South Africa, Day 8: Monday

Monday was a super packed day! We headed about 3 hours away to Port Alfred, the area my parents served in for the first nine months of their mission. On the way down we stopped and had a yummy buffet breakfast at one of the resorts. It was funny, one of the waitresses said that when they leave the sliding doors open the monkeys will sneak in and steal the butter and sugar off the tables!!! Cheeky little monkeys!



We visited a sweet little family in another township--Delsi lives with her mom and three boys--one of which is actually her brother's child that she took in as an infant. She was about a week away from delivering a baby girl, so my mom wanted to stop while we were in town and give her a baby gift. My mom also got a little basketball hoop toy for the boys that was about a dollar, and they LOVED it. They played with it the whole time we were there. Sweet Delsi and her mom made us some homemade fries with some shortbread cookies and 'cool drink' (that's what they call soda or juice). We got some darling pictures of the cute little boys!






Then we headed to 'Oceana', a beautiful game park where a tour guide takes you through in their land rovers. It was nice to be able to ask questions about all the animals. At the end of the tour, she stopped and we had drinks and kabobs for a nice little picnic as we looked over the beautiful view of the ocean and landscape.


This Giraffe was so funny, it was herding this water buffalo. It would swing it's head down and hit it to try to get it to go where it wanted. Water buffalo are among the "Big 5" of Africa, or the 5 most dangerous to hunt. So I was surprised it didn't turn on the giraffe.



I love this picture of Cecily and her Opa!


We got to pet a little baby antelope--these are really rare, it was worth over a million rand.



These are called "bontebok" which means painted or something of the sort. They are so beautiful, my favorite.


Behind us are the "white" rhino--or the wide mouth. Man they are huge!!!


Here's the last stop, enjoying our picnic.

Before we went home we visited two more families in the township. The first was the sweetest couple, Vuyani and Thembisa. They are such faithful sweet members and were so hospitable to us. They served us some Roibos Tea--a south african standard--it was really good, and she served it in her best china! My favorite part of the night was getting them to sing and talk in Koza, the 'click' language. It's so fun to listen to, this is one of my very favorite videos of our whole trip!!! I absolutely love this couple, I think they were my favorite people we met!




Another gorgeous South African sunset

Here's Cecily putting gallons of sugar into Ryan's tea!! Good thing he's got a huge sweet tooth!



We visited one more family, I only remember the mom's name--Patience. My mom taught her piano lessons and she said she was one of her best students! By the end of the day we were exhausted and were so grateful to be able to stay in the lovely home of some members. It took Cecily a little while to warm up to their dog since he was twice her size, but he was her best little buddy before we left!