Ode to my uGogo

This past week my family and I have been saying sad goodbyes to a very wonderful lady, my uGogo. My uGogo as I will refer to her now while I’m still living in South Africa was probably one of the most influential persons in my life. She was loving, caring, supportive, creative, and most importantly a woman of faith who loved God.

Last month one of my fellow SwaLeSa SALTers, Simon in Lesotho, Grandfather passed away. In his blog entry as he reflected about him, he spoke about his grandfather hands, if I were to reflect on my uGogo’s hands I would have to say she had firm, gentle ones, but they were the softest of all.

Being so far from family during this difficult time has been very tough. My family have been really great and kept me up to date during her last hours of life and the funeral details. I have been very blessed by them and by God for allowing an unexpected blessing. During her final hours, she was given morphine to ease her pain, but doing so it perked her up and with that, my loving family gave me one last unexpected blessed conversation with her. It was a tough one, but I am so forever thankful to them to have been able to give her my last goodbye and an “I love you Grandma”.

So over the past two days I have been going through my mind reflecting all of my precious memories of her and here is what I complied and e-mailed home for her bulletin program.

“I have so many wonderful memories of my uGogo that it’s hard to write them all down. But if I had to pick a few, one would certainly be a childhood Christmas present where she had sewn Kimberly and I homemade Barbie clothes and I felt so tickled and special to have these wonderful clothes for my Barbie’s. But not only did she sew us Barbie clothes but also Cabbage Patch clothes, doll bedding for doll beds that Grandpa had built, clothes for us girls but she was also crafty in knitting us all wonderful warm sweaters, hat & mitten sets and beautiful crochet afghans!

uGogo was a wonderful cook, and made so many delicious meals. Some of my favourite foods that she made would have to have been her everything in the fridge soups, to the best darn chocolate chip cookies, to banana birthday cakes, to yummy lasagne, to homemade bread, and the list could go on.

One of my favourite pass time activities I spent with her was getting out her Triomino’s game. uGogo’s favourite game was Scrabble, but I enjoyed playing Triomino’s with her the best. Every time I filled in a circle of Triomino pieces she would say “You little stinker” since you earn a lot of bonus points.

Usually while we played the game I would often put on one of her Christian CD’s. uGogo, loved to sing and I also love to sing. If I could chose one of her favourite songs it would have to be “What a Friend we have in Jesus”. Another memorable memory I have of her was during a Sunday morning worship service at her church and she leaned down to me during a hymn and told me I had a beautiful voice! I can’t remember her exact words, since it was so long ago.

uGogo, was always there for us granddaughters growing up, even though she was a 35 min drive away there was nothing stopping the many phone call conversations. One particular phone call that stands out in my mind was made after I had walked unknowingly beneath a wasp nest and was stung. Mom wasn’t home at the time and Katherine’s first response was to call uGogo for treatment advice. uGogo was a very wise lady and always knew what to do in any situation.

One of the many other things that uGogo and I had in common was that we both are the youngest siblings in our families. Growing up uGogo hated being called “The Baby”. And I clearly remember one day, someone clearly called me those dreaded words. The next thing we all heard was her clearly stating “Don’t call her The Baby”! I don’t think I was called those words to my face again at least not in her presence.

uGogo loved God, and was supportive in us girls getting to know him as well. I can still remember sleepovers where we picked out a bible story and after being tucked into bed she would read us the story, and conclude with a prayer. The last day I saw her, back in July, I had a few moments where she was able to comprehend that I was leaving for a year of service with MCC’s SALT (Serving and Learning Together) program. She asked me what she could do for me, and then asked if I would like prayer. If there was a problem about something she would say “Just pray about it”. It was her and Grandpa who gave me my first violet leather bound Bible filled with pictures.

