Written on July 23rd, 2010:

As is typical of my musings, I sit here in the darkness of the purple house way past my bedtime (which has been steadily getting earlier and earlier...I suppose I really am not in college any more!) listening to the (awesome) CD that Rosie gave us and thinking over the past month and a half and the future ten months I’ll be here. And I feel that the only word to describe how I feel right now is this one: grateful.

Tonight Pat and I had a short meeting with Rita to discuss some of the projects that we want to get under way starting this weekend. Towards the end of our conversation Rita expressed her gratitude at our being here, but as she thanked us all I could think was “this thank you is so backwards” – I feel so blessed to be here.

The past two weeks since my last blog entry have been fantastic. (Tom, please note that I used the word thesaurus for “wonderful” on that one – I’ve been told I use that word much too often.) Where to begin recapping the last ten days?

As I mentioned in my last blog entry I have now begun a new schedule with the kids. I start each (weekday) morning with the three five year-old girls who need to improve their English which is at once incredibly rewarding, and frustrating (but ultimately more rewarding than frustrating). We’re currently working on letter identification and have since mastered the letters A, B, C, D, E, and F! (My greatest triumph came last night when Caitlin mentioned that one of the girls, one of my not-so-secret-favorites, came up to her and correctly identified a C and an E on her shirt!) Working with the girls has pushed me to try to be more creative in a lot of ways too – we work a lot with foam letters but we’ve also worked with chalk boards, sticks, paper, books, and our fingers. We’ll see how things go…a work in progress certainly!

In the afternoons the three girls and I join the four year-olds in the crèche (our on-site preschool) and do a craft project. This I love! The past few days the kids have been making clay fish and painting and decorating them with an atrocious amount of glitter! It really is pretty precious. They have also taken to having me lead them in rendition after rendition of the song “Everywhere we go – everywhere we go-oh! – People wanna know-oh! – People wanna know-oh!...” from Remember the Titans. (Only in their version they sing “we are Open Arms…mighty, mighty Open Arms. It really is too, too cute!) They seriously make me sing it about 20 times a day…Another favorite song that I get requests for (a lot, especially during crazy hour) is “Who Took the Cookie from the Cookie Jar?” They love that song. And they always crack up when I accuse them of taking the cookie, except one of the toddlers who burst in to tears once when she thought we were actually accusing her of taking a cookie (woops!). Singing really has become an integral part of life here (and yes, I remain musically challenged) – some of the kids really took to breaking into “Happy Birthday Kea-ten” over and over again (and I do mean just that verse). It was pretty funny! (It wasn’t even my birthday yet mind you!)

In any case, after crèche ends I start my playroom duties, which involves, as I mentioned, taking the children in one at a time into the playroom. It’s part of a their play therapy time which I’ve started to read up on quite a bit. I’ll suffice it to say that it’s extremely interesting the things that they do and say when they’re on their own and allowed to do what they want. It certainly has been a very rewarding process thus far, albeit a long and tiring one – there are 25 kids a week that cycle through the playroom.

But rest assured, the days at Open Arms aren’t all work. As volunteers we make a point to have a great time both while the kids are awake but also when they go to bed. One of my favorite nights to date at Open Arms was the night that we all gathered in the purple house (with Rosie) to play dominoes (a new favorite), Pictionary telephone (an ND favorite – thanks for teaching me guys!), and Who, what, when, where, why (I’d never played that before!). It was hysterical! Especially since most of our games were centered around events at Open Arms (kids falling into the pool, silly quotes, and of course lots about uncle Zach). We also found time to take a much needed break from the home to spend the day out at a game reserve with a friend of Rita’s, uncle James, having a “bry” (I’m sure I’m butchering that spelling…). A “bry” is essentially a traditional South African cookout. It was a blast! We all loaded up into the back of James’ pickup and rode down windy dirt roads chatting and keeping an eye out for wild game (springbok, blessed buck, and baboon prints/calls). Then we spent the (supremely gorgeous) day down by the Kubussy river (sp?) fishing, relaxing, chatting, eating delicious lamb chops/warthog dogs! (The lamb chops were disgustingly delicious!). I should also mention that I caught two fish. (Alright, I might have just reeled them in, but still! Big deal!). It was seriously the most awesome day.

The night after our big day out was also awesome as we had “Girls Night” in the girls house. I’m sure you girls know exactly what that entails: painting nails, eating candy, watching a girly movie (A Cinderella Story), blasting music, and chit chatting. I even allowed my nails to be painted pink (yeah, pink! I have since unpolished them however). That night was so much fun, two of the girls fell asleep in my lap during the movie which is not an uncommon occurrence, but still awesome.

