Goodbyes

Goodbye hugs from the Road Trippers...here's me with Melanie. (Or, "Tall Melanie"...to differentiate from Melanie with the Long Hair.) We got to have a cool mentoring chat on the last day of the Road Trip. =)

More Pilanesberg

I can't content myself with just one post. More pictures from our game drive!

We got yelled at a few times when park rangers (or whatever they call them at game parks) found us hanging out the windows...

















The Road Trippers...and Mairin

















If we've told you once, we've told you a thousand times: stay in your car...and no, you cannot ride the zebra.

















I had fun hanging out with the Stewart kids this afternoon. Here we have some wildlife inside the car--Iain is giving himself bunny ears.
























Road Trip, anyone?

A Rhino and Zebra Day

Today I tagged along with the Road Trippers on a game drive through Pilanesberg, a local game reserve. By the end of the day, we'd seen our fill of rhinos and zebra. You know you've gotten a little spoiled when you think, "Oh, it's just another rhino and its baby...where are the lions and elephants?!" Our day at Pilanesberg ended fabulously with a bunch of elephants seen right up close. Going through these pictures just now made me realize again how amazing it is to be here!

Celebration Dinner

Friday night, we had a dinner for our Road Trippers to celebrate the past two weeks they've spent with us. Daleen made her famed bobotie, a Malay dish beloved by all.

Dishing up the bobotie






















Sarah and Melanie

















The apprentices

Dancing at Granny's

Soccer and Bunny Chow

This afternoon, we hung out at the park and played soccer with a bunch of street guys who park cars near the mall. Melissa has worked with these guys a lot over the past couple years, and they know all the NieuCommunities cars. When we drive the couple blocks down to the mall and nearby grocery store, these guys will often chat with us, saying "You stay at Pangani!"


















After the soccer game, we had a meal together: bunny chow. No, it's not rabbit food, neither is it made of rabbit meat. Bunny chow is curry (in this case, chicken) inside 1/3 of a loaf of bread. Here's Jo-An and Carissa chowing down. Ha.


















And here are the Kabongo kids: Mosky with her baby sister Bahati.

Compass and Potter's House

On Monday, we spent the morning at Kwalata, a local game reserve, where we did a little orienteering in the bush. Armed with just a couple of compasses, we navigated our way around, collecting neon green disks and eventually finding our way back to camp. My team rocked the compass and made it back to camp way ahead of the other team. Here we have Bryan and Benny manning the compass.























Monday evening, we took the road trippers to Potter's House for dinner with the women and kids there. As always, much fun was had by all. Here's Melanie with a crowd of kids playing with her hair, and Jody looking a bit surprised.

Feast of the Clowns

This morning a bunch of us headed to downtown Pretoria to attend a carnival put on by the Tshwane Leadership Foundation, the parent organization of Potter's House. We had a lot of fun on this march through the city...I got pulled along by one of the women from Potter's House and drafted into handing out flyers to onlookers.

Road Tripping

We have eleven people from America visiting here for the next couple weeks on a "Road Trip." Today I joined them for part of their first visit to Soshanguve. One of the places we went this morning was a day care center, where we had fun hanging out with the kids (who, as usual, greeted us with shouts of "makua!" = "white people!").


















Sign outside the day care center


















Connie entertains the kids with bubbles























Katie plays with a very smiley little girl

More Dancing

Here are a couple pictures of me with Emily, stolen from Carissa's camera!

Dancing at Granny's

We took the Road Trippers to visit Granny's family for dinner and a bit of African culture. They taught us a couple of traditional dances...and then there was just plain dancing!

Global Awareness Experience

(Or, Carissa and Daleen pretend to be homeless.)



More here.

News Cafe

Dinner in Hatfield with the Road Trippers & other friends...


Melissa, me, Sarah, Tessa, and Grace. Our friends Tessa (from Holland) and Grace (from Uganda) are university students in Pretoria.


Doing "The Carissa"...Carissa and Eric demonstrate Carissa's arm exercise which doubles as dance move.