Moving On

Well today has been a day of lasts for the group of us five SALTer's with our Country Reps spending time together, until we meet all together the end of September for the Cultural Festival in Lesotho. Tomorrow morning James is driving Simon and Anna to Lesotho, Saturday Andrew and Felicia leave for Durban and I stay here in Pietermaritzburg . We have grown together to form a little family, and it's now time for the next step in our journeys, venturing out on our own. Are we ready? I think so, I hope so, I know so!


Well since the last I blogged, we have gone to a local market, oh how the produce is cheap! Visited an animal park, how fun! Attended a Mennonite Brothers Church Service in Durban, message spoken in French but translated in English and dance with the church people! Relaxed on the Durban beach, and enjoyed a Frisbee game with a stray dog joining in! Attended another church service, my future home church. Met my home stay mom, and even saw my future home, but don't move in for another few more weeks! I'm staying with my country reps, James & Joan a little longer.

Monday through to Thursday we spent time at a Spiritual Retreat where we said goodbye to what's familiar, walked through the dessert, and said hello to the future! Learned to meditate, prayed, enjoyed the fruits of our labour, and got intuned with our selves. But also enjoyed the Garden of Eden. In this Garden of Eden I was introduce to a Poinsettia tree, so pretty and so neat! We were spoiled with many baked goodies, and awesome home cooked meals, even one dish that was almost identical to one of my mothers dishes (Sweet and Sour Chicken, minus the pineapple). Cuddled up with a cat next to a fire, played catch with a dog, and climbed in a tree and read. So, relaxing!

So, tonight we are have a Menno Night Braai with local Mennonite missionaries and their families. This should be fun! I'm sure many laughs will be heard amongst us all. Well I think this concludes this excerpt in my African Adventure blog.

Signing off from Pietermaritzburg, South Africa

Greetings from South Africa

Well I know everybody is anxious to know how I'm doing, what I'm doing and wondering where are the pictures? Well give me some time on the pictures please, it cost money to upload things on the web, until I can learn a way to make my photos smaller to upload, I'll upload some.

Well I survive my 20 + hours of travel to South Africa. Unfortunately I didn't get much sleep the last night in Akron, after waking up just after 3am to drive to the Harrisburg, Airport, for the start of three flights that day. My first two flights were really short, but my last flight was 15 hrs long. And unfortunately again I got little sleep during the 15 hr flight. We arrived at in Jo'burg 9:15 Sunday Morning. I think I got somewhere between 1 1/2 to 2 hrs of sleep. Once arriving at our B&B for the day, we refreshed our selves, including doing a little head dive into the wall after tripping over Felicia's bags, we joined our country reps James and Joan Alty for a light lunch.

The rest of the day we toured around Soweto and Kliptown, including going to Nelson Mandela's first owned house. The next couple of days we toured and visited different museums, such as Freedom Park and The VoorTrekker Monument in Pretoria, and The Apartheid Museums in Jo'burg. It is so great to be able to visit these places, especially after reading books about the history.

If you are still wondering what my first impression of South Africa is, it is very brown and dry. Spring doesn't start until Sept 1st. Security is very important and homes are gated and locked at all times with barb wire attached to the tops of the fences surrounding homes. The people are very friendly, and even like to be included in photo's. The mornings and evening are really cool and it warms up in the afternoon. I'm am thankful for bringing my yellow jacket! The scenery is very beautiful especially the 6 hr drive from Jo'burg to Pietermartizburg! I wish I could attach photo's of the drive on here, but I need to work on making the photo file size smaller.
Anyways signing off in Zulu,
Sala Khle

Orientation, Akron, Pa

Well I know a lot of you are probably wondering how I'm doing? Well I'm doing great! Meeting lots of new people from around the World, Canada and the US.

