Now that I’m comin to the close of the trip I’m gonna just go ahead and wrap things up a bit.
To start with, t’would be a shame to ignore this past weekend. On Saturday we went to Harrismith to buy some stuff for the chilluns of Leratong and Limakatso. At one point, someone noticed while at Leratong Children’s Home that many of the kids have terrible shoes and a couple without. So later, we all talked together and decided that the 24 of us were going to buy them shoes. So we basically each donated some money and went from there. Luckily, our wonderful supporters must’ve all been quite generous people because we ended up with enough money to not only buy shoes for the children at Leratong, but also for the children at Limakatso totaling around 60 kids AND we STILL had leftover money and it was even enough to buy blankets and some toys for all of em. It was a crazy amount of money for a bunch of poor missionaries to give, though it’s truly all thanks to wonderful people back home.
So on Saturday, we went to Harrismith and purchased all that stuff. It was a crazy time trying to even find only 3 specific pairs of shoes each then toys in that little town. Honestly, it was a really frustrating day, but it was worth it knowing the cause.
Sunday I spent hiking in the cold wetness. It was amazing. We hit up the “Bushmen Caves,” did some bouldering, then, on impulse, climbed a mountain. It was a fabulous day. Great break from all the frustrations of the day before– also, good compensation for days to come.
Yesterday (Monday) was spent jumping from school to school to children’s home to food. Essentially, we stopped at both Limakatso and Leratong and handed them the shoes and blankets and such, hung out a bit, then moved on. It was pretty cool to be able to go back to see kids you connected with a week or two or three ago, then not so cool to have to say good bye for good this time. But at least we left them with their shoes.
The rest of the day was spent going to some schools to watch the 24/7 interns do a presentation about an after school program they do during their school year. It was kinda cool, but having to go back today (Tuesday) and watch them do it all over again was rather boring.
Moving on… We start debriefing tomorrow. We’ll have a day of it on base then leave for safari/more debriefing Thursday morning. The main reason I’m writing this blog now is that once we leave for safari, I won’t have internet access till getting home, so I’m trying to wrap up as much as possible now. When I get home, I’ll certainly upload more photos. It’s INCREDIBLY difficult to here with African “high speed internet.” Plus, it’s hard to find the time to just sit around uploading photos. Plus, who would want to just do that when you’re in Africa? Anyways… What else… Ah. Wrap It Up. I actually stole that from a wonderful Muslim restaurant we went to Saturday. It’s called “Wrap It Up.” Pretty fabulous. They gave us a free Sparksport, aka, the most intense/ultimate fries ever. Made me wanna have a heart attack after the first fry. Pretty fabulous though. But yes…
I KNOW I had more I wanted to tell ya’ll before leaving, but now it’s not comin to me.
While I’m at it, I just thought I should mention that on August 16th I’ll be doin a presentation dealy at my church (Sunnycrest UMC) if ya’ll are interested. It’s possible there’ll be some African food there to try. At the very least there will be some candy. Not much, but some. Plus I’m planning on teaching people as much about Basotho culture as I can cram into the time I’ll allot for that because I’ve found a new, deep appreciation for culture. It’s interesting stuff. Plus of course I’ll talk about what exactly I’ve been doing here and what EXACTLY has happened, though most people that’ve been reading this might hear some stuff again… In that case, thank you. I really do appreciate people reading this and especially commenting, though I’ve heard people have had issues with that. I’m in Africa though, I honestly haven’t taken the time to try and figure out what might be wrong, but I hopefully will when I get back.
One last note: I fly out Saturday around 6pm I believe– that’s 11am Central time– so start prayin around then and don’t stop till at least 1:40pm (Central) Sunday for safe travel.
Thank you!
One last time:
With love from Africa,
Ben
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Pictures
So, by request of a certain lady back home (cough, mother, cough), I'm going to attempt uploading some photos on here. I haven't gotten the chance to lately because, just until a few days ago there were approximately 50-60 people that might want access to the internet here to slow it down. So it was extra hard just to load any random page on the internet for about 2 weeks. Hence, no uploaded pictures. So here goes my attempt.
Dumela from South Africa
Outside World Fellowship- the church we partnered with for Relationship Evangelism
Kelelo!
Lady in Qwa Qwa
Eagle Mountain at Night
I have a new favorite sport: chasing ostriches.
Leratong Children's home
80's Dance party. Aka HILARIOUS.
Mooihoek
Lion park. I learned here how scary nature can actually be...
June drinkin the beer at the Basotho Cultural Center with the chief and his attendant
TEBOHO! The kid I was with last week at Limakatso: School for the disabled
Just below Mt. Everest
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Sunday, July 26, 2009
Starting to See the Last of Africa
It’s weird to think that I’m nearing the close of my time here. Sure I have almost 2 weeks left, but today was actually my group’s last day of true ministry. My half of the group taught at Limakatso this week and the other half will next week. The half on base has just been oiling cabins all week. My group will finish that and start on the fences next week– which just leaves less than a week in Africa yet, and the last couple days we won’t even be on the base because we’re goin north for warmer weather for debriefing.
So, to recap, this last week, my group taught in Limakatso. If you don’t recall or haven’t read it previously, Limakatso is a disabled children’s school in Intabazwe. And you probably don’t know this, but Intabazwe is the closest town to us– it’s a nice short 20 minutes away. Anyways. As with everything in Africa, even the disabled children’s schools are different than in the states. Currently, this school of 11 students doesn’t even have a teacher, because the one from this last year quit, but I think finished out the year. P.s. the schools have a short break in the winter and a longer one in the summer (THEIR summer and winter that is). So this last week was their first week back in school and since they still don’t have an actual teacher, just an amazing woman named Topsy who takes care of them, we hung out and taught them for about three hours each day. The crazy thing about disabled children’s schools though, is how mentally disabled people are regarded in this culture. They’re so neglected, that their disabilities are far worse than they should be because no one’s truly worked with them closely enough to help them along.
