Today was my husband, Niko’s birthday. I started the day at 5:30am. I got up and went to the Bakubug Office to go out on my final morning game drive. Oliver, our guide picked us up in a land rover and took us into the 7th largest game park in South Africa. We watched the sun come up and paint the sky in various hues of pink, red and orange as a giraffe nibbled her breakfast from a nearby tree. It was awesome. We were out on our drive for 2 hours. The morning rides are so quiet and peaceful. The views of the mountains, the mists, the savannah, the animals are breathtaking. On our 4 game drives we saw giraffes, lions, elephant, impala, white rhinos, zebra, jackal, water buck, baboon, warthog, blue gnu,rock rabbit, wildebeest, brown hyena,owl, sacred ibis, and dotter bird.

I returned to the lodge and by 9:00am I was on a bus with the rest of the crew.on our way back to Johannesburg feeling incredibly grateful and at peace. Two hours later we arrived in Soweto at the Othowandi Orphange and my sorrow was once again ignited. It rests just below my diaphragm, pushing in like a fist.

Othowandi is a wonderful orphanage. The children are very well cared for and most of the children were easily engaged. There are 31 children and 91 other children. There are on sight cottages for the older children. As we went through the baby ward my heart was so sad. Some of the children were very sick, others looked very healthy. Some were asleep and others reached out to play.

I spent most of my time with a little boy whose name means “one who brings happiness”. He was about 6 to 8 months old, and very round and chubby. He sat in his bed watching me. Then he began to turn his head from side to side, I did the same and a game was born. He would laugh and we would hold hands shaking our heads together. He was a beautiful child.

The cottages are for older children. 4 children to each small bedroom. I was surprised at how some teen behaviors are universal. Each of the rooms was decorated with posters and magazine photos of teen idols like emmenem. The surprising thing I found on the walls of each of the rooms was Reiki certificated. Many of the teens have been trained in Reiki healing. One of the staff told me that there is also a group of Reiki practitioners who come in and do reiki on the babies. I was totally tickled!

From the orphanage we went on to the Soweto Hospice. Again, I was inspired by the women who run this program and those women who volunteer to do home visits. Last year, the 5 paid nurses did over 5,000 home visits and the 45 volunteers did over 25,000.

There are 10 beds at the facility, filled with people who either have no family or whose family have refused to care for them. There is such a stigma around AIDS that some people are even afraid to touch a family member who has AIDS.

I visited a young women who was in so much pain. We looked deeply into each others eyes and with tears in mine, I told her I was so sorry. She told me she was tired and in so much pain. Then she showed me her bedsores. The fist below my diaphragm pushed in deeper.