Golden Gate National Park! -- week 59

We spent Saturday hiking around Golden Gate National Park!  No, we didn't make a quick trip home.  More below...with lots of photos.

Wednesday morning we visited Durban's Victoria Street Market with President and Sister Lines.  This is a big warehouse full of lots of little market stalls.  Most sell South African handicrafts.  

We bought a few goodies.  Sue got some beaded jewelry and a fun pleated skirt.  Ken bought an ebony walking stick and an ebony bowl with the "big five" animals carved on it.  (Elephant, lion, leopard, buffalo and rhino)

Thursday we drove up to Pinetown to clean out the apartment in Umbhedula in preparation for more missionaries arriving next week.  Luckily we had keys for this apartment. It has been empty for a year.

Elder Alotsa (left) and Elder Chifarimba (below) are the Zone Leaders, so they came along to help, too.  We all worked hard and had all the bugs and dirt cleaned out in about two hours.  There are some minor repairs needed, so our mission handyman will take care of those this week.

Friday afternoon we had a Zoom training session from Salt Lake City with all the other missions in Southeastern Africa Area about connecting with referrals coming from Facebook messages.  Sue watched the video with our Social Media Elders, Elder Pettijohn and Elder Russell.

Then Saturday morning we were at the Mission home at 6:15 a.m. to drive to Golden Gate National Park!  

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The Golden Gate in South Africa is a narrow, 6000-foot-high mountain pass with huge red-rock cliffs on either side, a much fought-over battleground for centuries.  The last battle was a hundred twenty years ago between British and Afrikaaners.  It is truly magnificent -- one of God's great creations.  It is about four hours by highway northwest of Durban.

President and Sister Lines were coming for a District Conference in Phuthaditjhaba.  [We can now both pronounce it and spell it!  Pu-tah-dit-jah-bah]  It was the first such meeting in over a year.  We came along for the ride.  While President was in meetings most of Saturday, we and Sister Lines went on a hike and drove around two loop drives through the park.  Then we went back for the "evening" conference meeting from 3:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m.  (Everything is done early here so people can get home before dark.)

  

So, here are some of the photos we took from the day.

All the shiny-gray on the rocks is water running down.  There was a lot of rain last week, but we had perfect weather: 72F, light breeze, low humidity.

There were lots of hiking trails to choose from.  We choose the shortest, up the Echo Ravine.  It turned out to be quite steep!  Ken made good use of his new walking stick.

More wet rocks!

Wherever there is water, Sue has to put her feet in.

Drakensburg Mountains are in the distance.  That is the boundary with Lesotho.

Notice the microbursts in the distance to the east.

This is the Golden Gate Hotel.

And this is the view out from our room looking west.  

As we drove back to the hotel Saturday night, the almost-full moon was just rising.  We were hoping to see lots of stars, but there were too many clouds.

After dinner President Lines took this photo of Ken standing by the bar with his credit card out.  It's not what it looks like -- Ken was paying for dinner.  But President said it is in retaliation for Ken posting a photo of President at the beach in loud Bermuda shorts wearing his white shirt and tie.

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The Church branch in Phuthaditjhaba is wonderful.  Normally for a District Conference all the wards/branches will come together.  However, COVID has changed all that.  Members in the one other District building, in Bethlehem, watched via a broadcast from Phuthaditjhaba, and each building had some people in the chapel and others in overflow rooms to satisfy COVID requirements.  Also, some people stayed home and watched on Zoom. Almost half of all the Church members in the District attended or watched, an amazing number.  

This is the group in the main room.

On Saturday afternoon President Lines asked us if we could please speak on Sunday!!  Two people who were supposed to speak were not able to come.  We gulped and said "Sure!" 

Sue pulled out a talk she had written and given in St. Petersburg three years ago.  It's so nice to have things like that saved on Google Drive and available to pull up on the phone.  In the photo you can see the Zoom screen for those watching from elsewhere.

It turned out that one of the people they thought was not coming did come, and one woman who was supposed to speak on Saturday night, but wasn't there, showed up Sunday morning and wanted to give her talk!  So the meeting ran long, and President Lines had to cut his final talk short.  (We wish we could have been skipped.)

