A Cold Spell

The place I now call home is Harrismith, a tiny town in South Africa. For those who need me to start at the very beginning (a very good place to start), South Africa is a country at the southern most tip of Africa. Countless people, upon hearing that I'm a missionary in South Africa, have asked me, "Oh, what country in South Africa?" Maybe because South America is a continent consisting of countries, confusion has arisen regarding the sovereignty of the nation of South Africa. Indeed, it is a country.

South Africa has nine provinces; we are based in the good, ol' Free State province -- as rural and hick as...well, I don't want to offend anyone so you can insert your own thought regarding a rural/hick place. Thankfully, Harrismith is located between four of SA's large cities; we are just about halfway between Johannesburg and Durban (so a movie theater is only about 3 hours away). As I drive through SA, I offer thanks to God that although Harrismith is small, it is at least pretty. Most of SA's small towns are ugly and boring, but our fine town is located at the base of Platberg (Flat Mountain) and is rather picturesque. There is an annual Mountain Race, where thousands of people flock to Harrismith to run up and down Platberg. This has been going on for over 100 years and had a rather humorous beginning.

For about half the year, we are seven hours ahead of Eastern Standard Time. The other half of the year, we are only six hours ahead. South Africa does not use Daylight Savings, so when America "springs ahead" an hour, we become an hour closer. I prefer this time of year, being only 6 hours ahead. Not only does it make me feel closer, but the decreased time difference makes it easier for us to connect and correspond with the States.

Because we're in the Southern Hemisphere, our seasons are opposite of those in the States. We are going into winter now and it has been freezing. Yes, it gets cold in Africa. In fact, we get snow here in Harrismith! This is our house, covered in snow...

We don't get as much snow as Michigan, but we get snow nonetheless. And without plows, our whole town just shuts down when it snows. The worst snowstorm we've ever had occurred right over September 11 (the original). The road leading out of town to Durban was closed (it's steep and curvy) and trucks couldn't get in to deliver more goods. Oddly, the three things the town ran out of was toilet paper, diapers, and whiskey.

Now the real challenge in winter is that we have no indoor heating. Not just us, but the entire nation. It's a foreign concept (literally), and many people in our area die each winter just because of the cold. It is typically just as cold indoors as it is outdoors, if not colder. Most nights (and mornings), we can see our breath in our bedroom while sitting in our bed. Yikes - that's cold. It's something I have never gotten used to about living here... We run space heaters where we can, but it does little to ward off the permeating cold.

The forecast for tomorrow is "mostly cloudy and very cold, with temperatures around 25 degrees Fahrenheit". Real stay-in-bed-with-warm-pj's-and-drink-hot-cocoa-all-day kind of weather, but alas, I cannot! I will, however, go jump into my warm bed right now... G'night!

The Long Road to Maun

The drive from Harrismith to Maun, Botswana is always a long one. The sheer distance makes the trip already overwhelmingly long, but other factors add to it. For the majority of the way, the road we need to drive on is only one lane each way. This makes passing slow traffic a more challenging and slow process than usual. Another big factor is the plethora of animals in the road (goats, cows, and donkeys being the primary ones). It seems you just get up to speed when you need to slam on the brakes for some animal in the road. By the time you finally get back up to speed again, you're bound to encounter another furry creature and need to brake yet again! And so it goes, for hours on end, until you finally arrive in Maun.

There are also scattered villages along the drive, for which the speed limit reduces, tremendously and suddenly, to half the normal speed; and there are random control checkpoints as well. Usually at these checkpoints they ask if you have meat in the car or make you "clean" your shoes (all the shoes from your luggage!) in a milky substance which is intended to rid your shoes from foot and mouth disease. While it sounds very much like a joke or an illogical solution, it is nonetheless the way it is done. Thankfully, we were spared that adventure on this trip!

One checkpoint, though, required us to complete a full-page survey (asking questions such as how often we drive the road, what our destination is, are we traveling for business or pleasure, etc.). On such an already-long trip, it seemed a humorous oddity that they would ask (require!) us to stop and fill out a survey!

Thousands of kilometers, one border, hundreds of donkeys, a handful of checkpoints, several potty breaks, and one long survey later, we arrived in Maun last night, very happy to be here!

Adventures of TWTJ

Niel really enjoyed all the suggestions of names for the boat. That post definitely elicited the most comments ever on my blog!

After much deliberation, we decided to go with a name that flows in the same vein as most of the recommendations. The boat is officially christened with the name, The Way to Joburg. We frequently have to tell people that Niel is on the way to Joburg, with him making the 3-hours-each-way trip to Johannesburg several times each month. So naming the boat The Way to Joburg is fitting for now...

We took TWTJ out to Sterkfontein Dam yesterday with all the staff -- the first outing with newcomers Josh and Jen. We had a great day (nobody got burnt!), even though the wind made the water really choppy.

