At the end of every month Rejoice leaves Metz early in the morning and makes her way to Tzaneen (45 minutes away) on the taxi to buy food for Kodumela's 7 drop-in centers. I was lucky enough to go along for the trip when it was time to get food for March and it was quite an adventure. Nothing like standing in line for an hour at the ATM, eating lunch at Chicken Licken, stopping by Jet Music in the ShopRite mall to get some new music, haggling with drivers so we could hire a bakkie (truck) to deliver all the food to the centers, going to Cash and Carry to get everything in bulk, making a trip to a slaughterhouse (Rejoice told me I should probably finish up my lunch before we went in because I wasn't going to want to eat after we were through there... she was SO right), and riding in the middle "seat" of the bakkie while we wandered down potholed, dirt roads, listening to Peter Tosh (with hits such as "Legalize It" and "I'm an African") and Burning Spear. Yes.
Here's Rejoice, by the taxi rank in town, trying to find a driver to hire. When she told them that we needed a bakkie to take food to all the drop in centers, all of them quoted rates that were way too high for such a trip (sometimes even a couple hundred rand over what she could spend). She said she was pretty sure that they all knew we were connected to Kodumela and were convinced we had a lot of money we could pay out. We eventually found a nice guy, Sele, who quoted us a reasonable price and he drove us to start our shopping.
First stop Cash and Carry! All those HUGE bags are full of mealie meal (for porridge/pap), mabela (sorghum for soft porridge), flour, and sugar.
After purchasing mealie meal, dish soap, tea, soup packets, mabela, palm oil, sugar, and matches, it was time to load up the hired bakkie. Benjamin from Cash and Carry helped us out.
My view out the front window in the bakkie. I think this was taken when we put Burning Spear in the CD player. Maneuvering these roads was quite a task.
All the planning, haggling, and purchasing ends with dropping it all off at the centers. There's Sele (on the left) and one of the carers at Lafata in Madeira Village helping to unload meat, chicken, sugar, and mealie meal.
And here is where all that hard work goes.... kids get a meal. Here are some kids standing in line waiting to be served lunch after school. The bucket of water in the foreground was used for them to wash their hands.
Here's Rejoice, by the taxi rank in town, trying to find a driver to hire. When she told them that we needed a bakkie to take food to all the drop in centers, all of them quoted rates that were way too high for such a trip (sometimes even a couple hundred rand over what she could spend). She said she was pretty sure that they all knew we were connected to Kodumela and were convinced we had a lot of money we could pay out. We eventually found a nice guy, Sele, who quoted us a reasonable price and he drove us to start our shopping.
First stop Cash and Carry! All those HUGE bags are full of mealie meal (for porridge/pap), mabela (sorghum for soft porridge), flour, and sugar.
After purchasing mealie meal, dish soap, tea, soup packets, mabela, palm oil, sugar, and matches, it was time to load up the hired bakkie. Benjamin from Cash and Carry helped us out. 
My view out the front window in the bakkie. I think this was taken when we put Burning Spear in the CD player. Maneuvering these roads was quite a task.
All the planning, haggling, and purchasing ends with dropping it all off at the centers. There's Sele (on the left) and one of the carers at Lafata in Madeira Village helping to unload meat, chicken, sugar, and mealie meal. 
And here is where all that hard work goes.... kids get a meal. Here are some kids standing in line waiting to be served lunch after school. The bucket of water in the foreground was used for them to wash their hands.
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