A year that was a year ago.

 

Our whole group (minus the sick ones) for sports day

Today marks 6 months living in Omaha and a year since I had to say my hardest goodbye yet. Can't believe its been a year since I was at TLC. Since I said good-bye to my sweet girl. To some of my closest friends, and to a place the has stolen my heart. A place that taught me so much about love and patience and friendships. A place that became family and my home for a year.
 

The grubs just before bed.

My sweet girl

Every day I think and miss those kids and my fellow volunteers. I miss my little girls laugh when I poke her tummy. I miss holding on to Johnnys hand while her fell asleep at night. I miss dance time with the creepies. I miss laying on the floor of the grubs room with all the beautiful babies learning how to sit and crawl and walk. I miss putting them all to bed and the end of the day, patting their backs till they slept. I miss pushing three kids in a stroller made for one. I miss evenings playing spoons or sipping wine while chatting in the hide. I miss planning days off with kids and then making them happen. I miss hugs from Mama Thea. I miss teas with Eleanor. I miss movies on breaks with Laila. I miss scrapbooking after shift with Elisabeth, Laila, Eleanor, Robert, and others. I miss walking up to the farm to get fresh eggs. I miss chasing chickens. I miss meetings with Zoe. I miss volunteer meetings when it was just us volunteers bonging and relaxing. I miss painting the nursery and making it more of a home for the kids. I miss trying to sweep up rice from the floor. I miss every once of it. Yeah there were times that weren't that great. Nights I would cry myself to sleep. Days I would get frustrated with co-volunteers. The good and the beautiful out shine all the dark and gloomy. I always remember the good. As each day passes those hard things are harder to remember. I was a year that will always be close to my heart. A year filled with smiles, laughs, crys, giggles, dances, walks, and crawls that will always be remembered.

The lions when I first arrived.

What a year it was. A year of cuddles, screams, long walks around the farm, jumps on the trampoline, visits to the chickens, turtles and cows, chats on the couch in the hide, drawing on the bathroom wall, changing nappies, reading stories, praying with the lions before bed, bath times, messy meals, trips to the outdoor fridge, day offs to the glen, meals out with great friends, swims in the pool with the best lions ever, piles and piles of laundry, and so so much more. 

My last night with the Lions.

Thank you to all who volunteered with me and made it a year I will NEVER forget.

Eleanor and I before the big game.

Thankful #1

Last year today, well last night. I was in South Africa enjoying a traditional meal with my TLC family. We (the Americans) were teaching the other volunteers about jello salad being a side dish not a dessert. We were all enjoying warm apple pie and homemade pumpkin pies. It was also storming out. Lot of rain. Lots of thunder and lightning. It was a good thanksgiving dinner. I will always remember it but not because of all of that.

Little H soon after she was home at TLC.

But because it was the day little H was found. In the morning a little girl was brought into  the nursery. She had been found across the road. The guard from our neighbors house heard crying all night but couldn’t find her in the dark and storm. She was found in the morning. She is so little so cold. BUT that was the end to her hard entry into life. She was now safe at TLC where no child goes without being loved. After a couple days in the hospital to get her core temp back up she was at home. We were lucky enough to hold, feed, love and care for our little H for quite a few months. But the story got better. She got the best ending to this story/ beginning to the rest of her life that she could. She got a forever family. She has a Mommy and Daddy now, along with a brother and sister. It was such a great day to see her go home for good.

This is one of many reasons that I am SO VERY THANKFUL for TLC and Mama Thea and all the volunteers who give their lives and love to babies like H.

lost

Home a week.

Talk about being lost.
What does one do without the babies to hold and love that were normal and always there for a year.
What is next?
How do I feel?
What did I learn?
How am I changed?

So many questions and there are very little answers. I'm home but I don't feel like it. Where do I belong anymore.


And to top it all off I have lost my Africa. Its a necklace that I took years in finding left home because I didn't want to lose it and now its gone. I understand that its a small pendant. But it was so much more. It was a reminder. It was a piece of Africa that I kept with me because Africa has so much of me with it.

Its been tough. Ive tried to not think about anything this last week. I don't want to hurt. I don't want to spend my days crying. But I don't think I can keep it together much longer. Part of me just wants to run back to my babies and friends.

0 days--- Home

Home. What a word.

