wednesday and thursday

We spent Wednesday at home doing some research – we looked at companies who we thought might be willing to sponsor AAP and drafted letters to them (not going to send them until the website is up tho…). We found four companies, so hopefully at least one will agree to donate something. I’ve also found this website justgiving.com, which looks like it could be really good but it’s quite an extensive application process, so I don’t know whether it will work out.
On Thursday we went into the office and FINALLY FINISHED ALL THE NAMES!  It was a total of 588 names, finally done. Among them were such wonders as the kids called ‘one’ and ‘two,’ ‘lala,’ ‘doctor,’ ‘stompie,’ ‘pinky,’ ‘kebabo,’ ‘logic’ and many, many more. Masimanyana seems to be the equivalent of ‘smith’ or something. Anyway, it is done and dusted, hopefully now it’s in a spreadsheet they will be able to do stuff with it.
At about three Auntie June took us to the Trade Fair (the real one this time). She had planned to spend the afternoon with us but had to go to a meeting with Auntie Martha to ask a Chinese construction company to sponsor AAP (that thing they say about the Chinese investing heavily in Africa, they aren’t half right…). So first we went to pick up Auntie June’s nephew and niece, then she dropped us off. Her plan had been that the little twins could just wonder around the fair by themselves (they’re eight), but they seemed to want to hang out with us, which was cool. We went on that ride where the chairs on chains spin round and round, and bought a couple of cool things from the stalls, there was lots of really nice stuff, as well as lots of plastic tack. The kids went home earlier than us with June, and we spent aaaages waiting for a combi to get back home. So many people were waiting for the same number, you had to run when one stopped and fight to get in (literally pushing and shoving was the only way). The one we ended up in had a load of teenage boys in, who were all speaking in English with American accents the whole way, calling each other N***** the whole time like American rappers, trying to be well hard talking about prison (“you got nothing there but a bed and a bucket to shit in and if you’re bad they take away the bucket and you have to shit in the corner” – I assume and hope that’s not actually the case here, especially as things such as being homosexual and having oral sex are illegal). It was really weird. I felt like I’d suddenly been transported to a Snoop Dog video, until you looked and realised they were about 16. Kate got somewhat confused because she heard them talk about someone being ‘fisted’, but what they were actually talking about was how they’d seen an old woman get pushed accidently on the bum when she was trying to get onto another combi. Not being fisted. Thank god! We drove past the best private school and the sign outside it said “where ‘just passing’ is never good enough”. Christ. Sounds like hell.