Nomads ............ free to roam!

Its nearly the end of July and we’ve spent all of this month (and a couple of weeks in June) up in the Northern parts of South Africa. At the moment we find ourselves at Mabalingwe Game Reserve just outside Bela-Blea (Warmbaths) in the Limpopo region. We’ve been blessed by some friends who have shared their Bushveld home with us for a few nights - and have thoroughly enjoyed the quiet, relaxation and game drives. We’ve enjoyed spotting the animals in their natural habitat, including nyala, bushbuck, heavily pregnant zebra, giraffe, buffalo, rhinoceros, monkeys, warthog and an awesome variety of birds.

This trip has been primarily a business trip. We came up north with a trailer full of the products we’ve recently imported from China, hoping to find customers in the big cities. We’ve spent many weekends selling our goods at one of the flea markets, have met with numerous hiking clubs and leisure clubs and also visited numerous retailers and end users. It hasn’t been as fruitful as we would like it to have been, but hopefully some of the fruit of our labours will still manifest in the months that lie ahead.

We’ve spent a handful of days doing ‘touristy’ things and have enjoyed showing our children the place where we grew up. Some of our highlights were a visit to the Oriental Plaza in Johannesburg and driving through downtown Braamfontein (with our doors locked and valuables well hidden!), a visit to the Pretoria Zoo and a picnic in the gardens at the Union Buildings and a handful of picnics with precious friends. We’ve enjoyed visiting with a handful of ‘old’ friends and also family, introducing our children to many folk for the first time. The children have made new friends along the way and loved the fun and adventure as we have gone along!

Jeana and her Mom .... 

Lunching with Hle (who is on summer holidays from Dubai) at Magnolia Dell

Enjoying a fun evening with the Turner clan

Pretoria is very unlike George. At the moment it is extremely dry (it is a summer-rainfall region), dusty and very brown. George is always green and we’ve experienced rain very often almost all year long! Pretoria hasn’t had much of a winter this year, so the days have been lovely and warm (± 24°C) and the night temperatures, although cool, haven’t brought any frost or numb toes. One of the other major differences is its size! It seems to take ages to get from one side of Pretoria to the other, while a drive through George can’t take longer than 15 minutes in the worst of traffic. Pretoria is huge! And that means there are lots of people, lots of cars and LOTS of traffic. We aren’t used to driving on 6-lane highways and dodging kamikaze-style drivers who are always in a huge hurry! We’ve found it very stressful.

Experience has confirmed that Pretoria is still a much better place to be than Johannesburg. Its much cleaner, less congested and doesn’t feel as unsafe as Johannesburg does. We’ve actually found Pretoria to be quite safe and have enjoyed our time here very much. Our day in downtown Johannesburg was not as relaxing an adventure, we were warned by a merchant to hold on to our belongings and felt very uneasy and were so glad to head home when we did.

We have really enjoyed our time here, have loved connecting with special people and exploring new territory! We have one last night in the Bushveld before we head back into Pretoria to spend 5 last nights with friends. On Tuesday next week we hitch on the trailer and head back to George, via Kimberley (where we will overnight).  We’re looking forward to seeing our homeschooling and community friends especially …. We’ve been gone a long time, but have loved our African travels.

Eeeeek ...... its gross being sick!

How we take good health for granted! We are a strong, healthy family who walk in the blessing of health and very rarely are sick. So when sickness hits - and takes its time to affect most of the 6 of us! - it isn't a familiar battle!

Last Sunday, when the children were out with Bronwen at the Botanical Gardens, Jed was nauseous and needed to throw up. One tries to rationalise why .... But as I helped him shower during the early hours of the morning it became very obvious that he had a tummy bug of sorts.

It seems this tummy bug is part of a flu strain doing the rounds here in Gauteng, and it drained Jed and kept him in bed for 2 whole days. He fought fever for the first day and slept for that whole day too!

By the 3rd day Jed was on the mend and starting to eat again. That night though, Aimee vomited at the dinner table, the start of her 4-day bed-stay. I felt really nauseous and weak too when I went to bed that night and didn't get much sleep. Aimee also had a middle-of-the-night shower and we used every towel in the house cleaning up! I spent the whole of the next day lying in bed with her, sleeping on and off for most of the day. She too fought fever for a good day or so! She continuously wanted water but couldn't keep food down and so didn't want to eat until a few days later.

I was only in bed for the one day but took a few days to get back into eating solids and resting to build up my strength again!

Then on Sunday morning Dieter woke feeling like a bus had run over him! He had a huge headache and his body was aching. He spent all day Sunday in bed, while Aimee and I chilled in front of the television together and the boys all went to church with Kevin and Caroline. Caroline came in before she left or church and prayed for Dieter and our family - and he definitely made the quickest recovery .... Thank you Lord!

We're on the mend after about 10 days at home, eating very little and feeling drained. I have a list as long as my arm of the things I want to do and EAT!! Now we can start to meet up with family and friends and do some galavanting!

10 Days in ....

Its been 10 days since our adventure in Pretoria began, an its been an interesting time already!

Our friends, Kevin and Caroline, spent the first week of our visit away in Cape Town and we were totally spoiled with 'home alone'! The 'holiday-vibe' kicked in big-time!! We decided to lay low and rest, only driving to the nearby shopping centre to stock up on groceries.

The estate we're living on has some lovely walkways and natural 'veld' (forest? ... Not field!) Connecting the various pockets of houses and not far down the path outside our backyard is a lovely green mass of grass and a small playground. The climbing frame is an small obstacle course and houses a sandpit in its shade - the little ones could spend all day there! We've also done a lot of ball throwing and mini-cricket matches with the kids, which has been great fun! Its such a treat to have this just 50m away from the house! (We do have open park lots in George but they don't have any play equipment worth mentioning and we find ourselves having to dodge dog-poo more often than is tolerable!) So, we're loving these facilities!

We've been so blessed to almost immediately have visits from Zani, Rizi and Paultjie, our cousins. For hours on end, on consecutive days, we enjoyed each other's company and small meals together. Ethan and Aimee particularly enjoyed visiting Rizi's horse, Sundance, and loved the walks they took with him. Aimee has asked everyday since, as soon as she wakes!, when we can see them again!

We've also spent some chunky time with Bronwen, which has been so refreshing! She's come over and spent lovely long sessions with us chatting, playing in the park and sharing meals together. A huge highlight was when she collected the children from us at the market last Sunday and treated them to an afternoon of fun at the local Botanical Gardens. They had so much fun together!

Out and About with Bron - so much fun!

We have many friends to catch up with ..... Looking forward to more fun and memory-making moments! Also looking forward to sharing something of our 'history' with our children ..... showing them where we grew up, schooled and where Ryan and Jed were born.