Saturday, August 10

I woke up this morning  slightly refreshed.  I did not sleep the best since I slept on the inside of the mattress which was against the wall.  For some reason, this part of the mattress was at a down-wards angle and so I always felt like I was rolling into the wall. 

The bedroom we slept in

The lighting - don't think it would past safety standards in Canada!

The living room

The kitchen.  Notice the 'stove' on the right - it is just a falling apart cupboard with a 2-burner stove on top of it.  

  We were served breakfast (I don’t think the boys or the mother had any) and were picked up 15 minutes earlier than stated – a rare thing to happen here.  

We said good-bye to our host family and headed out to a town about an hour away.  As we drove to this town, we had to wind our way through some mountains.  It made me feel like I was driving to BC, although the mountains looked quite different.  In this town, our goal was to deliver invitations to a conference that Oupa is hosting next week.   

I think I should say a few things about Oupa before I go on.  You say his name “Opa” and so when I first heard of him, I was thinking that he would older, have grey hair, etc.  However, Oupa is his given name and is no way connected to “Opa” and when I saw him, he was the exact opposite of what I expected.   He is younger, has two young boys and has lots of energy.  He started his third church plant last week and so he currently preaches three times a day to three different churches.  He was very excited for us to come and wanted us to have a true African experience.  He offered us more insight into the culture and loved answering our questions. 

Oupa's House

                I am not sure of the name of the town where we delivered our invitations, but before we could deliver them, we had to find a safe place to park our cars.  Oupa knew someone from there and she had a safe place, but it took us  a bit to find it.  This is another poor area and the government built probably a couple hundred identical brick houses and so we got lost, but we eventually found the place.  Once we found the place, we squeezed the cars through the narrow gate, said ‘hello’ to the lady and started walking.  We handed out about 20 invitations.  Saturday was wash day and so a lot of people were outside washing their laundery in tubs, wringing it out and then hanging it on the line to dry.  We would walk into their yards and invite them to the conference and give them the invitation and move on.  It was interesting seeing the situations that the people lived in.  I don’t think none of us could survive it!

                Once we were done handing out the invititations, we headed back to Hammanskraal for a traditional African burger.  On our way, we heard loud music and saw people dancing.  Oupa told us to stop and I thought we would see what was happening while sitting in the car.  Nope –the opposite happened.  A traditional African wedding was taking place and there was a lot of celebration happening.  With the four of us, Oupa marched into the yard of the couple that were getting married and we stood on the front porch of the house watching.  A lot of people were taking pictures of us as this was unusual.  After standing for a few minutes, chairs were brought out for us and we had front row seats.  We were there just in time, as we were able to see the wedding party dance into the yard.  The music was incredibly loud – you could feel it in your stomach and the traditional clothing was bright and colourful.   Once the MC started talking, we left and continued on to getting our African burger.

The wedding was a combination of several different tribes.  This lady was Zulu. 

Chairs were brought out for us to sit on.  

The bride and groom.  

Some of the bridal party

                By this time, it was about 2:00 and all of us were hungry.  We were looking forward to food, but we had no idea what to expect.  When we arrived, we saw an outdoor set-up that would be shut down by Health Canada immediately.  We ordered the burger and were served two slices of white bread, a patty, a sausage, a hotdog, fries and some sort of red sauce.  The goal was to put the burger, fries, red sauce and lettuce and tomatoes on the bread.  It made for a huge burger.  In the end it was alright – very greasy, but otherwise not bad and it cost R18.50, so $1.85.  A huge meal which I couldn’t finish under two dollars – you can’t find that in Canada.  And none of us got sick from it!!

The stand

Waiting for food

                After we were done eating, we headed back to the church where we had the conference.  The church needed to be cleaned for Sunday.  So we spent some time sweeping floors, mopping floors and doing dishes.  It was then time to meet our next host family. 

The church

The washroom.

                Our new host family lived in the same area as last night’s family and so after travelling over some rough, bumpy red dirt roads (poor car), we arrived there.  There we were introduced to Portia, the 22-year old daughter who was already making supper for her family and us.  We sat down and talked with her for a bit and then she wanted to introduce us to her friends.  It was about 6:00, so not quite dark yet, but getting there.  Elisa and I were a bit nervous about this, but were up for the adventure. 

