south africa: the rainbow nation
slowly but surely, our stay in mozambique came to an end. it was one of our favorite assignments and will always have a special place in our heart. after many goodbyes, we boarded our flight back home, via johannesburg. we had decided to stay a week in south africa and check it out (its only 100km from mozambique).
i must mention that the o.r. tambo joburg airport is the most efficient airport ever. 15 min after touchdown, you have cleared immigration, customs, picked your luggage, gone to the bathroom and are out. pleasant smiles and unfailing politeness from all. hosting a world cup probably does that for a place.
so friday night at 7pm, we were happy on coming out of the airport to see the smiling face of our friend, a lebo (actually thats the short form of her name. south african names are long, complex and often contain unpronounceable sounds - more on this later). lebo is a lawyer and thus always chooses her words carefully. 'we'll have a quick stop to adjust our clothing, then we shall pick up provisions, and then we shall motor rapidly onwards to rustenburg!' (let me clarify, because i know lebo will call me out on this. i may not remember her precise actual words. but this is in character with what she would say).
not only is she a lawyer but shes also part of the regional building team - doing concrete aprons and they had a kingdom hall build that weekend. so she roped us in, and we were glad she did because we had a ball. the picture above shows the kingdom hall that the brothers had been using. heres lebo doing her thing with aplomb. i was greatly impressed. its not everyday you meet a lawyer who has concrete skills. jehovah always teaches his people unique skills.
the regional kh building program gives such a witness here. because historically south africa was racially divided, most areas are generally predominantly white or black. and many of the black areas are the poor areas. so to have hundreds of brothers of many different races descend en masse (a few in some pretty nice cars, too) in a black area and then everyone proceeds to do manual labor to raise a beautiful kingdom hall - well as you can imagine its a massive witness to the neighborhood. you can see them struggling to understand whats going on.
of course the brothers as well loved every minute. from old to young:
a couple of older gents sat across the road from early in the morning and watched us the entire day. the local brothers were very excited. one brother, pictured below, was so excited in fact that he drove me to the old hall to show me where they had their meetings before.
as you can see below, the new hall is a major improvement.
during the build, this brother walks up to me and introduces himself and then says, "you're from kenya? i wonder if you know some of my friends there. do you know brother gathuru?" turns out he came to kenya for a convention in the 1980s, and stayed with us. its a small world, isn't it?
at our campsite in the evening, we discovered the famous south african braai, or barbeque. when the south africans do barbeque, its 'not for play', as my mozambican friends would say. they love their braai and take it seriously. heres one of the smaller steaks they made...
you might notice that sandi is dressed pretty warm. the thing is that south africa in august is in winter. we missed snow by just a few weeks. so it was pretty cold. but nothing that lots of roast meat and beer couldn't combat.
as we had worked so awesomely hard the previous day, we finished early and thus had sunday off. so lebo took us to the pilanesburg game reserve. now of course, we are no strangers to game parks. however, we are strangers to game parks that have paved roads and organised road signs everywhere. so it was an interesting experience.
one of the special moments in the park is when we came round the corner and this big guy was right by the side of the road. he did something that i had read that elephants do, but never seen before - sucked up a load of dust and...
...puffed it out over himself. apparently it helps keep the insects of his skin. either way, it looks like fun.
it turned out that the rustenburg kingdom hall build was one of the highlights of our trip to south africa. we loved every minute. next stop - pretoria...
i must mention that the o.r. tambo joburg airport is the most efficient airport ever. 15 min after touchdown, you have cleared immigration, customs, picked your luggage, gone to the bathroom and are out. pleasant smiles and unfailing politeness from all. hosting a world cup probably does that for a place.
so friday night at 7pm, we were happy on coming out of the airport to see the smiling face of our friend, a lebo (actually thats the short form of her name. south african names are long, complex and often contain unpronounceable sounds - more on this later). lebo is a lawyer and thus always chooses her words carefully. 'we'll have a quick stop to adjust our clothing, then we shall pick up provisions, and then we shall motor rapidly onwards to rustenburg!' (let me clarify, because i know lebo will call me out on this. i may not remember her precise actual words. but this is in character with what she would say).
not only is she a lawyer but shes also part of the regional building team - doing concrete aprons and they had a kingdom hall build that weekend. so she roped us in, and we were glad she did because we had a ball. the picture above shows the kingdom hall that the brothers had been using. heres lebo doing her thing with aplomb. i was greatly impressed. its not everyday you meet a lawyer who has concrete skills. jehovah always teaches his people unique skills.
the regional kh building program gives such a witness here. because historically south africa was racially divided, most areas are generally predominantly white or black. and many of the black areas are the poor areas. so to have hundreds of brothers of many different races descend en masse (a few in some pretty nice cars, too) in a black area and then everyone proceeds to do manual labor to raise a beautiful kingdom hall - well as you can imagine its a massive witness to the neighborhood. you can see them struggling to understand whats going on.
of course the brothers as well loved every minute. from old to young:
a couple of older gents sat across the road from early in the morning and watched us the entire day. the local brothers were very excited. one brother, pictured below, was so excited in fact that he drove me to the old hall to show me where they had their meetings before.
as you can see below, the new hall is a major improvement.
during the build, this brother walks up to me and introduces himself and then says, "you're from kenya? i wonder if you know some of my friends there. do you know brother gathuru?" turns out he came to kenya for a convention in the 1980s, and stayed with us. its a small world, isn't it?
at our campsite in the evening, we discovered the famous south african braai, or barbeque. when the south africans do barbeque, its 'not for play', as my mozambican friends would say. they love their braai and take it seriously. heres one of the smaller steaks they made...
you might notice that sandi is dressed pretty warm. the thing is that south africa in august is in winter. we missed snow by just a few weeks. so it was pretty cold. but nothing that lots of roast meat and beer couldn't combat.
as we had worked so awesomely hard the previous day, we finished early and thus had sunday off. so lebo took us to the pilanesburg game reserve. now of course, we are no strangers to game parks. however, we are strangers to game parks that have paved roads and organised road signs everywhere. so it was an interesting experience.
one of the special moments in the park is when we came round the corner and this big guy was right by the side of the road. he did something that i had read that elephants do, but never seen before - sucked up a load of dust and...
...puffed it out over himself. apparently it helps keep the insects of his skin. either way, it looks like fun.
it turned out that the rustenburg kingdom hall build was one of the highlights of our trip to south africa. we loved every minute. next stop - pretoria...
