They Call this Freedom Day

Jess writes:

This past Tuesday (April 27th) was Freedom Day in South Africa. Historically, Freedom Day celebrates the first post-Apartheid elections held in South Africa in 1994. The elections were the first in nearly fifty years in which the majority population – the black South Africans – had the right to vote. In case you were wondering, they voted in Nelson Mandela and, thus, marked this historic election as one for Freedom.

For Adam and I, Freedom Day stood for something far less monumental, but nonetheless important for us – our own home!!!! That’s right, the Mthombeni family (with whom we have been residing the last month) finally completed their move to their new home in Hazyview and moved virtually all belongings out of this home (minus a couple items that they are slowly picking up each day). You see, the Mthombeni family has generously offered their 3-bedroom home to the Peace Corps to house us and one South African boy, Leonard, who is an OVC at the SwaVana Youth Project. However, as plans tend to go in South Africa, their intended move-out date (March 25th) was pushed further and further back due to, well, we’re not quite sure of all the specifics. But anyways, they are now 98% moved and as of Tuesday – Freedom Day – Adam and I began the arduous but oh-so-rewarding process of moving ourselves in completely!!! Let’s see, how did this all go:

Last Friday we travelled to Hazyview to do our BIG “Home Shopping Day”. This included the purchase of a rather large fridge and the interesting experience of describing to the delivery people where we lived based on dirt roads, large trees, and different color rooftops. We also spent the majority of our PC allotted move-in allowance on other necessities, such as kitchenwares, laundry materials, bathroom items and lots of groceries! With the help of the Mthombeni’s vehicle trunk, we actually managed to get all of it home and had a little leftover cash for a splurge item – French Press & ground coffee!! YUM!

Saturday & Sunday were spent trying to stay out of the way of the 5-person family and their extended relatives as the house was slowly but surely torn to shreds and moved, piece by piece, via small cars and some bakkies. It was a bit hectic and Sunday did not end until 1:30am, when, after a very long weekend, all the children and the majority of the furniture were somewhere in or en route to Hazyview… what an eerily quiet evening!

Monday marked an installed refrigerator and thus, one more return trip to Hazyview to finally purchase the cool items requiring refrigeration. Upon arrival to Hazyview, we celebrated the beginning of our nesting mode with some pastries and strong coffee at La Patissier, the Belgian bakery at Perry’s Bridge. We then completed our shopping and returned to Huntington, way too many bags in tow, and fell asleep earlier than we had in a month.

Finally, Tuesday… Freedom Day. We awoke to the sound of trucks delivering more furniture – our furniture! – and soon thereafter, the smell of Dysol cleaning agent for the walls and floors. On hands and knees, Adam and I swept, scrubbed and mopped all the rooms – a living room, dining room, kitchen, bathroom, 3 bedrooms, and a garage – and slowly began organizing the larger pieces of furniture into their respective rooms. And this processed continued for a while… but by Wednesday night, we had successfully moved from the “Guest” room to our new room (the parent’s old bedroom, which is much larger, and therefore slightly odd-feeling, but nevertheless very comfortable), organized the entire kitchen (minus the need for the last two tables to be delivered to serve as counterspace), organized the entire living room (minus Leonard’s chair & couch set which will be moved in over the weekend), prepared the dining room for a large table (to be provided by SwaVana) and enough seating for six, organized and cleaned out the entire garage, rearranged the patio area and made room for some porch furniture (to be purchased sometime in the near future), cleaned out the room that will be used by Leonard, and cleaned out our old room which can now officially be used as the Guest room. Whew!

While we still await some primary furniture items, we are contented in knowing that we have cleaned, arranged and polished all those items for which we were responsible – bedroom, kitchen, bathroom, garage, and outdoor areas (garden, braii pit and compost pile to be started soon!) – and will be very happy when we can finally finish filling some of those larger (and currently somewhat empty) rooms – living room, dining room, Leonard’s room, Guest room.

Slowly but surely, we are starting to dig out the matching sheet sets and find curtains to work in every room; slowly but surely we are assigning each corner of each room to its new and proper function; slowly but surely, we are remembering where we put the tea cups, the ironing board, the extra towels, and the laundry bins; slowly but surely, the perfect places for a mirror, a poster, or a cushy seat are making themselves known; slowly but surely the air is finding its way from open windows to every knook and cranny and erasing what was in preparation for what will be inside these walls and slowly but surely, those old smells are replaced by ones more familiar, ones more personal, ones of “home”.

I think I’ll call this the start of our Freedom… :-)