Each of us was partnered with one “kid” to work with them this whole week, though the kids ranged in ages from about 11 years old to… around 25-30 (I’m guessing that’s how old Fetsi is, but he looks much older so I don’t rightly know). Teboho, who was my friend this week, is 17 years old and, I admittedly don’t know what disability he has, I just know what it looks like. Teboho’s disability is mostly physical, but yet, because of his limitations and because of how poorly the society helps disabled children, he’s on the level of all the rest of the disabled children at the school. Teboho has very limited motor skills: he can move his arms for the most part, he can grip things when you put it in his hand correctly, he can speak, though it’s labored (and in Sesotho, that didn’t help me at all), but besides that, he doesn’t have much control over his body. The great thing about Teboho though is his mind. Since he speaks Sesotho and I do not I didn’t really get to talk to him, but when his mom, Topsy, spoke to him and he responded, I could see there’s likely not too much hindering his mind besides his virtual total lack of education.
He even can speak a slight bit of English. Every day when we got there, part of my greeting was to ask him how he was doing, and every day he responded with “I’m fine.” Besides that, when I asked him questions, since he always answered “yes” I’m not really sure what he did and didn’t understand of my English. I have to be honest though, working with Teboho was just as tiring as it was a blessing. It’s emotionally tiring working with disabled children, and doubly if not triply so when you can’t even talk to them. I might’ve been perfectly fine working with him if I could at least hold a simple conversation with him.
Despite the difficulties and exhaustion, it’s always joyous working with people that smile so easily. I guess, in their simplicity, it’s easier to find joy. At one point, Tome laughed so hard, she cried. When’s the last time you just walked into a place, made a friend, then had them laugh so hard they cried within just a couple days? It’s always a joyous sight.
While I may be emotionally drained after this week with the kids, I’m still quite sad that I’m done with the organized ministry here in Africa. Although I’ve never been one for organization. Every day I break down barriers when we drive somewhere by smiling and waving at people who’d thought a white person would never do that for them or, after buying something at a gas station, by standing around talking to the four nice ladies behind the counter about anything about ourselves because they find it all so interesting. Truly, ministry never ends because you constantly interact with people no matter where you are, but it’s still sad that the organized portion is done here in Africa. It’s especially sad that I may never see Qwa Qwa again… talk about a beautiful mountain town. Or even that I’ll never see Limakatso again. After rebuilding then teaching there, it makes me sad to have the possibility of never seeing it again. Oh well, such is life.
A quick note on the future.
Since I’m so bad at being regular with my blogs, I should just tell ya a bit about what’s to come.
Let’s start soon: this Sunday, we’re repelling down the back of Everest. Very exciting. I’ve seen the rock we’re goin down, and it’s QUITE tall, so hopefully I’m feeling 100% by then (yesterday and today my stomach’s been kinda funky).
Next week my group will be on base oiling cabins and fences, as I said before. Here, they oil instead of put finish on: it’s just their form of preserving the wood. I’m not really looking forward to oiling because it’s some REALLY nasty stuff, but oh well. I should mention that that and Limakatso just take place before lunch (1:00): after lunch we have some classes.
I think that next weekend we’re going someplace with other mountains we can climb, but I don’t remember for certain…
For our last week, I know we have some base work to do such as oiling fences and such and perhaps some other stuff, but then we start debriefing. I believe we have a day or two of debriefing here on base, but then for the last two days, we head north for warmer weather and a REAL AFRICAN SAFARI! Woot. We’ll do some debriefing up there, but I think it’ll probably end up being mostly unofficial and involving some late-night cabin talks aka, the best kind. Oh. I should also mention, for debriefing, we get to stay some place with shalays (like many African words, I’m just guessing on the spelling). Shalays are basically larger huts with beds and such. This place has shalays that fit like 6 people, so we’re gettin 4 of em. And if you’re really paying attention, now’s when you go, “6 people? But I thought there were 7 guys?” (I doubt anyone really knew/remembered that though) And yes, that’s correct. We’re all friendly though.
Sometime in there, I know we’ll be hitting up an African market as well, so that should be fun. I just don’t have a clue where or what or when or ANYTHING, just that we will, so the end.
After all that, we’ll be heading directly to Jo-berg and be off to the states again– except for Elder Chu, of course: he’s Canadian.
Hope ya’ll have a wonderful two weeks!
-Love from Africa!
So, to recap, this last week, my group taught in Limakatso. If you don’t recall or haven’t read it previously, Limakatso is a disabled children’s school in Intabazwe. And you probably don’t know this, but Intabazwe is the closest town to us– it’s a nice short 20 minutes away. Anyways. As with everything in Africa, even the disabled children’s schools are different than in the states. Currently, this school of 11 students doesn’t even have a teacher, because the one from this last year quit, but I think finished out the year. P.s. the schools have a short break in the winter and a longer one in the summer (THEIR summer and winter that is). So this last week was their first week back in school and since they still don’t have an actual teacher, just an amazing woman named Topsy who takes care of them, we hung out and taught them for about three hours each day. The crazy thing about disabled children’s schools though, is how mentally disabled people are regarded in this culture. They’re so neglected, that their disabilities are far worse than they should be because no one’s truly worked with them closely enough to help them along.
Each of us was partnered with one “kid” to work with them this whole week, though the kids ranged in ages from about 11 years old to… around 25-30 (I’m guessing that’s how old Fetsi is, but he looks much older so I don’t rightly know). Teboho, who was my friend this week, is 17 years old and, I admittedly don’t know what disability he has, I just know what it looks like. Teboho’s disability is mostly physical, but yet, because of his limitations and because of how poorly the society helps disabled children, he’s on the level of all the rest of the disabled children at the school. Teboho has very limited motor skills: he can move his arms for the most part, he can grip things when you put it in his hand correctly, he can speak, though it’s labored (and in Sesotho, that didn’t help me at all), but besides that, he doesn’t have much control over his body. The great thing about Teboho though is his mind. Since he speaks Sesotho and I do not I didn’t really get to talk to him, but when his mom, Topsy, spoke to him and he responded, I could see there’s likely not too much hindering his mind besides his virtual total lack of education.
