The past couple of days

Good morning! I am an early riser in Africa, this is so bizarre...it's Sunday, my day to sleep in, and I woke up at 7:15 and couldn't go back to sleep. Anyways... the past few days:

Tuesday night I slept good again, but woke up in the middle of the night to a crazy thunderstorm. I'm so thankful I got to see one because since it's getting into winter here they assumed I may not - but no, this storm was huge, loud and powerful, and Ah-maze-ing! I watched it for about an hour before going back to bed.

Wednesday was an easy day of work as we just worked the morning. We are clearing way for a game fence to be put up along the path of where an old barbwire fence stood, meaning we are in the bush all day. Have I mentioned yet that EVERYTHING in Africa has thorns, no matter how pretty or nice it looks at first. I come home completely covered in blackjacks, these long needles, and we also run into these type of bushes daily - I guess it's a defense mechanism so that animals won't eat them? Yeah, those feel good when you run into them.

I also don't know if I've mentioned, but in Africa it's completely legal to ride in the back of the truck -- meaning I'm often up there holding on and on the conservation, it's beautiful because you can listen to your ipod and gaze around at all the animals. It's almost like off roading because you're in a beat up old truck and the roads aren't that good, so I'd say it's quite fun. However, driving down the highway going 120km is a little different...you hang on and keep your head down for that one haha.

Wed afternoons we go into Pretoria to get essentials and go shopping. The Pretoria mall is bigger and more modern than any mall I've been too - except West Ed. I was walking around for hours trying to find some authentic South African shops, but it was so westernized - Diesel, Roxy, etc....I didn't want to purchase that kind of stuff so I went for a grocery shop. That was authentic! Not knowing what any of the aisles say was interesting, but I found what I needed. Their alcohol is right in the grocery store and I can get Two Oceans and Tall Horse Sauvigan Blanc or Chardonnay for $2.89 US! It was so exciting!

Unfortunately I got some bad news from the camp at Venda. They can't take any volunteers during the 8 days that I'm available. However, I spoke directly with Nyawira again and also with Mary (who volunteers here, but was up there for 8 weeks prior) and they have both responded that there are absolutely NO books there. No childrens books whatsoever. I've seen tons and tons of bookstores here, soooo, I'm delighted to say Wednesday I will be purchasing as many books as possible and dropping them off at Zote's head office. I will ask Nyawira to send confirmation once they've been received in Venda (she's also married to the Head Chief there) and we will know that together, we've all made a HUGE difference! Mary describes the school there as being about 300 students in primary school. She says they have little or no running water/electricity, etc. and has told me stories like in January, when the school year starts, each child gets 2 pens and 2 pencils and that has to do them for the entire year (I think I will purchase some pens to send up there as well). She says that the spirit of the children are amazing and she was very excited to hear I was going to be sending books up there. She even wanted me to dictate that they should go to her old class that she was teaching !! I will take pictures of all the books too...more to come on that...

Wednesday night we drove out to a restaurant/pub in Pretoria called Rafters and I got a bit of a taste of South Africa at night. It was this wonderful pub with a huge patio and fire outside, lanterns everywhere, the bar was right up at the door where you ordered drinks and the waiters were all very talented and quick at pouring drinks. I drank Heinekeins for 15Rand or $1.50 US! They also had kareoke in the back. Kind of random, we did not sing, that is for sure.

Thursday morning was more of the same type of work, but in the afternoon we had to go down to the Beef Cor, pick up slabs of meat, load them into the truck and take them out to the "Vulture Restaurant" on the conservation. I've heard of this, but had no idea what was in store. It was disgusting...I thought there may actually be a little shack up there or a big birdhouse or something (yes I'm blonde), but no - it's flat rocks where we dump the meat. Here's the nice pictures:

Also, on the way to the Beef Cor we saw this woman - we've seen so many, but they never cease to amaze me as to what they can carry -- their necks must be ridiculous.

We had an awesome homecooked meal Thursday night and lots of laughs so that was good.

That's all I'll include for this blog post. A couple more to come! Love and miss you all!