Heres a shot taken on the street I live right outside of our church on Christmas day. The man in the back is Barnabus, my next door neighbor, and the rest of the kids are just a few of the children from the community. Most of them live in my building and so I hang out with them alot. They are just the sweetest and oh-so dear to me!

Here is a picture of all the ladies I work with daily at the creche: From left to right in the back - Germaine from DRC with here 1 year old, Esther on her back, Amanata from Burundi, Petronella from DRC (wearing her gift exchange gift, a beautifully tacky princess crown) Mama Bella from Burundi- our cheif, Auntie Maureen from South Africa- our cleaning lady, Renat another South African, Beatrice from Uganda. Beatrice and Germaine are the two teachers that I mainly work with in the 3-5 year old class. In the front from left to right: Veneranda from Rwanda, with her son Daniels -ps he is a really good friend of mine, and I wouldnt be surprised if he "somehow" gets stolen from his mom and comes back to Canada with me... just sayin... , next is Heather, a volunteer from USA that comes to help out once a week, Janine from Burundi who also lives in my flat and is a good friend, Pinky a South African, and Sandra from South Africa. Sandra is the qualified pre-school teacher at the creche and such a strong woman who is constantly getting donations and who has done so so much for the creche.

This past month or so has been a kind of whirl-wind tour of South Africa based mainly on the fact that my parents were out visiting and having a vehicle opens the world of possibilities for me here. Again, I cannot think of one single highlight of the past few weeks, so I will make a little ‘best-of’ list –in no particular order:

- We flew down to Cape Town where we spent some time on some extremely windy beaches, drove through some absolutely gorgeous countryside in vineyard country, walked to the infamous ‘Cape Point’ which was so beautiful but again, very windy, and the females climbed Table Mountain in record time, battling gale-force winds that prevented even the cable-car from ascent. We also spent some time around the city-centre which was very nice but very touristy. I felt more like I was walking around the streets of Europe because of the abundance of patio cafes, cobblestones and French and German people everywhere you turned.

- The second week of January was a big Menno-retreat near Port Shepstone (about 1 hour South of Durban). I got rejuvenated singing some solid blue Hymnal hymns, having some harmonica jam-sessions, playing soccer and ultimate Frisbee, and splashing around the swimming pool. Meeting and reconnecting with people from throughout South Africa, Lesotho and Swaziland was very interesting and was a highlight of the week.

- We spent one day going on a tour of some townships around Durban. My friend, Myrie, - a Maasai warrior who walked from Kenya to Cape Town five years ago – and his friend Umhlongo showed us some very interesting sites. From tasting cow tongue and stomach, to visiting Ghandi’s place of residence for 21 years, to visiting the church of Shembe, to stopping in for some cool drink at a house of complete strangers, the tour was very interesting and eye-opening. Even though apartheid was abolished 15 years ago, the races are still very segregated and live in specific areas (or townships) around the city. The Zulu township of Umlazi is the second biggest in all of South Africa. It has its own fairly large university, many schools, two radio stations, a centre for performing/visual arts and many up-scale houses. There is still, however, an abundance of poverty within the townships. Another one we visited, Inanda, was characterized by houses made of everything from spare pieces of plywood, to sticks, mud, tin and cardboard.

The land of diversity that is South Africa continues to reveal its stark dichotomies.