Write Our Future update

For those of you who may not be following the blog for our social impact venture Write Our Future, I wanted to repost the news from WOF's most recent update. You can find WOF at www.writeourfuture.org and subscribe to our posts, and we are also on Facebook.

Hello 2012!

It is no understatement to say that 2011 was a tremendously successful inaugural year for Write Our Future. Our deepest thanks go to our many donors who helped us to raise the funds to feed more than 106 children at the No-ofisi Primary School and Jujurha Education Centre in the Eastern Cape.

In November 2011, WOF team members Brendan and Rebecca took a trip to the Eastern Cape to meet with the Bulungula Incubator (BI) staff and visit the school feeding program. It was incredibly special to see the faces of these happy, nourished children and our meetings with BI planted the seed for our 2012 initiative.

Jujurha Education Centre

To see more pictures from our visit to the Eastern Cape, visit our Facebook page by clicking here. While you're there, become a fan of WOF so you can stay up to date on our latest news.

The 2011 year-end report has been sent to our donors. If you would like to receive a copy please email writeourfuture@gmail.com. We would be happy to send one to you!

Lastly, we'd like to introduce you to Asali Zintoyinto.

The Bulungula Incubator has created a scholarship program that will be supporting seven children from the Jujurha Education Centre from 1st grade through the completion of 12th grade. WOF has committed to raising the funds to see one of these scholars, Asali, through graduation. Full details will follow in a separate blog post. In the meantime, if you would like to donate to Asali's scholarship fund:

1. Visit the Bulungula Incubator's donation page here, and select that you would like to support education/ the scholarship fund. Donations can be made with any major credit card.
2. Email WOF at writeourfuture@gmail.com to let us know your donation amount for our records.

That's it! Two easy steps to help send Asali on her way.

With all that we accomplished together in 2011, who knows what we can achieve in 2012!

lately

We've had lots on the go lately. Last week was Valentine's Day and as per our tradition we had a fabulous meal at home, this time with our friends Annabelle and Dave. We dined on a feta and peppadew spread with veggies and mini pitas, a lemon, thyme & mascarpone risotto with walnut crusted chicken, and braided lemon bread for dessert. Yum all around.



We attended a protest in front of Parliament. School students and education activists were petitioning for increased financial support for schools in the Eastern Cape (like No-ofisi, the school that Write Our Future is assisting).


Our wonderful friend Atheen is here for a visit and work collaboration with Brendan. Last week we all had our debut visit to the Eastern Food Bazaar and loved it. It is basically an alleyway of cheap and great quality Indian, Chinese, and Middle Eastern foods. We are all very keen to get back there and try some more goodies.


And- perhaps the most exciting thing of all- we saw U2 last Friday night at the Cape Town stadium. It was the most amazing spectacle I have ever witnessed. The stage was trippy, political messages abounded, there was a great video clip from Desmond Tutu, and we sang our hearts out for two full hours. It was one heck of a cultural experience. I'll post a couple video clips from the show later in the week.





Oh, and pie. There has been lots of pie lately, like this peach and whiskey pie with a gluten free crust.

Good times.

Write Our Future

Brendan and I are very excited to announce the launch of our social impact organization: Write Our Future. It is an organization currently working to support existing programs that provide educational opportunities to under-served children.

Our first outreach initiative is to support the Bulungula Incubator's school feeding program. This rural school feeds 600 children per day, but is in trouble now that the local government has suspended all funding in support of school feeding. Our goal is to raise the $8500 needed to feed 100 children for a year.

To learn more about Write Our Future and the Bulungula school feeding program, visit our website at: www.writeourfuture.org. Donations to support a child can be made directly on our website. To help us achieve this goal, please share the word with friends and family.

a teaser

Keep watching this space, all you loyal readers. Brendan and I will have some exciting news to share about our social impact work within a week! We are nearly ready to launch and we hope that all of you will get involved in our debut project.

Thanksgiving highlights

We had a whole lot of Thanksgiving this year. The cooking began on Wednesday for a tremendous feast Thursday night. Our friends Candice and Warren joined in the feeding frenzy.

The food was outstanding (if I do say so myself) and the company was even better. There was, however, one unfortunate accident. In an attempt to get a shot of us at the dinner table using the timer (as opposed to the extended arm self-snap you see above), my beautiful little camera fell to its death from the bookshelf. RIP lovely sort-of-new Canon digital elph SD1400. You were a star. I hope this bit of news will also serve as a fair warning as to why there will be a dearth of pictures on the blog for the next little while until my sweet little camera's baby sister comes to join us in South Africa later next month.

Aside from my camera's untimely demise, the night was wonderful and made even more wonderful by receiving my Christmas pressie early from my darling husband. He clearly knows me well enough to understand that I can't handle the suspense of presents. He also knows me well enough to have surprised me with this:

A Le Creuset 5 quart kiwi oval enameled cast iron pot. This is the dutch oven of my dreams. I'm so in love. I kiss this dish at least once a day. We will live happily ever after together. The end.

Saturday we had a very happy Thanksgiving-themed housewarming bash. We served Thanksgiving sandwiches (turkey, cranberry & stuffing), sweet potato "hummus", pumpkin and feta muffins, sweet potato & coconut pie, eggnog pie, pumpkin pie, and a big bowl of Thanksgiving popcorn. The popcorn (recipe here) was probably my greatest triumph. I swapped the cranberries (which I couldn't find here due to the lack of bogs in South Africa) for dried apples and pears. De-lish! People will love you even more than they already do if you give this to them.

And now it is Monday and I begin a week-long Art of Living course this evening. Started in 1981 (a good year to start things, as that is when I made my start in the world), the Art of Living is a non-profit educational and humanitarian NGO focused on stress management and service. It operates in 151 countries, and is all about helping people fully actualize their potential. I am really pumped about what I will learn and how I will grow from the instruction this week. I might also be a bit thrilled to gain access to their ashram in Bali.

Tomorrow is also the last day of Mo-vember. Oh how I have missed the sight of Brendan's upper lip.

oh happy days

Good news and happy M-Bs here.

Last night, in a fit of inspiration, we came up with the name for the NGO we plan to start in Cape Town. Plans won't be finalized until we are able to conduct a needs assessment, but it will be education based and likely focus on girls. We bought the associated domain name (we'll have a big unveiling when the time comes), and then celebrated this first step toward realization of some longer term goals.

This morning, I got word that Parker's import permit has been issued by the South African Department of Agriculture's Director of Animal Health. Woo hoo! The little one is one great big step closer to being a Capetonian.  This will be a huge relief to my parents, who would have to begin long term care duties if things didn't pan out. 

Get me to Africa!