Life @ African Enterprise
Trip Start
Sep 10, 2009
1
6
13
Trip End
Dec 16, 2009
Where I stayed
Chalet at African Enterprise
Pietermaritzburg, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa
Sunday, September 20, 2009
We all have been having a great time getting settled into our new home. The set up is so nice. We have our laundry done for us, all of our meals are provided for us and they definately beat out the caf back home. Today is Sunday and just about everyone is out studying in the sun in various locations around the campus. I chose to do some history reading on a rock overlooking our waterfall. It has been rainy this last week so we are taking advantage of today’s sun and our beautiful surroundings. A few highlights from the last week... We got to hear from Michael Cassidy, known as the “Billy Graham of Africa”, as he shared his experiences with the end of the Apartheid here and how God was instrumental in the transition from “White-rule” to democracy. Monkeys got into our chalet’s bathroom window and raided the place for any sort of food. Usually they are afraid of men, so I haven’t really had to worry about them, but the other day I walked out of the dinning room with a muffin in my hand. Within only a few steps I was confronted by about 10 monkeys. They took a few goes at me and I was definitely pretty pumped up. I held my ground as best as possible and won the game of intimidation by going on the offensive and attempted to take of one of male’s head with my foot. They got the message that I was not going to surrender my muffin.
For art class we drove about 60 km into Durban, the largest city in our area. We checked out a few art galleries there and had afternoon tea at a nice hotel. Yesterday was our fun day after a long week of study and class (although during the school week I found it very hard to study just because everything is so new and fascinating in Africa) We piled into buses and vans and saw a show at the African Birds of Pray Center. That was very cool and we saw some very impressive eagles, falcons and owls. We then traveled a few minutes down the road to a lion park. We had been told that they were all retired circus lions (pretty unexciting creatures) and that we would be staying in our vehicles and driving through their enclosure. Upon our arrival we discovered that they had gotten new, wilder lions. These new cats had attacked a bus the week earlier so we would not be driving through their home. We simply observed them (more like “ooohed” and “ahhhhhed” over them) through a chain link fence. It was amazing. The 19 lions were almost as amused by us as we were of them and put on quite a show. They paced along the fence and tried to gnaw their way through at times. Although it was very evident that they were certainly dangerous, they were not ferocious and we could scratch their backs through the fence when they allowed. Meeting these colorful locals was definitely one of my highlights of the trip so far!
At lunch we found a locust (huge grasshopper). The think was about the length my index finger and about the body was about as thick too. We played with it and took pictures with it. Some of the braver girls put it on their heads or arms while others ran in the opposite direction.
I have been getting to know Musa pretty well. He is the ten-year-old son of our driver and Musa and I have been playing soccer, hackey sack and tickle wrestling. Musa slept over last night and we got to go to church together this morning. I have been procrastinating a whole week now and so I have a ton of homework to do.
