Impromtu Camping Trip

When I came to Africa I was expecting to learn about culture, what I’ve realized is that I have learned more about myself than anything. What I learned this past weekend is that me being here in South Africa is not about how many trips I took, or all the different things I did, (although it is a large part) it is about just taking the time to do small things.  Go take a walk on the beach, try a new restaurant, do something new, or go on an impromptu camping trip.  This is what I did this last weekend. 

 Now this trip has been planned for a few weeks now, and was a girl’s trip, so in my big girl voice I told Jeremy “no boys allowed” and that he was just going to have to suck it up and stay at home for the weekend. Turns out instead of the 5 of us GIRLS going, there was going to be 3 co-ed cars…so much for my girl’s weekend.  At the last minute my ride decided he wasn’t going to go because of the weather, weather schmeather, he had a bad hangover…we’re all friends…call a spade a spade.

            After an hour of calling different people, and going back and forth between whether to go on this almost cancelled trip I got a spot in the boys’ car and was headed out to Sardinia Bay…3 hours after I thought we were originally leaving. After travelling 30 minutes in the wrong direction we turned around as it started to rain…normally I’m a good sport about rain…I love a good storm, although there are no thunderstorms here, (to  my great dismay) but we had tents…so rain was not a good thing, especially without any rain tarps for our tents.  After an hour of backtracking, eating a few cookies to raise our morale, and driving through fog, we all agreed this was the start of a wicked trip and good story (which you’re now reading).  We finally reached our destination in quite a drizzle and the man at the front gate told us we had 40 minutes to decide whether we were going to camp or not, because at 7 he was leaving and we’d be stuck in the camp grounds.  The 9 of us (6 girls 3 boys) all voted and said we’d stick it out, renting a house spot and a tent spot, we were all going to sleep in the house, but the guy wouldn’t cut us a break so we had to rent a tent spot to pretend that we were following the rules. Psh…



Our cute little cabin



The girls continued cooking on the campfire which was hilarious because we were under a tree, and the wind was picking up with the rain, so they were all huddled under blankets with the tree shaking large amounts of water on both the food and them.  James, Dominic and I decided to find our house so we could put our stuff away, when we asked for directions the man at the gate gestured to an upside down map telling us to veer left and it was right there, pointing to approximately half the page in his hands.  After more grunting and obvious disapproval of us we left to go attempt to find the house on our own. 

After 15 houses of going up to the front porch to check with no luck, we found another grove of houses…once inside the grove I noticed James and Dominic were running towards me faster than the roadrunner…in a split second I heard why…the angry growl of a hungry dog, I’m fairly sure for the next twenty seconds I would have outrun an Olympic runner, I’ve never been more scared for my life, I dodged around a wall and prayed that the dog was a leash, I heard no blood curdling screams, and so we left that grove and found our house shortly thereafter. I have since crossed off being a house burglar for my career; I rather like my legs too much to run the risk of being a dog’s chew toy.

By that time it was close to pouring rain and we transferred everything into our little cabin house, and started cooking in this rinky-dink oven.  We had a great dinner, and had a fantastic time just talking and bonding; I love the friends I’ve made down here.  Now there were only four beds in the house, 3 twin beds in one room, and a queen in another, the 6 of us girls took to the twins, and the 3 boys had the queen, two of them shared it and one slept on the floor, I shared a bed with my gorgeous friend Sabine and us girls all cracked up and told stories till late.



Pretty aint it?



That morning we woke up and had a breakfast of buns, cheese, bananas, apples, and the vegetables from the night before...which weren’t very good. Afterwards we wanted to go paddle boating, or as the Danish girls call it, boat cycling. Except there was one problem…Dominic’s car wouldn’t start, we ended up pushing the car down the hill, narrowly missing another vehicle and discovered that due to his locking system his car was throwing a fit, we got it to start after repeatedly locking and unlocking his car.  His car’s name is fabulous…more like bipolar hag-ulous.  However the boating was great, only 15 rand for an hour (that’s like 2 dollars), and two of the girls went for a swim in this alcove.  The ocean was nearby and there were 15 foot waves, it was crazy.

All in all I had a fantastic and crazy night, but I was quite happy and content to come home to Jeremy and have a hot shower, not to mention use a towel that wasn’t used to wipe the dirt off everyone else’s feet, and who knows what else. 