Being so far away in south Africa, during this time is very hard.  I didn't anticipate this happening. Ah shucks”

So in conclusion, I thought I would like to finish off with these beautiful lyrics of one of her favourite songs:

What a Friend we Have in Jesus

What a friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and griefs to bear!
What a privilege to carry ev’rything to God in prayer!
Oh, what peace we often forfeit, oh, what needless pain we bear,
all because we do not carry ev’rything to God in prayer.

Have we trials and temptations? Is there trouble anywhere?
We should never be discouraged take it to the Lord in prayer!
Can we find a friend so faithful, who will all our sorrows share?
Jesus knows our ev’ry weakness take it to the Lord in prayer.

Are we weak and heavy laden, ‘cumbered with a load of care?
Precious Saviour, still our refuge, take it to the Lord in prayer!
Do they friends despise, for sake thee? Take it to the Lord in prayer!
In his arms he’ll take and shield thee thou wilt find a solace there.

Grandma's Obituary

As my uGogo would say to us in departing, "Mach Gut". 
Mach Gut everyone, Mach Gut!

Flying Bricks & His Eye is on the Sparrow

Part 1 of Port Elizabeth & Cape Town Holiday

My long days of planning, booking and excitement of visiting the Cape finally arrived and on April 1st I finally boarded my Citiliner bus for Port Elizabeth, my first stop of my holidays down to the Cape.
I left Durban at 5 pm, 15 minutes behind schedule; Africa, does anything ever happen on time? When I planned this bus trip I had planned on an overnight ride down to PE which was due to arrive there at 6:45 the following morning, what I didn’t anticipate was arriving 4 hours late, which made my 14 hr ride into an 18 hr ride, eek too long!!
You now must be wondering why was I four hours late and what does flying bricks & His Eye is on the Sparrow have to do with the delay? Well about just over 2hrs into the trip, I heard a big bang and discovered that a brick was thrown from someone in the ditch at the front of the bus which ended up puncturing a small whole which lead into a large spider crack into one of the driver’s front windows. About a minute or two later after the front window was hit, I heard a bit of a commotion from behind me and noticed that 3 of the passengers were standing up in the aisle of the bus. I soon realized that another brick was thrown and smashed a window. “Welcome to Africa”, I was told by near by passengers! The people were calling to the bus driver to stop the bus, stop the bus, but the driver did not stop, but called the local police and we pulled into the nearest community where we ended up waiting for 2 hours outside a police station for a replacement bus from Durban. What I learned from this experience was that the people in the ditch throwing the bricks were intending to have us pull over to examine the damage and in the process hi-jack us to rob us of our money and cell phones!
After I safely arrived at my backpackers in PE, ate lunch, finally checked into my room, I decided to walk down to the beach front to check out the weekend festivities. There was a Splash festival going on and I decided to wander through the vendors lining the beach front to see what they were selling and then decided to take a walk down the pier. As I started my decent down the pier my ears perked up on a very familiar song. “Why I should I feel discouraged, why do the shadows come, why should my heart feel lonely and long for Heaven and home. For Jesus is my pardon, my constant friend is he. His eye is on the sparrow and I know he watches me. His eye is on the sparrow, and I know he watches me. I sing because I’m happy, I sing because I’m free, for his eye is on the Sparrow, and I know he watches me.” There was a stage set up across from the pier and there was a guy singing Christian songs to the crowds of people at the festival. My fellow LMCer’s who are reading this, may remember that was the last song I sang at church before I left. Wow!! How much reassurance did I need from God after what I went through the night before on the bus? Yes God I’m listening and I know you are watching me like you watch the sparrows!! If I could sum up my experiences with God for the year I would have to say he kept me safe from flying bricks!
Anyways continuing on, later that first night at my backpackers I met up with some of the others staying there and one of the guys tried teaching me how to play pool. In future if you need a pool partner, don’t ask me to partner up, I’m truly am not gifted in the game! The following day was a full day of safari adventures, starting off with touring around Addo Elephant Park where I spotted my first black rhino. The black rhino is rare and I think there are only 5000 of them left in all of Africa! At Addo, I saw a Cape buffalo, lots elephants, hartebeests, kudus, and warthogs. This region of South Africa has been experiencing 8 to 9 months of draught and the week before they had some rain which the elephants had gone into the wooded area to find more water, and we were fortunate to see a big family of them running for a waterhole near the road.
After Addo, our driver drove us over to nearby Schotia Private Game Reserve, where we enjoyed a nice cold lunch. There I said goodbye to the young German’s who I had spent the morning with over at Addo and met up with my new group of Europeans from England, Holland and again Germany for my next safari in Schotia. Here we traded in the tour bus and climbed aboard a 4x4 safari truck. Schotia is a smaller park but still filled with lots of animals and it was here that I was keen on seeing lions living in a more of a natural habitat. As we trekked through the park we came a cross blesbuck, crocodile, white rhino, giraffe, hare, hartebeest, hippo, impala, monkey, mongoose, springbuck, warthog, wildebeest, zebra, and of course lions. Seven lions to be exact, which we were entertained when they started prowling in on some impala and when they couldn’t catch one for their dinner they started sniffing out the nearby zebras. My ranger Malcolm was more concerned that the lions would go after a baby giraffe that was about 6 weeks old. We all stayed there for supper which was included in the day and we were served a wonderful meal. As we headed out after supper we noticed the hippo was out of the pond and also sighted a few other smaller animals, including the hare. How appropriate for it being the eve of Easter! It was a fun filled day, I got quite a few pictures, but disappointingly my camera battery died but I still manage to get a few loin pictures before it went completely.
Signing off…
End of Part I, stay tuned for Part II

