The Bush

This weekend was definitely an experience. Our team traveled about 2 hours to “the bush,” otherwise known as the wilderness. We stayed at a camp, played some wild games, and cooked all our meals on the fire. I know, we’re hard-core. The cabins that we stayed in were wooden framed and lined with cardboard; in other words, not very warm. And last night it was 2 degrees Celsius! That’s practically freezing! You wouldn’t expect that for Africa, but it’s actually pretty cold here and there is a constant wind. So, anyway, it was a pretty good weekend, we met some awesome South Africans, and now we appreciate our home JBay that much more.

JBay really is an interesting place. I’ve mentioned before that it doesn’t really feel like Africa, but much more like a poor San Diego. The apartheid is still present in SA since it didn’t end all that long ago. There are three groups of people who each have their own community and their own schools. The whites, they are the upper class and they speak Afrikaans and English. The coloreds, which are half white, half black, so they have a bit of the upper class in them. They generally speak Afrikaans and English. Then there are the blacks, which live in the poorest part of town and they speak Xhosa (pronounced Koe-sa). And yes, it’s a clicking language. Most Africans know like 4-6 languages. It’s crazy. And they love talking about their culture. They will talk to you for hours about how they grew up, what languages they speak, their traditions, what their parents are like, etc… We Americans stick out pretty bad even from the Afrikaaners. We have one black American on our team from New York, and most people think he’s the translator. Haha!

I would really love to hear from some of you guys too! I wanna know how things are progressing in your lives!