Artist Journals & Mexican food made by Americans

 Day 18: Friday, February 28

            We spent a lot of money today. It’s the end of the financial year in South Africa, and CATCH still had donor money leftover. I mean… a lot of donor’s money, which can only be spent on things directly for children’s club. If you don’t use it, you lose it. So the Director and I went to the craft store and cleaned their shelves pretty well. We bought loads scissors, paint, paintbrushes, pens, tape, pencils, sharpies, crayons, glue, clay, white paper, scrapbooking paper, a large white board and a flipchart. The totaling up of items was quite the task. I was so excited with all of the new items, which were to go in a separate closet especially for creating artist journals.

            Every Friday is youth club. There are many young men, which is Awesome, with a capital A. I have started helping out with girl’s youth. Today, we started a long journey in making artist journals. I’m thrilled to begin these artist journals! I took a class in high school called Artist Books and was pretty invested.

I would stay hours afterschool to work on it, and then I’d go home and work on it some more. Also, while I was healing after my accident, I spent hours making more Artist Books. How marvelous is this; years after creating something I loved, I would be teaching African youth to find joy in creating the same thing. It’s a journal comprised of your life and the things you enjoy or love. Each page is filled with creative embellishments that embody your own style. So far, mine consists of each step from newborn to high school graduation. It includes pictures, favorite quotes, sacred notes, and physical samples of special items. I cut a swatch of my baby blanket and put it in my book J I tried to leave my baby blanket at home when I moved out for college, feeling it was ridiculous to bring it with. I was walking out the door, with all my belongings packed away in the Tahoe, and I said, “Wait! I need to get one more thing!” I ran upstairs and grabbed by baby blanket. I also have a section for Taylor Swift alone. So this journal is more than a scrapbook, it’s a physical storybook of your life.

            At night, I went home with my housemates and another American. She is a foreign exchange student here to do social work. Together, we made Mexican food for the South Africans. We made fajitas. Since this is a foreign concept to them, most of the ingredients are also foreign. We had to constitute for many ingredients. Salsa and tortilla chips are foreign to them! They have ONE type of tortilla and no fajita seasonings, but they do have avocados! We cut up the tortillas and made homemade tortilla chips- they were pretty delicious. The conversations are pretty comical as we share fragments of our different cultures.  I get to Skype people pretty soon!! Working with an 8 hour difference in time zones can be tricky. Goodnight/Good morning (whichever acknowledgement fits best) to you!