Friday, May 9, 2014

Catching up a bit

Life at the baby home has been, well, continuing here. It's been ages since I've written a detailed post. Again, I'm sorry! There are a few particularly newsworthy items that should probably be mentioned...

Our darling Squishy went home. We miss him SO much. Please pray for this sweet-natured little guy as he grows up, that he will be strong and healthy and come to know Jesus. It's pretty quiet at the baby home now...(Unless you come at (un)Happy Hour, aka "The Witching Hour." Also known as 5 p.m.)


Megan left. She deserted us. (Her internship was up at the end of April.) Alyssa and I sit around moaning about how much we miss her, at LEAST once a day.


I love these girls SO much. I laugh because I wouldn't have picked either one of them out as roommates (and they wouldn't have picked me either, I don't think...) but we were pretty inseparable...until Megan deserted us. *angry* What about the Megan corner? Alyssa's pretty funny, too, but Megan doesn't care WHAT I post about her... =D

Uhh....trying to think of any pressing news. Please pray that I don't have any issues changing my flight and extending my visa. Yes, unfortunately I have to do them in that order, as I was scheduled to leave in less than three weeks. I'm not sure what kind of crazy I was, thinking that five months here would be enough. I've had to do lots of paper chasing - medical and radiological appointments (no, I *still* don't have TB), Home Affairs, fingerprint place (which was closed due to a 'function...'), the police on Monday to have fingerprints done...then FedEx which is the most expensive way to have the fingerprint cards sent back to the States for my FBI clearance, and unfortunately the ONLY reliable way...then Home Affairs again when the Drews get back from a wedding....I won't even have the paperwork complete by the time I'd have to leave. I'm planning on changing my ticket to November 8th. (For those of you freaking out right now, my visa is good through July 25th.) Please pray everything works out fine. I'm a little worried about changing my ticket, but I kind of have to just go ahead and do it if I want to stay longer. I bought insurance, but I'm not sure it will cover the cost of changing it on just a whim.


Soo...

The Megan Corner

(Although this corner will, in the future, be glaringly absent of any Megan, I've decided to keep the name anyway.)

Megan (sitting on the train near someone's screaming baby): Someone needs to put that child on vibrate.

Megan: You must only cook vegetarian free dishes with the chicken that you name after me.
Alyssa: I hope there are no vegetarians in your dishes...

The girls call me "Mom." When asked why, these are the answers they gave.

Alyssa: Yeah, because you make us clean EVERYTHING. (Not true. There are plenty of things left to clean.)
Megan: Because you're older. And you cook. And you do your laundry on your laundry day and buy your fruits and vegetables on sale and you CLIP COUPONS! (Which isn't true. I haven't found any coupons to clip. Yet.) Face it, Abbie, you are RESPONSIBLE!

- We also had an awesome conversation when we were on the train to the mall near Joburg. It involved sausages (Meg's a vegetarian and I love to tease her), glow in the dark yarn, which end of the train the engine/head was on, whether or not a sausage was driving the train, whether or not I would crochet her a sausage scarf, and some pretty accurate, though lower volume, imitations of the babies' cries here at the home. I can't replicate it in its entirety, but it was a pretty hysterical conversation. So much so (and carried on at such a high volume) that Alyssa tried to melt into the seat and pretend she didn't know us...

- Joy has informed me that in Zimbabwe (where she is from) they use American dollars as currency, but they call them "Obamas." I find this ironically appropriate. Our dollars - federal reserve notes - should be backed by gold, but aren't. So neither Obama nor the American dollar has any substance behind them...

What Joy Said: You should buy Owlie a ticket and send her to America. (She was screaming and wouldn't sleep.)
What I Heard: You should buy Owlie a chicken and send her to America. (This left me wondering if it was some wise African saying I just didn't understand.)

- One of the missionary kids (younger elementary school age) plays Uno - against himself. I was over at their house the other day, and caught him arguing with himself. "It's your turn!" "No it's not! Stop it!"

- I've been named Chief Snot-Sucker here at the Baby Home. Ok, Auntie Patricia calls me "Doctor Abbie" but we all know what she REALLY means - she's just too nice to say it. We have this nasty little thing called a Baby Vac that works wonders. It's a tube - you stick one end up the baby's nose and suck, and all the contents get caught in a little bubble at the end. It does NOT go in your mouth - stop gagging!

Patricia: Oh Abbie, you are so courageous! (Because I can do it without being totally grossed out? Not sure how that equals courage, but ok...)
Jeanne: All this technology! In the rural areas, people will just be sucking them out with their mouths!
*bleeeeeechhhhh*
Patricia: Oh, I just cannot stand the sound!
Jeanne: *makes loud slurping noises meant to imitate the Baby Vac*
Patricia: JEANNE, STOP IT!!!

Alyssa, who is stalking me in the grocery store, grabs a spray bottle off the shelf and jumps dramatically into the center of the aisle.
Alyssa: Look, we need to buy this! You can spray it at me when I complain and I can spray it at you when you interrupt!
Me: Yeah, but then we'd both walk around soaking wet all the time!

- We have a bag full of orphan socks here at the baby home. Pretty ironic. I have found my favorite job - matching them. I feel like I'm reuniting long-lost families.

- Life at the baby home feels something like this:


- So I read an article about a couple that had a baby, and acquired a stainless steel diaper pail. They called it "Vladimir Poo-Tin."

I know there was more funny stuff. I keep hearing things and thinking, "I really need to blog that!" Maybe one time out of five I remember to write it down, but everything else is lost to the wayside. Now that I'm a little more caught up on blogging, maybe I'll be able to remember. Anyhow! I need to sleep - we've been SO busy lately with only two interns, and the extra help we keep thinking is going to come keeps falling through. I'd probably be perfectly fine if I could only acquire the helpful discipline of going to bed AT A DECENT HOUR. I haven't acquired said discipline, and I haven't been napping this week, so I am tired. Tomorrow is our day off and we are going to see the "Sound of Music" on stage! I'm so excited! Love you all and miss you!



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