Who knew I’d have that crazy of a weekend? …then again…this IS Africa… J

Aj

 PS. Tomorrow I leave for Namibia for a week!! Gahh, can't wait!

Oh, and I have an interview the week after with the Camp Adventure people for a job placement after Africa!! Keep your fingers crossed, and pray that nobody dies by a lion attack on our game tours!

Glitter List Cont.

16. learn to play guitar (well)
17. take a glass blowing class
18. go to universal studios
19. read the entire Bible
20. go shark cage diving

Our frontier farm trip

 

Me and my DOUBLE STUF oreos...heaven.



First off, a shout out to my parents, who were awesome and sent Jeremy and I a care package...within was some life savers, such as makeup as it is wicked expensive here, and oreos, along with great things like permanent markers, normal markers, and 64 box of CRAYONS. I have the best parents in the world. THANK YOU MOM AND DAD!!

So this past weekend we had a Frontier Farm Trip. At first glance, I was like, are you serious?  But then I looked at everything we were going to do…milk a cow, see sheep being sheared, climb a waterfall, feed an elin, climb a small hill mountain, and go on a night game drive. Jeremy and I were in.  That, and our program paid for it.

Feeding a baby goat



Jer and the Elin



It’s a three hour drive there, but because of the need to stop and pee and feed our 27 faces it took us five hours, luckily I had just rented a new book, Artemis Fowl (the series is quite good for just fun quick fiction) so the drive went rather quickly. That and if I’m in a car I’m out like baby. When we arrived Marnus and Winnie greeted us and welcomed us in for lunch (which was at 3 pm).  After lunch we took a tour of the farm and helped to castrate sheep, luckily it was a just a rubber band that you put around them and then another on their tail so it doesn’t get long, and it doesn’t hurt them.  Otherwise the animal person inside of me would have died a little. Everyone was running around to pick up these little cute lambs…unfortunately the sheep were crazy and running everywhere…and then one pregnant one had a heart attack and died.  I felt so bad.  Afterwards we got to feed an Elin which is like a wild deer/gazelle/elk African Animal, it was cool.



Christian, Joey, and Inge on the mountain :-)



 Dinner that night was served at 930…PM. at one part they brought over this bowl of things for us to try, and said they were tripe and trotters.  Nice nickname for sheep stomach, and intestines…I didn’t try it at first, but then Momma Winnie scolded me so I tried some…shame runs deep in my veins.  It was horrible and disgusting, but as she said, now I can say “been there, done that, bought the t-shirt”.  8 of us girls stayed at Winnie’s house and the other 18 went over to the other farm.  We had a great chat that night with Winnie, who was simply fantastic.

 

On the mountain top!



The next day we climbed up a small mountain and had simply fantastic views, we also took turns shooting a gun, Jeremy hit dead center, I think I came in like 5^th place, which is still pretty good.  I was pretty proud of my marksman, and I think he was proud of himself, he never shows off, so I think it was a nice moment for him. That night we went on a game drive, and the sky was beautiful. It was if someone took diamonds and placed them on black silk, The stars were luminous and I saw scorpio and a few others, I was pretty proud of myself for remembering star constellations from 6^th grade.

 

Me and a baby lamb!!



The next day we left, but that morning I had a good chat with Winnie who was a no-nonsense type of woman, I realized how lucky I am to have so many women of God in my life.  Each woman that I respect has an aspect to them that I aspire to, and want to reflect in my life.  My friend James said something this weekend that hits home “no matter who you are, or where you are, you can always learn something from someone, and if you always look for the something you can learn, you will always get somewhere”. I think that’s a good way to live.  So if you are a woman in my life, thank you for your influence, (I think a blog post for the women I love is in need some day)



Good coffee and rusks...yum!



I also realized how much I love good coffee with rusks. Rusks are like dried bread that you dip into your coffee and eat, and coffee with enough milk and sugar tastes good…I’m excited about this newfound interest, I’ll have to try to make coffee again, more on my coffee mishaps in another blog post I suppose.



