Monday, September 3
We spent the day after the Ironman race, Monday, 9-3-18, volunteering with the Ironman Foundation again at Eastern Province Child & Youth Care Centre. Altogether, about 25 of us rode a bus to the centre, where we were met by the wonderful staff members. After a few of the small children sang us a beautiful song, we were educated on the mission of the centre. They currently have 104 children of all races between the ages of 4 and 18, and they provide residential care and schooling with the aim of producing productive citizens for the South African community. Because the children live at the centre, they have age- and gender-specific cottages on the property to take care of their needs. Our mission for the day was to help repaint one of the cottages.
We broke into groups of four and were led to different rooms in the cottage by one of the employees. Our leader was Sonya and she was spunky! She showed us to one of the bedrooms and explained the painting process — the walls would be a light gray and the trim, doors, closet doors, and window sill would be a dark gray. They had everything prepped for us, so we were able to meet the other two people in our group — Peta and Jan — and get started painting right away.
Chris pretty much took care of the wall painting, while us girls handled the trim and doors. I grabbed the small roller and went to work on the closet doors (which took up most of one wall). I was also able to accomplish the main door, too! It was quite humid there, so about three coats of paint were needed on all of the surfaces. We painted for hours, and it was amazing what the four of us were able to accomplish!
As a reward for all of our hard work, we were able to visit some of the children in their classrooms! They were prepared to share some of their work with us. Chris and I found our way to TJ’s desk, and he was a cute little guy. I think he was about 10. He proudly went through three of his class workbooks, showing us the things he had written and drawn. It was very impressive! He spoke very good English, and shyly asked us a few questions along the way. He was very excited to hear Chris had done the Ironman! I let him down a bit when I admitted that I, in fact, had NOT. Ha! The thing that touched me the most was how serious these children were about school. They were very lucky to have the opportunities provided by the school, and they were taking full advantage that.
This whole experience was out of my comfort zone, on many levels. As I mentioned, I’ve never been drawn to children; I am also not drawn to manual labor! The entire day was so perfect though, and filled my heart with a joy I haven’t felt in a long time. I loved the time with the children, and the manual labor turned out to be quite fun with our little group! I am so, so grateful that our original Sabbatical plan fell into place. God put me right where I needed to be!When we got back from our amazing day of volunteering, we went out on the pier for a bit before stopping for more groceries and more sushi at Ocean Basket! We were sad to see QLefty leave, to head back to the US! The remainder of our days there would be without him.
Tuesday, September 4
We woke up on Tuesday with the monkeys trying to get into our room! Luckily our door was locked, because they could easily have moved the lever door handle to get in! Those little suckers! I flung open the blinds and there were about 5 of them there by the door, jumping at the handle! After they "got caught", they came to our window and were very curious this day for some reason.
Beyond that, we had a very relaxing day! We drove about 45 minutes to Jeffrey's Bay, which is a lazy little surf village where championship surf competitions are held. The waves there were amazing!!! I've never seen any like them, rolling constantly into huge tubes. We enjoyed the beach for awhile and then had lunch at an adorable cafe called the Tasty Table. We loved it there! On the way back, we stopped in Maitlands to see the huge sand dunes and the surf there, then had dinner at Barnacles in Seaview...it was a really fantastic day!
Wednesday, September 5
Wednesday was our safari day! We had planned to drive about an hour and a half away to a very large safari with elephants, etc...but QLefty let us know that there were two smaller safaris nearby. We decided to try these out first, and go to the big one if we still felt like we needed to. The two small ones were definitely enough! Kragga Kamma was a place where you drive through in your own car and basically see whatever you see. They had giraffes and rhinos and zebras, along with a bunch of other animals. We didn't see a lot of the animals close up, except for the giraffes! We were right next to them and it was so amazing to see them in their natural habitat!! They walk so gracefully. We were filled with awe, being so close. We had lunch at the cafe here, and enjoyed seeing the cheetahs (caged) as well.
The second safari was at Seaview Predator Park. It, too, was a self-drive place, and it was late in the afternoon when we arrived. We didn't see many animals along the drive, BUT. At the top of the hill, we stopped to see the big cats. So incredible! When we got there, it was gray and cloudy and misting a little. We were the only ones there. It was a little eerie, walking so close to the big cats in this environment!! They were in huge natural habitat pens, with electric fences...but we were able to get soooo close. There were lots of tigers and lions. The lions were my favorite. There was one named Thor and he was so majestic. I could've stayed there looking at him all day long. To see these animals outside of a zoo will be one of my most favorite memories ever.
We decided we didn't want to drive all the way back into town for dinner, so we went across the way to Barnacles again. Again, so good! We had a lovely evening together.
Thursday, September 6
For our last full day in Africa, we decided to have a lazy day and it was so nice! Also, it was SO COLD!!!!!! We spent a lot of the day bundled up under multiple blankets (the chalet wasn't really heated...it had one little heat board, which didn't really put off much heat!). While we were there, it was coming out of winter...so the day temps were around 60 and the evening temps got down in the 40s. Our last day was rainy and in the 40s all day long. Brrr! We did a lot of reading and did get out for lunch -- just a little pub right down from the farm, and it was not great. It was sadly the worst meal we had the whole trip. We stayed in the chalet for dinner and just ate up the rest of our groceries...then got to bed early for our early morning flight home.
Friday, September 7
From Port Elizabeth, we took a short flight to Cape Town and had about an 8 hour layover there. We didn't have any plans for our time there, so we journeyed out of the airport and decided to get bus tickets to the Waterfront area. Public transportation is pretty confusing to us, since neither of us grew up with it or live in areas now that use it. So once we figured out which routes we needed to take (after the ticket girl thought we were complete morons), we took off our adventure! The Waterfront was a very neat area! We walked along the waterfront and took some pics, then had a delicious lunch at a very nice restaurant there (more sushi!). We walked around the area and then headed back for our legs to London and then to Dallas. So much time on a plane. We were never so happy to land in America on September 8!
It's true...this was definitely the trip of a lifetime for us! South Africa is not a place I ever thought I would visit. I had a lot of anxiety about the trip beforehand, but am happy that it all faded away as soon as we boarded our first flight. We were blessed to have a "local" experience while there, and to experience things like wild monkeys and incredible waves and safaris and a friend's childhood farm. We were able to stay at the chalet for FREE and we were able to use credit card miles to pay for the majority of our plane tickets. With the food being so cheap there, it really could not have been a better trip!!! I am so grateful to Chris, for all of his wild passions taking us on all these crazy adventures! And to our friend, QLefty, for offering so much local flair for us. WOW.
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