This last weekend I had to get my visa renewed because the 30 days were up on my tourist visa. To do this I would have to go to the South African boarder. Not wanting to go all that way just to sit at the boarder, One of the missionary families, along with Dan, a video guy from the GC, and I decided to make a day of it and go check out Kruger Park. It was about 5 min after we left and were on the road we saw a deadly car accident which had just happened. All I could see was the two smashed cars and a guy covered in blood lying on the ground. We pulled over and Dan and Hendric jumped out to see what they could do. I knew there was no way I could help out and really didn’t want to see more than I had seen already. There is no 911 here, so who do you call? We had no idea. Hendric seemed to think the driver who was still pinned in the car was dead and the guy lying on the ground was still alive but would not be for long. It was really sad.
At the boarder we saw tons and tons of people, coming into Mozambique due to the violence against Mozambicans happing in South Africa right now. After we entered South Africa it was like being back in the U.S., all clean and orderly. We stopped at a gas station and they had all my favorite beverages and other stuff. When we got to the park we found a line of cars all trying to get in for Fathers Day, so we had to turn back. We ended up playing golf, I attached several pic from golf. Now I can say I have visited South Africa and played golf there, It is a little different than the U.S. You would be playing on the
green and then hit the ball into long grass that you don’t want to go into for fear of something scary.
Yesterday was a fun adventure. It has been a slow week, not much to tape, so one of the other guys and I went downtown. Near by was a Black Market that I had been wanting to see. After trying to tell him were I wanted to go, (he only speaks Spanish) we parked the car, hid anything of any value and put our wallets in our side pockets. It was like something straight out of a movie, rainiy, bit cold, and smelled like a sewer. If your looking for cheep stolen iPods, cell phones, or car stereos this was the place to be. A bunch of guys with no expression on there faces tried to hustle you a good price. It was one of those times where you live in the moment of this. IT is just like you see in a movie. For sure, I kept my hand on my passport the whole time. I don’t think I could ever bring my self to buy any thing. I had a laptop stolen out of our car a few years back and it is not the greatest feeling. To support this would be a big no no in my book. It was still fun to look.
Today I had another run in with my shapas (taxi/bus) again. This time it was for work. My mission was go back to a church that we had build and Interview a few local women who laid a few blocks and then come home. So after getting a translator, we took off for our church or what we thought was our church. After arriving I discoved he had taken me to the wrong church. After a few min of discussing it with the local people and calling a few others, we took a few more Shapas and my translator saying “it’s a very far away” to the right church. This was a hour and a half after we had started, I pulled out my GPS and it was only 4 miles from our office. My translator started to ask around looking for the women only to find they had all gone away for a few weeks. We finally talked to the women across the street about Bible studies she had been getting from the women I was looking for. After we started interviewing her and were just getting into it deep it started to rain and we all had to run for cover. That was it for interviews for the day, we took 3 more shapas the 4 miles home and called it a day. Shapas are like onions, they smell bad, have layers of people in them and make me cry every time I think of them.
Hi-light number two for the day is a Puppy named Tucker. We were driving downtown today and one of the girls who volunteers for Maranatha, saw puppies being sold on the street. Coming back through the city we stooped and looked at them. She decided on a blond lab that is 3 weeks old. I don’t know if I realy believe that because the translation was in Portuguese to our Mexican who speaks Spanish. He then tried his English on us. I don’t know how I feel about the dog yet because I am a cat person. People treat dogs like babies it crazy. We have not told the Boss yet so there may be some more great stories about Tucker to come. I am sending a pic of him too.
Thats it for now. I should have some great stuff next week. I going on a road trip up into the bush. Should be a fun time. I don’t camp much. The pic I am including are the plane from last weeks adventure, the city Beta’s sky line and Hendric and I golfing.