THEY CALL IT THE JAIL...
I CALL IT THE WATER STRAIT FROM HELL



Let me preface this next bit that I have big fears.  Yes they are irrational, probably dumb, and my teacher made fun of people who are afraid of it, but it’s there none the less.  The dark, and water.  Yes I was a lifeguard, but nothing scares me more than the water, or darkness, let alone water I can’t touch the bottom, or see the bottom of. They took us on a hike to a waterfall, and the water fall was across a ravine that we had to swim through.  Now this water…what’s a good word for it…was FLIPPING FREEZING COLD.  As in, you can’t feel your body; you start to shut down for hypothermia. C. O. L. D. I’ve had a bad experience with going into hypothermia when I was getting my lifeguard certification, so I remember the pain…and let’s just say that when we stepped in that water, and consequently slipped on the mossy rocks submerging our bodies much faster than we were willing, we were not shouting kid-appropriate phrases.  Jeremy was a rockstar and dove into the water first and swam across, about a block in length to the first rock cropping.  Eventually after a few other people swam across, I felt the need to prove that I was sexy and in charge and that Jeremy could be proud of me…that and a few other girls had already gone, and I didn’t want to be a lame dork, so James I decided to go together and jumped in to start swimming.  That swim is in the top 10 worst experiences of my life…my lungs were fighting to even expand because they wanted to contract, and my arms were shaking and tensing up, but I kept swimming and made it to the other side.



The waterfall...pretty cool



 The waterfall was pretty cool, and I was able to go into a cave behind it, just so I can now say…I swam through freezing cold water that I couldn’t touch or see the bottom, and went into a cave behind a waterfall, and I did it. (Can’t tell I’m proud of myself can you?)  We dried off and got into our little safari vehicles and made it back home safely, but it was by far one of the best weekends I’ve had here in Africa yet. 



Kelsey and I on the 5 hour drive



I loved our house family and I also bonded with a girl named Kelsey.  We’ve been having girl’s nights lately, PB&J sandwiches, dessert, and a movie, and we’ve really clicked. It’s nice to have a girl that I can just talk to who gets me, she’s as much of a nerd as I am with books and movies and so we just have a blast together.  She lives in Tulsa, Ok, and Denver, Co.  Which is awesome, because Ellen my beautiful best friend from home that I miss lives in Tulsa, and my sister in law Robyn lives in Denver, so I’ll be able to see Kelsey after our Africa adventure is over.  Sometimes God provides you with friends for a season, but I have a feeling that Kelsey is a life friend. 

God is good,

Aj

Glitter List Cont.

11. adopt a dog

12. adopt a kid

13. climb a mountain

14. learn to surf

15. do a missions trip

Chocolate, Glitter, Joy, and Breadsticks

LOTS of Glitter

So I love  chocolate.  It's true. I love girly things. I love being filled with God's joy.  I am a girly girl. I love tattoos.  I love Christ and his never ending grace and delight in me.  I love pageants, dressing up in long gorgeous gowns, and glitter. Lots of glitter.

I love my gorgeous hunk of a husband who loves God, and is strong in heart and the smartest person I know. I love my brother and my cousin Court who is my sister in all but blood. 

My best friend Kelsey and I

 I love breadsticks with garlic butter sauce with my best friend Kelsey. I love  sitting and curling up on my couch to watch my favorite shows.  I LOVE breakfast food, any type, even eggs, although I love  the memory of them because if I eat them, I won't be loving anything but the look of the toilet bowl for the rest of the day. 

Papa John's Breadsticks...yum

I love dancing and singing, I love dancing around my room to pop songs singing in my hair brush trying to do my makeup. I love reading with a glass of hot chocolate with those mini marshmallows. I love  sunsets and sunrises but love my sleep too much most days to wake up when the sun does.

I love cupcakes. It's true.

I love meeting new people, I love baking, I love eating frosting out the container, especially with my finger.  I love earrings even though I can't wear them, and cute sundresses.  I love shoe window shopping, and cupcakes. 



I love volunteering.  I love helping other people, and smiling and being an encouragement. I love just laying in bed with my husband chatting about our day and life.  I love making my golden list at the end of each day, I love being able to thank God for all the amazing things that fill my life and bring joy to my heart.  I love that people actually read this blog and that I'm not speaking into the air.

