an academic and creative mind set. Some of the highlights have been leading the kids in a drawing contest for the annual holiday of Spring Day (pictured below), and helping several groups of kids organize performances for the upcoming Heritage Day celebration. Every year, the children of Sparrow put together various cultural performances that bring to life the rich background and culture of South Africa. I look forward to posting pictures in two weeks from the celebration but until then I am happy to share a glimpse of the fun time we are having with the kids (below).

Beyond working at Sparrow, Simone and I have been busy going to the gym, working on medical school secondary application, and planning out our activities for the rest of the trip. Our most recent adventure was to the Johannesburg Zoo where we spent hours taking in the exciting sights of elephants, rhinos, hippos and many, MANY incredible animals (below). So far it looks like we are set to have a new adventure every week so plenty more to come soon!

As always, I hope that you all are doing well back home and I miss you all! It is hard to think that we have been here for over a month already but no amount of time can make me forget any of you back home. I am hoping to send out some emails to everyone soon but please feel free to drop me a line if you have some time! I would love to hear what is new and exciting with all of you!

Ek sal met julle later praat (Talk to you all later in Afrikaans)

Mike :)

P.S. I had wrote a blog entry for August 31st that never got posted because of my computer problems. If my hard drive does not get wiped then I will hopefully one day post the lost entry...will see...