When it was time to get the boat back on the trailer, the guys decided not to drive it back to the boat launch where we let it into the water. We girls were left shaking our heads in wonder as they backed up our bakkie right there at the edge of the water to hitch the boat.

Inevitably, the bakkie got stuck in the mud.

Thankfully Dave had driven his bakkie to the dam as well. The sight of his bakkie pulling out our bakkie and the boat was pretty funny. We girls decided that the guys knew that would happen and just wanted the challenge! They were quite chuffed with themselves afterward for freeing the stuck bakkie/boat combo!

Genny to the Rescue

I am sitting here typing to the hum of a generator. Well, actually it's more like the sound of a loud, obnoxious lawn mower than a sweet, gentle hum.

We woke up this morning to no electricity on our entire base. A call to the power company informed us that we were experiencing a "planned power outage" and would continue to experience this until at least 4:00 this afternoon - possibly later. T.I.A. - This is Africa!

My resourceful husband dug out our generator and fired it up. Everything that is plugged into the extension cord that is running from the generator into my office now has power, including our itnernet connection. Niel is off in town buying more petrol to keep the genny (African, shortened version of generator) running as long as possible. We are trying to make a productive day out of what started out as a seemingly counter-productive one.

In the midst of my growing to-do list, I thought it was a good moment to blog. While I try to avoid the "this is what I did today" type of posts, I do strive to share aspects of my life that will help you understand more of what my life in Africa is really like - planned power outages, gennys, and all!

"What's it like?" you wonder... Glad you asked!

Christmas in Africa just isn't the same as Christmas in New York. My friend Natalie concurs that Christmas in Florida just isn't the same as Christmas in Michigan.

The fact that it's summertime here in Africa doesn't help much, but really I just long for my family and my homegrown traditions. Thankfully I have a wonderful husband who has grown to enjoy American Christmases; together we make celebrating in Africa fun. We put up a tree and decorate it with all our fun ornaments (Although I said I never would, we bought an artificial tree last year... There's no such thing as "Christmas Tree Lots" here, and we'd already chopped down all the suitable ones on our property for previous Christmases!); we hang our stockings on our mantle (Niel affectionately calls his stocking his "Christmas sock"); and we set snowmen up throughout the house (Ironic, though it may, be with 90-degree weather outside!).

The year our friends Dave and Amy celebrated Christmas with us in Africa (they were working with us in the ministry), Amy introduced us to her family tradition of baking Christmas cookies and gathering as a family to decorate them. We've been doing it ever since! We were a little late with it this year, but I finally baked the cookies on Christmas Eve; then on Christmas Day Niel, Marie (his mom), and I decorated them. We laughed at Niel's funny creations (gingerbread man with a Speedo?!), but we missed having my family around to help - my Dad is always a hoot when it comes to decorating the cookies!

The weather was on my side on Christmas. It was cold and foggy the entire day; we even made a fire in the fireplace in the evening! Now for summertime, that was very odd. But I didn't mind a bit. It helped it feel a bit more Christmassy than usual.

We had a good Christmas. It was quiet and relaxed, which was what we needed. We also got to talk to my family -- both the Brothers Grimm made it home this year, which was special for my mom.

We still have Christmas gifts on the way -- the packages my mom sent haven't arrived yet. The day they arrive, it will really feel like Christmas! There's nothing like getting some love and goodness from home!

It's a Small World After All

High-speed wireless internet has changed my life forever. Since I moved to South Africa, I've only had (on a good day) dial-up internet. While I was very grateful to be able to make use of sporadic, slow email access, it was also a daily frustration.

The biggest frustration was when the phone lines would get stolen---typically a monthly occurrence. Inevitably, the phone company would take at least a week to replace the lines.

(In case you're curious: The phone lines are stolen because they have copper in them. The copper is melted down to make bracelets and other African curios which many of our visitors have purchased over the years! Oh, the irony!)

This was my internet life (or lack thereof) since I moved here in 1998.

But a few months ago we upgraded to 24-hour high-speed wireless internet throughout the main area of our base. Seriously, my life has changed forever.

We are now online all day, allowing me to use Messenger to chat with family and friends more than I have in years! I can also "surf" now, which was a strange and new phenomenon at first. Those first few weeks, Niel and I would sit at our computers and ask each other, "What else can we look up online?" It wasn't an option for so long that we'd gotten out of the habit of it...

This is still Africa, so our 24-hour, high-speed, wireless internet is not without its kinks. But I am lovin' it. I feel so much more connected to people back home; it's as though the world suddenly got much smaller.

The best part of our high-tech internet setup is that it all runs off a car battery on our mountain! A nice blend of modern technology and ... the Stone Age!

Ag, shame!

Where's the Beef?

