Late post from around February.

It has been a really really long time since I have posted!  Here are some older pictures that and events that I am just now getting up.

 I found this paper posted on an elevator at UKZN!  One the dates and times listed are time that there will be no power!  Now it has been awhile since I've experienced load-shedding, but I hear it will start again when winter comes around!

 So this little big guy scared me one night... I was at a hotel and he ran across the floor right next to me and up the curtain behind me.. Probably one of the scariest things because it ran with it's wings up, as if he was preparing to fly up onto me! And then the fact that he went up the curtain ride behind me gave me the heebie jeebies.  As you can see, he didn't make it very far after he went up the curtain.

The weather... the weather can be quite crazy here.  As you can see, it was 37C one day and then 19C the next day. 

This is one of the CLP flats where I would spend my Monday nights, after class.  Always a very nice relaxing time.

 It was very difficult to get a picture of the fire. I thought it was a house fire, but I was told that this was someone burning the coating off of some copper wire to scrap it.

 I actually took this picture this morning!  It scared me as I was walking out to the road!  In isiZulu its an Icimbi (caterpillar).  The person I talked to, said they had never seen a black one before, they are usually green.  It's spikes were scary and it's skin was a lot harder/tougher than the sort of caterpillar I'm used to.  

Traveling with Zodwa and Skumbuzo

So I've done a lot of traveling all around the province with Zodwa and Skumbuzo and I've seen some pretty amazing things.

The picture above is of a sugar cane field that we saw while driving down the road.

In some areas we could see for miles and miles, lots of tree plantations and sugar cane.

Factories... While driving we passed some huge factories, which I found quite fascinating.

We never know when we will eat!  We would frequently eat at 3 or 4 pm because we would be in meetings for hours and hours.

So I was in the back of the Subaru sliding down a mountain in the rain when I looked out of the window and saw this....

Yeah.. it's a tornado!  It was pretty far away, but it was still scary!

And there was a beautiful rainbow :)

Here is a picture of one of the tree plantations.

And a nice picture of endless sugar cane.

This is a view I have seen quite a few times and it always makes me think, Ireland.  Sorry it was a foggy/misty day when I took the picture.

Tagging Along With Ajitesh

So here is a post from a long time ago that I wasn't able to finish until now!

Until school started (They are off of school for 6 or so weeks during the holidays, then when the new year stats, the new school year does too) Justin was working for Ajitesh (neighbor) and they would do all kinds of exciting things.  One of the days I tagged along and moved the birdcage shown above.  It was super super heavy so Ajitesh decided to hire some guys on the spot.  At first I was like oh, this might take awhile... 3minutes later 4 guys were in the back of the bakkie ready to go help!  The picture above is a picture of two of the guys that helped us.

The house we moved the giant bird cage to is sorta like a zoo.  Lots and lots of animals.  The donkey I'm touching in the picture was hilarious.  There was some dirt in the bed of the bakkie (pick up truck) and I started to brush it out onto the ground the and the donkey made all kinds of noises because I was messing his ground haha.  I had a great time tagging along.

Holidays

Hey!  I hope everyone enjoyed the holidays.  It has been a long time!  

For awhile I wasn't very busy, but about a week ago I hit the ground running.  Driving all over the province.  I spent the end of December and the begginning of January house sitting for Graham Philpott and his family, with the team.  We had a great time at his house.  We all spent Christmas with our host families and would visit them on the weekends.  

The picture above is from Christmas day.  We had a church service in the morning then we ate lunch together.  Malcolm and his family were not with us because they were in Johannesburg,  Christmas actually wasn't very eventful.

So this is a picture of some delicous banana bread that Lizzy baked at the Philpott's home.  Lizzy did lots of baking while Garrett did a bit of frying (onion rings and french fries) and I cooked some pasta.  We actually had an interesting time trying to cook foods since we didn't have very many spices or anything for good flavors.. we felt a bit limited, but we ended up doing well for ourselves.  Unfortunately this was the only picture I took of our creations.  So the Philpott's were in Capetown and they drove a camper, so we had a suspicion that they brought their spices and seasonings with them for cooking.  I'll see if I can find a picture of their camper/Kombi/motorhome for my next post.

Game Park

So we went to a game park just outside of Pietermaritzburg! I'm not sure exactly what kind of (dear?) this is, but the males have very big horns.

