Tiny babies and football shirts

This week offered two wonderful and poignant moments....

One was on Tuesday, when we headed up to 'Iraq' (one of the poorest townships) to take sports as we usually do. But this time we had along with us some visitors from Holland, including a mayor of a town there with connections to Ajax Amsterdam football team. He'd brought with him lots of kit to give out to the children so once we'd finished the session they all lined up and we handed it out to smiles of delight! Some of the nicest pieces were waterproof training jackets and we were thinking the boys would have to wait a few months to put these to good use...until...low and behold the sun that had been beating down on us, while we played, was covered by cloud and the heavens opened up. It was incredible watching the boys dance around in their kit in the rain and we went home so happy in the knowledge that they were walking home warm and dry in their new jackets.

my netball girls!

The second came on Thursday morning when Jess and I had the opportunity to visit 'Bosom Buddies' in Somerset West. This is another branch of the Thembalitsha Foundation which focuses its efforts on new mothers in need. Many of the women they serve walk into hospital pregnant, with nothing. They are sometimes completely alone and often can't afford to bring anything with them for the birth, or after the pregnancy. Bosom Buddies tries to alleviate this by making up bags to give out to mums when they arrive at hospital. The bags are handmade by the women who volunteer for the project and then filled with blankets, baby clothes, and medical bits and pieces for the baby and mother post-labour. They're all tied up with a message and ribbon and are always very well received! However, most important is the emotional support offered - the volunteers are often the first to sit down with the mothers, congratulate them, ask them how the birth went and just reinforce to them the wonderful thing they've done - sounds simple, but for women who have very little a pregnancy might be both frightening and a incredible pressure on their lives.

On our visit we went along with the project organiser to one of the hospitals and went round the maternity ward - it was fairly small and crowded, and although it was equipped with a semi-private ward this, apparently, remains empty most of the time (none of the mothers able to afford to stay there). We met a room full of mothers who had premature babies staying on the ward and were staying overnight all together in a little room. We then got to peak our heads round the door of the intensive care room where five unbelievably tiny babies lay peacefully sleeping in incubators. Most touching was going into the ward where there were five mothers with babies born in the last two days - we went round talking to them and cooing over their bundles - so lovely!!