He even can speak a slight bit of English. Every day when we got there, part of my greeting was to ask him how he was doing, and every day he responded with “I’m fine.” Besides that, when I asked him questions, since he always answered “yes” I’m not really sure what he did and didn’t understand of my English. I have to be honest though, working with Teboho was just as tiring as it was a blessing. It’s emotionally tiring working with disabled children, and doubly if not triply so when you can’t even talk to them. I might’ve been perfectly fine working with him if I could at least hold a simple conversation with him.
Despite the difficulties and exhaustion, it’s always joyous working with people that smile so easily. I guess, in their simplicity, it’s easier to find joy. At one point, Tome laughed so hard, she cried. When’s the last time you just walked into a place, made a friend, then had them laugh so hard they cried within just a couple days? It’s always a joyous sight.
While I may be emotionally drained after this week with the kids, I’m still quite sad that I’m done with the organized ministry here in Africa. Although I’ve never been one for organization. Every day I break down barriers when we drive somewhere by smiling and waving at people who’d thought a white person would never do that for them or, after buying something at a gas station, by standing around talking to the four nice ladies behind the counter about anything about ourselves because they find it all so interesting. Truly, ministry never ends because you constantly interact with people no matter where you are, but it’s still sad that the organized portion is done here in Africa. It’s especially sad that I may never see Qwa Qwa again… talk about a beautiful mountain town. Or even that I’ll never see Limakatso again. After rebuilding then teaching there, it makes me sad to have the possibility of never seeing it again. Oh well, such is life.
A quick note on the future.
Since I’m so bad at being regular with my blogs, I should just tell ya a bit about what’s to come.
Let’s start soon: this Sunday, we’re repelling down the back of Everest. Very exciting. I’ve seen the rock we’re goin down, and it’s QUITE tall, so hopefully I’m feeling 100% by then (yesterday and today my stomach’s been kinda funky).
Next week my group will be on base oiling cabins and fences, as I said before. Here, they oil instead of put finish on: it’s just their form of preserving the wood. I’m not really looking forward to oiling because it’s some REALLY nasty stuff, but oh well. I should mention that that and Limakatso just take place before lunch (1:00): after lunch we have some classes.
I think that next weekend we’re going someplace with other mountains we can climb, but I don’t remember for certain…
For our last week, I know we have some base work to do such as oiling fences and such and perhaps some other stuff, but then we start debriefing. I believe we have a day or two of debriefing here on base, but then for the last two days, we head north for warmer weather and a REAL AFRICAN SAFARI! Woot. We’ll do some debriefing up there, but I think it’ll probably end up being mostly unofficial and involving some late-night cabin talks aka, the best kind. Oh. I should also mention, for debriefing, we get to stay some place with shalays (like many African words, I’m just guessing on the spelling). Shalays are basically larger huts with beds and such. This place has shalays that fit like 6 people, so we’re gettin 4 of em. And if you’re really paying attention, now’s when you go, “6 people? But I thought there were 7 guys?” (I doubt anyone really knew/remembered that though) And yes, that’s correct. We’re all friendly though.
Sometime in there, I know we’ll be hitting up an African market as well, so that should be fun. I just don’t have a clue where or what or when or ANYTHING, just that we will, so the end.
After all that, we’ll be heading directly to Jo-berg and be off to the states again– except for Elder Chu, of course: he’s Canadian.
Hope ya’ll have a wonderful two weeks!
-Love from Africa!
Random Happenings 7/24
Here’s your chance to hear some random stories that I’ll hopefully think of while telling you these two stories I remember now.
A. Last Sunday, Billy and I climbed Mooihoek. It ended up being about the dumbest, yet most fun situation possible. We left around 12:15pm, meaning we skipped lunch, which we’re not technically allowed to do… but it’s the only way we would’ve had time, and with time running out here, I would’ve never forgiven myself if I’d have lived next to three mountains for two months and only climbed two of em. So we skipped lunch. Billy and I are pretty quick people, so what took the other group about 45 minutes to walk took us 20; the mountain only SEEMS close: it’s actually a little ways away. Then, we climbed up the front side, which in and of itself isn’t dumb, climbing the front’s fastest, the dumb part comes later. Just so ya know, Mooihoek is very likely the steepest climb you could do without a rope and still be comfortable. So it was a difficult climb. Once you near the top, the mountain actually flattens out though, so the climb gets easier once you’re nearly to the top. The issue then is “where is the TOP?” The top is flat, but very slightly slanted, so Billy and I walked ALL the way around to try to figure out where the TOP top is. Whether we were right or not, we were on the TOP at some point. In walking around the outside of the top of the mountain we likely added another mile to our trip; it’s a VERY large mountain. In fact, it’s so big, that we decided that we think it’s probably the tallest mountain in the area– at least till you get near Lesotho. So yes, kind of a dumb situation walking around to find the top. Then we had lunch, but naturally, on a mountain, you have to eat near a ledge, so we found one. Despite there being a whole side of the mountain that is 75% cliffs, it’s hard to find from the top, so we ate on top of a small one: much more comfortable this way anyways.
