Ek kon von de Verenigde State von Amerika

Hi everyone!  I had my first Afrikaans language lesson today - can you tell from my title?  It reads, "I am from the United States of America."  We learned to say some other important things for working with kids, like "don't" (moene), "please" (asseblef), and "peanut butter" ( grandboontjie botter).  I think I did OK mimicking the pronunciations of the words when I had to repeat after the teacher, but trying to figure it out now is difficult!  We will have more language lessons later.  It surprised me that so many of the young kids speak Afrikaans since it was the language that the Dutch imposed when they came here many years ago.  It is still taught in schools, but so is English.  Our language teacher told us that she feels that Afrikaans might be phased out in the future.  In other areas of South Africa,the people speak Xhosa. 
I worked with Safeline in the township of Athlone today - I don't think I mentioned the name of it yesterday.  Things went pretty well.  The bubbles and balloons that I found in the CCS storage room were a huge hit.  The kids just combined them both into one word and called them "bubblaloons."  I also brought along some bright pink nail polish and painted everyone's nails.  Yes, I was very popular today.  Luckily, three of the older girls at the camp helped us with the little ones again.  It was nice to talk to them, and they had all kinds of questions about the U.S.  They wanted to know if I knew Gabriella from High School Musical.  :) 
Tomorrow will be Safeline's last day at this particular church in Athlone, so I will take my camera and get some pics of all of the sweet kids.  I won't be able to post them until Sunday, though.  My volunteer work is only during the week - the weekends are for experiencing South Africa.  I am going with a group of volunteers on a weekend trip.  There will definitely be a safari and some other adventures.  I will fill you in on Sunday!