The Wandering Three Gets Bit by Lions

Back in Zonkizizwe, we held a meeting for the guardians of the children at the centre. 7 of them showed up and we told them all about the activities we’ve been doing at the centre and they shared with us their comments and suggestions and all expressed their gratitude for the effect the centre has had on the children’s lives. After that we spent the weekend with Malibongwe and his family and went to an amazing devotional with the Swaziland National Baha’I Choir. They had come down to Johannesburg to record an album and we enjoyed listening to their beautiful singing all evening! The following day Malibongwe took us to the Cradle of Humankind where some of the earliest hominid fossils were discovered and we went on a tour of the caves where they were found. Afterwards we went to a lion park where you could pet and play with lion cubs. I don’t know about you but when I think of lion cubs I picture cute little baby lions…however, these lions were BIG and were very active. It was a little bit scary. Naveed and Telia both got pounced on and bit multiple times and Naveed’s shirt has seen better days. They would look so cute and be sitting there but when we’d approach for a picture they’d leap up on us and try to bite us…all playfully of course. Let’s just say this would NOT be allowed in North America as it’s several million dollar lawsuits waiting to happen!
Back in Zonkizizwe again, Telia repainted the main VVOCF sign. 2 minutes after she finished the rain started pouring down so we covered it with pieces of tin, soccer jerseys and plastic bags and it survived and is now beautiful again. We had a culture day with the kids by Telia on China and they all really enjoyed it and they all remembered so many things that we had taught them about Kenya the week before. They are very eager to learn about the world and other countries and cultures.

Love,
The Wandering Three

The Wandering Three on Safari

We set out on our journey to Kruger National Park in a rented Chevy Spark (google it, it’s a pretty funny looking car) with Naveed having a crash course in driving standard, on the left side of the road, sitting on the right side of the car.  Let’s just say we all have whiplash… We got lost several times until we finally found the right highway to Kruger and got there.  We entered the park with an hour until our rest camp gate would close for the night.  We were informed by the park ranger, “You will not stop if you see any animals. Proceed to the rest camp directly”.  Yeah right…30 seconds later….screeeech ELEPHANTS!!  In the following hour that it took to drive to our rest camp we saw a hippo cross the road in front of us, a rhino, 4 elephants, many impalas and 6 giraffes; in each case we definitely stopped and took pictures for extended amounts of time. We arrived at Skukuza Rest Camp and checked in to our little safari tent and went straight to bed to sounds of the bush.  The next morning we got up at 4:30am and hit the road.  Pretty much we drove for 12 hours straight, on paved and dirt roads, around Kruger and saw so many animals all over the park.  Often it was just us and the animals; we didn’t see many other cars.  We were very close to them and at one point got scared and had to back away from one particularly large elephant that came walking quickly towards us.  That night we went on a guided night safari tour.  Everyone has to be inside the camps by 6:30 so this is the only way you can be out after sunset.  It was nice to be out and listening to the sounds at night, however we only saw impalas and rhinos, no lions L and were smothered by a sea of termites for the 3 hour tour.  The next morning we got up at 5am and slowly made our way out of Kruger and saw many more animals including a leopard in a tree which was amazing!  We left the park satisfied.  Here follows the final safari animal count as recorded by Telia:

14 elephants

1000+ impalas

10 rhinos

80 zebras and one almost-3-legged-zebra

41 giraffes

89 baboons

9 hippos

67 wildebeest

8 hyenas

97 buffalo

23 warthogs (Pumba!)

14 springboks

21 camel/deer/moose thingies that we don’t know the name of

10 monkeys

1 crazy lizard

4 turtles

1 lion

2 spotted pygmy owls

1 snake

1 mongoose

1 rabbit

2 carcasses

7 vultures

2 crocodiles

1 leopard

8 giant snails

10 meerkats

We then drove down to Durban through Swaziland.  At Swazi immigration the lady held up a form and asked us for it.  We said we didn’t have that form, and she waved us through anyways.  In Durban we stayed at a psychedelic and surprisingly awesome hippie backpackers lodge.  It was raining the first day unfortunately but our next day was beautiful and we enjoyed the sun and warm Indian Ocean.  The last day of our trip was spent driving back to Johannesburg and visiting the Apartheid Museum.  Throughout our trip Naveed would often curse the crazy South African drivers (such as people passing people who are passing someone else on a hill in the rain around a corner…) When we reached Durban the hot news story was about corruption in the driving schools and how just anyone can get a driver’s license.  Shame. 