The dumbest part of the trek came when we were going down. We decided that since we came up the front and we had plenty of time, we wanted to see what the backside looked like: so we went down that way. Unfortunately, the mountain is slanted as such that you can only see a max of about 100 feet down at a time (the mountain’s about 800 feet above the base I believe), so we did some hiking around to try and find where we THOUGHT we could climb down and not run into random 300 foot cliffs. Finally, we hit some luck and randomly got yelled at. Not that we were in trouble, but apparently Andrew, Tara, and Amy were climbing up the backside and saw us, so they yelled to us. Our saving grace there was that they obviously knew how to get down that way since they came up that way. The dumb part is that going down that side is super hard because it’s just PACKED with trees and those stupid super thorny bushes. Going up is easier because that’s the direction plants grow, but going down is just awkward and painful. Plus, we were kinda lost. Despite our pains, it turned out much better going down the backside, because we got to see the most MONSTEROUS ostrich I’ve ever seen– and just driving around here, you see many ostriches at the farms. From a distance (halfway down the mountain) I thought it was some person shaking out the biggest blanket I’ve ever seen, but it was just a funny ostrich with its wings out. We got as close as comfortable for a few pictures, then walked on.
I’m still not sure if the next part is dumb or just entertaining. The sun was starting to go down, and we still had time, so I mentioned that if we followed the road that we thought went all the way behind Everest, we’d be able to see the sunset– but the road only went halfway. I don’t know why we thought that, because it’s obvious now that we could’ve seen the road if it continued, but hey, some of these roads are mostly overgrown. Luckily, we followed some antelope trails around to the side of Everest where the trees finally receded and we could walk unimpeded through the grass. We barely got to see the sun almost set before we realized we only had about 20 minutes to get another mile around and down the mountain we were behind before supper. We ended up actually having time to drop off some stuff at our cabin before going to supper though, so it all worked out. It was just uncomfortable almost accidentally missing a second meal that day. So yes. So ends story A. Much longer than I intended: I guess that’s what happens when I’m sick enough to not want to leave the cabin unless I need to.
2. Ostriches. Sometime last week, one of the ostriches on base finally showed up. We were overjoyed to finally see it. So overjoyed we kinda semi-chased it with our cameras cuz it kept walking away as we got closer, so it was not very photogenic. But after it finally broke that streak of hiding, it’s now hanging out near the cabins. It’s slightly disturbing, yet hilarious. A few times I’ve been walking back to the cabins and either chased it a little away from where I was walking, or just stared at it in confusion from its transition from weeks of hiding to apparent friendliness.
Today was one of the best ostrich moments though. Well truly, it started yesterday. Yesterday, one of the ladies walked into her cabin bathroom and after a couple seconds decided to look out the window only to realize she had a peeping tom: the ostrich was standing IMMEDIATELY behind the window. Today, as my cabin-mates and I were walking out of the cabin, we met up with the other guys from the other guy cabin and Derek said “Hey, you guys should look out your bathroom window.” In my head I immediately went, “NO WAY!” and proceeded to run around so I could see behind our cabin and sure enough, there she was, just standing there behind our cabin. Kevin whipped out his camera and Derek raced inside our cabin to look out the window. Kevin then started recording, I approached it from the side, then Derek flew open the window and we both screamed and the ostrich ran awkwardly away, as they do. The best part was that Kevin got it all on video, but it that’s not all: we followed the ostrich because we were actually heading that direction. At this point, we guys ended up in two groups: mine was heading more directly towards the ostrich so we were still screaming and flapping our arms to scare it away, the other group was taking a different path. In doing so, we ended up herding it the direction we were actually walking until finally it ended up between the groups. Suddenly it just ran towards the other group for no real reason– not very far, but enough to make Kevin and Dereck run away. Watching Kevin run away from an ostrich made my day: the funniest thing I’ve seen in a LONG time.
C. I don’t actually remember any major/entertaining stories so I’m going to stop now. Plus, I just wrote two long blogs in a short time.
Have a lovely time.
Love,
Ben
A. Last Sunday, Billy and I climbed Mooihoek. It ended up being about the dumbest, yet most fun situation possible. We left around 12:15pm, meaning we skipped lunch, which we’re not technically allowed to do… but it’s the only way we would’ve had time, and with time running out here, I would’ve never forgiven myself if I’d have lived next to three mountains for two months and only climbed two of em. So we skipped lunch. Billy and I are pretty quick people, so what took the other group about 45 minutes to walk took us 20; the mountain only SEEMS close: it’s actually a little ways away. Then, we climbed up the front side, which in and of itself isn’t dumb, climbing the front’s fastest, the dumb part comes later. Just so ya know, Mooihoek is very likely the steepest climb you could do without a rope and still be comfortable. So it was a difficult climb. Once you near the top, the mountain actually flattens out though, so the climb gets easier once you’re nearly to the top. The issue then is “where is the TOP?” The top is flat, but very slightly slanted, so Billy and I walked ALL the way around to try to figure out where the TOP top is. Whether we were right or not, we were on the TOP at some point. In walking around the outside of the top of the mountain we likely added another mile to our trip; it’s a VERY large mountain. In fact, it’s so big, that we decided that we think it’s probably the tallest mountain in the area– at least till you get near Lesotho. So yes, kind of a dumb situation walking around to find the top. Then we had lunch, but naturally, on a mountain, you have to eat near a ledge, so we found one. Despite there being a whole side of the mountain that is 75% cliffs, it’s hard to find from the top, so we ate on top of a small one: much more comfortable this way anyways.
The dumbest part of the trek came when we were going down. We decided that since we came up the front and we had plenty of time, we wanted to see what the backside looked like: so we went down that way. Unfortunately, the mountain is slanted as such that you can only see a max of about 100 feet down at a time (the mountain’s about 800 feet above the base I believe), so we did some hiking around to try and find where we THOUGHT we could climb down and not run into random 300 foot cliffs. Finally, we hit some luck and randomly got yelled at. Not that we were in trouble, but apparently Andrew, Tara, and Amy were climbing up the backside and saw us, so they yelled to us. Our saving grace there was that they obviously knew how to get down that way since they came up that way. The dumb part is that going down that side is super hard because it’s just PACKED with trees and those stupid super thorny bushes. Going up is easier because that’s the direction plants grow, but going down is just awkward and painful. Plus, we were kinda lost. Despite our pains, it turned out much better going down the backside, because we got to see the most MONSTEROUS ostrich I’ve ever seen– and just driving around here, you see many ostriches at the farms. From a distance (halfway down the mountain) I thought it was some person shaking out the biggest blanket I’ve ever seen, but it was just a funny ostrich with its wings out. We got as close as comfortable for a few pictures, then walked on.