                We headed out and soon met up with three of Portia’s friends.  From there we continued walking around the area.  Soon we came to a party with loud music and lots of drinking.   The girls from the town wanted to show us traditional African dancing, but we declined.  While standing around there, we had several clearly drunk guys come up to us and shake hands over and over and over again.  Finally we got out of there and continued walking.  We then headed back to Portia’s house.

                At Portia’s house, we had several people stop by to meet the white people from America.  They all had to tell us their story and ask us why we are in South Africa.  Then some of her friends came over and we had some snacks and talked for an hour or so.  It was really neat to talk with young people about the struggles that they face.  There were five girls altogether and for sure three of them did not have any children.  This is very unusual for this area.  

We then retired to bed, making sure to go to the washroom before falling asleep!

  

Friday, August 9, 2013

Months ago, I had received an email asking if I would be interested in attending a ladies conference in a town called Hammanskraal and help with some painting with a man named Oupa.  I was also told that three people from Canada/USA would be joining me and that we would be sleeping over in this town.  Of course, I said yes as I wanted to experience as much as I could.  Little did I know what I would all experience.

Today was the day of the woman’s conference.  We left home (The Farm) at about eight in the morning and after driving for 1 ½ hours on ‘regular’ roads, we arrived at Romeste Reformed Church.  

This is a church that Oupa planted and he is now the ordained pastor of this church.  We were early and so we had some tea first.  The schedule of the conference went something like this:

9:50-10:00 à Opening

10:00-11:00 à First Speaker

11:00-11:30 à Tea

11:30-12:30 àSecond Speaker

12:30-1:30 à Lunch

1:30-2:30 à Third Speaker

3:00 à Finished

Well, we finally finished our tea at 10:50 and so the schedule was revised.  The new schedule was:

10:00-11:00 à 1^st speaker

11:00-12:00 à 2^nd speaker

12:00-12:30 à Tea

12:30-1:30 à 3^rd speaker

1:30-2:30 à Lunch

By the end of the day, we still hadn’t followed that schedule, but we still managed to listen to all three speakers, have lunch and do a small craft – Africa time!!

The title of the conference was “Living a Christian Life.”  We listened to explanations on spiritual growth, Godly love and living like Jesus.  For the most part, the topics were done in both English and Sewestho(sp?) so we were able to follow along. 

Oupa

Craft time 

Lunch time - Braai

Craft time

The ladies who came to the conference

The conference was done at about 4:30 and so Oupa took us to the homes where we would stay the first night.  The two guys would stay at one person’s home and us two girls would stay at another.  We were all quite nervous about this – what would the food be like? How about showers? Is it safe?.  We were assured it was safe and as long as we were safe, we thought it should be alright. 

The guys were dropped off at their homes first – this involved travelling over very rough red dirt roads.  My car has taken quite a beating since I got it and is becoming quite filthy.  We were all invited into this home and so we stayed here for about an hour.  During this hour, we were all kindly lectured by Oupa about reasons why we should get married and things that he could do to help us.  Oupa is a friendly, caring and outgoing man and he is going to be our ‘tour-guide’ for the remainder of the stay.  While drinking our tea, the man of the house left the room and announced he was going to clean my car.  I guess he did not like it looking so filthy and so he washed it for me. 

Once we finished our tea, we were taken to our home.  Before we arrived, we were told that we would be going to a place where a mother lives with her two young sons.  But we were unprepared for the poorness, but also the love of this home. 

We stayed by the lady on the right.

The house was very small, (probably about the size of my living room at home) and had two bedrooms and a kitchen/dining room/living room area. It was very clean and you could tell the mother had pride in this home.  We slept in one of the rooms (we think it was the mother’s room).  During the evening, the mother told us some of her story – her husband passed away in 2008 and one of her boys has epilepsy.  She has a very hard life and yet is quite cheerful.  For supper we were served a huge plateful of food (and yet, I didn’t see her have any food).  The house had no running water and limited electricity.  The washroom was an outhouse outside.  I very much dislike outhouses and so was not looking forward to using them.  After supper, we did some reading, a little bit of visiting (which was difficult because of the language barrier) and then went to bed early.  When we announced we were going to bed, the lady came to the room with a bucket, and told us “It is not safe to go outside at night time, so if you have to go to the washroom, you must use this.”  Elisa and I looked at each other and decided that we would not put this bucket to use!! We made sure to go to the washroom right before bed. 

