Tim Tam Slurpie!

Yesterday after I wrote I spent the rest of the day at the Calvary site office. In the morning we had an intake interview with an aboriginal family. The situation is a bit unique because it is a woman escaping domestic violence from her same sex partner.

(Just as an interesting aside, I have noticed that Australian's use the term partner to refer to any couple, not just same sex couples. You'll have to imagine how confused I was when I first arrived and everyone in the office talked about their partner or so-and-so's partner and I just kind of thought everyone was homosexual. This was not the case and thankfully I never voiced anything alluding to my confusion.)

The interview ended well and we were able to take her around to a house which she will be able to move into as of Thursday. At first it was hard to see much emotion from her, she seemed to be very beat down and almost to a point of lost hope, but by the end she was smiling and you could begin to see relief starting to come out of every pore.

In the afternoon Jared and I went to run an errand, and on the way went to see Port Noarlunga- which has a beautiful beach. I will have to add the pictures from the excursion later because they are really beautiful. There were people fishing from the Jetty and I was amazed to discover that the black spots on the Jetty are from Squids that have been caught and inked on the beach. There were a lot of kids around learning to surf and checking out the reef as a part of their schooling. Apparently every year student spend about a week on the beach learning about a subject they've chosen in aquatics. It really helps to explain why it is that it is not common and practically absurd, for a child to grow up not knowing how to swim. We headed back to the office and I spent some time just being around the office.

We had supper at Lorinda's house, the woman we met at the playgroup at Glynde the first week. We met her husband and I even got to play guitar for quite a while. It was really nice and relaxing. At the end of the night Lorinda drove us home and it was quickly to bed after that because I was very tired.

This morning I was lucky to wake up a little after 7 because my alarm didn't go off. This is probably because I suspect that I set it for 6:30pm and didn't check before falling asleep. I was still able to shower and catch a bus (after missing the first two I would have like to catch). Unfortunately this meant that I also missed the first 2 trains I would have liked to catch. I got picked up at the train station and headed to the office. In the morning I helped Janine gather a starter pack for the house that the family that was interviewed the day before will be moving into. A starter pack includes linens, cutlery, pots and pans, towels, or any other things that the family may not have already. It is exciting to see how quick the actual turn around for the houses has to be. The house that the family will be moving into is a house that I saw the last tenant in a week+ before they moved out.


To be continued....