Long overdue update!

Dearest Friends and Family,

I hope everyone is well and, I cannot believe it's time to say, looking forward to the festive season! It is well over a year since I came to St Anthony's and I find myself again caught up in the whirl of life in a children's home preparing for Christmas.

Since last updating you all I have had a number of adventures, taking me all over the country, with various visitors. I will try and piece together the last 3 months quickly and show how I have risen out of my valley and am feeling very positive about life again!

Mum and Dad arrived in September and came straight to St Anthony's, greeted by the beaming faces of 24 girls, dressed in bright white clothes, and displaying their well-rehearsed 'majorettes' display by way of welcome. Mum and Dad's experience of St Anthony's was much the same as my first introduction to the children, they fell in love with them all in 3 days flat! The highlight of our time with the kids had to be the Sunday afternoon when the three of us decided to hold a BBQ party for the 30 teenagers. Dad manned the BBQ while mum and I had baked cupcakes and coordinated food and drink for everyone. Then the music took over and the kids made the party their own. It moved outside and we were soon in fits of laughter as first mum, then dad, then I, attempted to perform Zulu dance, with varying degrees of success!

As well as our time at St Anthony's mum, dad and I also went on a couple of breaks around the country. First was our trip to the beach, at Port Edward. Beautiful hotel and location, right on the estuary and the beach. The only dampener was the weather! The first day was in full sun and we spent in well on the beach. But as the days progressed the clouds came and it seemed duller everyday! But we made the most of our stay, with a trip to Oribi gorge where we were all brave enough to venture across the suspension bridge, despite the high winds! Mum and I also found rather less adventurous pastimes in the form of the mall and spa...relaxation comes in many forms :)

We also had a fantastic trip to the Drakensberg mountains, the highlight definitely being our discovery of the Drakensberg boy's choir. They really are worldclass performers, we especially enjoyed the traditional African songs and dancing, the whole way through the second half I was saying 'I have to take Lindsey to see this!!'
The next day we went on a hike into to the gorge at Monk's Cowl mountain. It was such a hot day and there was very little shade that dad got a migraine, he did very well to manage to make it back the 2 hours to the car.

Mum and Dad returned via a very enjoyable stay at Melissa's guesthouse and I stayed there to greet Lindsey just a few days later. She was hot on the heels of mum and dad! Poor me, I was forced to have another holiday back to back ;)

Lindsey also came first to St Anthony's where the kids were very happy to greet her. We had a hectic two weeks together, hardly a minute to spare! Whilst at the home we painted an amaaaazing motif on the wall outside of a sunset [all the artistic credit goes to Lins!] Lindsey also arranged an art and craft activity for the children which they loved. Very rarely do they ever get to just spend time together doing something creative and they loved going wild with glitter glue, paint, pritt stick and sequins. I particularly loved the boys view of the xmas sequins, I heard them arguing over who managed to find a 'springbok' amongst the sequins, I realised they meant the reindeers!!

Lindsey also taught a session of gospel choir, the girls are still singing 'Come and go with me, to my father's house!' and are requesting more choir sessions. I hope to resume them soon, and possibly with a guitar! I have hatched a plan to buy a guitar and a 'teach yourself' book and then perhaps can accompany the choir and teach some of the kids to play.

Me and Lindsey also had lots of our own adventures. We set off first to St Lucia, on the coast north of Durban. We had a last minute panic when we found out that it was a malaria area and headed to town to buy some pills. The first chemist informed us that malaria tablets are only available on prescription and that we would have to pay for a doctor's appointment before we could get some. Or, she added, on the otherhand, we could try our luck at the chemist in town, which is renowned for operating under less strict principles :s

We found the chemist she had mentioned and sure enough, our request for malaria medication was met with no reference to our having a prescription! Reading the leaflet inside we realised why the pills were only £5 a packet...side effects apparently ranged from nightmares, to depression, to serious psychological conditions. We shrugged our shoulders and swallowed our first pill, hoping that we would be immune to the effects.

Arriving in St Lucia we were happy to find a beautiful beach which we promptly lay down on until the sunset. The small town was unlike anywhere I had been in SA before, a proper beachy town where you could walk around safely and pop into surfer shops or souvenir places, without being at all tacky. As it began to get dark we pulled up at our backpackers and approached the reception. As we did the sounds of a rather drunken group of people drifted up from the bar, and the reception itself was deserted. I was just about to investigate the party when Lins grabbed my hand and her face pulled me up short. She was on the verge of tears! We hurried out and I tried to calm her down, did the backpackers really look that bad?!?! It seems the rather uncharacteristic reaction was the first of many examples of the malaria pills side effects!

Needless to say, we hurried to find another place to spend the night and found ourselves in a cute little apartment of sorts. We were led to our room by the security guard who informed us most excitedly that we might encounter a hippo outside our room and so should take care if venturing out in the dark. Also, we were told that due to the drought being suffered in the area, there were severe water restrictions but luckily there was still enough water to have a shower and get all the sand off!

The next day we headed off to the river to go on a boat safari where we had some great sightings of crocs and hippos. It was quite cloudy and, stupidly, we werent too careful about wearing suncreen, and later that day found we were both bright red [though Lins turned brown later and I just peeled].

That afternoon we decided to brave the backpackers again and headed in through to the bar. We found a middleaged guy sitting at a bar table, reeking of alcohol which was seeping out his pores, and with one eye squinting. He greeted us with a drawled hello and stood up to reveal grubby feet and unwashed clothes! Basically, the manager was a drunk beach bum!! Luckily our room [twin beds for same price as a dormitory] was clean and perfectly fine for the cheap price. We decided to avoid having to have a drink with the manager and went out for the evening to a really nice restaurant - potato skins for starter mmmm - and came back as late as possible to avoid the guy.

