Home-ish.

We are back in the northern hemisphere! A few days ago, we crossed the Prime Meridian, and yesterday morning about 8.30 we crossed the equator. It doesn't feel any different, there's still just water, water, everywhere...but there is something comforting about being in the same hemisphere as your family :)

Mad Dash through Cape Town.

A week ago, February 10, the Africa Mercy set sail (finally!) from the port of Durban. It was a bittersweet farewell, but also filled with excitement as we were then approaching Cape Town. Seals greeted us on the way in, which was cool to see and yet frustrating as we could never catch them on camera! The crew was allowed 24 hours of shore leave (18, actually, if you take away the time we were required to be on board that night), and we were determined to make the most of every minute.

Sunday afternoon, when we were allowed off, Samuel, Ben, Miriam, Steph, and I immediately headed into town to pick up our rental car. From there, we drove to Boulder's Beach, a penguin colony. While we did not actually go onto the beach, we were entertained by several penguins hanging out in the parking lot and along the side of the board walk. This had been one of my main Cape Town goals, so I was very excited to see the penguins!




From there we headed to Cape Point and drove around the opposite side of the peninsula back to the waterfront. The views were spectacular and more than worth the trip!





The evening was spent having a relaxing dinner and ice cream with friends at the V & A Waterfront, where we were docked. The place very much reminds me of Navy Pier - restaurants, shopping, theaters, even a Ferris Wheel! We were berthed very close to the center of it all, which was great for us as our last taste of civilization before we sailed for Sierra Leone. There was plenty to do at the waterfront alone, and if we ever go back to Cape Town (I'm already planning it!), I think we will spend a significant amount more time just at the waterfront alone.



Monday morning was our final opportunity to explore (we even got a day off school for the occasion - except we have to teach on Saturday to make up for it!), and we took the time to go to the famous Table Mountain. Samuel hiked up with 7 of our friends, while Natalie and I rode the cable car and waited for them at the top. It sounded like a pretty tough by rewarding hike, and I know that I thoroughly enjoyed soaking in the view while we were waiting! Even if I did get burnt to a crisp :) It was a great morning and a fun way to end our time there. We were even able to easily pick out the ship docked at the waterfront!







We sailed from Cape Town on Monday evening, and are now well on our way to Freetown, Sierra Leone. The seas have been fairly calm though some storms are expected. Please pray for our safety and general well-being (specifically rest if the seas get tough - generally that means several sleepless nights in a row) over the next week.

Family Time.

The end of January already. The month flew by unbelievably quick, mostly due to the fact that time flies when you're having fun! And fun was certainly had.

On January 3, we headed up 3 hours north to the town of St. Lucia in the wetlands. We stayed in a quaint little house for 7 nights with Samuel's parents, his sister Amy, and the Farrell family (Samuel's sister Sarah and her family, who live with us on the ship). It was a time filled of laughter, games, and braais, and was extremely relaxing. While there, we celebrated Christmas as a family (just a week or so late...), complete with a delicious Christmas dinner of chicken, roast potatoes, and even yorkshire pudding and mince pies. It rained a lot, but that didn't stop us from taking walks along the beach or through the wetland park (yes, even amongst the signs that said "Beware of Leopard, Elephant, Rhino, etc" or just into the town.

While there, we took advantage of some of the more touristy activities that most people from Appelsbosch had already done. This included a safari through Hluhluwe National Park, where we saw 4 of the big 5!! The leopards, unfortunately, eluded us. The lion sighting was probably the most exciting for me. We had been to the lion park, but seeing them in the wild (and clearly watching something that they were intending to hunt) was incredible. Other animals included lots of zebra, wildebeest, various types of deer and antelope, buffalo, rhino (also very cool!), warthogs, and baboons. I was sad, however, that we only managed to see the top half of a giraffe in the distance and the backsides of 2 elephants as the walked away from us.


The most we managed to see of an elephant...


I promise those are lions!