This house opened our eyes a lot.  I had heard stories about some of the poorness and I know some of the students that I teach live in poverty, but once you see it with your eyes, it becomes a lot more real.  The government had provided this house for this lady. Many people receive housing from the government if they are unable to buy their own and in this way, they can still have shelter. ( I will have pictures of the house later)

August 7, 2013

At school, I am working with the Grade 4 students and trying to give them strategies on how to spell certain words.  A lot of the students are having a hard time with this.  Today, we spelled the words aloud, I wrote them on the board and they went outside and wrote them in the sand.  We also continued reading the story about the snail and drew some pictures about it.  The students are enjoying this story, but it is quite the process to get through it.  The students first read a paragraph quietly to themselves. Next we read it as a class.  Then I ask for words that they don’t understand and we discuss these words.  We then read it as a class again.  And we do this paragraph by paragraph so it takes a bit, but we are getting through it and they are increasing their vocab as well as becoming more familiar with sentence structure. 

In the evening, I sat in for an hour of a Distance Group.  This distance group studies at the college on Tuesday and Wednesday evenings for about 3 hours each evening.  They are going through different study guides.  I wanted to see how the process works and the College also wanted me as a teacher to evaluate the class.  Basically, the students who are mainly pastors come in and watch the part of the DVD that relates to their study guide.  They then discuss any parts that they were confused about.  There is a tutor that answers any questions and ensures everything runs smoothly.  I thought it went really well and the tutor really knew the material as he was able to answer some quite difficult questions.  

August 6, 2013

After finishing a wild game of Uno (and it’s said ‘you know’, not ‘uw-know’ – sorry Americans) with the seven of us at the farm, I am under my covers, typing up this blog.  My days are quite busy and so I’m finding it hard to find time to do some blogging.  It is a lot of fun at the Farm with so many people and we are getting along great.  We are having awesome meals – chicken parmesan, burgers fried on the braai (or BBQ) and something called  Pakistani Kima which is meat with some veggies and spices and it is served over rice.  We are eating very well over here and since I am not doing anything active this summer like soccer and boating, I think I will need to do a lot of exercising when I come back L.  Book camp – here I come. 

On Monday, I worked in the office and taught until lunch time.  After lunch, I went to Cullinan where there is a diamond mine.  

They had a cute historic street.

Roses were blooming.

A neat tree.

A sidewalk with Afrikaan's words - but I could read most of them. 

The sign when we entered.  

We had to go through security and it felt like we were entering some governmental building. 

Inside the diamond mine.  The big metal structure carries tonnes of rocks to the top where they are separated according to size.

This is the location where the world’s largest diamond was found.  A man’s hand could not wrap around it, it was so big.  They ended up giving a large piece of it to the British royalty.  We did a surface tour and were able to see some of the huge equipment that they use.  I think the neatest thing was seeing the huge pit where they started mining in 1903.  It is 1 km by ½ km and is about 180 m deep.  Now they don’t do open-pit mining, but rather go underground.  The reason that they changed was that when they were doing the open-pit mining, they came across a huge amount of rock that is guaranteed not to contain diamonds and it would take 14 years to remove this rock.  So they decided to go underneath. 

The hole. 

I was expected Tuesday to be another regular day in which I go to the office for a few hours, go to the school for a few hours and then back to the office until about 5.  However, when I showed up at the school, the Grade 4 teacher wasn’t there.  As a result, I taught Grade 4 all day.  Once again, I was left with no lesson plans.  I decided to focus on English since I knew where I wanted to go with that.  To start off the day, we read and discussed a piece from Deuteronomy.  This is quite a hard book of the Bible for students who have English as a second language.  Currently they do not have a strong Bible program, but one has been made for them, so hopefully they implement it soon.  After Bible, we did maths  -not math, as I was calling it “Teacher, why are you calling it math – it is maths?” So this led to a discussion about different types of English and words like eraser rather than rubber, stoplights instead of robots, etc.  After maths, we had breakfast.  It was oatmeal and some of the students did not like it, and so did not eat it –so if any of you have used the saying “Eat all your food as the poor kids in Africa would love to have it”, well, that’s not necessarily true. ( J ) From about 9:30-12:30, we did different ESL activities.  We had a spelling test, practiced their words for next week, started reading a story about a snail, did some drawing and had a story on Roman history.  The day was fun.  There are still things I have to get used to.  For example, “Teacher, can I go to the toilet?”, “Yes, Lucia, you may.” She (as well as any student that asks) then walks to the teacher’s desk, counts out 9 sheets of toilet paper and goes to the toilet.  Another thing I had was a student all of the sudden went out of the room.  I called him back and then he said something and I wasn’t quite sure what he meant.  He then acted out that he had to fart.  (He didn’t know that English word).  He didn’t want to stink up the classroom and so he went outside to release the gas. 

