JoBurg Day 3 Part 2/Port Elizabeth

Today was the Day of Reconciliation of South Africa. Sort of a day of healing all the crap that's happened. It used to be an Afrikaner celebration of the Boers, but that was done away with. That afternoon we were able to spend some time with people Philip baptized. We picked up Peter and Mondi in Katlehong and took them to the Apartheid museum. What better way to spend Reconciliation Day?
I found out that Apartheid is the Afrikaner's word for segregation. Didn't know that. It was such a cool museum. Showing all the tribes and how they were separated geographically so that they wouldn't unite. We saw video of what was happening in Soweto during the protests and during voting time. It was incredible to see the cards that people used to carry to monitor their movement, work and family life.
Mondi was a policeman during that time and had never been to the museum. He said he liked it. Peter had been before and was a great tour guide. He told us about the forming of the constitution, the ANC taking over and governmental transition. He still has his card to show his kids how it used to be. An interesting thing were the pictures of Nelson Mandela and other leaders of the ANC and to see the guys that are running the country in the background of those pictures. Too bad they're not good leaders. Everyone votes ANC because they don't know different according to one person I talked to. There are some oppostion groups that are getting momentum like COPE and we did see some TV ads for them. I think it'll take 2 more generations before things can really be labeled ok.


After that we head straight to the airport to catch our flight to Port Elizabeth. It wouldn't be a Hall vacation if we weren't always on the run now would it? There was Toyi toyi(strike) for South African Airlines people so there was no food on the flight. Reminded me of Italy. We Americans don't realize how great we have it with our government.
PE is on the Indian Ocean and it was BEAUTIFUL!!! Our hotel was right on the beach and had a great view. There was a large boardwalk and a huge party going on. After dinner of some yummy kingkilp fish we walked along and saw a free concert. Little did we know that it was Philip's favorite group Freshly Ground. It was so cool. It is the first day of Holiday so everyone was out and at the beach for some fun.

Here are some pictures of the crowd, the lead singer and of course the traditional Christmas wild dog. I love the Christmas lights here. They are of oceanic animals and safari stuff. Forgot about that christmas tree or snowman.

JoBurg Day 3

Today was a great day! We woke up early, because by now it's not early, it's just normal. Then we went straight to the Rhino and Lion Park. Guess what we saw? Rhino and lions, but also so much more. We did a little safari thing in the comfort of our own taxicab and drove around the park. We saw rhino, lion, white lions, wild dogs, cheetahs, wart hogs and ostriches. It was so much fun. The lions were much larger than I thought and as they came up to the car to eye the tires for food, I really did notice how tall they were.





The best part of the Rhino and Lion park is the petting zoo. This zoo was crazy for 200 Rand(maybe 20 bucks) we got to pet lion cubs, siberian tiger cubs and cheetahs. It was so much fun. Those little guys might be 3 month old cubs, but with retractable claws they are not to be messed with. They are playful little buggers though. They just let you out with a couple of cubs and hope they don't tear you to pieces.






Eddie the cheetah was a real treat. He's pretty used to humans, but still when you're petting him and he rolls or starts playing I'll be honest, I got scared. We were also able to conduct some scientific experimentation. Curtis has always wanted to know if he was allergic to large cats. He's allergic to small cats. Well, after hours of playing with large cat hairs, we concluded that he was NOT allergic to large cat hair. We're going to print that paper and other results in the next Large Cat Magazine edition.

Jo Burg Day 2

Today we met up with a lady named Marianne. She was in one of Philip's ward recently and he helped reactivate her. She took us to the Vortreker Monument in Pretoria. It's a monument that celebrates the "Pioneer-esque" trek of the Boers into South Africa away from the coast. It was really interesting to see the early interactions between the Dutch, British and the Zula people. All were invading from far off lands and all were willing to do such horrible things to each other like put women and children in concentration camps, commit massive murders, burn crops and live stock and other things too horrible to write. Those British were especially mean.
After that we had a Brai (aka BBQ) at her house. She had all sorts of good food, but I didn't really get a chance to eat a lot of it. Her daughter's boyfriend plays cricket for one of the South African teams, so we got a little lesson on that. They are so into sports there its crazy and they are so excited for 2010.