The view from our road trip in Plettenburg Bay

I love girl's nights, I love  dessert, and I love hanging out and chatting, I love the diversity here in Africa, and the diverse amount of friends I have and all that I can learn from them.  I love buying new nail polish and painting my nails. I love all my bracelets, I love all my tattoos, I can't wait to get more of both. I love african hairstyles, I love the smell of hair dye, I love indoor plumbing, and electricity that you don't have to prepay. I love 50 cent chocolate bars, I love flea markets and great deals. I love being a chosen daughter of God. I love my life.

I love traveling, and being able to see people's stories, and finding new gorgeous views. I love the adventure in life God has given me and the people and places I get to go.

Just thought I'd share. I feel very blessed, and wanted to share the things I love.
Aj
Glitter List Cont.
6.Go in a hot air balloon ride
*7. get a tattoo
*8. pierce my nose
9. write a book
*10.get married

A little bit of everything

When I came here I was expecting culture everywhere, surprisingly it is not really true. It's more like a small American town.  I created a small list of what I did this weekend and things I've noticed.

1. Everything smells like a bbq, which is great if you eat meat, if you don't I assume it'd be temptation and frustration all of the time. However it is amazing, I love it.  There is usually a bbq a few times a week called a Braai that you can go to and cook meat, or vegetables or whatever you would like.

2. Directions are like being in a small town.  Yesterday Inge (a lovely girl from Holland, pure dutch, so I'm learning some dutch), Jeremy and I wanted to go to a flea market, Inge had directions, to go up this road and it was right there. It wasn't, we asked 10 different people, including store owners, policemen, and such, and after walking two miles up hill, through some cold wind, and a couple random turns, we found out that the market was cancelled. So we made up for not being able to check out this huge market by buying chocolate fudge cookie milkshakes...it was awesome.

3. There is always something to do.  It is quite quiet here as well though, so it may just be chilling in the sun, or relaxing inside with a book.  I've been taking Afrikaans which is the language they speak down here, and so I'm getting better at reading bits of the newspaper, I found out about a market that was going on Saturday so Jeremy and I had a date morning and went.  These kids set up stalls and sold items that they created, from picture frames, fish in a bottle, cupcakes...lots of cupcakes (don't worry we each ate our fair share) and one stall even sold button rings.  It was a fun cool morning that I really enjoyed.

4. Church here is AWESOME.  We go to Livewire, which is a lot like BASIC back at home, and it is just amazing, the worship the speakers, God is moving down here in South Africa, not only in my life, but in the people here.  It's fantastic and I can't wait to see what happens next.

In other news I've been prepping for some new trips, we are planning another trip to Plettenburg Bay to go to monkey land, and kayak with dolphins, going to a south african farm next weekend to see daily life, a 9 day adventure through South Africa and part of Namibia for Spring Break, and a 4 day trip to cape town in November.  We are going to stay busy. Soon we will be back in the states and Jeremy will be off to Basic training and I will be doing something or another.  Right now I'm applying for two different programs, a Teach English in Georgia (the country) , and a camp adventure program, which is like summer camp except in the spring on a military base in another country.  So, we'll see, it is hard to be up in the air about the future, but I know God has something planned for me, not to mention all the girls trips I have planned in the states with my mom and going down to Florida to hang out with my sis Court and my aunt.
Life is good,
I hope you have a stellar day,
Aj

A little inside look to what the Hubby thinks :-)

Happy Three Year anniversary to my stud muffin of a husband! Three years ago today Jeremy asked me to be his girl, and we’ve been connected at the hip ever since.  I am so blessed to have my partner in crime (not literally, no worries anyone) here with me, and I enjoy being able to share the ups and downs of this journey and everything that comes along with it to him.  To give you insight into what he’s been thinking lately I thought it fit to put in his article that he writes in the blog today.  Jeremy received a scholarship for Africa, and to have it, he had to have a project; the project he chose was to write an article about once or twice a month for the Sioux City Journal in Iowa.  He is a great writer and has inspired me in so many ways.  I hope you enjoy his article about life here in South Africa as much I do!

Love and God bless,

Aj

 Jeremy's Article

Every night here in Port Elizabeth I am reminded of a scene from one of my favorite childhood movies, 101 Dalmatians.  It’s the scene where Pongo and Perdy are discussing how to find their lost pups.

Pongo: There’s only one option left, The Twilight Bark.