I’m still not sure if the next part is dumb or just entertaining. The sun was starting to go down, and we still had time, so I mentioned that if we followed the road that we thought went all the way behind Everest, we’d be able to see the sunset– but the road only went halfway. I don’t know why we thought that, because it’s obvious now that we could’ve seen the road if it continued, but hey, some of these roads are mostly overgrown. Luckily, we followed some antelope trails around to the side of Everest where the trees finally receded and we could walk unimpeded through the grass. We barely got to see the sun almost set before we realized we only had about 20 minutes to get another mile around and down the mountain we were behind before supper. We ended up actually having time to drop off some stuff at our cabin before going to supper though, so it all worked out. It was just uncomfortable almost accidentally missing a second meal that day. So yes. So ends story A. Much longer than I intended: I guess that’s what happens when I’m sick enough to not want to leave the cabin unless I need to.
2. Ostriches. Sometime last week, one of the ostriches on base finally showed up. We were overjoyed to finally see it. So overjoyed we kinda semi-chased it with our cameras cuz it kept walking away as we got closer, so it was not very photogenic. But after it finally broke that streak of hiding, it’s now hanging out near the cabins. It’s slightly disturbing, yet hilarious. A few times I’ve been walking back to the cabins and either chased it a little away from where I was walking, or just stared at it in confusion from its transition from weeks of hiding to apparent friendliness.
Today was one of the best ostrich moments though. Well truly, it started yesterday. Yesterday, one of the ladies walked into her cabin bathroom and after a couple seconds decided to look out the window only to realize she had a peeping tom: the ostrich was standing IMMEDIATELY behind the window. Today, as my cabin-mates and I were walking out of the cabin, we met up with the other guys from the other guy cabin and Derek said “Hey, you guys should look out your bathroom window.” In my head I immediately went, “NO WAY!” and proceeded to run around so I could see behind our cabin and sure enough, there she was, just standing there behind our cabin. Kevin whipped out his camera and Derek raced inside our cabin to look out the window. Kevin then started recording, I approached it from the side, then Derek flew open the window and we both screamed and the ostrich ran awkwardly away, as they do. The best part was that Kevin got it all on video, but it that’s not all: we followed the ostrich because we were actually heading that direction. At this point, we guys ended up in two groups: mine was heading more directly towards the ostrich so we were still screaming and flapping our arms to scare it away, the other group was taking a different path. In doing so, we ended up herding it the direction we were actually walking until finally it ended up between the groups. Suddenly it just ran towards the other group for no real reason– not very far, but enough to make Kevin and Dereck run away. Watching Kevin run away from an ostrich made my day: the funniest thing I’ve seen in a LONG time.
C. I don’t actually remember any major/entertaining stories so I’m going to stop now. Plus, I just wrote two long blogs in a short time.
Have a lovely time.
Love,
Ben
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Children's Home- Africa style
Alrighty. So. Updates. I feel like I’ve failed ya’ll. Haven’t blogged in forever.
Despite the name of this blog I’m going to start with tellin ya’ll bout Limakatso. Truly, this SHOULD be another blog entitled “EXTREME HOME MAKEOVER- African school version”
The week before last, we started reconstruction on a disabled children’s school called Limakatso. All was well until we started encountering problems (as is usually the case, yes) i.e. bad materials, bad tools aka, reconstruction in Africa. We did well though considering the circumstances; we redid some of the playground, tore down the ceiling inside the building, put up a new one, sanded nearly everything, painted, rebuilt desks, fixed random things, etc. Long story short though, we didn’t make it in the designated time slot. It’s the floor that truly did it. Apparently, when they tried to lay down the laminate flooring, at one point they had to move it again or something, and pick it up, and the concrete beneath it came up. Woops. So they had to remove and redo half the concrete in the room, and (TIA) apparently they put a layer of thin concrete on top of the foundation… I dunno. African construction can be funky.
So after last week’s disaster and the previous African delays in construction, we had to add a couple days of construction.
Luckily, I finally got to work outside (Thank God! I was so tired of crown molding. Thank your lucky stars if you don’t know what that is). So again, we redid the playground–but this time, since our whole group was there all day, instead of half of us for half a day, we redid the WHOLE playground.
“Playground” is truly an interesting word for it. When I first saw it, it didn’t really strike me as “playground,” more like “glorified dump.” There’s one set of free-standing monkey bars, and then about 40 tires semi-strategically buried in the ground to best be used as a “playground.” What’s more, everything was painted (10 years ago, when Amy, the founder of Thrive, and some others put them in) weird pinks and yellows and such. So Monday, it was our job to remove EVERY LAST TIRE from the ground, pile em up, then come up with a new game plan by way of where and how to re-bury the tires.
Strangely enough, working in the dirt and with those old tires renewed my spirit. I’d been SOOOO frustrated with construction inside that building that I didn’t want anything to do with it. So I put my hand to pick-axing the crap outa that hard ground. A few of us started with the hardest part: making a tire-tunnel out of the 2 largest tires, then 2 slightly smaller ones (one on either side), then two slightly smaller ones as the entrances. Despite my blisters and still sore hands, I LOVED it. I finally felt like I was doing something productive AND I got to take out my remaining frustrations on the hard ground. It rocked. Monday and Tuesday we successfully reburied/buried somethin' like 40-50 tires AND someone else painted bout 2/3 of them (which made our tunnel look like a giNORMOUS caterpillar: just added to the cool factor though)(I didn’t paint it though, I strategically avoided ALL painting at Limakatso).
