iNingizimu Afrika week 3!!

It’s been a crazy week this past week in the country of South Africa.  I have already failed on writing in this blog once a week but I am trying.  I just seem to never find time for it.  This last weekend we went through Umzinto, which is a town about an hour and a half away from our campus.  This was a town in which there were absolutely no white people and we were able to walk around for a couple of hours and go to shops and talk to some people.  The feel of the town was very different from what I was used to for example security guards with shotguns over their shoulders, power going completely out when we were in the back of a store, and an extreme crowdedness.  There were people everywhere.  I loved this experience and the chance to actually go out and talk with people and be in a market.  After this we drove to the beach and I had my first experience seeing the Indian Ocean.  The water wasn’t as warm as I thought it was going to be which was kind of a disappointment, it was about the same temperature as at a California beach, but it was so rough and there were a lot of currents.  It felt so good to swim in the water though and I can now say I have swum in 3 of the 4 oceans, now just the Arctic awaits! It was an awesome day and we finished it off by having a barbeque on the beach and playing soccer with some of the Indian people there.  Sunday was a little bit of a damper to everyone’s spirits because in church there was an elderly man who collapsed during the service and ended up passing away. It was a hard thing to see and all our prayers are going out to his family.  This week has been filled with homework and projects and I actually am feeling a little more like I am in school now.  But every weekend that feeling goes away as we get to go out and explore this great country.  This weekend we are going to be hiking in the Drakensburg Mountains, which are amazing. So that is pretty much what has been happening in the last week and I can’t wait for all the other adventures we are going to have as I just signed up this week for a Rugby game, water park, zip lining, bungee jumping, and caving!

Week 2

Sanibonani! So I have now been in South Africa for about two weeks and I am still falling more in love with the country every day.  This is a place that is so incredible the way that people make you feel, the warmth the hospitality and the love is incredible.  Especially when I think about how not to many years ago this country was torn apart by apartheid.   This morning Michael Cassidy, who is the founder of African Enterprise, came and spoke to us about the events leading up to the election in 1994.  The way that God worked in this country is absolutely unbelievable to me.  The way that he told the story and how South Africa was on the brink of complete civil war but miraculously had peaceful elections just some 10 days after the peak of violence is amazing.  This really is an incredible place to learn and to grow as a person. We are starting to visit the service sites in which we will volunteer for a month at and I am so excited for when we get to actually engage with the people of the country on a deeper level.  As for now classes are in full swing and to be honest they are not that difficult compared to semesters in the past, but I don’t have any problem with this.  Learning Zulu is a little tough but it is such a unique and interesting challenge.  We have only 4 weeks left of school after this week, which is pretty crazy to think about.  But I think we still have some classes here and there after the core 6 weeks.  It’s hard to believe that I have only been here for two weeks, it feels like so much has happened. This weekend we also went on a hike that required us to climb up a waterfall and then wade upstream to the next waterfall where we climbed up an almost vertical hill to get tho the top of that waterfall. It was probably one of the coolest hikes I have ever been on and I have the cuts and probably soon to be scars to prove it.  Also I came to realize on Sunday morning that all my money was gone out of my wallet. I guess that is just part of staying in new places and not being very careful with my money. So now I have the best hiding place in the world.  My first two weeks in South Africa have been a whirlwind of adventure and I only hope that my stay here will continue to help me grow in so many ways.  Salani kahle