 These trees are really cool.  They are all connected to each other so when one is being eaten, it's leaves, along with the other tree's leaves, become bitter so the animal has to quickly move from tree to tree.  (something along those lines)

And again, I'm actually not sure what kind of animals these are... 

 Ostrich with babies =D

I caught a picture of a Giraffe eating dinner :)

 Soo this Ostrich was sitting on eggs right next to the road/path.  Apparently they lay loads of eggs.

 Hippos! It was really hard to get a picture of them..

 So the guide stopped right by this sign and we all got out and had some snacks. (It was by the hippos, which are very dangerous). 

 2 Rhinos =D

 In around May some poachers came and stole two of the Rhino's horns.  This (left) one managed to survive so now it is hornless!

 We feasted =D

 This little big guy greeted us in our cottage!  We made use of the ashtray to catch him and put him outside.

 So this is the amazing cottage.

 Sink/tub...

 Bed... 

 and the ceiling.  The ceiling was awesome!  I had to take a picture of it haha.

Time With The Rural Network

We (Zodwa, Skhumbuzo, and I) have been spending a lot of time with the  Rural Network task team over the past couple of weeks.  In my last post we were meeting with them to plan the next few weeks and to see what should be talked about.  The next few pictures are from the Utrecht/New Castle area in KwaZulu Natal.

As we drove down the road I noticed a lot of the houses have tanks to catch the rain water.  I like it.

The gate... So this is a picture of a gate I had to open and close a few times to get to a farm.  It was fairly easy to open, but closing it was another story... It had a wire that hooked on the top of the T-post and a wire that the bottom went into.  Don't hook the bottom first... The first time I tried closing it I hooked the bottom first and it made it seem like the gate was ~4 cm too short!  Let's just say I struggled to stretch the gate 4 cm... haha.  A few hours later I watched a young lady close it in about 3 seconds when she hooked the top the just knocked the bottom of the post in... haha

During our first meeting some chicks came and visited us:)

The strange paw... It's actually the paw from an Anteater!

The catfish.  The house we had our second meeting at had a giant catfish head hanging by the door!  A few days back the guy that lived there speared it.  He said the body was about as long as his leg!

Here's a close up view

While we were driving we saw a few of these birds flying around (they look really cool when they fly) unfortunately I could only get a picture of one sitting on a fence.  Can anyone name the bird for me?

I had a bunch of sunset pictures from the first night we were driving back to where we were staying.  This is my favorite one:)

RN and The Team

I am still enjoying my time here in South Africa! 

I finished October with a meeting in North Coast with the Rural Network (RN) task team.  On the left is Zodwa, then Skhumbuzo (Zodwa and Skhumbuzo are from CLP), Mrs. Siphiwe Hlatshwayo, miss Busie Ngema (secretary), Mr. Shadrack Sithole, Mr. Sipho Dlamini (chair person), and Mr. Myaluza Dlamini (organizer).  We were at a B&B (bed and breakfast, +conference center) that was quite nice even though the power went out during our meeting for about an hour in the hottest part of the day.

Early this week Justin decided he wanted to clean out the garage a little bit and organize the fish tanks and birdcages.  We spend hours sweeping and moving things around (we were mostly done when I took this picture).  The garage is now organized and ready for the new garage door!

I finally decided to let Lizzy cut my hair... Half an inch and 3 hours later... I had a haircut. (yeah not much was cut off.. haha) Maybe next week I can get a little more cut off without spending all night in a chair being yelled at for moving my head.  (we were having a group meeting/conversation sorta thing at the same time and of course I was facing away from half of the group.. haha) 

So I guess I'll introduce the group now... Sorry if 2 months is a little soon...  On the left is Breanna, then Garrett, and Lizzy.  Everyone is from Kansas (Heston, Moundridge, and Newton).  I'm actually behind the tree as we were apparently making a group effort to link hands around it.

So whenever I say we went to the Suderman's house or something along those lines, this is Andrew Suderman.  I have 0 pictures of Karen.... I'll see if I can get one for my next post (and an actual picture of Andrew).  In this picture he is actually laying on the ground trying to take a picture of flowers falling off of a tree... let's just say they fell a little bit too fast.  Time to go to a Braai in Mpophomeni :)