On another note, yes, the rest of Limakatso is more-or-less done being reconstructed. There are only some quick things that need to be done to make sure it’s ready for the chilluns by next Monday. That’s what Sunday’s for. But all-in-all, working at Limakatso has been amazing, especially the time I spent wielding a pick-ax.
Back to the original topic for this soon-to-be long blog…
Today was our first day at the children’s home in Qwa Qwa. Unfortunately, we that have the smaller kids only have today and tomorrow to play with em, but oh well.
The kids here are amazing. A note: as a general rule, Africans are very “touchy.” They like to hold your hand or something of the like. So naturally, the children just want you to hold them or carry them or whatever else they request of you. I spent about a half hour straight today (sometimes literally) tossing around this cute little girl that’s somewhere around 7 years old. It was amazing. I just can’t get over how friendly people are here. Also, I got to kick around a soccer ball for a good long while as well. Soccer is ALWAYS welcome to me. Good thing I’m in Africa.
It’s slightly off topic but I love waving to people as we’re driving. People around here are SO friendly that EVERY time you wave to someone, they smile and wave back. I love being white in South Africa. Also, the kids do this thing where you both do a thumbs up and kinda… flick each other’s thumbs with your own and say “shop” which means something to the effect of “cool.” So also, when I wave, to be extra friendly, when they realize I’m not an Africaaner and they smile and wave back, I give them a thumbs-up to be extra friendly. The extra cool thing about it is that I’m not just being friendly, but I’m helping pull the threads of the social effects of Apartheid away. White and black South Africans don’t necessarily openly dislike each other, but they don’t exactly associate either. South Africa’s got some interesting civil rights movements going. The interesting part though, is that, it’s not necessarily black Africans not having their rights, but white. In some areas, there IS some tension, and it’s generally because some black South Africans are stealing from the whites or something of that sort. Suddenly the white people are being mistreated in many areas. So there are some interesting social barriers to get through here: both races of South Africans need to realize that the other isn’t so terrible. Both races have bad things happening to them because of it.
So concludes my series of random updates/thoughts.
Love from S. Africa!
-Ben
Despite the name of this blog I’m going to start with tellin ya’ll bout Limakatso. Truly, this SHOULD be another blog entitled “EXTREME HOME MAKEOVER- African school version”
The week before last, we started reconstruction on a disabled children’s school called Limakatso. All was well until we started encountering problems (as is usually the case, yes) i.e. bad materials, bad tools aka, reconstruction in Africa. We did well though considering the circumstances; we redid some of the playground, tore down the ceiling inside the building, put up a new one, sanded nearly everything, painted, rebuilt desks, fixed random things, etc. Long story short though, we didn’t make it in the designated time slot. It’s the floor that truly did it. Apparently, when they tried to lay down the laminate flooring, at one point they had to move it again or something, and pick it up, and the concrete beneath it came up. Woops. So they had to remove and redo half the concrete in the room, and (TIA) apparently they put a layer of thin concrete on top of the foundation… I dunno. African construction can be funky.
So after last week’s disaster and the previous African delays in construction, we had to add a couple days of construction.
Luckily, I finally got to work outside (Thank God! I was so tired of crown molding. Thank your lucky stars if you don’t know what that is). So again, we redid the playground–but this time, since our whole group was there all day, instead of half of us for half a day, we redid the WHOLE playground.
“Playground” is truly an interesting word for it. When I first saw it, it didn’t really strike me as “playground,” more like “glorified dump.” There’s one set of free-standing monkey bars, and then about 40 tires semi-strategically buried in the ground to best be used as a “playground.” What’s more, everything was painted (10 years ago, when Amy, the founder of Thrive, and some others put them in) weird pinks and yellows and such. So Monday, it was our job to remove EVERY LAST TIRE from the ground, pile em up, then come up with a new game plan by way of where and how to re-bury the tires.
Strangely enough, working in the dirt and with those old tires renewed my spirit. I’d been SOOOO frustrated with construction inside that building that I didn’t want anything to do with it. So I put my hand to pick-axing the crap outa that hard ground. A few of us started with the hardest part: making a tire-tunnel out of the 2 largest tires, then 2 slightly smaller ones (one on either side), then two slightly smaller ones as the entrances. Despite my blisters and still sore hands, I LOVED it. I finally felt like I was doing something productive AND I got to take out my remaining frustrations on the hard ground. It rocked. Monday and Tuesday we successfully reburied/buried somethin' like 40-50 tires AND someone else painted bout 2/3 of them (which made our tunnel look like a giNORMOUS caterpillar: just added to the cool factor though)(I didn’t paint it though, I strategically avoided ALL painting at Limakatso).
On another note, yes, the rest of Limakatso is more-or-less done being reconstructed. There are only some quick things that need to be done to make sure it’s ready for the chilluns by next Monday. That’s what Sunday’s for. But all-in-all, working at Limakatso has been amazing, especially the time I spent wielding a pick-ax.
Back to the original topic for this soon-to-be long blog…
Today was our first day at the children’s home in Qwa Qwa. Unfortunately, we that have the smaller kids only have today and tomorrow to play with em, but oh well.
The kids here are amazing. A note: as a general rule, Africans are very “touchy.” They like to hold your hand or something of the like. So naturally, the children just want you to hold them or carry them or whatever else they request of you. I spent about a half hour straight today (sometimes literally) tossing around this cute little girl that’s somewhere around 7 years old. It was amazing. I just can’t get over how friendly people are here. Also, I got to kick around a soccer ball for a good long while as well. Soccer is ALWAYS welcome to me. Good thing I’m in Africa.