The Mother City (Cape Town)

Part 2 of PE & Cape Town Holiday

Easter Sunday I boarded the same bus I originally left Durban on at the start of my journey. The following day after the brick incident the bus windows were replaced and it was road worthy again. This bus journey was only 12 hrs in length, but a good part of the route traveled through the beautiful Garden Route and the Little Karoo of South Africa. Where on the one side you have the beautiful Indian Ocean to look out at some of the time and the other side was a massive mountain ridge, it is very beautiful breath taking scenery to travel through! I finally arrived into a windy Cape Town just after 8pm, Easter Sunday night and discovered the Easter Bunny had left me sweets on my bed.
During my 6 nights, 5 days in Cape Town I stayed at the Ashanti Green Point Back Packers. It is a really nice place with friendly staff and it’s also a pretty new location; where I spent a lot of time in the evenings mingling with the other guest from around the world. Most of the travelers I met during the week either at Ashanti or my day tours were mostly from Europe, such as Holland, Sweden, Germany, and Belgium and then also from England, Wales, South Korea, Brazil, Australia, Canada, USA, Nepal, Thailand, and from the Islands of Madagascar! I think I got them all!!
My first 2 days I traveled around the city on the City Sight Seeing Bus. This is a really great way to tour around the city. It is a double decker bus and the top part is open, and you receive ear phones to listen to an audio guided city tour of the city as you drive down the streets. As you travel along, you are able to hop off and then back on at any of the route stops. So Monday I took the Blue Bus, which was the mini Peninsula tour and I first hopped off at the Kristenbosch Botanical Gardens, which is located on the other side of Table Mountain. It is a very beautiful place with lots of flower beds and the mountains make a beautiful back drop against everything. Mingling throughout the park besides people, were guinea fowl birds, lots and lots of them. It was very beautiful and I kept myself busy photographing lots of different plants and different varieties of the Nations flower, The Protea. The next stop I hopped off at was at Imizamo Yethu, a township built up where it used to be a garbage dump site. Next and after that I hopped off at Camps Bay where I dinned at a beach front restaurant. Camps Bay is a very posh/wealthy beach area and the homes are very expensive, it is here that you can get a beautiful view of The Twelve Apostles. A long mountainous ridge which consists of about 17 mountain peaks in a row. That pretty much sums up my first day of Cape Town.
Tuesday, the following day I took the red bus route and stayed within the city hopping on and off at various points along the route which included a market where you could by African crafts and souvenirs, I spent a bit of time browsing amongst the different booths. The sellers are very eager to sell you their things and will try and barter a good price with you. Afterwards I made my way to the Castel of Good Hope where I did a very quick and brief tour of inside the grounds, since I was eager to get to Table Mountain, the weather was good and it was finally open for tourists. Weather plays a big roll in whether it is safe to travel up the World Famous Mountain! It is so beautiful and breath taking at the top and you can see quite far out on a clear day.

