Alas, the holidays are now very much over but I’ve certainly enjoyed them. As usual, South Africa has thrown in some little surprises to spice things up, such as becoming a chauffeur for a few days after my friend badly sprained her ankle, rescuing a dazed kingfisher and the discovery that Clarens has not one, but two waterfalls. Who knew!

Thankfully I got to make the most of my weekend before work by spending my days with the youth from several churches across South Africa, some coming from places around 9 hours away crammed into one small buckie/van-thing, luggage and all. It was nice to see the event come off without too many glitches after spending the prior week organising name tags, teams and sleeping arrangements. Mum, you’ll be pleased to know your organisational skills have rubbed off ! Africa definitely put its best foot forward and there were a few days of glorious scalding sunshine with a bit of rain in the evening to cool things down. Every once in a while I pause and think how strange it is that if I weren’t a Christian I wouldn’t have met so many people I’m glad to call my friends; I did this far more often when in a room full of 100 people who don’t speak English as their first language, and with whom I’d have very little in common besides my religion. Of course it was a little intimidating at times as my Sesotho isn’t the greatest, and some people there weren’t Basotho and so spoke a different language but it was great to just talk to them and have a laugh (in English of course). Besides the worship and enthusiastic dancing from many a person in the hall we also all enjoyed messing about and getting to know one another. From making a war cry for our teams, building human pyramids to being bombarded by random objects in an extreme version of ‘bring me a…’ it certainly gave me memories that will last.

The first couple of weeks back at work have been quite tumultuous but by the grace of God I am still keeping on top of things after my role completely changed within the school. It’s certainly different working more closely with the younger children in the school, and though I miss the older students I built a good working relationship with I still get hailed from across the school and bombarded by hugs when I see them. I’m certainly enjoying the benefit of a shorter school day, though the constant ‘blow your nose!’ as I’m seeing trails of snot run down noses and faces is taking some getting used to. Besides the height, the main difference is having everything I say translated into Sesotho. Made it rather interesting during story-time before school ended; I’d picked up a book which seemed short, and forgot its length would effectively be doubled so I had to paraphrase and hope they wouldn’t notice.

After all this time I finally made it to Lesotho this weekend, hurray! It’s weird to think that you can see Lesotho from Clarens but because of the boarder crossing being an hour away it makes it much harder to get to. It was a very surreal experience driving through Buta Bute to the village where I was staying. Discounting the popular western belief that you see zebra and lions running around the roads terrorizing everyone, Lesotho very much fits the stereotype you learn in England. You don’t have running water, villages still have chiefs, many people don’t have electricity there, and those who do are frequently affected by load-shedding and the vast majority of homes I saw were made from mud and straw. I have to say though I’m so glad I was staying in a mud and straw roundhouse rather than a tin roofed building as they are much cooler in summer and remain warm in winter. It was certainly a refreshing break from everything because there’s no reliance upon technology for entertainment, which means you talk and have a laugh when you’re all failing miserably to pick up a new card game, and resort to Junior Monopoly. Oh and my wonderful hosts introduced me to pumpkin pie (courtesy of a monstrously proportioned pumpkin that was growing in their veg patch), and it was so delicious!

To those that don’t understand the frustrations of the inefficacy of the South African postal service, it is as follows: there’s the constant threat of postal strikes and after a 3 month strike last year the timely delivery of post is somewhat skewed. Sometimes parcels from the UK never arrive, sometimes they may arrive within a month, sometimes after four or ten months. It feels like pure luck if something arrives. We had school post arrive recently that had been redirected through Kenya! Only a few weeks after I first arrived at the end of July my lovely nan asked if there was anything she could send me in a parcel which is difficult to get hold of here. My answer was of course chocolate. That’s not to say South Africa doesn’t sell chocolate, or even Cadbury’s for that matter but unfortunately for whatever reason the recipe is different. And it just doesn’t taste the same. At all. So I’d been told the parcel was sent and as time went on it seemed less and less likely it would ever arrive. Throughout the following weeks I was repeatedly told that the worst thing to do when sending chocolate by post is to put on the parcel import label that it is in fact chocolate. Alternatives suggested have varied between wedding photos to second-hand clothes. It became very clear that whoever works for the SA postal service likes chocolate. So imagine my surprise (and of course sheer delight) when after returning from Lesotho last weekend I was handed a large parcel containing all my favourites! I’d even received postcards from Vietnam and Thailand that I thought would be lost forever. Let us hope that this is a good omen for future parcels send to SA without the need for ‘couriers’ in the form of friends or acquaintances coming to and fro.

As ever blasted mosquitoes are the bane of my life and try to eat me alive every evening, or wait till I’ve nearly fallen asleep before whining just past my face then flying away again. It’s like a gross parody of Jaws where the music/buzzing gets louder and louder, and then it stops and leaves you slapping every part of your body in the hopes you’ll by some miracle kill it. The one positive thing about mosquitoes is that they are slower than bluebottles, which seem to have superpowers that make them impervious to insecticide aerosols. They take great delight in persistently trying to land on your face and it’s infuriating.

Now to enjoy what feels like a well deserved weekend.