Five days left – still catching up.

Wow, where to start? It’s been a while. And yep, the excuse, as ever is things have been crazy busy!

I suppose the most chronologically logical place to start is with Holiday Bible Club – Week Two. Our second week of HBC was at Nseleni Baptist Church. The layout and format was much the same – we used the same stories and verses, which made things a lot easier, though we all had more to do as there were less of us. We had probably less kids on average the second week, though 50-70 kids for 4-5 leaders is still a pretty good number! Even on the rainy day (zulus don’t go out in the rain) kids came in dribs and drabs and we ended up with about 50 of them!

At the weekend after we were treated to a trip to Durban. Bex and Naomi have been back in their holidays, helping with HBC and other things, and with them and Gavin and Elaine we travelled to meet Ben to visit uShaka Waterpark and Aquarium.

We watched the dolphins and perused the aquarium which was staged in an old shipwreck. There were huge eels, tiny eels, rays, sharks, jellyfish and an octopus which seemed to be trying to tell us something; but perhaps foolishly, we ignored it.

After that, we went out for lunch, collected our odds and ends, and as Gavin and Elaine travelled back, the rest of us stayed to watch the Argentina-Germany game at the fan park. Germans are pretty noisy winners!

The week which followed should have felt less busy, but it didn’t really. Although we had no ‘programme’ to follow as has been the case with our school weeks and HBCs, we visited Entoweni most days to spend time with the kids while Naomi taught maths. On tuesday Milly, Naomi, Rebekah and Gavin went to Oribi Gorge for a spot of gorge swinging (bungee jumping).

Gavin wisely abstained, meanwhile Lyds and I were left to relax on a beach in Richards Bay in the morning, followed by running Sunday School in the afternoon. Number for Sunday School have been much depleted in recent weeks due to the school holidays, so we’ve resorted to telling a Jungle Dr story, having a quiz, singing songs, and playing  few games. Tomorrow (our last one!!) ought to be a little larger, as school has re-started.

As well as visiting Entoweni and Eniwe throughout the week, we were also treated (if that’s your thing) to a couple of Sokkie dancing lessons by Glen. Sokkie dancing is traditional Afrikaans dancing, generally accompanied by painfully cheesy or bizarre Afrikaans songs which are occasionally formed from cannibalized overseas hits. It was a good laugh, though I was characteristically awful, and the girls definitely enjoyed it. Maybe it’s something to YouTube!

The dawning of our last weekend in South Africa was announced with a 4:30 wake up in order to catch the early risers at the game reserve! We saw lots of animals, and also had the best breakfast I’ve had for a significantly long time! Bacon, eggs and sausages – mmm! There were also mushrooms but we won’t talk about those.

The animals possibly even more interesting than breakfast! Okay, definitely. And that’s saying something! We didn’t see a lion in the end (awww) but we did see a Rhino with an unbelievably long horn, lots of Warthogs, Impala and Wildebeast, and even two Elephants!! Have a look at these…

But yeah, it was brilliant. And such a lovely day to top it off. Another BIG thank you to Gavin and Elaine.

It’s crazy to think we’ll be leaving all this in five days. Certainly the girls seem more emotional about it than me, and are already planning to spend the rest of their lives here, but that’ not to say we’re not all going to miss it about as much! It’s so odd to think that all the people and places I know here are going to be so far out of touching distance – it’s not like I can just drive down for a visit. It’s definitely been an experience (and a good one) living with different people doing something completely different for 6 months – I think I’ll notice it more when I’m at home again. It’s funny how your habits and mannerisms and stuff change – for example it’s going to be weird drinking water from the tap, not out of the fridge at home – little things like that, but it’s going to be odd without them.

It’s also exciting to be going home. However completely un-homesick I’ve been for most of the last six months, there’s been a lot I’ve missed. It’ll be good to see everyone again, to be part of my church, even just to wear the familiar old clothes and laugh at the Sockman sitting in the town centre. I think it’ll take a fair bit of reflection to get my head around everything that’s happened in the past year. Do I want to live here, do this forever? I honestly don’t know. That’s for God to tell me in the future I suppose! But for now, I am gonna miss it.

I will endeavour to squeeze out another video before we leave – no promises though! Haha.

Hope you’re all well, and we’ll see you soon!

Lewis

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