There is also a new video broadcast app that was tried called Veedo.  It was developed in South Africa because lots of people have limited data on their phone, so they do not want to use Zoom.  Veedo solves that problem by billing the data for the broadcast to the host, not to those watching.  We don't know yet how many used it, but we are interested to find out.

Afterwards there was time to visit with the local members.  President Lines met with four young men about putting in their paperwork to come on missions.  They all said they would do it!

Sister Lines visited with the four wonderful Elders serving in Phuthaditjhaba and Bethlehem:  Elder Jensen (US), Elder Alviana (Brazil), Elder Wilson (South Africa), and Elder Chola (Uganda). They are God's Messengers -- truly angels from Heaven.  

Here is the mountain across the highway from the church building.  Amazing!

Finally, we report that the puzzle is progressing -- but slowly.  Elder Van Orden and Elder Mbaki live upstairs from us.  When they came by one evening, Elder Van Orden noticed that I had put together a chunk of puzzle near the elephant forehead, but it did not connect anywhere.  He turned it all upside down and it fit right in!  Sue got most of the lower trunk finished, too.

Hippos & Monkeys -- week 58

 This was mostly a quiet week at the office.  Not too much to write home about.  Ken paid bills.  Sue started writing the Mission History for 2020.  She got through January and February.  Those were the "normal" months when we had people being baptized, arrivals of new missionaries, departures of those who had finished their two years of service, and Zone Conferences.

One year ago in February was also the dedication of the Durban South Africa Temple.  It was fun to put in pictures about that wonderful event.

Sister Lines was in the office one day and we were just gabbing.  Ken pulled his chair over by Sue's desk to join in. President Lines came in and said he needed a photo of how hard we work -- so here it is.

OK.  You think we would have learned our lesson by now.  We came home from the office and went in to change our clothes to go walking.  We left the front door open -- no monkeys around -- because it was nice outside and our air conditioner is still broken.  Big mistake!  We think the monkeys in the trees around our building know to watch for our open door.  Sue came outside to water her plants, and there was a monkey sitting on the railing eating one of our bananas!  It was the last one left, so he only got one.  He ran up to the roof when Ken came out with camera, but they really have no fear of us.  We feed them well, after all.

We also had a lot of load shedding this week.  That means one or two blocks of two-hour power outages  each day.  Our favorite time is the midnight to 2 a.m. shift -- we sleep through that.  Next best is middle of the day.  We are at the office and have batteries to run the computers and network.  But this week we had one day from 6-8 p.m. and one day from 8-10 p.m.  Not so fun.  Sue had to knit by lantern light.  And her smartphone still plays the audio book she downloaded earlier.

Saturday we were supposed to pick up another new Elder at the airport.  President & Sister Lines were going to District Conference in Newcastle -- four hours away.  This Elder missed coming last week because his COVID test results didn't come through.  Wednesday night we got the message that it happened again.  No flight for him.  So now we had an open Saturday.  What to do?  Sue got a call from the Elders up in Richards Bay -- about two hours north.  Their couch was really awful.  Was there another one around?  This is a legit question because we have been closing apartments and storing furniture in the Mission Home garage.  

Friday morning we met the Assistants, Elder Mbaki and Elder Van Orden, there with their bakkie (pick up truck), all wearing our grubbies.  Anything in the Mission Home garage is dusty/dirty/moldy.  There were two couches, stacked on top of each other.  One was really bad and needs to be tossed out.  One was ok-ish, but not wonderful.  However, there were two big green easy chairs that were quite nice.  We decided to take those up instead.  The Elders also needed new ironing board, desk chair, broom & pillows.  We could supply all those.  It just meant a trip up north.  Sue was all for that -- there are some nice beaches up that way.  

One of the chairs had a small rip in one of the seams, so Sue got needle and thread from Sister Lines and fixed that in a few minutes.  The Elders got all the furniture into the back of the bakkie and we were set to leave the next morning. 

The Elders all love driving the bakkies -- much more manly than a Toyota Corolla.  But Sue, not so much.  Later Friday afternoon she needed to run an errand to the mall.  Thoughts of parking that big truck in a mall parking space were not pleasant.  We have several cars parked around the office waiting for more Elders to come, so Sue borrowed one of afore-mentioned Corollas to run her errand.