Buffalo


Herd of wildebeest

Samuel, Amy, and I also spent an afternoon at a cat sanctuary in the area. We learned about several different types of cats (African wild cats, cervals, something else I can't remember, and cheetahs) and watched a feeding. Those cervals can jump extremely high!! As an added bonus, we were allowed into the cheetah cage during the feedings, and as long as we did not make any loud noises or run for any reason, we were permitted to touch them :)





In St. Lucia, a Hippo and Croc cruise is a must. Hippos are very prominent in the area; in fact, it was told to us that occasionally hippos have been seen walking through the town at night! We saw lots and lots of hippos in the water, and also managed to catch sight of a bunch of them walking down a bank straight into the river! That was extremely cool, seeing hippos lumbering around out of the water. We also learned some interesting facts - hippos can't swim very well, so when they get out too deep they just sink to the bottom and walk out! Who knew? :)



Our last day in St. Lucia was spent driving through the wetland park to the beach. We saw lots of animals, including rhino, zebra, kudu, springbok, and even a "penguin lizard" :) We vainly searched for an elephant, as that area is known as the Elephant Coast, but to no avail.




From St. Lucia we drove to Ballito, a town on the Dolphin Coast that we have frequented as it is only about an hour from Appelsbosch. We had a lovely big house to stay in and took advantage of our week there to spend some time at the beach! My dad arrived during this week - it was so great to see him! We took him to the World Cup Stadium in Durban to ride the Skycar for a view of Durban, as well as a stadium tour. I hadn't done the Skycar yet and was glad for the excuse to do so! We also went to the Sharks Board and saw a dissection of a great white shark, and did a game drive at Tala Game Reserve. The drive there was fabulous - the driver would literally just drive right up to the animals, regardless of where the road went! I finally saw a giraffe up close (so close, in fact, that we couldn't see his head from inside the safari car) and even got our picture with it. He drove closer to the rhinos than we had been before. And, of course, there were plenty of zebra, wildebeest, deer, and antelope :)






It was an absolutely lovely vacation, and like all good things, it went by entirely too fast. It was great to see family and spend time together, showing them what our life at Appelsbosch is like.

Now we are back to work - Samuel is going to the ship every day doing Sales work, and I have been teaching for over a week now. A bit challenging with all our supplies on the ship, but we teachers have been managing so far :) If all goes well, we will be living back onboard by Monday - pray that we are able to make a smooth transition!

Christmas Vacay.

Apparently time keeps ticking even when we wish it would slow down....

The week before Christmas, Samuel and I both took some time off to visit places around where we live that we hadn't had a chance to go to yet. So we grabbed some friends, rented a car, and off we went!

Our first stop was the PheZulu Village, where we visited traditional Zulu huts and saw a dancing presentation of an engagement/marriage ceremony, learning about tribal customs.



Next we returned to the Midlands for some candle dipping and chocolate shopping, as well as a trip to the Natal Lion Park, where we touched elephants and hung out in a cage with lions!





We also took a trip to Crocodile Creek....unbeknownst to us, it is actually a meat and skin farm, which kind of took the fun out of the trip. However, we saw baby crocodiles being hatched (Miriam even hatched one!) and a feeding of the adult crocodiles, and ate some smoked crocodile to top off the day.

There were other fun things sprinkled in there, like McDonald's breakfasts, mini golf, movies, eating at our favorite spots, and Christmas shopping.

Christmas came and went. We had a lovely Greek Christmas Eve dinner here at Appelsbosch, complete with carols and candles and with eggnog and baklava for dessert. Christmas day we opened presents with the Farrells, Miriam, Tim, and Steph (our close friends that were here for Christmas) before heading off to the ship for some community time. We had a yummy brunch of pastries and fruit, a short Christmas service, and a large Christmas braai of beef, sausage, and fish - not your typical Christmas food, but good all the same. We spent the evening with friends, reminiscing about Christmas traditions in our home countries.

Now we are preparing for the next leg of our vacation. Samuel's family arrives today, and on Monday we are all off on a 2-week vacation which will include a safari game drive, a hippo boat tour, and lots of quality family time. At the end of those two weeks, my dad is coming for 5 days as well! We are quite excited by all of this and will probably be out of contact the entire time....so,

Happy 2011!! We hope you have a safe and blessed time celebrating with family - we know we will!!

Love,

The Slennetts

Christmas time is here.

Our first married Christmas!! :)

Has it really been over a month since our last post? First it seemed like there was nothing new to post about, then life was crazy busy and there was no time! But, school is now out for Christmas break and so I finally have the time to look back and see the things that have happened over the past month. Unfortunately, I've realized that I was too busy to remember to bring my camera most places, so I've had to rely on pictures from other people.

So. Where to begin?

