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This distribution took place with Wandi on 9th July.

Sanna is the wonderful woman who is responsible for running this daycare centre for the last 5 years.  We first met her at a much earlier distribution in the Finetown area but it has taken us a long time to list her daycare ... she has been enormously patient.

Wandi and I took the risk of driving along the notorious "Golden Highway" which was the scene of some dreadful protesting and anger in earlier years but seems to have settled down now, other than our having to cope with large numbers of battered taxis doing their normal kamikaze stunts !!  This route is much quicker than using the freeway and, of course, we avoided the toll fees too !

Sanna had 90 children at the centre the morning we visited, but told us only once we were there that another 30 are under her care but were to be absent that day so she excluded them in the count !  

We realised that we needed to try and deliver a further 30 blankets, beanies, handwarmers and soft toys to Finetown at some stage.  Therefore, it is on the "to do" list for our next Finetown visit.

We noticed one young man playing a prominent part with the older "class". He explained that he was actually a qualified teacher unable to find work, so Sanna gave him responsibility for all her Grade R children ... the oldest group who would be graduating to school the following year.  He was good with them, we could see that, and they will be well prepared for the next step by the end of the year.  Our government schooling system in SA has deteriorated to such a massive extent, we are turning out uneducated 18 year olds these days.

A real tragedy this is, considering how much nurturing care is taken at the preparation stages by people like Sanna.

Around this time, there were other distributions done by people like Trish Henry of JAM ... one of our Mandela Day projects, run by Trish, was a sew-a-thon of 20 odd blankets.  These were distributed at Sisonke, a small daycare in the Zeverfontein Informal Settlement which is close to JAM, a bit out in the country and more desperately needy even than places like Soweto where there is at least SOME attempt by municipalities to provide basic utilities. 

By coincidence, Trish came by today to deliver blankets and take more blanket packs to stitch together, despite the searing heat we are experiencing at the moment !