There won't be snow in Africa at Christmas time...

We made a Christmas CD and one of the songs we downloaded was "Do they know it's Christmas?"  You know the classic Band-AID feed the world song?? 

Well, they definitely know it's Christmas here!  They don't do it up quite as crazy as us Americans but you can definitely feel the vibes.  It's been a little hard for us adjusting to the differences here for the Christmas season.  One, NO snow;  two, NO Santa lap to sit on to tell your wish list too; and three, NO candy canes!!!  WHAT?!

Tis the season though!



Me, Millie, and Kristie

 There is a great group of ladies here who have been helping out the last couple of years a local school called Riversands.  It's just up the road from AISJ, American International School of Johannesburg, where the boys attend.  It's a non-preforming school-basically it's not accredited- that educates 670 students on a daily basis that have come out of a huge township called Diepsloot.  Diepsloot has a population of  150,00 people and most of them live in a 3 meter by 2 meter shacks assembled with scrap metal, wood, and cardboard.

They were very excited to get their
picture taken!

A few years ago Millie, she's from South Africa, started a lunch program for these kids.  She understood that most of these kids come to school with empty bellies and that the only meal they would is the one provided by the school.  The only problem was, the school was not able to provide them with a nutritious meal everyday.  They could only provide the meal once a week and on the other days they were serving the kids pap, which is corn based, and tastes and looks a lot like thick cream of wheat.

Present time!

Miss Millie got to work and they are now receiving vegetables, noodles, and soup stock that are being graciously donated to the school by local vendors.  The kids are now up to three meals a week and sometimes more, depending on how donations are.

I was one of the lucky ladies who got to be involved with their Christmas party this year.  The schools here run from January to December instead of August to May like in the US.  These kids were getting to the end of the school year and they got to have a rockin party too! 



Mmmm!!! Chocolate
cupcakes from Woolies!





Look at all those goodie bags!



Each child was given a list of seven items they could pick from.  They were pretty basic choices, ball, car, tea set, doll, food hamper and few other things. And they each ended up with a gift bag containing their item plus sweets, writing utensils, stationary and an assortment of odds and ends they had leftover.

They also had a blow up obstacle course set up for them along with cupcakes, presents and just a fun laid back day for the kids to enjoy.