Perdy:  The Twilight Bark?  But Pongo that’s only a gossip chain.

If the Twilight Bark is a gossip chain, then the dogs of Port Elizabeth must have a lot to talk about.  I’m positive that if these dogs had Facebook, they would be updating their statuses every hour on the hour.  The majority of homes in our neighborhood have dogs, and all of them start barking at every moving object once the sun goes down.  I notice that there’s no middle sized dogs either; families either have massive German Shepards or tiny little Daschunds.  The small ones seem to have a serious case of small-dog syndrome because they bark even more viciously than the big ones.

The dogs are not just pets, but security as well.  South Africa has an incredibly high crime rate, particularly of break-ins and home robberies.  One tour guide told us that some criminals found a way around the guard dogs.  They would cover themselves with leopard droppings before jumping over the fence, and the dog would hide without hesitation.  Hey, if I smelled a leopard, I would probably do the same!  One of the housing communities for international students is called Annie’s Cove.  It’s not where I live, but probably a 5 minute drive away.  Annie’s Cove has no guard dogs, and has experienced a rash of break-ins since the beginning of the school year.  The last one had three houses broken into in one night, but the last house was home to an older student who had been a US Marine sniper in Fallujah.  When he woke up to see 2 guys trying to take his briefcase, he leapt out of bed and chased them in his boxers back over the walls with a kitchen knife.  Hopefully that will make them think twice before trying again.

We’ve had no such trouble in our house, and in all honestly the neighborhood is very safe.  It’s only the high concentration of international students, with the expensive electronics each brings, that makes Annie’s Cove a target.  We’ve managed to stay busy with school and volunteer opportunities, with time for travelling on the weekends.  Our last trip was to Plettenburg Bay, a vacation town a few hours away from PE.  My wife and I were able to visit two wildlife areas; the Knysna Elephant and Tenikwa Big Cat Sanctuaries.  In South Africa, wildlife areas come in one of three types.  The big game reserves and national parks like Addo Elephant Reserve and the massive Kruger Reserve in northern South Africa are meant to be large tracts of full wilderness for animals to live protected, and largely left alone.  Other than a few safari lodges on the edges, you won’t want to spend much time sightseeing in these unless you’re Survivorman.  The second type would be rehabilitation centers designed to put animals back into the wild.  You can probably take a tour, but only trained staff will be handling the animals and teaching them how to act and survive in the wild.  The third type is the sanctuaries.  These are usually for animals orphaned by poaching or raised by people.  There’s no intention of putting them back in the wild, so the animals live care-free lives fed and cared for by humans.  The sanctuaries’ missions are education and outreach so that visitors will have a better appreciation for the animals in South Africa. 

            At the Knysna Elephant Park, we were given baskets of fruit and vegetables to feed the ellies (everything has a nickname in South Africa).  We’d hold out a piece of orange, which is their favorite, and the ellies would snag it with their trunks.  After feeding them, we would walk around with the massive animals to pet them or take pictures.  The elephants at the sanctuary surprised me; from watching nature shows and National Geographic, I’d always assumed elephants were gentle giants that liked nothing better than to play and frolic in their big clumsy way.  That wasn’t the case at all, I felt like more of an annoyance than anything, and when an ellie wants to move, we got out of the way fast.  In all honestly it was a little unsettling being around them, and every time one moved near me I was reminded of all the horror stories of elephants charging and killing their trainers or bystanders.  I think at heart the elephants were probably thinking what every New Yorker thinks at some point; “you dumb tourists”.

The Tenikwa Big Cat Sanctuary was oddly more relaxing than the elephants, even though the cheetahs were more likely to eat me than the ellies.  We took a tour of the camp by walking through the cages of the smaller cats.  When I watched a leopard eating his supper of chicken breasts I got a good look at his teeth, and I can now understand why a guard dog would cower at the smell of it.  The final treat of the day was taking the cheetahs for their evening walk.  Each of us got a cheetah in a harness and went on a walk along side it with a handler.  Except when you’re holding the fastest land animal on earth, it’s more like the cheetah is walking you.  There were lots of good opportunities for pictures, and I, as I expected, got in trouble for trying to play too rough with the cheetahs.  But hey, someday I’ll tell my kids I almost put a full-grown cheetah in a headlock, and it was awesome.