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| Zimbabwe - December 2003 : <- Victoria Falls : Ethandweni childrens home : painting -> | ||||||
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Ethandweni White Water Sai children's home
One Sunday after Meeting, we visited a childrens home just south of Bulawayo. The area is called the Matopo Hills, and boasts impressive and improbable formations of 'balancing rocks' - curiously eroded boulders lying in strange patterns, like giant's toys. This part of Zimbabwe boasts the highest density of both leopard and black eagles in Africa, as well as Cecil Rhodes' grave. | ||
 The goal posts took on strange symbolic significance in the amazing surroundings of the Matopo hills. We answered their silent appeal with a kickaround, as well as a game of netball (pic inspired by that German exhibition you told me about, Jane).  
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rain stopped play, but brought out the marimba | |
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 Chloe with one of the house mothers, and children from the centre. Many have been abandoned by families who can't care for or feed them, in the rural areas of Zimbabwe. |
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| children at the centre |
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The Christiensens (right) are Danish Sai devotees who set up the Ethandweni centre with funding from the Danish Red Cross, among others.
pictured with Washington, who arrived at the home as a baby, and a friend from Denmark
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Ethandweni struck me as a very special place, in a wonderful setting.
It was really nice to see some work of the Sai community, which my family is part of, after working for the Quakers for over a year. Both spiritual comunities have converged on very similar values and concerns from different origins. The Christiensen's have designed and run the centre with great creativity and care, and the kids are wonderful, as you can see. I think I'll find my way back there, some day...
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Update:
Well, I already had a feeling I'd return to Ethandweni... I visited again in October 2004, thinking I might stay a few days before resuming my journey north to Nairobi. A few days easily turned into weeks, and then a month, as I set up some fundraising materials, and a website. Just as I was preparing to leave, and Birthe and Bent were leaving for Puttapurthi, they asked me to stay on while they were away. So I stayed two months in total, getting to know the children, and watching the spring arrive. Wonderful. (Apparently Baba took the leaflets we had prepared, and was seen looking at them with approval during darshan) | ||
| Zimbabwe - December 2003 : <- Victoria Falls : Ethandweni childrens home : painting -> |
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