Today was a regular day.  I am getting a long ways on a study guide that I am creating.  This involves taking the lecturers hard-copy notes and putting them on the computer.   About half of the notes were emailed to me, so I didn’t have to retype them.  Some of the notes were online articles, so that didn’t involve much typing, but for the remainder, I had to retype them.  As well, I have to organize it all and make sure it looks professional.  Currently I am at 92 pages and still need to be a fair bit more.  My goal is to get it done before I leave. 

August 4

Last night, my goal was to wake up at 4:00 AM in order to say hi to my family and all who came for mom’s birthday.  However, I set my alarm for 4:00 PM and so I woke up at 5:30 AM and decided not to call.

Today, I went to Pretoria to another church plant there.  This was a plant started by Pastor de Vries and Pastor DuGuid was preaching there.  We heard about the righteous man and the unrighteous man from Psalm 1.  After the service, we went to the De Vries’ for lunch.  They have a beautiful place and we had an awesome lunch.  It was an enjoyable time. 

Now, I am sitting in the living room at the farm, talking with three new people that came from Grand Rapids and Ontario.  So now there are seven of us staying at the farm and it is a lot of fun.      

August 2

I know it’s been a few days since I’ve written, but the past few days have been the same routine.  I work at the college for a few hours, go to the school for one and a half hours and then go back to the college until five.  I am really enjoying teaching Grade 4 English, but it is also hard.  On Thursday, I tried to teach them rhyming words, but they had a hard time with it.  They had to come up with rhyming words for the word ‘lid’.  Some of them said ‘bird’, because when they say the word bird, they do not say the ‘r’.  This also makes spelling a challenge for them.

At the college, I've been given a huge package of papers that I need to make into a study guide.  I’m hoping that a lot of the material is already on someone’s computer, but if not, I need to retype it all.  I will have one and a half weeks to do this, so it’ll keep me busy. 

Last night I moved back to the farm, along with three people from the United States.  It is good to be back at the farm and have a little more space.  In a way, it feels like I've come home.  I was greeted by the dogs and by the kids enthusiastically.  I am sleeping in a different room with only one bed, but I don’t mind since it still gives me more room than at the college. 

Today we went to Hartbeespoortdam.  This was about 1 ½ hrs away.   Hartbeespoortdam is a lake that has a dam for irrigation on one part of it.  It is a tourist destination, so as we entered the town, we could see that is a wealthier than the area where I live.  The dam was fairly large with about 6 gates and also was built quite high up. We walked across the dam and took some pictures.  

An arch that you had to drive through.

Looking down the dam 

Driving over the dam

Very green water.  

We also had heard that there was a local African market here.  We drove around for a bit and couldn’t find it.  Instead we found a modern shopping mall.  We went shopping for a bit (but didn’t buy anything).  This mall was very modern, and just about reminded me of home except that the main aisle did not have any ceiling – it was an open-air concept. 

For lunch, we stopped at an Italian restaurant and had pizza.  So I was a Canadian in South Africa eating Italian food!!  On our way out, we asked for directions to the African market.  It was easy to find it after this.  This market contained a lot of small vendors who sold things like dirt bike gear, clocks, food, books, toys, candles, etc.  We were hoping for more African vendors, but we still enjoyed it.  (Later on, we found out that this was actually the wrong market – there was a better one a little ways away.)

The road on the way to the market - very pretty.  

A neat red flowering tree.  

Entrance to the market

Browsing for goodies

The only African shop we found.  

After visiting this area, we headed back home.  Since we now live at the farm, we have to make our own meals and so we stopped at the grocery store.  We hope to be having some ‘regular’ English meals like spaghetti, pancakes, and chicken wraps.