Long Time, No Blog

It has been a full two months since we last wrote!  Here are lots of pictures and a few words!

Johannesburg experienced a small earthquake on 5 August.  Apparently all the abandoned gold and platinum mines under the city occasionally collapse and we get earthquakes.  Who knew?!

The earth-shaking continued when Kate turned 10 on 9 August.  She invited friends and their families to the Bryanston bike park for riding and a braai by Dad.  Very fun!

John has taken up jiu jitsu and is really enjoying it.  Kate continues to love best playing in the park behind our house with all the people and their pets.

Our family (+ John's friend Nate) spent 9 days over the recent school break on the island of Zanzibar.  It was AMAZING!  

Stone Town, Zanzibar

 Fish Market at Night

We all enjoyed this tour guide's interpretation of Stone Town's history and amazing doors (all, that is, except Kate)

She enjoyed the spice farm tour much more.  We got to eat cinnamon, cinnamon roots, cacao beans, turmeric, ginger, nutmeg, and lots of fruits we'd never heard of.

Cloves, Zanzibar Gold

The best passion fruit smoothies ever.  EVER.  At a little hole in the wall restaurant in Stone Town.

View from our hotel, the Mashariki Palace (former home of the Sultan's Imam)

Princess Jasmine, I mean Kate, watching the Muslim girls heading to school

Nate and John looking out from their side room

From Stone Town, we travelled across the island to the Baraza Resort where we were welcomed with bungo juice

John and Nate lining up the best photo

Welcome to Paradise!

Kate slept on the "sultan's day bed" in our villa but we all loved to hang out on it

This is a local restaurant called The Rock.  You must take a boat to access it.

The owner of The Rock who promised Kate she could hold her wedding reception at his venue.   No date yet, but hold the location!

The Baraza kids club had fun activities everyday.  (The French boy on the left was fond of picking flowers for Kate.  They couldn't understand anything past "Bonjour" and "Hi!")

John and Nate snorkeled a lot

Kate loved beach combing

Just before a scuba dive

Memories:  Nate getting sea urchin needles in his knee the first time he went in the ocean (you need papaya juice and a needle to get them out).  Banana chocolate smoothies available all day long from the Baraza traveling bartender (John and Nate each had 6 one afternoon).    Kate in water (either ocean or pool) for 5 days straight.  The curry.  The sound of men being called to prayer 5 times/day in Stone Town.  The poverty.  Playing UNO in the Nairobi Airport.  Mosquito nets and Maloril.  Everyone's favorite friend:  Natasha from the UK.

Despite extreme caution in not drinking the water etc, Jeff picked up water-borne and a food-borne bacterial infections so he spent the first night back from the trip in the emergency room!

A cool experience has been helping our friend Clive prepare for a mission to Durban, SA.  He entered the Missionary Training Center last Thursday and Michele enjoyed being the one to get to process his paperwork.  Clive is the first missionary for the LDS Church from the informal settlement of Diepsloot.  He's truly a pioneer!

Clive with Nomatter, his sister

Elder Ncube and his new companion in the MTC cafeteria

Our cleaning lady Susan had her 12-year old daughter Michelle visit from Zimbabwe last week while the kids were out of school.  One day, Kate took Michelle ice skating.  She had never done that before!

Susan is amazing!  She saw a lady on the taxi studying, so she asked her how she could do that too. She found out about a local online university and signed up.  Then she bought a 2nd-hand computer so she could complete the coursework.  She is perservering despite challenges with English and the discouragement from almost everyone she knows that she is "too old" to be going to college to try to change her career from domestic work.

John assembled a desk and chair for her and helped her get the computer set up in our domestic quarters.  At just this time, GE started a free 4-week "intro to computers" course on Saturdays, so we signed up Susan.  Then she found a night typing class in her neighborhood.  (Let's be very clear:  Susan has never typed or used a computer before in her life!  She had never used a microwave, dishwasher, etc before coming to work for us).  So she just finished the fourth week of the GE class and guess what they gave every student who completed the 4 weeks?  A laptop!  Susan was overjoyed!  Here she is showing it off.  Yesterday, she wore a beautiful peach suit to work and I said "Susan, you look so professional!  Why are you so dressed up?"  And she said, "Because I want to look like a woman who owns a laptop."


Our friends the Calls invited us over for games last Friday.  How cool is this "Settlers"-themed relish spread?

We had several of the young single adults from our ward over for dessert and games the other night.  John introduced them to his famous cc cookies with ice cream and Wacky Sixes.  It was a really fun night!

Kate took her friend Jude to a place called Acrobranch over the break.  Here they are preparing to zipline.

On Monday (the last day of semester break), John and some of his church friends went to the Diepsloot Combined School to measure the feet of 125 G5-7 children who need new school shoes ($8/pair).  For his Eagle Scout project, John is raising the funds to deliver shoes to these kids in the next couple of months.  (BTW, if you want to donate, please let us know :)

Now the kids are back to school and we are getting back into a routine of trying to be in bed by 10pm and arising at 5am.  It's hard to believe this is the last term of their school year.  On Dec 5, they will have completed another year of South African school!  Time is going so fast!