Hey!! To get a glimpse of my life here, i’ve made a couple lists of some simple things I love a lot and things I don’t love that much.
THINGS I LOVE ABOUT SOUTH AFRICA:
1. The home I’m staying at. It’s like a real life Lincoln log house. All my childhood dreams are coming true!! and it fits 3 teams
2. The local Jbay 5k Park Run! It’s free and happens every Saturday morning on a trail through a park that is pretty much my backyard!
3. The farmers market kombucha that’s homemade by Pieter
4. The views: from our home in Jbay to the right you can see mountains and windmills, in front are fields going on for miles, and to the left are the downtown shops and ocean on the horizon.
5. The cool weather in Jbay. It’s windy here, so it actually feels like I’m getting a fall season (minus the colored leaves haha)
6. The waves!! The beaches here have the biggest waves I’ve ever seen and I’m in awe
7. Our hosts! Wendy, Anita, Lehani, and Mulder! They’re treating us so sweet!! Wendy has cooked so many yummy meals and even gave us ice cream one time! Mulder and Anita assign us ministry and do it with us! Lehani is the cutest 21yr old volunteering here with us! One day, our hosts surprised us with an adventure to go cliff jumping at a waterfall/swimming hole!! They also pour into us daily with teachings and worship. Super thankful for them!
8. My sleeping bag. Not gonna lie, I don’t even miss my bed because my sleeping bag feels just as fluffy and cozy as my comforter at home, and it makes for a good nights sleep! It’s a blessing!
9. The South African humor! They don’t take things too seriously here and it’s fun to joke around with them
10. The chocolate selection here.. it’s dangerously good.
11. There’s constantly good music around me.. whether it’s being played by a portable speaker during ministry or if my friends are just singing or playing the guitar around the house.
12. Bare feet. The South Africans don’t wear shoes a lot and it’s amazing how strong their feet are haha. One woman even ran the 5k barefoot! We’re staying grounded here 😉
13. The relaxed pace. We walk to the mall, market, coffee shops, etc. and it’s nice to be moving at a slower pace. Also, restaurants serve 3 times slower here and I think it’s for the intention of having longer, better dinner conversations.
14. Being unplugged. It was weird at first to not have wifi 24/7 but I actually like it now. It makes me more present and focused on my time here. And then when I get on wifi I appreciate it 10 times more than ever before.
15. The accents. Sometimes it’s hard to pick up, but at the same time fun to hear. Also, people have been trying to teach me a little bit of Afrikaans and I’m working on it, slowly but surely!
16. Good quality meals are so cheap at restaurants!! The exchange rate of the US Dollar to Rand is 15:1. Really good meals that would be $15 in the states are only about $5 here!
17. The tap water is clean to drink, so that means we don’t have to worry about running out of purified drinking water! That’s a 3 world country blessing!
Now if I’m going to make a list of things I love, I think I should also make a list of things I don’t love. Because I don’t want to portray the race as a fairytale life, because it’s not. It’s absolutely great and awesome but it’s not perfect. So to be real, here’s some..
THINGS I DON’T LIKE ABOUT SOUTH AFRICA:
1. Instant coffee. No one brews hot coffee here unless you go to a nice coffee shop. At home, I loved waking up to a hot cup of black coffee but here I can’t get myself to enjoy black instant coffee. It’s okay though, I can get over myself.
2. When I’m assigned “simple” ministry. Like a couple days I had to just sweep classrooms and wash windows. And another day I picked up rocks off a rugby field. With ministry like that, it’s easy for my head to go to a place of thinking “what benefit does this make to furthering the Kingdom?” or “couldn’t the teachers simply do this once and be done in 10 minutes?” but in situations like this, I have to remind myself that ministry won’t always be witnessing miracles or telling a person about Jesus for the first time. That week, ministry was doing little tasks for a high school. And maybe the only good thing from it was that the students saw us serving. And maybe that’s exactly what God intended. So I have to accept that whatever He wants, however big or little the ministry is, is always enough.
3. The phone detox. For the first month, our phones were taken every morning and given back to us at night. It was hard because I couldn’t get connection to my parents or people at home often. So on days that I got sick it was weird that I couldn’t even tell my parents I was at the doctor until a few days later.. but that’s all part of the race and disconnecting and being on the other side of the world!
4. The bread on bread on bread. Almost every meal at home is based on bread and ya girl is constantly bloated LOL
5. Getting sick a lot! I usually don’t get sick often at home, but I already got sick 3 times in the 1st month here. Sooo PLEASE please PLEASE be praying for my health (and my entire team’s) this year! I don’t want to keep getting sick, I want to be able to serve with my everything and be healthy and happy!
SO THAT’S THAT! Thanks for reading! Much love from Africa!
