Hello All. First of all, to everyone who has given: Thank you, Thank you, Thank you. I am working on a note with words from the Baloyi's, but I am just not getting it done as fast as I would like. Please know that your gift has not gone unnoticed and your thanks is coming :)
It has been just over a week since I last posted and the changes in the house are amazing!! In fact, even though there are still some things that need to get finished up, including the final electrical hookup, the water tank/stand/pump to get water flowing to the house, and getting a kitchen sink, Amo and her family MOVED IN on Thursday!!! Darin went over this morning to hang curtain rods and took a few pictures as well.
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| Miss Amo waking up in her new house |
The picture above might not seem like anything special. I post pictures just like this of Amo all the time when she is with us. However, this is the first photo we have of Amo in her own house where the room is light enough to really see her! The photo below was taken with the flash on, or we wouldn't have seen our silly little goose with her flowing locks (we were messing around with a wig)! The old house was dark and the light that was shining in came through gaps in the tin that shouldn't have even been there! When Darin showed me the picture above it just made my heart feel light.
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| Moza with long hair |
The whole house has been tiled and, while it took money away from things that were more "need" than "luxury", I am SO GLAD we went ahead and tiled the whole place. It looks and feels so clean inside. The tiler also laid tile for the shower and around the bath. This is such an improvement over the bucket they have used for so long!
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| Shower! |
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| Tub and Sink. (Avocado Green might be out of fashion in some parts of the world, but NOT here) |
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| Living/Dining/Kitchen!!! |
Darin has been over at the house a lot; hanging doors, hanging curtain rods, and just being the wonderful Uncle D we all know and love. I went with him on Friday to see what the house was looking like. When we got there, Phineas, Lenah's boyfriend, was taking down the tin shack.
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| New house to right of shack. |
I started helping Lenah sort through the piles in the house while Phineas worked around us. I have been in this house plenty of times. I have seen and heard the rats, I know there were often piles of clothes laying around as there weren't enough cupboards or cabinets to store things, I know about the leaks from the roof and the holes in the tin walls. I had never seen it all in the light of day.
As I said above, the tin shack was always dark, with just one light bulb hanging between the rooms and fragments of natural light from the door and small windows. Grabbing a shirt and realizing that it was shoved part way into the ground to try and keep rats out and seeing that there was just as much dirt inside the house as outside were unsettling. But realizing how much mouse and rat poo was inside the house was heartbreaking. The floor was covered with it, and there was nothing the family could have done to stop it. Trying to keep a place clean when you are crammed in to a small space with no storage and no good lighting and no reliable water source is hard. The dirt and dust and piles all around might make you think we just had you all help a family of slobs, and this isn't the case. Our deepest desire is that this family will now be able to live in a home that gives them dignity.
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| Amo sleeping on the front porch |
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| Thank you all for loving this family! |
We will be sure to post a few more photos when everything is done and the house is a bit more set up. This week we'll be cutting curtains to size and Darin is going to be trying his hand at building shelves using scrap wood from a Take Action connection. If you still want to help out, please use the donate button at the top of our blog!
Thank you for Spreading the Word.
Thank you for Sharing the Love.
Thank you for Building Them a Home!
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