Red Light

Observations: Africans are beautiful. And oh, so primitive.

Well, we are here. Three days of travel and we are finally here. Two hour flight, fifteen hour flight, overnight stay in South Africa, two hour flight, four hour drive, and we are here. And it is wonderful. On our four hour drive, I was enthralled with the nationals walking along the road: little tots sitting on the shoulder… little; like three years old. People on bikes, people with baskets on their heads, children kicking soccer balls made of plastic bags wrapped with twine. Incredible.

I asked Chandler, “Where are they all walking?” To and from work, the fields, a friend’s house, or to check on the kids, but with no urgency.  I couldn’t wrap my mind around the idea of accomplishing a purpose on my own time, at my leisure. Chandler calls it “African time”.

I wish we could have more opportunity to interact with the nationals; however, we are “ministering to the saints” and what a necessary calling we have on this trip. We are so blessed to have simply met these missionaries and I am excited about the prospect of getting to know them better.

Oh, about the red light. I almost forgot. Our hearts drop when we look up at our independent air conditioning unit and see that red light and do not hear the humming of the air. It has kept us on our toes. Last night, we experienced the wrath of that little red light when our air went out at 2:00 am and it had to be at least 85 degrees in our room… the rest of the night. We made an attempt to fix the problem ourselves, then trekked the ten minute walk to the reception desk only to find the night clerk sleeping on couch cushions on the floor. We didn’t wake him up. Our hearts heavy, we trekked back to our room, pulled down our mosquito nets, and slept with as little cover as possible. In separate beds. We have two twin beds in our room. I call it a “vacation”; Chandler does not approve.

But the internet is decent; however, free time is not in abundance. I probably won’t be blogging much this week.