Ostrich

This morning we had visitors.

That's right, a family of monkeys were in a fruit tree in the yard.  They were scampering all over until one managed to knock a piece of fruit off the tree.  With that there was a lot of yammering and they ran off to enjoy their stolen treasure.

This morning we visited the medical clinic that is onsite at the orphanage so I could speak with the doctor.  The doctor drives 110 km every Tuesday and Thursday in order to treat the children at the orphanage.  She was very helpful in answering my questions about the medication that Thandokuhle is taking and in giving advice on what I should be feeding Thandokuhle to help her gain weight.

Another errand on today's agenda was to connect with the orphanage social worker to gather any photos they have of Thandokuhle.  He was able to find about 20 images.  However, when I looked at them they only depict 3 days out of her 4 years of life.  I am feeling sad to have so few pictures to help her understand her roots.  The social worker is trying to find photos that others may have so I'm praying that he'll be successful in the search.  One group of photos is from Christmas where she received a stuffed monkey. This is her special stuffed animal that she sleeps with every night and is the one item that the house mother gave me.   So, I'm happy that we have photos of the monkey.

This afternoon we took a long, leisurely walk.  Dad and I were on the lookout for animals and the girls found sticks which provided tons of entertainment including digging into termite mounds and poking in animal droppings.  During the walk I spotted an ostrich-shaped bush.  It was far away and we debated whether it was a bush or an ostrich.  Finally, it turned its head so we knew we were watching an ostrich!

Coincidentally, we had ostrich sausage for dinner tonight.  I have never eaten ostrich meat before and when I saw it at the grocery store I thought it would be fun to try.  The ostrich meat received good reviews from all 4 of us, in case you're looking for something different for tomorrow's dinner.