The drive to Richards Bay is really beautiful.  Lots of green rolling hills, and a good four-lane highway.  The area around Richards Bay has some large mines and industrial plants, and huge power lines cross the land.  She tried to look them up on Google Earth to see where they came from -- but they are not there!  Probably removed for security reasons.  

Elder Slater and Elder Viviers were glad to see us.  Elder Slater is from Capetown, and just started his mission last month.  Elder Viviers is from Stanger -- just an hour or so down the road.  He started his mission last May and was supposed to go to Ukraine.  Because of COVID, that has not happened yet, but we are all still hoping he will get a Ukrainian visa one of these days.  Ken emails him a "Russian Word of the Day" every day, and whenever we see him we say "Hello, how are you?" in Russian.  That's about all Sue can remember.  

We left them the chairs, etc.  We weren't quite sure what to do with the old couch.  It was too big to fit in the bakkie to haul back to Durban.  We all talked about putting it out on the street -- things there magically disappear.  We also met their landlord who had come over to fix a broken bathroom door latch.  He and Sue had been communicating about a problem buying electricity for them, so it was nice to put face to email name.  We went over to a store nearby to try and buy electricity again.  When we got back, the Elders had their lounge (living room) all nicely arranged with the new chairs.  We asked what had become of the couch.  They said, "What couch?" and just smiled... .  We've no idea.

When we told President Lines we were going to Richards Bay and then try to find a good beach, he suggested we drive up to Saint Lucia.  It's a little tourist beach-town between the ocean and an estuary full of hippos and crocodiles.  So we signed up for the 2 p.m. hippo boat tour and were off!

Sue likes maps, so we will show the area. 

Scale on this photo is about 5km = 1in.  There is a large lake up north, then a long estuary that comes down to where the town is. (circled)

Scale on this map is about 400 m = 1 inch.

From 2005 to January 2021 the estuary was blocked by sand dunes and did not connect to the ocean. The sand in the bottom right side now has a channel to the ocean. The estuary is changing from fresh water to salt water, as it had been for years and years.  But the wildlife there -- hippos, crocodiles and blue sharks -- can live in either environment.  There is a lot of controversy over whether this intervention should have been done -- but that is true whenever we try to tinker with the environment.  Was the blockage caused in the first place because people upstream pulled out so much fresh water for human use that the river coming down was not strong enough to keep the channel clear?  Time will tell.

There is a bridge that goes over the estuary into Saint Lucia.  The boat comes under this bridge and heads north up the estuary.

We loved the boat ride.  It was a beautiful day, hot with a stiff breeze.  Here is the view from the top deck of the boat. 

"Hippo tour in St. Lucia, KZN, South Africa" - Spherical Image - RICOH THETA

There are about 1200 hippos along the estuary.  We saw three different groups of about 15.  Hippos are nocturnal animals.  They run around at night and eat, and then sleep all day, mostly under water.  It's hard to count how many in a group, because they pop up and down all the time.  We think the group above was about 15.  They don't swim, but walk along the bottom.  They can go up to 15km/hour -- that is 9 mph -- almost marathon winner speed! The estuary averages about four feet deep, so it's a good place for them.  If the water gets too deep, they just keep running along the bottom until it gets shallow enough that they can come up for air.  They can stay under for 5 minutes.  It makes them really hard to photograph.

It is Sue's month to drive, but three hours is too long, so Ken did the first half.  That way it was light and Sue could knit while Ken drove.  The problem with the bakkie is that the turn signals are on the right and the wipers on the left.  We had very clean windshield.  Our Duster also has the steering wheel on the right, but the rest of the controls are US style.

Richards Bay area also has miles and miles of forest farms.  The trees are all the same kind, planted in rows.  We saw a lot of harvesting going on.  Here you can see the stacks of logs along the edge waiting for trucks and railroad cars.  

Sue took over driving about half way home.  As we got north of Durban we could see lightening and then it started to rain.  It wasn't a little sprinkle.  The cars on the freeway slowed way down and put on their hazard lights.  Sue found the wiper controls and turned them on full speed.  She could still hardly see where she was going.  And the lightening was spectacular.  Ken took some great video.  

