09 June 2006
June 9, 2006
Greetings One and All,
Well, we had a sad occasion last week. Our good friend Andy decided to go back home. We knew it was coming for quite some time, but it was still sad to see him go. He left for various reasons, but missing his dog (Truman) and the comforts of home (Taco Bell) were high on the list. So last Wednesday, we took a trip to Vryburg to gather with a few other friends for one last lunch together. He will be greatly missed in our little group. So Andy, thanks for the fun and for sharing all of your embarrassing stories with us over the last 10 or so months (and there are many). Hope you are enjoying the good life again and that Michigan is everything you remembered it to be – maybe you can sell us a car someday. :o)
So after seeing Andy off, we stayed the night in Vryburg just for the joy of using a hot shower, and then headed off to visit another friend, Matt in his village. Wow, and we thought we lived in the middle of nowhere! Matt’s village is TINY. And far, far away from anything else. He took us on the grand tour (it took about 10 minutes) which included his two schools, the shop, the graveyard, the bridge, the sheep corral, and the ‘mighty Moshaweng river’ – which he says is a dry riverbed most of the year, but it still has some water in it from all the rain a few months back. Matt has a nice host family, with two really cute young girls. We were only there for two nights and a day. We passed the time by playing cards, and playing with some Play-Dough that a friend had recently sent him, and we even did a little bit of work. Matt and Adam played some snooker (South-African for pool) with some young locals at the shop one night too. I was slightly intimidated, being the only female in the room other than the shopkeeper, and so just decided to watch. The second night we introduced Matt’s family to burritos, which I think they enjoyed. Then on Saturday morning, we crawled into the back of a pickup truck for the long ride to town. Matt’s taxi was pretty interesting. It’s a pickup truck with a cab on the back. Inside, there are benches along the two sides and against the cab. Keep in mind this is just a regular sized pickup truck. By the time we were 30 minutes into the ride, there were 13 people crammed in the back of that thing. It was pretty amazing. I found it slightly humorous, but Matt said that doesn’t last long. And indeed it didn’t. His village is about 80K outside of Kuruman, 70K of which is on bumpy dirt roads. It gets uncomfortable pretty fast. Kudos to him for being able to do that every weekend! It took us 2 hours to get to town, which he said was relatively quick. I think we’re both glad its him and not us. I can’t imagine the trip back home, when all 13 people have a week or two worth of groceries with them. Yikes!
Back in our village, life is pretty normal. We started the computer classes with all of our Primary school teachers on Monday. We had a bit of a poor turnout, but hopefully that will improve, and it went well for the teachers that were there. Our Country Director, Lisa (the big boss!) came to visit us on Wednesday. She was just out visiting some of the volunteers in the area and stopped in for a few hours to see how we were doing. And that’s about all the excitement we have had in the last two weeks. Hope life is good back in the US. Until next time…
Andrea
Greetings One and All,
Well, we had a sad occasion last week. Our good friend Andy decided to go back home. We knew it was coming for quite some time, but it was still sad to see him go. He left for various reasons, but missing his dog (Truman) and the comforts of home (Taco Bell) were high on the list. So last Wednesday, we took a trip to Vryburg to gather with a few other friends for one last lunch together. He will be greatly missed in our little group. So Andy, thanks for the fun and for sharing all of your embarrassing stories with us over the last 10 or so months (and there are many). Hope you are enjoying the good life again and that Michigan is everything you remembered it to be – maybe you can sell us a car someday. :o)
So after seeing Andy off, we stayed the night in Vryburg just for the joy of using a hot shower, and then headed off to visit another friend, Matt in his village. Wow, and we thought we lived in the middle of nowhere! Matt’s village is TINY. And far, far away from anything else. He took us on the grand tour (it took about 10 minutes) which included his two schools, the shop, the graveyard, the bridge, the sheep corral, and the ‘mighty Moshaweng river’ – which he says is a dry riverbed most of the year, but it still has some water in it from all the rain a few months back. Matt has a nice host family, with two really cute young girls. We were only there for two nights and a day. We passed the time by playing cards, and playing with some Play-Dough that a friend had recently sent him, and we even did a little bit of work. Matt and Adam played some snooker (South-African for pool) with some young locals at the shop one night too. I was slightly intimidated, being the only female in the room other than the shopkeeper, and so just decided to watch. The second night we introduced Matt’s family to burritos, which I think they enjoyed. Then on Saturday morning, we crawled into the back of a pickup truck for the long ride to town. Matt’s taxi was pretty interesting. It’s a pickup truck with a cab on the back. Inside, there are benches along the two sides and against the cab. Keep in mind this is just a regular sized pickup truck. By the time we were 30 minutes into the ride, there were 13 people crammed in the back of that thing. It was pretty amazing. I found it slightly humorous, but Matt said that doesn’t last long. And indeed it didn’t. His village is about 80K outside of Kuruman, 70K of which is on bumpy dirt roads. It gets uncomfortable pretty fast. Kudos to him for being able to do that every weekend! It took us 2 hours to get to town, which he said was relatively quick. I think we’re both glad its him and not us. I can’t imagine the trip back home, when all 13 people have a week or two worth of groceries with them. Yikes!
Back in our village, life is pretty normal. We started the computer classes with all of our Primary school teachers on Monday. We had a bit of a poor turnout, but hopefully that will improve, and it went well for the teachers that were there. Our Country Director, Lisa (the big boss!) came to visit us on Wednesday. She was just out visiting some of the volunteers in the area and stopped in for a few hours to see how we were doing. And that’s about all the excitement we have had in the last two weeks. Hope life is good back in the US. Until next time…
Andrea
posted by aliberatinsa at 1:02 AM
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