A top of Table Mountain

Wednesday, was my wine tour out to Stellenbosch, Paarl, and a couple other nearby wineries. The Winelands are another beautiful area to explore in the Cape area, set a little bit back from the coast, but not too far away and still nestled in amongst the mountains. The wineries had just harvested the last of the grapes off the vines; but it is fall here and the leaves have started to turn brown, which help to enhance the already beautiful scenery; and soon be for we know, it will be winter. My favourite winery out of the four would have to be a tie between my first and second winery. The first winery also included cheese tasting and also had a bakery where you could purchase fresh baked bread. The second winery I enjoyed the atmosphere, and the presentation of tasting the wines. It was another great day of my holiday!

When traveling to Cape Town, a must on your to do list is to drive around the Peninsula, and stop at Hout Bay and visit Seal Island and see all the seals, Simon’s Town & Boulders Beach to see the oh so cute Jackass (African) Penguins, Chapmans Drive for a spectacular view of Hout Bay, bike down to Cape of Good Hope and hike over to Cape Point where the two Oceans meet (Indian & Atlantic). This is how I spent my day on the Thursday, touring around the Peninsula and it was fantastic, even though I was pretty sore and stiff by the time I reached Cape Point! But it was so worth it!! Along my travels in the Peninsula I saw blesbuck, ostrich, little furry dassies (look like bunnies with little ears), eland and finally some baboons along the road side going back into the city.
Friday was my day to visit Robben Island, wander around the V&A (Victoria & Alfred) Waterfront, and meet up with Chantale’s , (my good friend from home) cousin, Vanessa, who is spending a high school semester in Cape Town. Let’s just say that the weather wasn’t in the cards for me and my Robben Island tour was cancelled due to unsafe water travels over to the island! Drats, if I ever get back to the Mother City it will be a must! So I ended meeting up with Vanessa earlier and a couple of her friends and we visited the Two Oceans Aquarium. The aquarium was neat and we saw a variety of different penguins getting fed, other neat and cool sea creatures and of course the Great White Shark! Afterwards we just wandered around the waterfront. It was a pretty good last full day in Cape Town and I feel pretty accomplished that I was able to do most of the things on my to do list.
Saturday morning I flew back to Durban, but almost missed my flight! Can’t seem to get away from a little bit of excitement and stress on the traveling from one city to another. I am now back to work in PMB, and probably no more big travel plans until I leave in July.
Cheers and I hope you enjoyed reading about my holiday down to Port Elizabeth and Cape Town
Signing off…