We couldn't get off the freeway at our usual off ramp because of the construction.  We kept driving west, and decided to go up to Westville Mall for dinner. But we were both tired, so just stopped at our favorite fish and chips place.  Sue forgot her mask in the car, so couldn't go in.  It was raining too hard to go back and get it.  Ken ordered To Go for us.  Sue did have the round camera, so got a photo of the place, too.  Or "Plaice" as it is spelled.

"Fish and Chips places near Westville Mall" - Spherical Image - RICOH THETA

We went to church this morning in Umbhedula Branch.  They meet in the Pinetown building.  It is a good group, with lots of families with kids.  The Stake President, President deWet, was the main speaker.  He is a surgeon and had a really, really bad case of COVID-19 a few months ago.  He talked about how we can be blessed even in hard times if we live up to what God wants us to do.  

We do need to take care of each other.

The puzzle is coming along slowly.  Elephant now has forehead and left ear.   

New Missionaries! -- week 57

Sue loves her plants in the pots and window box just outside our front door.  This is such a lush, green country.  It's nice to have a bit of it so close.  Tuesday morning as we were leaving for the office, Sue noticed a little something extra in the window box.  You can see how huge it is!  He stayed for about two days and then was gone.  

You can also see the water pipe.  Because the buildings here are all brick, the pipes for everything run on the outside.  It never freezes, so no insulation needed.

We have not been so good about our evening walks.  It seems to be either raining or too hot/humid, or we stay at the office too late.  But we did walk on Friday.  

Here's an interesting tidbit from the neighborhood.  Why the brown strip of grass all the way down the street?  They are laying fiber in our area.  We wish Palo Alto would do that!  It was installed into our building a few weeks ago, but we haven't signed up.  Our internet is registered through the Church, so I doubt they will do it.

 

The Mission is starting to grow again.  Seven new Elders came to us on Saturday.  Well, six new and one returning. 

Elder Alviana came to us a year ago and then went to a mission in his home country Brazil with all the evacuations.  He is the only one coming back.  Elders do not come back to their original mission unless they have more than six months left to serve.  Because it has been a year since the evacuations, there are not very many with that much time left.  

President Lines always says that he doesn't believe they are really coming until they show up at the airport and walk out of baggage claim.  The Lines and the two Assistants went to the airport at 8 a.m. on Friday morning--but there was no Elder Alviana!  They waited until Security told them there was no one else in baggage claim.  They talked to the  people at the ticket counter, and they said his ticket had been canceled.  His whole trip has been very odd.  When I emailed him last Monday about coming on Thursday, he had heard nothing about it!  And the itinerary we had showed him leaving from Sao Paulo--but he was in Rio de Janeiro.  We weren't sure if he was coming or not.  Finally on Wednesday evening, President Lines was able to get in touch with the Church Travel person in Brazil, who assured us that Elder Alviana was in fact in Sao Paulo and ready for his flight to Africa.  

They all came back from the airport and had to wait a few hours because Brazil is five hours earlier than South Africa.  President Lines was told that the itinerary had been changed--but no one had bothered to send it to us.  Elder Alviana was not really due in Durban until 5:50 p.m.  Ken can see the charges that Elders put on their Mission Support Funds debit cards in real time.  Sure enough--there was a charge for pizza in Johannesburg about 2 p.m., so we knew Elder Alviana was really coming.

Then Saturday morning it was back to the airport for President and Sister Lines and the two Assistants.  There were 6 more Elders to pick up, coming from the USA -- via Atlanta, Amsterdam and Johannesburg.

This time they took a bakkie (pick-up truck) and the nine-passenger mission van to get six more Elders from the USA.  These Elders were all originally assigned to South Africa Durban Mission but could not come because of COVID restrictions and closed visa offices.  They had all been serving in various parts of the USA for three to six months.  (There were supposed to be seven Elders, but one coming from Oregon did not get his COVID test results back in time, and so he couldn't get on the plane.)  

After leaving the airport, the new missionaries always get to stop by and visit the grounds of the Durban Temple.  