Cows in the road are a frequent site here in Africa. It's always funny when you have to drive through a herd of cattle and your vehicle is surrounded on all sides by the big beasts. On our way to Piet Retief last week, the road was blocked by an enormous herd of cows. The guy herding them told us there were 340 cows walking the road to another farm. We eventually drove right through the bunch of them, but we managed to take this picture first.

Beef - it's what's for dinner...

Mrs. Santi & the Devil

"The devil is on the loose today!"

I met a woman yesterday who said that. Repeatedly. It was the very first thing she said to me, and she proceeded to say it frequently throughout the course of our time together. Who would say such a thing? The wife of the man who came to tow our truck.

I need to back up as well as clarify a few things.

A truck is called a bakkie (pronounced buck-ey) in South Africa, so I'm going to refer to it by its proper name in context.

We had been in Piet Retief (Niel's hometown) since Monday ministering at a youth camp. We were driving back in our bakkie yesterday and were about halfway home when... THUMP! There was a loud noise; the bakkie shifted and threatened to go wildly out of control; and the back left side begain dragging.

(Note: the right-hand side is the driver's side; I was on the left, the passenger side.)

I looked out my window and watched a tire bounce at quite a speed past our bakkie and through the field for about half-a-kilometer. Very confused, I said to Niel, "I think that's our tire!" Having pulled off onto the dirt, we came to a stop and got out to take a look. Sure enough, the back left tire had completely come off! The nuts must not have been tight enough and it just shook free. God's hand of grace was surely upon us...

After several hours alongside the road, the tow truck arrived. However, the "lifting" portion of the tow truck wasn't working and the engine started overheating! It seemed like something out of a movie to see the tow truck, with our bakkie hitched to it, almost in need of towing itself!

The owner of the towing company, Marco Santi, was heading up this whole operation. He and his two sidekicks were like The 3 Stooges, and we just had to shake our heads and laugh. Marco

Mrs. Santi & the Devil

"The devil is on the loose today!"

I met a woman yesterday who said that. Repeatedly. It was the very first thing she said to me, and she proceeded to say it frequently throughout the course of our time together. Who would say such a thing? The wife of the man who came to tow our truck.

I need to back up as well as clarify a few things.

A truck is called a bakkie (pronounced buck-ey) in South Africa, so I'm going to refer to it by its proper name in context.

We had been in Piet Retief (Niel's hometown) since Monday ministering at a youth camp. We were driving back in our bakkie yesterday and were about halfway home when... THUMP! There was a loud noise; the bakkie shifted and threatened to go wildly out of control; and the back left side begain dragging.

(Note: the right-hand side is the driver's side; I was on the left, the passenger side.)

I looked out my window and watched a tire bounce at quite a speed past our bakkie and through the field for about half-a-kilometer. Very confused, I said to Niel, "I think that's our tire!" Having pulled off onto the dirt, we came to a stop and got out to take a look. Sure enough, the back left tire had completely come off! The nuts must not have been tight enough and it just shook free. God's hand of grace was surely upon us...

After several hours alongside the road, the tow truck arrived. However, the "lifting" portion of the tow truck wasn't working and the engine started overheating! It seemed like something out of a movie to see the tow truck, with our bakkie hitched to it, almost in need of towing itself!

The owner of the towing company, Marco Santi, was heading up this whole operation. He and his two sidekicks were like The 3 Stooges, and we just had to shake our heads and laugh. Marco’s wife came by in their bakkie to bring something that was missing from the tow truck. When she arrived, she walked over to me and said (in Afrikaans):

“The devil is on the loose today!”

She proceeded to tell me about the numerous accidents that happened throughout the day which, according to her, was all because of the devil being on the loose. When I drove with her later, I introduced myself; she replied, “You can call me Mrs. Santi.”

The 24 hours which followed make for a very long story, but suffice it to say that we are home safe; our bakkie is mostly fixed; and we survived the day the devil was on the loose!

Certificate of Ending

I never cease to be amazed at how important it is in Africa to receive certificates. Regardless of what it may say or may be for, receiving a certificate is a symbol of status and achievement. They are received proudly and amongst much cheering.

We've been giving out a lot of certificates lately. When our LaunchPad classes ended for the term, all the graduating students (who did not miss more than 2 classes) received certificates of completion. Perfect attendance certificates were also given out to those faithful few. Each student in our ninth grade abstinence campaign who pledged to save sex until marriage received a certificate as well - over 800 students in total!

Today at the Christmas party for our coaches, we again gave out certificates. Although possibly "getting old" to some of our crew, those receiving them acted as though it were their very first one. Shouting, chanting of names, and joyful clapping erupted from the group of coaches after each name was called.

Certificates and all, the party was great; a fun opportunity to acknowledge and appreciate the coaches for their hard work throughout the year.

Certificate of Ending

This hereby marks the end of this post.

Signed: Alece

Dated: December 4, 2005