Other highlights? Several new arrivals! Since my last entry we have had two new arrivals: one volunteer, Liane, and one new kid, a 16 month-old boy! Coincidentally Liane is absolutely head-over-heels in love with him. It’s actually a pretty crazy feeling, one day there are 36 kids and then suddenly there are 37! (That may seem like a “duh” statement, but it’s pretty bizarre when you think about it!) Admittedly, he’s pretty dang adorable. He’s quite a chunker too. We often joke (although we’re actually serious) that he weighs more than one of our nine year-olds. It’s nice to have another baby around too (our youngest just turned one as I mentioned in my last entry and has since learned to crawl, which was quite the struggle for the few weeks prior!).

Some anecdotes from the past two weeks? Hmm. Well my favorite was probably the day that Caitlin and I walked back to the purple house to find the door wide open. We walked in tentatively and to our surprise only found one little four year-old boy running around in the middle of the room. (They’re not allowed in our house normally.) Wide-eyed and hilarious, this boy just stopped and looked at us. Apparently he had followed Liane back without her noticing, the little sneakster! Another favorite was when I got a phone call from Reed early one morning. I snuck out of the purple house and onto the stoop of the blue house next door where I normally talk on the phone at night only this time it was really cold so I brought my big ND blanket with me and covered myself with it. Well it was about the time the kids were all getting ready for school so one of the mama’s walked by across the lawn and saw me. Well naturally she had no idea who I was so she shouted “Who are you?!” at me and I told her it was me. Well later that day the talk of Open Arms was “Why was auntie Kea-ten sleeping outside on the blue house stoop?” Oh those kids.

As if I wasn’t in love with these kids already, they showed me just how adorable they could be when my birthday came around. Periodically throughout the day before my birthday kids were burst through the playroom door (which they’re not supposed to do mind you) to hand me cards they’d made for me. I received a whole big stack of them by my actual birthday and they seriously just melted my heart. Among my favorites were messages like these: “Dear Keaton, Happy birthday Keaton so much and you love me to and I love you to you are so beautiful,” “Dear Keaton, I hope you are so special and I think you nice lady. I am so proud of you I hope you are going to stay next of next year I wish a Happy Birthday and have a nice day today. I love you very mush if you go I would cry because I will miss you,” and “I love you so much Keaton we all love you. I hope you well choose movie is csper the friendly ghost. I hope you ken stay in Open Arms South Africa.” Now tell me these kids aren’t the best? Actually, my birthday was amazing here. It started very early with Rosie surprising Elyssa and I with a delicious chocolate cake (with Mint candy bar crushed over it!) last week (it’s Elyssa’s birthday on the 26th). On my actual birthday we “farmed” (Pat’s manly word for gardening), i.e. we planted the seedlings in our garden – pretty intense, a little, hard, very windy, but also really awesome! We also made chocolate chip cookie bars (yum!), the kids sang to me during crazy hour (as is tradition), and we had a “purple house party” that night where we all just sat in the purple house and chatted and had a great time.

The only downside to my birthday really was that it was Caitlin and Kaitlyn’s last night at Open Arms. In the past 10 days it’s been incredibly sad – Zach went home, Rosie went back to varsity (university), and Caitlin and Kaitlyn left. Not to mention Elyssa leaves on Wednesday. It’s so weird without them here! (If any of you are reading this now, know that I and everyone at Open Arms miss you something awful and we think of you lots!). Pat and I are beginning to mentally prepare ourselves for the arrival and departure of lots of volunteers this year.

In any case, rest assured that all is well here at Open Arms. Every day I find myself falling more and more in love with the kids, more committed to making my experience more meaningful, and certainly more settled into this magical place. The other day while chatting with some of the other volunteers I mentioned my notion that being here was being in the business of loving. I think about that a lot. And I’m learning every day that while I thought I knew how to love people, there are so many more dimensions to loving people than I thought. Yes, there are hugs, there are kisses, there are kind words and there are compliments, but there’s also discipline, patience, therapy, education. There’s timeouts, there are times to pick up the kids up and times to refuse their chorus’ of “pick me up!.” There are times to sit with them while they cry, to hold them, to spoil them, to play bad cop. I don’t know how parents do it. They’re seriously saints and I know I never gave mine enough credit. But I digress, the point is the same point I make in every entry: I love Open Arms. There are lots of challenges here, but every night ends the same: I am so grateful to be here.

Thanks to all of you for supporting me in this journey. You are all so wonderful!! And your comments, e-mails, phone calls, letters, thoughts, and prayers mean the world to me! Never hesitate to stay in touch and please do let me know everything that you’re doing!! I certainly miss and think of everyone back in the states lots (the kids and other volunteers certainly get an earful about my friends and family!). Alright, well now it is way past my bedtime!

All the best,
--Auntie Keaton