Pretoria

Goeie aand vriende en familie!!!!!! (Good Afternoon friends and family!)

At the moment, I am sitting at my host family’s house in Pretoria. The ladies name is Elaine, and she has 2 sons, Marius and Justin. It’s been a wild experience so far. This whole week has been really good. But let me not jump ahead….. I’ll start at the beginning. (Or at least where the blog left off)
After HeronBridge Collage, we drove to Pretoria, went to church (which was entirely in Afrikaanse), and then got sent off with our host families!
On Monday, we went to Unisa (University of SA) and we had a lecture about Afrikaanse, took a drive around downtown Pretoria by the Kruger monument. ~(and everyone waved at us) Then we went to the "Voortrekker Monument" (the Great Trek Monument) and the "Klapperkop Fort". There are 4 forts that surround the Great trek monument, and that was one of them. Tuesday, we listened to a speaker named Willy, who talked about reconciliation in Africa. He was part of the peace keeping 'army' until 3 years ago. He took us the 'diamond hill battle field', and brought along some real guns from that time period. We also went to the University of Pretoria and listened to a guy named Pete. He was part of the TRC (Truth and Reconciliation Commition) which is a group of people chosen by Mendela to listen to peoples storyies of the Apartheid and then help them. It was about conflict resolution. He told us lots of stories. And then we went to the "Sammy Marks Museum" with Willy. Sammy had a metal business, and was important in that time period...but I didn't really catch a lot, because I was more interested in the piano that was about 120yrs old. (that I got to play!!!!)
Wednesday, was the first service day of South Africa! We went to a house, owned by the church hosting us, which is located in the poorer area of town. The house allows people to get out of their own house and be part of a community and learn how to do things like cooking, sewing, child care... etc. So we sorted books, painted and did gardening too. After that, we went to "Bethlehem Town" which is an extremely poor area, (like... ‘homeless’) and they set up a community. There’s no electricity, since it would cost 250000 rands to SET IT UP… not to keep it running. (Approx 36,000$) The houses are about the size of garden sheds in Canada. But they live in community and learn to get back up on their feet.
Thursday has been the best day yet! (In my opinion) We had to be at the church for 5:00 to drive to the train station and catch ‘the gospel train’. There is more than one train, but basically there is church held on the train. People go crazy, with singing and drumming on the sides on the train. And everyone is crammed tightly in the train too. Actually, it was so tight, that some people would hang off the sides, or out the doors, or be standing in between the coaches of the train. Then we went to a ‘drumming workshop’ where we learned to play the djambe. SO MUCH FUN! And we went to the ‘parliament buildings too. The gardens we gorgeous! And now you’re caught up.
In short…. Lessons, exploring, thousands of pictures, lots of bonding, drumming, site seeing, and new friends/family’s. Especially the last one. I know that I’ve had a blast with my ‘family’, and from other peoples stories, they have too.
Now, in the words of Laura Bernier…. That is all!

Djambe Lessons

Klapperkop Fort

Laura's and my host family

Diamond Hill Battlefield

Girls at Union Hall

Written By: Megan Hitchon

This is the wild life experience of SA! The moth was at least the size of a small bird. I don't know how it fit in Joseph's hand! Video taped by Megan Hitchon!

South Africa!!!!!!!

Hello to all our friends and family back home!

After five weeks away from eachother, our Outtatown family has finally been re-united! The flying and travelling time was definetely a great time to test our patience with eachother as were were thrown right into hours of travelling, limited sleep, and jetlag. Nonetheless, we made it to South Africa without anyone getting strangled where we met up with Matt(who had a slightly shorter plane ride...) and Steve Plett. We went straight from the airport to Heronbridge College and Retreat Center which we will be leaving tomorrow to go to Pretoria. In Pretoria, we will go to church and meet the families that we will be staying with for our Afrikaner homestay.

Heronbridge has been a great time to re-connect as a group and have a lot of fun together, as well as get some more serious things done such as an African orientation meeting. This was a great place to start off our second semester as we got lots of time to hang out in small groups and individually, reflect on Christmas break, enjoy the beautiful African landscape and architecture(and weather), and catch up on some sleep.

We have also met some of our South African partners; it was great to meet them and have the chance to get to know them. One of the activities that we did with some of them was playing rugby. I am sure that the South African people who were playing with us and those who were watching us across the river got a good laugh out of it, but it was a great time to experience one of South Africa's popular sports.

We have already experienced a lot of blessings from God and I just want to share a few:
~a safe arrival in South Africa
~Steve and Sandy were able to see Holly because of a mistake in their plane tickets
~flying in an A380 (just ask Raf about that one...)
~the leaders receiving seats beside some of the only vacant seats on the plane which gave them a much more comfortable and relaxing flight
~a beautiful place to rest and reconnect

As we venture into second semester please pray for continued rest(for students and especially leaders), continued safety, and a good homestay.

And if you want to share in our first experience with South African wild-life, please watch the video we uploaded :) Some of us found this experience pretty comical!

Oh, and we are hoping that those of you who are living in the lovely winter weather are surviving :)

By Nadine Frei

Bus ride to HeronBridge

Waiting for flight to Johannesburg, South Africa!