But let me start at getting here to Akron, Pa. My flight left Toronto, about 10 mins behind, but that didn't make any difference to me and my other 2 SALTer's I was traveling with. We sat separated and on different sides of the plane. I sat beside a really friendly guy who was coming home to the States, from Peru. We chatted pretty much the whole flight. He has traveled a lot, and had been to SA before, but years ago. So I asked him question about SA, and he tried to answer them the best he could. Once we landed and got our luggage, we were left instructions to meet another flight coming in after ours. The flight number of this flight we soon learned didn't exist! So, we quickly made some phone calls here to Akron, and received the correct number which was wrong by 2 digits. We also learned that we had to walk from our F terminal, to terminal A, and that was a 10-15 min walk around the outside of the airport, and it was really hot and humid! Once we got to Terminal A, we started asking people about this flight that was to be arriving at that terminal. We got two completely different stories, one was that the airline that we were to meet, flies together with another airline and their terminal is terminal E. We had just came from F, and we didn't want to walk all the way back from where we came from. The second story, which we found to be accurate, was that the flight was delayed. And we finally met up with everybody and drove to Akron. My flight arrived around 1:25 pm ish and we finally headed out of the airport around 4 pm ish.

Housing here at Akron is really neat. We are all broken up into 5 different houses. The Africa house, Americas house, Middle East/Europe house, Asia house and the Manor. We are then paired up with a room mate. My room mate is Yvonne Hlatshwayo, she is an IVEPer and is from Zimbabwe. Her placement is in New Hamburg, ON!

I am slowly trying to meet everybody, learning their names, where their from and where they're going. It's hard to remember every body's faces and names, but we do wear name tags so that helps some.

We do get some free time, so I have been able to check e-mails. We are learning lots and I can't wait to fly to South Africa. I've been learning a lot more about MCC than I knew before I left home. Also, I've been going to sessions that are helping us to adjust to living in other cultures which have been fun, especially interactive ones.

Well I'm not sure what more to write, it's only been a couple days so far. So, signing off from Akron,

Four more Sleeps

Well I thought I would write one more blog before I leave on Saturday the 8th for Akron, Pa for my one week orientation. I have officially four more comfy sleeps left in my big bed :( :). Today, the mail lady delivered my passport with my travel visa. It has been a very stressful process this last month. And I'm very glad I finally have it in my hands. Phew!

If, you all are wondering as to what my SALT placement details are, like what my job description is, or maybe I haven't completely shared all the details with you. Well my job title with Project Gateway and MCC is an Administrative Aassistant. I think I've already shared that I'm working with Project Gateway four out of five days, where one of the four days I'm working with one of their many projects. The fifth weekday I'm in the MCC office, which is now located in the Project Gateway building.

I have no idea as to whom I'll be living with in South Africa for the year. One of my fellow SALTer's, who is going to be in Chad, Africa, has received photos of her home for the next 11 months, but me notta. I guess it will be part of my unknown adventure.

One, thing that I'm going to ask of all you family and friends is to pray for safe travel for me and everyone else as we travel to our placements. I have about a total of 20 travel hours ahead of me on the 15th, so please pray for safe flights.

Just want to also say a really huge thank you to all my family and friends for all your support, either if it is financial or moral, THANK YOU SO VERY MUCH!! Well I gotta run and finish up the rest of my last minute items and start to figure out how to pack everything within my packing limits.

Signing off, next time will be maybe either Akron, PA, or South Africa.

Lasting Moments with Family and Friends

Wow, I can't believe that I only have 10 more sleeps left in Canada, in my big comfy bed, and then I'm gone!!!!!!! I'll really miss my bed right next to my family and friends. This last week and a half, since I finished work has been very busy. Since I finished work on July 17th, I had a good visit with my grandmother along with my good friend Tanya, with whom I browsed the streets in St. Jacobs. I stayed a couple days in London, at my sister Katherine's place and spent the day with my good friend Amanda. We've been friends since grade two!

While in London, I spent some time doing more shopping and got some good sales. I finished that week by spending time with my other good friend Chantale. July 26th, was my commissioning service at my church and afterwards I had a bbq lunch at my parents home with my bible study group, some of my support group members, friends and family.

Most of my family and most of my support group.

Tanya and Me

My sisters Kimberly and Kristine

Chantale and Andrew

Later that night, I left with my sister and nephew to spend a few days with them at their home in Niagara Falls, where I took in Liam's ball game and took a walk down to the falls.

Liam's team played a good game, but unfortunately lost. His team is currently ranked in first place during their regular season games. Go Niagara Athletics's!!!