It’s slightly off topic but I love waving to people as we’re driving. People around here are SO friendly that EVERY time you wave to someone, they smile and wave back. I love being white in South Africa. Also, the kids do this thing where you both do a thumbs up and kinda… flick each other’s thumbs with your own and say “shop” which means something to the effect of “cool.” So also, when I wave, to be extra friendly, when they realize I’m not an Africaaner and they smile and wave back, I give them a thumbs-up to be extra friendly. The extra cool thing about it is that I’m not just being friendly, but I’m helping pull the threads of the social effects of Apartheid away. White and black South Africans don’t necessarily openly dislike each other, but they don’t exactly associate either. South Africa’s got some interesting civil rights movements going. The interesting part though, is that, it’s not necessarily black Africans not having their rights, but white. In some areas, there IS some tension, and it’s generally because some black South Africans are stealing from the whites or something of that sort. Suddenly the white people are being mistreated in many areas. So there are some interesting social barriers to get through here: both races of South Africans need to realize that the other isn’t so terrible. Both races have bad things happening to them because of it.
So concludes my series of random updates/thoughts.
Love from S. Africa!
-Ben
Monday, July 6, 2009
Silly People...
Here’s a little note for ya’ll back home to laugh at.
Just to paint a scene for you, the base here is 2500 acres, we have three mountains that occupy a good chunk of space, but then beyond them, and where the buildings are, there’s a huge open plain that slopes slowly down to the gate and fence at the edge. So all in all a pretty amazing place. And THEN you add in… probably around a thousand African antelope, a hundred wildebeests, 20-30 horses, 8 zebras, and (I think) three ostriches. So naturally, wherever you walk, however far, you see antelope. It’s practically impossible NOT to¬. The only possible way not to would be to either walk in the dark and keep your eyes purely on the ground or be walking from one cabin to your neighboring cabin twenty feet away– although even still, there’re often still animals between. It’s a SUPER amazing place to live– not gonna lie.
So when I heard that there were hunters coming, I laughed. Yes: hunters coming to a place that you can’t swing a stick without hitting some sort of an animal– and more likely than not, the animal you’re hunting.
What’s more, we were told they MIGHT be arriving in a helicopter. Yeah, I know, it gets better and better. Bout half an hour after hearing that, (you guessed it) we heard a helicopter fly over. Oh, and it only gets better: they landed in the small field in front of our cabins. So naturally, I had to take a picture.
When I first saw the helicopter I just started laughing. A helicopter in the field in front of the cabins with an entire field full of antelope in the field in the background. Yup. Good sporty hunters I’m sure…
TIA I guess…
Blessings from Africa
Just to paint a scene for you, the base here is 2500 acres, we have three mountains that occupy a good chunk of space, but then beyond them, and where the buildings are, there’s a huge open plain that slopes slowly down to the gate and fence at the edge. So all in all a pretty amazing place. And THEN you add in… probably around a thousand African antelope, a hundred wildebeests, 20-30 horses, 8 zebras, and (I think) three ostriches. So naturally, wherever you walk, however far, you see antelope. It’s practically impossible NOT to¬. The only possible way not to would be to either walk in the dark and keep your eyes purely on the ground or be walking from one cabin to your neighboring cabin twenty feet away– although even still, there’re often still animals between. It’s a SUPER amazing place to live– not gonna lie.
So when I heard that there were hunters coming, I laughed. Yes: hunters coming to a place that you can’t swing a stick without hitting some sort of an animal– and more likely than not, the animal you’re hunting.
What’s more, we were told they MIGHT be arriving in a helicopter. Yeah, I know, it gets better and better. Bout half an hour after hearing that, (you guessed it) we heard a helicopter fly over. Oh, and it only gets better: they landed in the small field in front of our cabins. So naturally, I had to take a picture.
When I first saw the helicopter I just started laughing. A helicopter in the field in front of the cabins with an entire field full of antelope in the field in the background. Yup. Good sporty hunters I’m sure…
TIA I guess…
Blessings from Africa
Friday, July 3, 2009
God's Oddities
I hope ya’ll have realized by now that I’m an odd blogger. I say I’m gonna blog about S. Africa but I blog about my thoughts about South Africa. And this is probably going to be another like that.
Anyways.
Here’s a thought I’ve been thinking about and loving more and more; God is odd. Simple, yet dripping in truth. Some people here say that God is a god of order, so the issues of fainting in the Spirit are, essentially, unacceptable. I say this because that’s one of the MANY issues brought up because of African church this last Sunday (that was some crazy Church. I love it.). But the fact remains: God is odd.
One time, Jesus spit into the dirt, made mud, then rubbed it on a blind dude’s eyes so he could see. How does that fit into a god of order’s repertoire? Plus there’s the ever popular platypus discussion and also, the African version of that: the wildebeest. God seemed to make a mistake with the wildebeest. For all ya’ll who haven’t seen em, wildebeest look like small buffalo with a few differences. First, the legs: their legs are probably no bigger than the average small deer, yet they’re still long enough to suit an animal that size. Also, the run: they seem to try to fit in with the African antelope around em and do that kind of jumping gallop thing. So imagine a small buffalo with a funny lookin face and super spindly legs trying to jump-gallop like a deer does. It REALLY doesn’t work. I think they’re gonna break a leg every time they run. It’s SOO weird. Stampeding wildebeests are hilarious. Anyways, so that’s the African version of God’s mistake: the platypus.
I highlight this because of an odd experience tonight. Or rather, the culmination of small experiences that came to a virtual conclusion today.
