First Blog in South Africa

First blog in South Africa!! We made it to Jeffery’s Bay, South Africa about a week ago and it has been so peaceful. We had a 50+ hour travel to get here from Thailand, which was also great, and took the first few days to rest and adjust to our surroundings. Jeffery’s Bay, JBay, is on the coast at the bottom of the continent. The base that we are staying in is a 3 story log house that is on the campus of a school/nonprofit. All 22 girls are staying in this house and the boys are in a room of the school. It has a huge field in front of the house where there have already been many games of frisbee and football. Even some gymnastics that I do not take part in. One of my favorite parts of campus is the dam. It’s a pond type thing with clean water in it, around 5 feet deep throughout, and I’m awful at judging sizes of things but I would guess half of a football field in size. That could be completely off, but you’ll never know. Anyways it’s so fun to swim in.  Also useful if you paint for 7 hours straight and get paint all of yourself but can only take a 3 minute shower because of water shortages and need space to clean yourself off. Just a scenario, definitely didn’t happen today. Another thing about base is it’s really quiet. It’s pretty secluded, no major roads nearby, just the sound of the wind and birds. It is so incredibly windy here but it’s keeps you cool. It hasn’t actually been too hot, but the breeze does help with it. It will start to be louder during the week, as the beginning of the school year starts tomorrow, but that’s alright. All 45 of us also make quite a bit of noise, but it’s like one big family. Always conversations or games to jump into. The other night a group of us were sitting at the dinner table after dinner and we’re talking about highschool English books. Arguing over plot lines and character names, just laughing trying to scrounge up the memories. All while this was happening I was soaking my fingers in water and then milk because earlier that afternoon I had chopped up some super spicy peppers for dinner and my fingers were burning and in so much pain. It took nearly a full day for them to stop hurting. But it’s just such a fun image of community. Sitting around a table, laughing, me yelling because we couldn’t remember Scout’s brothers name in To Kill a Mockingbird, it’s Jem, with 40 of my best friends in a house in South Africa.

I spent most of this past weekend around base, just hanging with people. On Sunday I went down towards the water to the Surf Village. Tourist type stores, Billabong and Ripcurl outlets, and the beach right there. It’s fun but you don’t feel like you’re in Africa. I’ve never been to Australia, but it feels like you’re there.

These past few days we have been doing manual labor at the school. They put up four new buildings and needed help finishing them. They were saying we needed a miracle to be able to have teachers moved in ready for school on Wednesday, and I can say that after a 10 hour day yesterday and a 7 hour day today, 24 hardworking racers, and a lot of prayer, all the classrooms are set up and as I write this I can hear the kids outside seeing their new classrooms and meeting their teachers before school tomorrow. I did not think we were gonna be able to do it.

Tomorrow we start our ministry that we will be doing for the next two weeks. We are going to a preschool that is in the slums, and helping teach. I will write more about this another time but the difference in wealth among white and black people here is so extreme and heartbreaking. On one side of the street there is the tourist surf town and down the road is the worst slums I have ever seen. Houses, if you could even call them that, made of tin sheets, stacked next to each other. Extreme amounts of poverty. If you know anything about South African history you know that the apartheid caused so much racial hatred towards blacks and discrimination that you still very strongly see today. Anyways, the school that we are teaching at Ithemba (Itimba) is a preschool for kids in the slums. In a class of 22 2-3 year olds, its the teacher, who already told us she was our African Mama, Liz and I. Tomorrow is their first day of school for them and we were told there will be lots of tears. Pray for us all. I will update next week about how it all goes.

Thanks for reading,

Lauren

 

*couldn’t upload pictures. i’ll try next time.