Yesterday home was a little cottage I shared with an amazing lady from Switzerland right next to a nursery filled with little ones who have stolen my heart. 

Today home is the house I grew up in.

 But I think yesterdays home is where my heart is still. I ache for it. Tears come every time I think of it. I miss those little ones and all my TLC family. Past volunteers weren't lying when they said that it sucks to leave and be home that it hurts like nothing else. I feel as if my heart was ripped out. 

I keep asking myself why did I come home. Why did I leave home. 

Somewhere in my I know it was time to leave. A part of me is excited to see what is next. But how could it ever beat what I just left. 

What I would give to be sitting in the hospital next to my little girl today. And I don't even like hospitals. I just ache to be there with her.  With them all.

1 day-- Bags are packed.

Its crazy how fast a year goes when you are staying busy loving babies. My bags are sitting in my cottage which I was still calling home 20 min ago. I'm hoping and praying that they are not too heavy. I kept a lot here. but I still ended up with a lot left. All the pictures and foot prints and things I cant part with.  In 30+ hours I will be back on US soil. Well in an airport.


I have started my goodbyes but more tears are to come. 

This little one didn't want to nap so I am spending my last minutes with him.

2 days-- Jungle Rumble

So Laila had a birthday last weekend. We all went to Jungle Rumble for it. We took the kids. Well not all just 17. It was a lot of fun.

3 days-- What I wont miss

The short list.

- Poo up to their armpits.
- Cleaning up rice after the Lions eat dinner.
- Kids tearing apart books.
- Rice and meat stew.
- Snot in a constant flow out of noses.


Maybe there are a few more but that is what I can think of right now.

I officially finished work today.  It was such a weird feeling all day. Tears came twice. Once when I talked to my girl about me leaving and then at the end of the day when the Lions asked me to pray.

Tomorrow I take my girl out and then finish packing.

4 days-- Volunteer weekends.

While at TLC I had three of them. One in October, Feburary and June. Each were unique and fun.

The first on Ubuntu. I blogged about it back in October. Was very much about us, our won stories and how those and the people around us make us who we are. There was much sitting and listening. Deep thinking.

The second one was team building. It was about us as a team and how we worked together. We barely sat. We played games, built shelters and took hikes.

The third was about the kids. How we can help them. We learned and discussed the circle of wisdom as a helpful model to assess the kids. We had a lot of time together. We took a nature hike and all stayed in one big house.

All three were good. It was always nice to take a step back from TLC and the kids and regroup. Its also one of the only times that all the volunteers are together just us. Im sad that I will be missing the next one. Zoe always did an amazing job planning and executing.

4 days-- New babies. ( make up for yesterday)

So one of the big things at TLC is when a new baby arrives. If you are lucky you are in the next when they do and get to welcome them. You weigh, bath, dress and feed them. I was lucky to be in there three times when a new baby arrived. All three girls. So that is good odds since we have gotten only a 5 girls this year I believe. 4 in the nest. Here are some pics of the girls first moments at TLC.

First TLC bottle.

First bath ever.

6 days-- Like an African.

So the first year I was in S. Africa I saw mommas carrying their kids on their backs with towels and blankets. I always wanted to try. Well working at TLC has given me the chance. Sometimes too much of a chance. Last week of night shift I carried someone for at least 3 hours every night maybe more. There were a lot of screaming kids.

7 Days-- All the crying

So we don't just have smiles here at TLC. There are tears too.  I'm in the nest now with some of them so it gave me an idea for a blog. So here are some of our  beautiful kids acting not so beautifully. Some have good reasons to be sad others don't.

I know i posted before but its a favorite.

8 days-- the bobbit

So the bobbit is a made up word here. It is our closet that stores a lot of STUFF. Anything and everything that we need on a daily basis is kept in there. The best way to explain it is pictures. So here is our very own eye spy game.

9 Days-- My paint

At my sisters request. Here is my paintings this year.

This first set is in the Grubs room. 

The final product doesn't have pink around it.

 

This next set is in the bedrooms. 

 

 

These trees are in the nest. Probably the biggest and longest painting project of all of them. 

 

The final room is the Lions room. I was glad to be able to get this done before i leave. I still have a couple hours work in here before its totally finished. 

So there they are. My gift to the nursery.