We weren't late enough, and were greeted by a half drunk party of the manager and his friends who had come to visit. I sat down on one bench whilst Lins was whisked off to another and enjoyed a number of interested conversations with some new friends, a yoga teacher from Canada, a trainee physiotherapist working at a zulu government hospital and a guy filming a documentary about rhino poaching. Lins on the otherhand was less happily occupied. With a very drunk guy who kept taking her photo, an old man who boasted about sleeping with a 19yr old the night before, and a boy who spilt his drink on her. O and the manager of course! In order to get away from the unsavoury guests we had to go to bed! Luckily they turned the music off so we could get some sleep.

However, I woke up in the night needing the loo. Not sure whether I was drunk or suffering the hallucinatory side effects of the malaria pills... I opened the door and was met by the buzzing of hundreds of bees in the corridor surrounding the light. I remember saying 'its like the book of Exodus' shutting the door and laying back down. The next morning I woke up with this strange recollection and thought it was a strange dream. Opening the door I found the hundreds of bees now mostly lying on the floor under the light and was partly thankful that the malaria tablets were not affecting me! Lins was not so thankful..! [The next night I turned the corridor light off and it was all fine]

After St Lucia we undertook the mammoth drive of 8hours from St Lucia to Nelspruit, round the edge of Swaziland. The day on the road seemed so hot, we opened the window and hot air just rushed in [but we were trying to conserve on fuel by turning off the air con]. When we arrived at Nelspruit we found it had infact been over 40 degrees that day!!

Hopeful for hot weather the next day we went to bed and got up early for our day trip to the waterfalls of Mpumulanga. As we headed out at 7.30 it seemed a bit overcast but we thought it was just early morning cloud. 30min out of the city we were not so sure...we found ourselves in thick thick fog, I had to put on my full beams and try desperately to keep my eye on the edge of the road as we wound round hair pin bends! We stopped for breakfast in the fog filled town of Graskop and had a rather interesting time in a really oldfashioned cafe complete with its very own cowboy! It felt like we were in a old western movie, frilly dollies and weird pictures and ornaments around the place. The proprietor happily told us that Graskop is famous for having 'four seasons in one day' so we could find it becoming sunny later, though she doubted it. We decided to drive further on to Bourke's Luck potholes and 10min outside of Graskop we were through the cloud and there was bright sunshine! We sunbathed on a rock at the potholes and headed back to Graskop, straight back into fog! We had a nice time having a pancake lunch and browsing in all the souvenir shops.

From Nelspruit we drove back to Joburg, through a massive thunderstorm, but luckily the city had some sunshine and Lins managed to sunbathe round Melissa's pool. The next day I waved goodbye to Lins through the glass around the security gates, the scene of many tearfilled goodbyes! I had sat and cried after Luke left, when a stranger offered me a hug! Cried my eyes out when mum and dad left and now did the same as Lins left. But it had been a great trip and many happy memories were made :)

Since then, I have been working away, trying to make up for so many weeks on holiday. I have spent 10 weeks on the mammoth 'reach for a star' christmas project which has finally been completed today when I made a presentation to the 30 priests of the diocese. The house build is almost over, I learnt how to put glass in windows with putty which was fun! I made a presentation to the Newcastle Rotary club which hopefully will reap some funding in the future. And have made countless driving trips to the doctors, shops and children's houses.

One more anecdote...my infamous trip to the mountain at Maria Ratschitz last Sunday. I had climbed the mountain a few times before but this time met a German girl, Katarina, who was visiting at the mission, and wanted to climb the mountain, but right to the top. I hadn't realised that there was a second Cross further up which marked the true summit and so we decided to reach it. Struggling through the forest which had been recently burnt, we got covered in ashy marks and cuts! But we made it to the top and took celebratory jumping photos of course :)

Then we prepared to head back down, but were drawn by the appearance of a different path leading round the mountain, rather than straight back down the very steep slope. Feeling adventurous we took the new path, along with 2 of the boys as bodyguards! We were chatting happily, Katarina was very interesting, telling me about her work as a social worker and sharing travel stories [I plan to visit her in Munich in 2012!].

After an hour of walking along the mountain we realised it was time we began descending properly, and in the direction of the mission! So we tried to find a route back on ourselves through the forest. About 15min into that forest one of the boys called out 'Auntie Rebecca, look!' Thinking he was playing a walked back to him, 'a snake, a snake!' he said. There was no joking involved at all! Below us, about 7m from the path, was a HUGE snake! Most of it was hidden in the undergrowth but about 1m was visible, as thick as my arm and a head about 5inches long! It was black and yellow with bright yellow eyes fixed on us! As much as I would have liked to have photographic proof of our sighting I was too scared to fumble in my bag for my camera and just grabbed the boys arms and we ran off along the path, full of adrenalin at our close encounter!

Two hours later, after much stress and strain, we considered ourselves thoroughly lost. When we had almost given up hope we found we were face to face with the church we had failed to catch a glimpse of for 3 hours from the mountainside! Somehow we had ended up coming down right round the mission and ended up walking in through the front gate, rather than descending from behind through a gate on the slopes. The rest of the group were relieved to finally find us [2hours later than them] mostly because I had the key for the car with the lunch in!

Lost in the african bush is all good fun, when you are safely home and writing about it!