Thursday, 28.2.19

Today I continued writing in my diary/blog in the morning and finally put it online. And I had another funny encounter at the Marketplace! A man came to the Marketplace with a cat in his sweater, took out the food bowls and various bags of food, and started feeding his cat there.
After that, I actually went to work at 1:30 PM! When I arrived at the House of Hope, 3 out of the 4 cooks were outside taking a break... as usual! The 4th cook was inside on a bench sleeping. Today we had rice with vegetables and meat again. I was allowed to help more today and even distribute the bowls to the children all by myself... Yay, it seems to be getting more exciting for me! : 'D
Somehow, I felt that some children came today whom I had never seen before. It also didn't quite match up with the number of plates. Maria has a list with all the names of the children who come here to eat, but they don't check if the children actually came. Today, one of the women was walking around with a stick again, making sure the children behave properly. Unfortunately, they still have the feeling here that the children only obey them if they use violence. I asked Maria if she also beats the children or if she just needs the stick to scare them. Apparently, it's just for scaring... but I think she only didn't beat them because I was there. When she walked through the children with the stick, fear was written all over their faces and some ran away. And it didn't look like a game. The work day or rather work hours ended for me at 3:15 PM and Paul picked me up.
Back at the Marketplace, I got to know "Lovemore". He is Steph and Paul's trusted taxi driver and "Lovemore" seems to be his real name. Probably nobody can pronounce his African name and that's why he is called that. Here, many black workers have such a funny name that sounds more like a nickname. In Jukani, for example, there is a "Light" and a "Surprise".