Township children

Here is a picture of myself and our team at a daycare funded by Rotary in the Grahamstown township. We had a lot of fun with these kids. They sang and danced for us...they were SO cute!!

We have visited a lot of daycares, hospice daycares, schools, and orphanages during the course of this trip. Today in a daycare/orphanage affiliated with an AIDS orphanage in Viljoemskroon we met a little boy with a Sotho name that means "Lucky." He was 3 years old but the size of a healthy 9-12 month old baby. Apparently he cries constantly unless he is being held. He simply stared at us, with hardly a smile on his face. The program is for the children of patients at the hospice; they are clothed, fed, and cared for there even after their parents have passed away. Today wasn't the first time I wanted to hold on to one of these children forever and bring them home with me.

Despite what Mbeki and others in the ANC are saying, the AIDS crisis is only growing; the number of children like Lucky is on the increase.