Dumelang!

I am sitting in an internet café in the suburbs of Johannesburg. The internet is painfully slow and I am paying for a half hour… so I will have to be brief. It took me 13 minutes just to log into my blog...

Everything is well. We are living the good life in South Africa. We are staying at some sort of old meditation center. The girls each have their own room with a sink. It is not luxurious by American standards but it is very cozy. The gardens are lovely and we spend a lot of time lounging around in the sun doing yoga, reading, and such.The air is dry so it makes your nose, eyes, and throat dry. The mornings and the breeze is very chilly but the sun is HOT (I already have a sunburn on my face). The flight wiped us out. It was SO LONG. When we got to the airport we happened to witness the Springbok rugby team coming through the airport, which was an exciting welcome to South Africa.

Meeting our host families was nerve-wrecking but endearing experience. My host Mom's name is Mamokete, and she and her cousin Dimokatso come every morning to practice Sesotho with us. It is exhausting but we also pass the time singing and having cultural discussions with all the other mothers. Their Sotho is so fast and with all the clicks you can hardly understand what they are saying but I think I'm getting better. On Wednesday we will actually go to live in their homes and meet the rest of their families. When we are having group discussions it takes forever because they all talk at once until the nkhono (grandmother) speaks and tells them all how it's going to be. There are many other cultural differences that I can't even begin to describe here. There have already beem many challenges to overcome.

The food at St. Benedicts is pretty good. It's also pretty fatty. We also have tea about four times a day, thanks to British influence we have tea at 10:30 and then an afternoon tea, which both also include more food. We're getting a little bit restless in the garden, but soon we will be in Soweto with our families. I am litterally out of time. I will hopefully write again sooner than later!

Khotso, I love you all,

Laura (Bophelo)

Laura the Explaura

I'm sitting in a lovely kitchen drinking a wonderful cup of coffee Julia made for me, enjoying my last morning in the states. I am so excited to take off for Africa. These few days of orientation have been a strange time of travel preparations mixed in with regular EMU life. I am feeling so great about our group and our leaders! We have been praying all along for God to be with us and lead us, I know He will. After an 18 hour flight from Dulles to Dakar to Johannesburg, SURF IS UP! (as Harlan would say)
Keep us in your prayers as we travel,

* Credit for the title of this post goes to Ethan G! =)

Today was my first day of Opening School Experience! I got up at 5:30 and drove to Harrisonburg in my teacher clothes. After nearly getting lost from Sandy's short-cut directions, I made it to Skyline Middle School. My teacher is young and very sweet and we got along pretty well.
My biggest success of the day was that I remained conscious through the part of the meeting on blood-borne pathogens (can't say the same for my yellow fever shot earlier this week)! Yes, I am serious: this was a major accomplishment.
I also resolved a little Goldilocks and the three suitcases issue. The bag that I had originally planned to take to Africa could hold everything, but it was really tight. The next biggest suitcase that we had was a monster. So I finally found the perfect one that has just a little extra room for some souvenirs to come home with me.
Now it's time for some more "staycation" at the Hershey house. Who knows what we'll get into this weekend?

First Post

Welcome to my blog! I created this specifically with the purpose of communicating with family & friends while on cross-cultural in South Africa. I thought it would be easier than collecting email addresses, but of course I made it more complicated than necessary. Naturally, I had to agonize over what to NAME the blog. It seems to me that people always have such clever and catchy blog names, but everything I was coming up with was too __________ (fill in the blank). SO I finally just named it after one of my all time favorite Jars Of Clay songs, nice and open-ended, in case I want to keep this blog after Africa. I am satisfied.
But THEN.... I had to spend time (the amount I am too embarrassed to say) picking out pretty colors and background pictures. There were absolutely too many choices for me to handle. 'Twas fun, but I am relieved that I can check create blog off my to-do list and it will be ready to go when its time!
Thanks for your interest/support for my upcoming adventures!