Elders coming on Saturday is a new thing.  In "normal" times, they flew to Johannesburg for three weeks of missionary training, and then came to us on a Wednesday morning.  They would be over jet lag and ready to be sent out with new companions to an area of the mission to go to work.  Now they get COVID test on Monday, results back on Wednesday, fly on Thursday-Friday, stay overnight in Johannesburg because the flight arrives so late on Friday night, and we get them at the airport on Saturday morning.  They then stop at the Durban Temple for photos on their way to the Office.  

We do Pizza lunch and orientation.  Ken takes each Elder for a short drive around the neighborhood to make sure they can manage to drive on the left side of the street.  He also talks to them about driving rules and financial arrangements.  Sue collects immunization records and gets medical privacy releases signed.  She collects passports, cash dollars, and USA phones to go into the safe until they go home.  We give them each a certified copy of their passport to carry around.  Changing cash dollars to Rands is bothersome and expensive.  It's easier to just get Rands out of the ATM at any mall using either their Mission (MSF) card or their personal card.

The Assistants talk to them about security, safety and phones.  The Social Media Elders talk to them about the current Mission Facebook campaign.

They all think it's about 4 a.m. when we start this, after they've been flying for three days.  Who knows if they will remember any of it?

Since some of them are going four-plus hours west, it is too late to send them to their areas on Saturday, and President Lines does not want them traveling on Sunday.  They have spent today with other companionships and will drive to their new areas on Monday morning.

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We had a lot of load shedding this weekend.  It was supposed to be 8-10 a.m. on Saturday.  Sue forgot and had English muffins frying.  They had to wait two hours, but the power came back on at 10 a.m. and all was well.  We had a lazy morning at home while others did the airport run.  But we knew something was wrong.  Sue tried to call and order pizzas about 11:30 a.m. from the mall nearby, but their online ordering was down, and they never answered phone.  She ended up ordering from another place about 5 km away.  We went to the Office at noon to get ready for the arrivals, and there the power there was still out!  This was so strange.  We live halfway between the office and the mall.  We had power at our apartment, but both the mall and the Office were still out.  It came back on about 1 p.m., so that was good.  It gets really stuffy and hot in the office with no air conditioning.  But then it went out again at 4 p.m!  It was not scheduled for load shedding according to the handy load shedding phone app!  We were done with our part of the day, so we came home about 5 p.m.  Our power was on!  

On Sunday we were able to attend church with the Molweni Branch for the first time in a year.  This is the Branch we are assigned to.  They used to meet at a school in their area, but because of COVID, they can  no longer do that.  So they are sharing the building at the Hillcrest Stake Center and will meet about once a month.  Most people here do not have unlimited data on their phones.  It's expensive, so they don't do Zoom church like we do in the US.

Exactly a year ago, we visited with Branch President Vuzane and his family at their home.  They had a two-week old baby, so his wife and baby stayed home.  The Howells (who we replaced) wanted to see the new baby before they went home. 

The baby's brother's name is Nephi.

Now that little girl is a year old and running all around!  She is so cute.

Elder Banda and Elder Manamela are the companionship now serving in Molweni.  But Elder Manamela is being transferred on Monday morning as part of the big move with the new Elders.

Molweni has a wonderful group of members who are dedicated to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  We are glad to be back with them and will enjoy getting to know them over the next year.

We also had load shedding twice on Sunday morning.  Hillcrest was all shut down from 8 a.m. to 10 a.m., so the power came on in the Church just as we were singing the closing song.  We could tell it was happening because all the traffic lights through Hillcrest were off.  In the USA that means four-way stop.  Not so here. In South Africa that means, go a little slower through the intersection.  We were home from church a little before 11 a.m., and then we had scheduled load shedding from noon to 2 p.m.  Tomorrow we are scheduled for midnight to 2 a.m. and 6 to 8 p.m.  The midnight shift is Sue's favorite--just sleep through and be oblivious.  Tuesday it should come 8-10 p.m.  Those evening ones are the hardest because it gets dark!  We have a small electric lantern that keeps us going a little bit.  We prefer mid-day.  The office has backup batteries on the computers and Internet, so we can keep working, and the rooms have windows to keep it light.

The puzzle makes slow progress.  One elephant eye got connected this week, and a piece of forehead is together, although not connected to anything else yet.  It is working from the lion and leopard towards the middle slowly....