we love jessica

Due to falling asleep for 45mins after our alarm went off and then having a 45min conversation about individualistic versus communal societies, this dichotomy in anthropological theories and whether or not the Greek distinction between family life and honour and that of the polis, as expressed in Antigone, fitted into this discourse, without realising how long we’d been talking for (sometimes Cambridge creeps up on you, but fuck it, it was an interesting talk, even if it was slightly ridiculous), we were very late at the office. Ooops.

When we got there they were having their (admittedly very early) lunchbreak. Martha wanted us to go to her house so we could discuss things with her and send an email (she thought the internet at the office was still broken but we didn’t realise that until after we were at her house). We sent the email to American friend who is going to send it on to churches, along with some photos, corrected another two, asking for help in buying a new combi and trailer (the one they have is from 1986 and completely worn out from lots of travelling on dirt roads, etc). She talked to us about a few of the cases she had recently seen. One was particularly sad – the shack of a family in Old Naledi had caught fire when there was no-one home except a sleeping four year old girl. She burnt to death and the entire house too. Martha appealed to FNB (a bank which donated a lot in the past but has been unable to continue doing so, presumably due to the credit crunch), who donated P100,000 (about £9,000), which she stretched to build not one but two 2-bedroom houses, one for that family and one for another which desperately needed a new home. She now wants the President to come and open these houses (in a country of under 2 million people this isn’t as crazy as it sounds), because it would be good publicity for AAP and get the President involved in the charity.

Between doing this, ordering a pizza, chatting to Martha about things and, most importantly, playing with Abi, the helper’s five year old, and Jessica, Tshwaro’s beautiful little girl (who I may have to take back to the UK with me), the afternoon passed pretty quickly. The above picture is of Kate and Jessica (who looks a lot bigger than she really is because she is wrapped up in many layers – this is the Botswana ‘winter’, where it gets as cold as 20 degrees Celcius during the day, after all…).