Love,

The Wandering Three

... South African driving school...

Beach time in Durban

Beautiful Kruger

Zebras

Big elephant crossing the road

Illegally out of the car again

Humphrey the hippo

Mommy monkey and baby

Fighting impalas

Mommy elephant and little one

Rhino

Pumba

Just some giraffes crossing the road...

Zebra

Baboons

Hyena

Warner Beach in Durban

Naveed and Telia and their new friend

Illegally out of the car.. Tee hee!

Scary buffalo!

Crazy horned antelope-type-thingy

SNOW LIKE AMERIKA!

The Wandering Two has temporarily expanded into the Wandering Three.  Telia is here and already we have had some crazy times!  We went back to Victoria for a week to visit family and arrived back in South Africa on the same day as Telia.  We all brought bags full of things for the centre, now that we know more what they need here.  We brought back Halloween candy and clothes for the children (thank you family and friends for donating things!).  Wednesday we handed out candy and divided the clothing up for the children who needed it most.  The children sang and danced for Telia.  That night, we had found a spider behind Telia’s suitcase, I tried to kill it (miserably according to the girls…) long story short the spider ran away and that was that…or was it…?  Olivia and I were on our way outside to brush our teeth and I told Telia “HAHA I bet the spider’s in your suitcase!” While outside we suddenly heard Telia’s anxious screaming, “SPIDER IN MY BAG! SPIDER IN MY BAG!!” I ran back and there was the second largest spider I’ve ever seen in real life with my own eyes in the wild.  This spider, as you can see below, was huge and furry and was very active and running around Telia’s bag.  Honestly I was too scared to put my hand in that bag and procrastinated by documenting the giant spider via photo shoot while Telia checked her pants for the spider’s family as she had just put them on from the same bag.  By that time, Olivia had come back to see us just standing there taking pictures of the spider and yelled at us for not killing it.  I tried to kill the spider with the broom but the spider ran out of Telia’s suitcase and into Olivia’s backpack.  I took the backpack outside and dumped the contents of the bag onto the ground.  Throughout this whole process the three of us were screaming and yelling a lot as you can imagine, at no point did anyone come to see what was the matter except for Nomusa’s daughter who peeked her head out of the door, saw us yelling and jumping around a pile of things on the ground and immediately went back inside and closed the door.  Anyways, we found and killed the spider.  Adventure one with Telia complete.

Adventure two: global warming comes to Zonkizizwe.  It’s been raining a lot more recently, since Telia has arrived…I don’t know…the rains have been biblical.  You can see angry black clouds like a curtain of evil coming in the distance and suddenly the warm sun becomes the most insane downpour and half an hour later the sun is back and half an hour later the rain and clouds come again...  This makes drying our laundry a challenge.  It has been hanging in our room as a result of the rainstorms for the past two days and I’m pretty sure it’s as wet as it was when we first hung it.  The most recent storm today consisted of about half an hour of steady hail the size of gumballs.  We were watching from inside and the noise of the hail on the tin roof was deafening, so of course we decided to go outside and run around.  Afterwards the centre yard was a river and most of the garden was underwater; the part that wasn’t looked like it was riddled with bullet holes.  After the hail/rain stopped the kids ran outside yelling “SNOW LIKE AMERIKA!” and attempted to build a snowman out of pellets of hail.  Let me remind you that it is apparently summer here now… Adventure two complete.

In between our adventures we have been here at the centre doing activities with the kids.  Today was our first Culture Day and one of the staff had suggested we do it on Kenya, so we did.  We had a map of the world and a few pictures of people, cities and landmarks in Kenya to show the children as well as some basic facts about the country.  We also learned an important lesson about respecting other cultures and their differences.  The kids enjoyed it a lot and suggested many other countries they would like to learn about on future Culture Days. 

Our next adventure will be a safari in Kruger National Park followed by a few days in Durban on the beach; hopefully the hail doesn’t follow us there.

Love,

The Wandering Three

Aftermath of the storm

The Wandering Three

Culture/geography lesson

Sorting through all the donated clothes

Singing and dancing to welcome Telia

Naveed handing out candy to the children

SPIDER IN MY BAG!!!

Rainbow after the storm

Boys and their new toy cars

Laundry hanging in our room for two days

Hail falling from the sky: Yes, this happened in Africa...

Telia in hail: Is this actually happening on my trip to South Africa?!

Us in hail

Hail balls on ground: SNOW LIKE AMERIKA!!