We are officially living in South Africa! Two weeks ago, we loaded up 2 moving vans full of LOTS of personal and business items and off 150 of us went in convoy 1.5 hours north of Durban to our new home in Appelsbosch. It is such a small town that people in the bigger towns around it don’t know where it is! However, the province (Kwa-Zulu Natal) is gorgeous, and it really is a blessing to be able to watch the sun set in brilliant reds and golds between hills and to be able to see the stars shine brightly at night.
We are living in an old university campus that has been shut down for 11 years. There are communal bathrooms in each dorm, we all eat in a giant dining room, we buy treats at our little tuck shop, and the wireless is in the big communal amphitheater, so we see everyone there too! Basically, as a community we are doing everything together all the time. We live in a hallway with a few of the families (including 2 of my students!), and it is fun to be able to interact with people I don’t normally interact with on the ship, but I am getting closer than I ever imagined possible with some of my students – you can’t help it when they’re brushing their teeth next to you in the morning and see you heading to the shower at night! Living like this is a bit difficult (especially since the children go to bed earlier than we do, and everything echoes very loudly in the dorms, so we have to be quiet after 8pm or so), but it could always be worse, and we are thankful to be living next door to the Farrells – it makes borrowing things from them so much easier :)
I now have a very large classroom! The walls seem very bare even though I have put up far more things than I ever would on the ship simply because my classroom there has very little wall space. My students are loving the fact that we have different areas in the room for different things, which gives them a bit of a chance to move around and separate things in their mind a bit. All of the children are coming in with bruises and scrapes from the amount of time they spend playing outside – I swear, they are running from the moment they wake up until the minute they fall in bed! It truly is wonderful to see them enjoying themselves so much, even if they do end up with the occasional tick or two that must be removed. Though the great outdoors doesn’t excite me quite as much, I am very much enjoying having fresh milk to drink at each meal :)
At the moment the phones are still being installed (though rumor has it there will only be 6 phone lines) so the best way to get in touch with us is via our blog or email. Though we can’t check it very regularly (both of us have limited internet access at work, and the wireless just barely stretches to our dorm room so we can’t always get it there either), we will do our best to keep in contact with everyone.
This past weekend I took the opportunity to go to Durban for church and a day out. It was a really nice day getting to know a bit more about life in South Africa. It is so different than West Africa! And yet, many elements are the same. You still get bombarded by 8 or 9 people who want to sell you sunglasses if you merely glance in their direction, but they don’t really appreciate it when you try and barter with them – Ben and I learned that the hard way! Though we only explored a bit of the beach of Durban, it was nice to be out of the countryside even if just for a few hours.
Yesterday was quite an exciting day here at Appelsbosch as we celebrated the wedding of two of our crew members! Alex is from the UK and Sharon is from the US (sound familiar….?), so they decided to hold a small intimate wedding here in South Africa. Many, many hours of hard work was put in by many crew members to make a very special day for both of them. It was a lovely wedding and a great day of bonding for our community. Samuel was a groomsman and enjoyed applying his expertise from our own wedding into this one :) Congratulations, Mr. & Mrs. Williams!! :)
I hope everything is going well back at home – we’d love to hear from you guys! We feel a bit disconnected from the rest of the world here, so please feel free to send us a note anytime!
Amy
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