As promised here is a quick snapshot of the Feast of Mother Cabrini that was held last Saturday.  Ben is working on putting together a video montage from video clips we took and putting it on the Cabrini website.  As soon as he does I will be sure to let you know so you can check that out as well.  Like I mentioned last week, everyone had a great time!

Some of the staff working hard before mass to get lunch ready.  I was so proud of the staff and all that they sacrificed to make this event grand.  Behind the ladies is the hostel’s kitchen.  The big pots are built into a fire pit that they use each day when cooking for the kids.

Entrance of children – all the children walked into the service following a statue of Mother Cabrini.

The bishop entering the service.  After the service was over Mikayla definitely went up to him and asked him what his name was!

Everything was a celebration.  Even the way the Word of God entered before scripture reading.  This group of girls (and a few others not pictured) danced their way down the aisle while singing to present.

Some of the staff dressed in traditional clothing for the event.

The men cooking the meat up – now this was a real brai!

Sharon, the director of the hostel, wrote a beautiful poem about Cabrini that the kids recited.

These girls are some of Mikayla’s favorites from the hostel.  They sang and did some traditional dancing throughout the performances. 

The Cabrini choir – beautiful voices.

The guy second from the left is Themba.  He is a driver for Cabrini and this is his band performing as the closing event.  They sang and danced and really worked up the crowd.  They were amazing.

Meet Novuselelo – this is the twins older sister.

Here are some of the guests watching the group sing and dance.  Most of the kids are kids from the hostel.  The even also took place in the boys dormitory.  In the back you can see mosquito nets hanging from the ceiling.  For events like this they push all the beds back against the back wall leaving a large open area.

This is a terrible picture, but please ignore that.  This is Sr. Diane dancing with the Statue of Mother Cabrini!

We had a couple of visitors over for dinners this week.  The first was Joey, our friend working with Peace Corps.  He came over on Sunday for some chicken and dumplings, green beans and an apple braid (you can read about it here).  It was nice to catch up because we hadn’t seen him in a couple of weeks.  Then on Wednesday we had a family from one of the organizations Cabrini works closely with (PACT) over for dinner.  The family is getting ready to move to Tanzania, so this was a good bye dinner.  Todd (the husband) is actually the person who hooked us up with Cabrini.  When we first came to Swaziland over a year ago, we met with him to check out PACT.  While there, he mentioned we should go and see the sisters – thinking that we would be a good fit.  We did, and the rest is history!  He has a lovely family and it was great to just sit back and relax for the evening.  The sisters provided the food and we made chocolate cake for dessert. 

We have been finding a lot of these little geckos in our house this week.  I am not sure if it is the warmer weather that is attracting them or the fact that we had opened one of our windows that doesn’t have a screen!  I don’t mind them too much.  But the minute they end up in my bed is a different story.  Mikayla loves to look at them and try to catch them, this week she succeeded (with a little help from daddy).

People aren’t kidding when they say they make creatures big in Africa.  Check out this guy, a huge beetle looking creature.

Just a little perspective on how big he actually was.  HUGE!!

On Saturday we celebrated Mother Cabrini with a Feast of Mother Cabrini.  This is an annual event, but this year we were celebrating the 40th year of Cabrini in Swaziland.  We had a special mass, complete with singing, dancing and readings from the kids, and a huge feast and party afterwards.  Complete with dancing sisters!!  I plan to do a large post on that this week, so I will save the juicy details until later.  But I will mention that we have a dancing fool for a daughter!  I don’t think she stopped moving once the music started!  Not sure where that comes from.

 Dancing with her friend Bayanza.

And just because I can, check out this beautiful girl!  I found her laying on the couch like this – can we say Senior pose?  Also look at her beautiful curls!

This week Simo went to see a physical therapist about his leg.  He was diagnosed with developmental milestone delays due to malnutrition (which we already knew).  He will see a therapist twice a week starting mid-September.  Hopefully that will help him catch up to his sister in movement. 

The twins’ Gogo (grandmother) came to visit this week.  They seemed to know who she was immediately and sat and played with her for almost an hour.  It was good to see them interacting with family members because we don’t want to lose that connection. 

Mikayla hosted a tea party at our house on Sunday afternoon.  Sister Diane and Katie (a volunteer) both came and partook in some tea (but really coffee because we didn’t have any tea) and biscuits (cookies).  The kids enjoyed themselves and I think the adults did too.

We also built a fort this week.  Nosipho and Mikayla liked to just crawl in and out of the fort more than they did sitting in it.  Simo enjoyed his time in the fort looking at books.  Mikayla even requested to sleep in the fort!  She didn’t in the end, but has been asking for her fort back ever since. 

Mikayla and I went on our first homestead visit this week.  She rode in true Swazi fashion in the back of a buckie (pickup) on another worker’s lap.  I sat up front in the cab with both twins.  She seemed to really enjoy herself and was only moderately upset about not riding in her car seat.  I would never have thought to go somewhere in America without her car seat, but here people look at you funny when you bring a car seat.  The family we went to visit wasn’t actually there on the first try but we tried again the next day.

I made breadsticks the other night.  They turned out great and were super easy.  They were no Olive Garden breadsticks, but they tasted pretty good with our spaghetti.  We must have liked them pretty good because out of twelve we only ended up with 1.5 as leftovers!!

We are having twins!  Not really, but kind of, let me explain.  This week we were approached by the sisters to see if we would be willing to house a set of twins who just came to the hostile during winter break.  They are 20 months old, severely malnourished and at the developmental level of an 8-10 month old.  They aren’t crawling or walking, hardly make any noises and I have only seen them make one facial expression…a blank stare.  Every once in awhile one of them might start to break a smile.  From August 12-September 13 the schools take a winter break which means the kids at the hostile return to their homesteads (we run a different child care model than most.  We are not an orphanage so the kids still maintain ties with their families and homesteads).  The twins we will be taking in just arrived at the hostile three weeks ago and we want to continue progress that has been made while they have been in our care.  This will be a huge transition for everyone in our family, but we are all on board.  Mikayla is even excited about the babies coming to stay with us for awhile!  We will see how that goes once they arrive.  I am not sure of all the details yet, but I do know that this is happening!  I am looking forward to working with them one-on-one (or maybe two-on-one or three-on-one depending on how you look at it) and seeing them grow and develop in the few short weeks they will be living with us!