After stuffing the last of my dirty clothes into my backpack, I hefted it onto my shoulder and almost slipped down the rickety staircase to the ground floor of the hostel. Away from the tiny room with 8 bunk-beds, no heats, and minimal lighting (I thought I had left my hostel days behind years ago). Past the other travellers rubbing the sleep from their eyes as they prepared for a full day of Easter Weekend adventures on the Garden Route of South Africa that might include a game drive with zebras, lions, and giraffes; a free fall from the highest bungee jump in the word; or a dip in the rolling surf of the Indian Ocean.

I stumbled into the early morning African sun and shook my head to clear it from the indulgences of the night before. Who knew that you could buy a bottle of red wine in a South African restaurant for the equivalent of a glass of wine back home? Or that you could dig into a gluten free puttanesca pasta followed by a creamy goat cheese cheesecake in a tiny town called Wilderness on the Eastern Cape? I had no regrets about borrowing from my retirement fund to pay for this trip, but I needed a walk to clear my headache and to help keep my traveling companions, Suzy Saddlebags & Paula Paunch, in check.

On my way down the gravel pathway, I bumped into Matthew, a Dutch traveler that I had chatted with briefly in my red wine induced haze. We had swapped travel stories and I had confessed how deeply I have already fallen in love with the children of Africa. As I waved goodbye and told him to enjoy the rest of his vacation, his voice followed me down the path.

Due to the thickness of his accent, it took me awhile to process his words. By the time I had rolled them over in my mind, I had left the pathway behind and joined up to the country road to squeeze in a walk before jumping into a van crammed with backpacks, the smell of damp towels, and 8 other tired volunteers.

For the rest of the day as we travelled from the sandy shores of the Indian Ocean, through the ragged, rusty mountain peaks, and past the lush rolling hillsides dotted with vineyards, his words reverberated through my mind. I had forgotten how much I love the random conversations that come when you strap on a backpack and head off in search of fresh perspectives.

“Have a beautiful life,” he had said as we both left one adventures behind in search of the next. I can’t wait to borrow his simple, but powerful words the next time I part ways with a stranger who for one brief conversation felt almost like a friend.

“Missy, Missy” she says as she points at the twin trails of snot hovering less than a cm from the top of her mouth.  She has “blown” her nose directly onto her face so that she can get the same amount of attention as the rest of the snotty nosed toddlers fighting over the toys around her. I reach for my twentieth wad of toilet paper in the past hour and continue my rounds as I attempt to mop each nose before an impatient hand reaches up to streak it across his or her face.

When I pictured packing my bags and traveling to Africa to work with children, I envisioned giving hugs, reading stories, and playing with toys. I did not anticipate what it would be like to step into a tiny trailer with fraying dirty carpet and only one bin of caked-with-slobber lego pieces that 20-30 toddlers had to share.

I did not picture a plank of wood outside with four plastic potties where the older toddlers would sit in a row and swing their bare legs. How afterwards I would catch a little boy pouring pee from one potty to another in what looked like his favourite game. How I would have to empty the filled potties into the toilet and stomach the putrid smell as well as the realization that these kids don’t have the facilities to wash their hands after they do their business.

I did not think about how they would not speak a word of English and without knowing any Xhosa, I would have to use hand gestures to figure out how to get a group of jumping, screaming, 1-3 year olds to sit down on the floor without killing each other in the process. How juggling all of these kids must leave the two teachers absolutely spent at the end of each day.

But most importantly, I did not picture falling so deeply in love with them that after only three days, the snot doesn’t even bother me. That when they see me coming in the morning, they already jump up and down screaming “missy, missy” as they clamour on top of me for their morning hug.

I definitely underestimated how much my heart would break today when I couldn’t explain to one of my favourite little boys why I had to leave when my ride pulled up. How he cried as the rest of them waved goodbye to me through the gate. How I hope he still remembers me when I see him next Thursday, when the daycare re-opens after the Easter Holidays.

Over the next week, I will distract myself by taking an Easter weekend trip with my fellow volunteers along the Garden Route of South Africa. Then, I will spend some time next week at the Sarah Fox Centre volunteering with sick babies (Kleenex please!!!).

Although I am sure that I will have some exciting adventures to share with you soon, I am already counting down the days until I can get back to my new favourite little people. I wish you could meet them. Even with the dirt caked under their fingernails and the snot trailing down their faces, they are some of the most beautiful children I have ever had the privilege of knowing…

The photos from this posting are not of the children in my daycare, but my kids are just as cute (if not cuter)…