We then went to Lesedi, a cultural center that shows the 4 major tribes of South Africa. The Xhosa, Zulu, Lesotho and I some other one. There were people from each village and showed their traditional dancing and apparel. One tribe wears Scottish kilts because they went to battle with the Scottish and when the tribe leader saw them, he thought it was a bunch of women so he told his men to put their arms down. Well, they lost that battle and now wear kilts.
The Zulu women have very interesting apparel. An unmarried woman wears really short skirts, then she is abducted by her future husband. Their dads talk about lebola(dowry) while she is living with his family. To prevent her from taking off, she has to war lots of metal rings around her ankles and neck to weigh her down so she can't run fast. Once she is married, she will wear very heavy and long goats skins and long coats because she doesn't need to be showing off to anyone else. It was fun to see the dancing and the differences between the tribes.
The Lesotho are very peaceful people who live in the mountains and have hats that look Asian and wear really long blankets because it's so cold. The Xhosa is pronounced with the clicking noise. The X=clicking and I love saying it.






That night we had dinner with the De Kock family. They are Afrikaners in JoBurg and live in a very nice area. Their block is surrounded by armed security with semi-automatic weapons and electrical fence. There is a huge crime problem in the city and everyone is cautious. We had a wonderful curry dish. Their home was very Mormon-country and nice. Curtis and Tamara stayed with them. Philip, Mr Kim and I stayed with the Director of Temporal Affairs for the church. They were a fun family to talk to and his job was so interesting to hear about.

JoBurg Day 1

We got into town and went straight from the airport to the First Presidency Fireside in a place where Philip served called Katlehong. It's a township like Soweto and as we were driving through, I say my first dead body on the street. A teenager had been hit by a car. Phil says it happens all the time there. After seeing his driving, I can believe it. The car we rented was another taxi-like bus, so all the people throwing signs to us we a little perplexed when we would drive by. Just a bunch of white people in the township. Curtis loved driving and started learning proper taxi procedures for picking up people or telling them that the bus was full.
That fireside was so much fun. The people there just loved PhillyBoy and remembered him from over a year ago. He loved it too. We got to meet some people we baptized and took to the temple a year later. We stayed for a while and just chatted with the people.
The church building was a double chapel. The nicest building in the area and it was surrounded by electrical wired fence. They did have a nice greenhouse and play area too.
Afterwards we went to a place called Carnivore. It's a place where you can eat all sorts of meats like zebra, ostrich, crocodile, kudo and other deer like creatures. The workers come around with these big skewers of meat and ask if you want some. They also bring out a platter with all sorts of sauces. So when they bring a meat they also suggest some of the sauces as well. It was really good, except I don't really like crocodile meat.
I was feeling a little queasy before we got there and after all that weird meat my stomach was not handling it well. So on my way to the bathroom, I threw up twice. It was the first time since 2001 I believe, but I felt great afterwards. Funny thing was that no one at the table knew what was happening because I just quickly slid away. When Tamara came to find me, she just followed the trail I had left. I would highly suggest this restaurant to someone with a strong stomach. My favorite was the kudo meatballs. The zebra tasted a little like pork.






This is what I ate earlier that day that I think made me sick. It was some sort of meat thing from a roadside stand in the middle of Africa. Plus the PS I love you bar probably didn't help either. But Mr. Kim ate one too and he didn't get sick. Well, maybe I"m just lucky like that.

Travel Day

Today we got to drive through southern Botswana and northern South Africa on our way back to Jo Burg. At one point we were on the outskirts of the Kalahari desert and it sure felt like it. About half way through the trip, our car got injured. The road is straight for about 600 km with no places to get on or off, but something happened to the exhaust pipe and it needed to be welded. So we found a little town called Rakops. As we drove in to the non-working gas station, it was covered with sand. So we drove around a little more and Khen was able to get the name of a welder. At his house we had plenty of time to get out and explore so we did.
We met this wonderful lady who owned the tuck shop and we bought some wonderful sugar-filled Coca Cola and some gum. She was pleased to take pictures with us and then we walked around. Philip says that when little kids are asked to go to the store to buy something they always get the change in the little gums to eat before they get home. So we did too.
At the welder's house, I noticed that there was a group of ladies sitting around=tons of funs with the teasing. So I went over and started talking. They were very nice in offering me some of their homemade beer to buy and minutes on the cellphone. After a while we got a big group together and just talked. Christina and Slender were the ones who spoke English well. Slender had a little girl and Slender's mom and older sister were there too.
I saw that they had a round grass hut building and I asked if I could go in. Christina took me in and I was in heaven. Not only did she have a poster of KC and JoJo, which is amazing in itself. There was also a poster of Shaquile O'Neil from the Magic years(which I had a jersey of in the 8th grade) I started to sing "All My Life," and Christina jumped right in. Mr. Kim was taking pictures in stealth mode, so we have a lot of them to show you.