Orange Farm continued...

So my dear little nephew Leo had made a "flat Stanley" (a cutout hand drawn photo) of himself and my sister-in-law Laura asked if I would take it to South Africa and take pictures of Flat Leo and bring him back with a story.  Well - at least we have the story part. 

We had just finished volunteering with the children in the recreation area and were being shown the rest of the facility when Flat Leo found a new home.  The community center in Orange Farm (I am awestruck now by the power of the place) had an area for classrooms for their Early Childhood Development (ECD) program.  The ECD program is for children aged 0 - 6 years.  From what I saw in the community if they had a hundred rooms they could fill it with children.  Unfortunately they only have 7 classrooms - with each classroom arranged by age of child (as you would expect). 

In one of the rooms with children about the age of 4, Flat Leo found a new home.  I had hoped to take his picture with the group of children who in turn became very excited (all shouting "shoop", "shoop" which means "everything is alright" and is normally expressed by pressing your thumb against anothers) and this beautiful little girl posed for the picture and then ran off with Flat Leo.  I did not have the heart to take it away and I was pained not to have 32 other Flat Somebody's to give to this little classroom of children so happy and excited and not caring that they didn't have a Flat Somebody.

Children yelling 'shoop!' 'shoop!' (which I thought meant

'shoot shoot' like they wanted their picture taken - dumb American)

The would laugh and scream when they saw their picture on my camera.

Shoop!  Shoop!

Here she is - very happy little girl (I wish the flash had worked)

So Flat Leo has a wonderful new home and is likely loved more now then ever would have been had he made it back to the States.

After learning more about the ECD program - we returned and met again with Rita the program manager.  I doubt if Oprah Winfrey is ever going to read this but if she does she needs to meet this woman.  I am inspired by her drive and passion for this place.  Her heart is at the middle of the successes that they have.  She has a wonderful team of people working with her, but her gift for expressing the impact they have been able to make - while highlighting the great, almost overwhelming need / odds against them - shows resolve that I'm not sure I've witnessed.  I have a video of her that I will post - I hope that I've not 'over-hyped' her, but I was truly moved and fighting back tears for her, for the children, for the families - for the ones that the program has not yet been able to help or reach for either economic or social reasons.

I think I left my heart in about 700 pieces at Orange Farm (I think that's about how many kids they care for).