On April 23rd Kyle and I went to see Nqobile,(nobela) she is the lady with the clubbed feet I mentioned last year. We found her at home sewing and she was so happy to see us. She showed us the new boots that she got last year and said now she can carry 20 gallons of water on her head and her feet don’t hurt anymore. I asked why she was carring water and she said she has no water tank to catch the rainwater of her roof so she must walk a long way to get water. I looked at her boots and one of them is already tearing on the side. The next day Kyle and I went to the hardware store and bought a 1000-liter water tank (250 gallon) some eaves trough and went back out to her house and set it all up in about 2 hours, it only cost $145. Her mother, aunt and her 5 kids can now have fresh rainwater for drinking without having to walk for it.

Right to Left, Nqobile, her 5 children, her mother in law and the mother in laws sister. all their husbands have died including Nqobile's just over 2 years ago, 2 months after the last child was born.

Speaking of her 5 kids, four of them are in school and it costs 800 rand ($110 U.S.) for the youngest per year and 960 rand for the next one and 1100 rand for the next one and 1260 rand for the oldest one, so I asked her how is she paying for all these kids? She said she sews blankets by hand and sells them but she has only managed to pay for the youngest one since school started in Jan.

I told this to Jackie and she remembered that there was some boxes of quilt tops and bottoms in the container that just needs to be sewn together to finish them. Before Meron left, she gave us some money to help buy a sewing machine for her, she has no electricity so we bought her a hand operated one and we gave her all the quilt pieces so she can finish them and sell them to help pay for the kids schooling and she will be giving 20% back to Community Connections and there was enough pieces for 24 quilts :).

Yesterday I took her to have another pair of boots made at a new place(850 rand), they mesureed her feet and said they make them made in South Africa, they say the quality will be much better than the first ones we had made and she should have them in the next 3 weeks:)

Ray