CHASTITY's VISIT

I was so lucky to get a visit from Chastity here in South Africa! She came in mid November and stayed for three weeks. She visited Nigeria to see her father's side of the family for the first time, and took a side trip south to see me. We stayed a week in Pretoria, the capital city, where she caught up on some Americanisms (shopping malls, restaurants, and double cheeseburgers). We celebrated Thanksgiving in the Ambassador's house feasting on butter ball turkeys and cutting a rug (he and his wife--both charmers!).

Then we went to Coffee Bay, nestled in a rural part of Kwazulu Natal, it's famous as a great spot to surf. It was 12 hour over-night bus ride, and Chastity had the flu. She's resilient! She made the best of it--we climbed the rocky outcrops and braved some intense waves. We both came back scarred, but happy. Here are some cows enjoying the beach.

After Coffee Bay we rented a car with 2 other volunteers, Kelsey and Jillian, and headed to Kruger National Park to see some wild animals. This elephant started walking straight towards our car. Just as we were starting to really panic it nonchalantly veered around us and continued on down the road. This is a photo out of our dirty back window as it turned off into the trees. Chastity did a good job of resisting hanging out the window and filming the whole thing-they say the sound of cameras can enrage a elephant, (mad elephant=flat car).

After Kruger we went back to my village and hosted a Girls' Leadership Camp for one week. We played a lot of games (especially bingo), and we taught them the electric slide. They used markers for the first time to draw pictures of the things they are good at, and their future goals. They made beaded necklaces, and on Thursday we invited the girls' mothers and aunts to come see them perform the electric slide, play bingo, and be presented with a beaded necklace.

Here we are doing a trust exercise that involved falling into the groups arms and being conveyor belted down to the end. The girl falling had to say "TRUST," and the group would respond "WE GOTCHA!" That became the motto of our camp, at any moment you could yell out "TRUST!", and be assured a "WE GOTCHA!"

On Friday we all took a field trip to the public pool in the closest town, Tzaneen. It was the first time most of the girls had ever swam, or even seen a pool. They loved it! It must be a universal characteristic of young people to love swimming.

Taxi rides to and fro field trips are always much more intense than any dance club I've ever been in! Here the girls are rocking out to some popular local music and the hit remix of "Time After Time."

The village, my host family in particular, loved Chastity. They miss her almost as much as I do. You only have to say her name to solicit longing sighs and far away looks of nostalgia. Who else could steal the heart of a village in less than a week?!