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| 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.
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| Feeding a baby goat |
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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 5th 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 6th grade.
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| 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)
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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
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
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