So as you may have picked up from my blog on darkness (woohoo! Just realized the computer’s pickin up internet in the cabin again. Score.), I foolishly came to Africa without a flashlight. Actually I take that back, I accidentally brought one of those shake flashlights with me that I only half remembered was slightly broken before I even left. So anyways, when walking in the darkness back to the cabin at night, alone as I like to do, I’ve been in complete, or nearly complete, darkness. It’s actually been an interesting experience walking in the dark. I’ve come to love, yet deeply fear the darkness. Walking in Africa is, naturally, different than walking in the states: different animals, different sounds, different feeling. It can be amazingly beautiful walking at night: the stars and moon are ALWAYS beautiful, listening to any birds that might be calling is always fun, and even the silhouettes of animals are beautiful. Although, HEARING a wildebeest or lechwe in the dark where you can’t see is NOT fun. You never know when you might come down the hill and to the clearing and accidentally get in the way of a wildebeest: not fun. Or perhaps even you’ll just end up on the wrong side of the wrong horse: it’s very possible. But still. All together, it makes for interesting experiences in the dark. It’s beautiful yet frightening. I love it, yet sometimes want to avoid it as much as possible.
This in mind, I’ve been working on getting past the scary and just focusing on the beautiful, and it’s taken a while, but I think I’m pretty muchly there. At least as close to “there” as I’ll get. I still stumble down the hill occasionally when I trip on a rock or some loose gravel I can’t actually see. Which brings me to the point of this odd blog: God’s oddity in His blessing.
Tonight, a lady from a group that’s here from a church called the River needed to access her email and the general access computer wasn’t working, and I wasn’t using my computer so, of course I gave it to her for a bit. Long story short, she was feeling quite blessed by all of us interns, especially me apparently because of some simple internet access, and we were talking about our shortcut down through the trees and onto a nearby road to get down and how I’ve been traversing that crazy trek in the dark… and she’s suddenly like, “hey, I think I have two flashlights here, and you’ve blessed me so much today, I’d love to bless you too.” So now I have a flashlight. Not only so, but I overcame my fear of African darkness, found extreme beauty in it, and now can combine it all with safe travel. Plus it’s a sweetly awesome flashlight. It’s one of those super tiny, yet super bright LED flashlights with a million LED’s crammed into a tiny flashlight.
So here’s to God’s odd, AMAZING blessings! I love that God’s not a god of order, but God of EVERYTHING in EVERY way.
Anyways.
Here’s a thought I’ve been thinking about and loving more and more; God is odd. Simple, yet dripping in truth. Some people here say that God is a god of order, so the issues of fainting in the Spirit are, essentially, unacceptable. I say this because that’s one of the MANY issues brought up because of African church this last Sunday (that was some crazy Church. I love it.). But the fact remains: God is odd.
One time, Jesus spit into the dirt, made mud, then rubbed it on a blind dude’s eyes so he could see. How does that fit into a god of order’s repertoire? Plus there’s the ever popular platypus discussion and also, the African version of that: the wildebeest. God seemed to make a mistake with the wildebeest. For all ya’ll who haven’t seen em, wildebeest look like small buffalo with a few differences. First, the legs: their legs are probably no bigger than the average small deer, yet they’re still long enough to suit an animal that size. Also, the run: they seem to try to fit in with the African antelope around em and do that kind of jumping gallop thing. So imagine a small buffalo with a funny lookin face and super spindly legs trying to jump-gallop like a deer does. It REALLY doesn’t work. I think they’re gonna break a leg every time they run. It’s SOO weird. Stampeding wildebeests are hilarious. Anyways, so that’s the African version of God’s mistake: the platypus.
I highlight this because of an odd experience tonight. Or rather, the culmination of small experiences that came to a virtual conclusion today.
So as you may have picked up from my blog on darkness (woohoo! Just realized the computer’s pickin up internet in the cabin again. Score.), I foolishly came to Africa without a flashlight. Actually I take that back, I accidentally brought one of those shake flashlights with me that I only half remembered was slightly broken before I even left. So anyways, when walking in the darkness back to the cabin at night, alone as I like to do, I’ve been in complete, or nearly complete, darkness. It’s actually been an interesting experience walking in the dark. I’ve come to love, yet deeply fear the darkness. Walking in Africa is, naturally, different than walking in the states: different animals, different sounds, different feeling. It can be amazingly beautiful walking at night: the stars and moon are ALWAYS beautiful, listening to any birds that might be calling is always fun, and even the silhouettes of animals are beautiful. Although, HEARING a wildebeest or lechwe in the dark where you can’t see is NOT fun. You never know when you might come down the hill and to the clearing and accidentally get in the way of a wildebeest: not fun. Or perhaps even you’ll just end up on the wrong side of the wrong horse: it’s very possible. But still. All together, it makes for interesting experiences in the dark. It’s beautiful yet frightening. I love it, yet sometimes want to avoid it as much as possible.
This in mind, I’ve been working on getting past the scary and just focusing on the beautiful, and it’s taken a while, but I think I’m pretty muchly there. At least as close to “there” as I’ll get. I still stumble down the hill occasionally when I trip on a rock or some loose gravel I can’t actually see. Which brings me to the point of this odd blog: God’s oddity in His blessing.
Tonight, a lady from a group that’s here from a church called the River needed to access her email and the general access computer wasn’t working, and I wasn’t using my computer so, of course I gave it to her for a bit. Long story short, she was feeling quite blessed by all of us interns, especially me apparently because of some simple internet access, and we were talking about our shortcut down through the trees and onto a nearby road to get down and how I’ve been traversing that crazy trek in the dark… and she’s suddenly like, “hey, I think I have two flashlights here, and you’ve blessed me so much today, I’d love to bless you too.” So now I have a flashlight. Not only so, but I overcame my fear of African darkness, found extreme beauty in it, and now can combine it all with safe travel. Plus it’s a sweetly awesome flashlight. It’s one of those super tiny, yet super bright LED flashlights with a million LED’s crammed into a tiny flashlight.
So here’s to God’s odd, AMAZING blessings! I love that God’s not a god of order, but God of EVERYTHING in EVERY way.
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