One of our babies went home yesterday. Back to this mother. The whole reason he'd been taken away in January was because he had gotten really sick. They did some investigating and discovered that since birth, his mom had only fed him custard... I guess they have been on her to get her act together and improve and she has... so, he went back to her yesterday. On the one hand, I guess that's the goal. You give the parents a chance to get it right, if they do what they need to do, they get their kid back. On the other hand, you don't want him to go because what if it's not best for him? What if she messes up again? What if he's pulled in and out of foster care his whole life. Which is likely. Plus, it was so hard to say goodbye. On Thursday we just overheard the conversation, "Victor is going back to his mom tomorrow." Nobody told us anything. Then we heard it would be at 2:00 p.m. on Friday. At 10 a.m. a social worker walks in and says, "They're on their way to get Victor." So soon??! So it was a mad rush for everyone to just hold him, play with him, and take one more picture. If there hadn't been a million people in the room, every one of us would have been balling. We're all just smiling at Victor or staring at the ground. It was hard. And all you can think is, well, I hope I never see you again, because that means things are going well. The truth is, no matter how great his mom is now, the environment at Home of Hope is always going to better for these kids. So sad. (The picture is of Victor).
Last night we stayed up and watched this birthday special for Nelson Mandela's 90th birthday, I'm sure it was probably on in the states last night too. There were like a million performers and it went on for 3 hours! Nelson Mandela came out at one point to give a short speech...he was carrying a cane, and had to be supported by people to walk out, and just looked so old. I started crying, the others were tearing up. I mean, we all obviously have a place in us for Nelson Mandela, South Africa, and Africa in general, so to see him like that was really hard. The average person with no interest here, might not care. If I'd been sitting alone in my own living room I'm sure I'd have been balling uncontrollably. Not to mention the speech itself just talking about everything that needs improvement. The theme of the night was, "It's in our hands." Meaning, WE all need to do something. Whew, I'm tearing up again. ha It was a great reminder too of why we're all here in the first place.
So, I have today & tomorrow off. It's nice out today, but kinda cloudy so I've hear that if there are clouds at all it's not worth it to go to Table Mountain. So today I'm heading back to the waterfront to shop a bit.. :) Maybe Table Mountain tomorrow. You know, I also heard that when repelling, you only repel like half off it, then you get off and hike down. So I'm undecided if I'm going to do that or not. I might just do the sightseeing from the top. We'll see.