School. On Thanksgiving we had our monthly spirit day, this time it was Holiday Day - dress as any holiday! We had some pretty creative costumes, from baby Emma being Cupid for Valentine's Day to Miss Angie wearing a box decorated with leaves for Arbor Day. I went traditional and dressed as an Indian for Thanksgiving - Mr. Calvert and Mr. Farrell went as pilgrims to complete the theme.



The next two weeks were extremely crazy busy. We were wrapping up units, taking tests, and quickly trying to fit in Christmas activities even though it was only the first week of December. Miss Angie and I took the kids to the ScienCenter and McDonald's for a field trip, and we had an Academy Sports Day as well, complete with a gymnastics demonstration - I was quite impressed. It was great to see them show what they've been learning outside of my classroom.


Photo by Carol Tanzola

The last week of school was dedicated to the school play, The Fear Not Factor. The children attended dancing, singing, and acting workshops, as well as participated in a backstage crew such as sets, costumes, or media. The little ones got a bit of a break by doing an activity with me each morning. On Friday night, the students performed the musical, and they did an amazing job. They were so cute! The finale was performed in sign language, with the high schoolers wearing all black with white gloves that were highlighted by black lights. The elementary school joined them half way through. It was incredible.




Saturday was spent packing up the whole Academy into a container to be loaded onto the ship in January. After two days of meetings this week, school is officially over until January 17! And it is a wonderful feeling :)

Galley. Samuel's cooking team has expanded greatly lately, letting him work with some friends, which has made his job much more enjoyable for him. They spend a lot of time together, both during work hours and on their off days. It's been great to see him so happy in his job :) He has also been doing a lot of work lately to officially take over the Sales Manager position in January. He will be in charge of ordering things for the Ship Shop and Snack Bar/Cafe - something I am very excited about!

Community. Things in general have been lively lately. We had a wonderful Thanksgiving meal prepared by our galley staff (Samuel happened to be working that day, his team did a fantastic job!) and decorated by one of our chaplains. It was a very intimate dinner with the crew and was a good time.

It is technically summer here (though the weather doesn't seem to be aware of that), but that hasn't stopped us from our normal Christmasy activities! There have been a Christmas craft night, cookie decorating (I'm still not sure why a fellow teacher and I agreed to bake cookies for the whole crew and organize crew cookie decorating in the middle of Academy Play/Report Card week, but looking back it was worth it though it drove me absolutely crazy at the time), and Christmas tree decorating complete with homemade eggnog and fudge (I admit, I did little to no decorating and mainly focused on consuming the eggnog). Next week we're making gingerbread houses and having a special Christmas eve dinner. It hardly seems like it could be Christmas time already, but I am glad to be celebrating with my Mercy Ships family.

The Rock.

One of the most exciting things for me when we came to South Africa was the prospect of finding a church with which to get connected. We have attended church in West Africa several times, but many times it's long services (3 hours is normal) in unbearable heat, and usually one of the group is asked to get up and speak. It's also usually in another language.

Here in Durban, however, we knew it'd be easier to get connected with a church. And we were right. For some time now, we have been regularly attending a church in Umhlanga called The Rock. The first weekend in October, we were in Umhlanga looking for another church when we passed The Rock at 9:56, and it was advertising a 10am service. Deciding that we probably wouldn't find the other church in 4 minutes, we decided to take a chance and stop. As it turned out, it was The Rock's first ever 10am service, and the people were extremely welcoming and friendly. We have been going there pretty much every week and it is fun to get to know some of the people and to have them interested in us and our ministry. They are a very worship-based and Bible-based church, which I absolutely love. They also have a passion for seeking the lost and showing God's love to the undesirable people in their community - a lot like us! I really look forward to church there every Sunday and always leave feeling spiritually renewed.

I am just so thankful that God has blessed us with a church home during this time! To the people of The Rock - you are a true blessing!

Marine World.

On Friday the elementary school took a field trip to the uShaka Marine World in Durban. We had a guided tour of the aquarium, learning about different fish and sharks as well as seeing the dolphin show. We ended the day by spending some time playing on Africa's largest jungle gym! As our students rarely have anything to actually play on (in West Africa they have some flat dock space, and here they have the Amphitheater, but no actual play structures), they enjoyed running around and climbing in and out of the different tubes. The whole thing was shipwreck themed, complete with a giant sand pit and a pirate treasure cave in which the kids played hide and seek. There was also a Lego building section. Needless to say, it was obvious they all enjoyed the playground much more than the aquarium :) All in all, it was a fun (albeit exhausting!) day for both kids and adults.