I’m here

Well, I’m in a bit of a pickle at the moment. I am in an internet cafe, with far to much to say and little time to say it. Pardon the typographical errors…

We left off with…well…me leaving for D.C., right? Well, I got there. We had a 4-hour session where we talked about our feelings, followed by a yellow fever shot the next morning.  We then waited at the airport for 6 hours before our flight left.

The >17-hour flight was hardly as awful as I thought it might be. There were lots of things to do. I couldn’t sleep for the first 8 hours or so, but after we left Dakar I slept like a log. Well, a log that snores and drools all over itself. They served us three meals. Tasty. We got to Johannesburg, and the dinner we had there was good…I got a good-sized tuna sandwich at the hotel restaurant for R35 ($4-5). This is a waiter-sits-you-down restaurant, mind you. Not bad.

I woke up at 3:30 the next morning, fully rested. I couldn’t figure out the math on that one. Shouldn’t jet lag go the 0ther way? I don’t know. The flight to Windhoek was also very nice. It was only two hours long, and they served a meal. They didn’t give me a peanut on my 5-hour flight to Washington. Fly South African Airways, I’m telling you. The only downside was that my camera and USB drives were stolen in the Johannesburg airport…but I don’t mind that so much. I was never good at taking pictures, and I have an external hard drive. I then hopped into a bus and rode to Okahandja (where I am now), a 1-2 hour drive.

We were greeted in our training site by all of our trainers singing in…some language. Probably a Bantu dialect…Otjiherero or Oshiwambo or something. They were good. Strong bass section. Training for the first week was awesome…we just lived on the training site and ate the 5 meals a day that they served us. After a few days (and another interview) they finally revealed our languages that we would be learning. I’m learning Afrikaans. They still have not, however, revealed where we will be stationed permanently. I really don’t know why at this point.

Okay…let’s see…

I moved out of the training site a couple of days ago, and am now living with a host family. I have a host mom and dad, and two host brothers. I was originally placed with another host family, but apparently there was a clerical error in which the “female” they requested somehow got changed to “male”. So, I was switched. Ma’s name is Magdalena, Pa’s name is Andries, and the brothers are Dawid and Dodo. The yard is full of dogs, chickens, and doves. Amazing. Magdalena is just about the sweetest person I could ever hope to meet. She makes sure I brush my teeth twice a day, wash my hands before I eat, and do my homework. It’s kind of nice being six again.

Church yesterday morning was…different. In a good way. It was a group of about 20 that met in my host family’s unused garage. It started off with the pastor giving a long string of uninterrupted prayer on his knees in what seemed like a San dialect (lots of tongue clicking), and then moved on to a great deal of singing in Afrikaans, and the sermon (also in Afrikaans). Good times. The worship, for many, was very physical: shouting, running around, and even rolling on the floor. I felt awkward, but I’m not one to condemn it. To each his own.

Umm…all right, I’m running low on time. Sorry. I went to a farm and saw a couple of turkeys, I showed my host brothers Rocky (which I don’t think they liked very much), and I accidentally put powdered milk on my Weet-Bix instead of sugar. The weather here is excellent…much like southern CA in the early summer. It gets cool at night.

I have so much more I could say, but I need to be off. Ek is jammer. Sien julle later.

Advertisement