The Canadian Falls or know as The Horseshoe Falls

Kristine, Liam and me at the Falls

It has been a great time spending some lasting moments with my family and friends. Soon I'll be gone, I can't hardly wait for this adventure to take it's next step.

Signing off....

Less than Four Weeks

Well I was going to blog the four week count yesterday, but being that you have already read and looked at my previous blog entry about the storm, you can see why it didn't happen. That storm was pretty nasty!!

So, less than four weeks is now my current time frame. I can't believe it. Five weeks I'll be in South Africa with my fellow SALTer's. I suppose you might be wondering as to who my fellow SALTer's are. Well, like I said in previous posts I'm traveling with two Canadians to South Africa, they are Felicia and Andrew. I've slowly have gotten to know them a little bit from facebook and can't wait to meet them in person at orientation in Akron, PA. Felicia and Andrew are going to be in the city called Durban. Durban is a major port city, along the Indian Ocean coastline, in South Africa but also a holiday hot spot for tourist with their beautiful beaches. For some silly reason I can't seem to load pictures into this blog so you going to have to use the links to see pictures from off the web. Along with Felicia, Andrew, and myself are two other SALTer's traveling with us. Their SALT placement is in the country/kingdom called Lesotho, which is pretty much smack dab in the middle of SA. Their names are Simon and Anna. Simon, I actually already met the end of June at the Ontario SALTer's gathering in Kitchener, but Anna is from Chicago and I haven't met her yet. And I am in Pietermaritzburg, SA, which is the capital of the Kwazulu Natal Province, and will be in between the other's geographically.

I have gradually gotten my numerous forms filled out and set them off to their respective destinations. My work/travel visa application I mailed off to the South African Consulate General, in Toronto on the the 2nd of July and I'm am hoping to get back really soon. I can't wait to be able to hold it in my hands. I just have a few more important papers to look after yet. I'm getting there. I haven't begun to pack yet, but have started to already get some little things and have started building a list of clothing in the back of my head, I suppose I should start writing that on paper. lol

I am almost done reading Nelson Mandela's autobiography Long Walk to Freedom. It has actually turned out to be a pretty good book, minus of course all the political jumble. But what would his book be about if it didn't have political part's to it! He was after all the first black South African President, you would have to expect some politics to the story! I'm just not really into political stuff. But it been good learning about his struggle to bring South Africa to an nonracial democratic government where all people of races and colours are treated as equal. Even if it meant to sacrifice time away from your family and the years spent in prison to fight for your cause. Nelson, was president from 1994-1999. I think I have read somewhere that if there was one thing Nelson felt he should have done differently was to pay more attention to the AID's/HIV epidemic in South Africa. I am amazed as to all the bloodshed that has happened in the process for South Africa to have gotten to that state of equal status. Anyways, It's been a good book.

Tomorrow I'm expecting my next update on my donations for this SALT placement. I know I'm getting really close to my goal, $4600, but just don't know where exactly!

Anyways, signing off to go finish Nelson's book.

July Storm

Well I would have posted this yesterday, but I just didn't get to it. Yesterday morning I woke up to a horrible massive thunderstorm around 8am. The winds were unbelievable, the rain just poured and the thunder and lighting were just as powerful. This has been the second huge storm in the last few months. My town got really hit, and we had tons of damage in some parts of town, especially my neighbourhood. In my backyard we have three large maple trees, the middle tree lost a huge branch which is actually hanging on by a inch is resting on an telephone wire. We are still unable to get help getting it down.

My good really good friends across the street got a lot more damage done. They had just managed to just get to the basement when all of a sudden they heard a big bang and then lots of rumbling on their roof. A large branch from their backyard maple tree hit the peek of their roof and rolled down the roof and swiped off the top of their chimney and knocked over the fence below, right in front of their back door.

There was also two other large tree branches that were knock down on just my street alone. One was just two houses down where the tip of the tree just graced the front windows. The second tree branch was on the end corner of my block where the branch got stock on a hydro wire which ended up causing the power on my block to be out for over 10 hrs.

The next streets around my street had large branches down too. But some parts of town just really didn't get hit like my area, and didn't get any power outages. A small community just about 10 mins from town, had roof tops lifted off. They are out of power until Thursday, due to the massive damage done to the community.