Late But Not Forgotten, March Update

Like I titled this, late but not forgotten, March update; I had intended to post an update before I left for holidays but didn’t get there. So my apology to all my readers following my blog and wondering what I did in March.
March started out with busy beginning with the first week. The first Saturday I went to a function at my friend Becky’s church. Her church hosted a “Taste the Nations” night where home/cell groups picked a country and made food dishes and dressed in that country’s style of dress. So amongst the country’s represented where Mozambique, England, Zimbabwe, Ghana, Thailand, USA, India, South Korea, and Afrikaans and Zulu representing South Africa. Some of the dishes I didn’t try since I wasn’t too sure about them but did enjoy food from the Indian, Thailand, England (apple dessert yum yum), Mozambique, Afrikaans, and the USA (fried chicken & corn bread) tables. I didn’t end up trying very much of the African foods since I met up with a very lovely Canadian family from Vancouver. After a while the people started to form a circle and music was soon heard, a violin, guitar, a couple small drums, and someone else shaking a noise shaker. As we stood listening to the music, the gentleman with the shaker (Webster) started pulling people into the circle to dance with him. And as he pulled people in one by one, it wasn’t long for him to tug on my hand and as soon as I put my bag down I joined in on the fun.
After the food, music and dancing we made our way inside for a short program of worship singing, skit, and some cultural sharing. It was a great night and I had fun, even though I didn’t get to finish trying the different foods, it was still a good night.
The Tuesday following the weekend I was invited home for the night with one of my friends from Gateway Christian School, Nokuthula. Nokuthula lives in one of the townships on the outskirts of PMB called Azalea, beside Imbali, with her parents and two younger brothers. To get to her home we had to travel on kombi’s and her kombi rank is an underground location which made me a bit nervous following her through the dimly lit area to her queue line to wait for a kombi to arrive and hop on and find our seats.
Once we finally arrived in her township we walked down her streets to her house which is built of concrete blocks, it doesn’t look like much from the outside, but once you step through the door into the family/lounge it is pretty nice inside. I find that when I drive past these homes, you don’t have any idea what the inside of the house is like. I had no idea of Nokuthula’s place and I found her home very homey and comfortable. Her family had electricity and indoor plumbing which includes a shower and toilet, but the water tap is outside on the house wall, and all the normal appliances we have back home including fridge, stove, microwave and washing machine I found inside. Before we ate dinner we took a little walk down to the store to buy some cold drink and as we walked through her neighbourhood, her neighbours would comment “Nokuthula, why didn’t you tell me you were bringing a friend home, I would have swept up nicer” or “I would have worn a nicer outfit” or “When she’s done at your place can she come over to mine?” I felt like an instant celebrity walking with her to the store and back! I had a lovely time with her family, and I might go back for another night if I have time.
A couple days later, I went with the school principle’s wife (Audrey) and a group of young Americans and Belgium’s out into the rural community and did like an outreach day helping people suffering with TB, helping to sweep their floor in their homes and washing blankets. The first home we stopped at, the man with TB was just diagnosed and had just started his meds so we had to be careful by wearing a mask on face and wearing gloves on our hands since TB is very contagious. We traveled to a few other places where I learn how people in the rural setting try to generate income so they can help support their families. Some of the ways the try and generate income is by growing produce that can hopefully be sold to a local consumer, selling air time for cell phones or maybe investing in purchasing folding chairs to be rented out for wedding or funeral ceremonies. It was a good day and it made me appreciate what we take for granted back home.
Probably one of the best highlights of March or maybe the whole year was when two of us LMCer’s finally met up. Yup, I mean after months of waiting and waiting to finally see a familiar face from home, it finally happened. Jeremy arrived in PMB!!!! Jeremy and his CMU Outtatown program stayed in the cell accommodation building for 10 days. We did spend a little bit time chatting and catching up on our experiences and realized that we both experienced similar things on our travels. One of my most memorable moments of his time here in PMB was joining his group for a traditional African meal prepared by some of the staff at Project Gateway. Some of the food that was prepared for us was, soft meelie (corn on the cob), potato, cooked spinach, steamed bread, beans and most interesting and challenging chicken feet and heads! I couldn’t convince myself to try the head but manage to try a foot. Jeremy on the other hand tried both and everything on his plate where I didn’t. Not enough time to finish it. After the meal we were treated to some African songs and games outside in the car park. The 10 days flew by and I had to say a sad goodbye to him as his team boarded their bus and followed James up to Swaziland to see what MCC is doing there. It was a great time, but then it was time to start getting myself ready for Cape Town.

Signing off....

Stay tuned for Port Elizabeth and Cape Town highlights.