March 6, 2006
Johannesburg, South Africa
Scott's parents have been serving a mission in South Africa since July 2005. We decided to use the money Intel gave us for a home leave to go to South Africa to visit them instead of going to the States (sorry Grandma Sherrie!).
We left Haifa about 5:30 pm, ate dinner at the airport, shopped, let the kids play at the new play area and then boarded our plane.
Airport play areaFlying to South Africa is interesting. We flew almost directly south except for flying right down the middle of the Red Sea to avoid flying over countries unfriendly to Israel. Israel and South Africa are in the same time zone, so even though we were on a plane for nine hours, we had no jet lag when we arrived. We were happy that the kids slept most of the night on the plane. Scott's parents met us inside the arrival terminal at the airport. It was great to see the kids go to their grandparents right away.
Brooke and Grandma at the airport
Mom and Dad drove us to the mission home where they are living. They gave the kids toys to play with during their stay. Then we took short naps and Tiffany and Mom left to explore the store. We talked, relaxed and planned out our stay. After the kids went to bed, we played Settlers of Zarahemla, a variant of Settlers of Catan.
The next day, Thursday, we went to the Organic Market, where people sell handmade African items. Tiffany got a blue opal ring and we bought a few souvenirs. We noticed the mission van making noises, so Scott and Dad took it into the dealership to get it checked. A van is called a kombi in South Africa. The dealership arranged an appointment for Friday which meant we had to rearrange our plansa little. Afterwards, we visited the mission office and then went to the mall. We wandered around the big beautiful mall and then ate dinner at a wonderful Italian restaurant there called Ciao Baby. Then we went home and played Mille Bornes.
On Friday, one of the senior missionary couples, the Christoffersens, watched Brooke and Tyler so that we could go to the Johannesburg temple with Scott's parents. It was really nice since we hadn't been to a temple since Jeff and Augusta's wedding last March. Afterwards, we bought church videos and young women items at the church distribution center near the temple. Then we went to Red Chamber, a wonderful Chinese restaurant in another beautiful mall. It was nice to have a relaxing meal without our children. The mall even had a Leonidas shop, Scott's favorite Belgian chocolates, so he was very excited to buy some. We returned home to find the kids having a wonderful time with the missionary couple.
Brooke and Tyler wanted to help Grandma water the plants in the backyard. She eventually just gave them a bucket of water and let them go crazy.
Water funTyler discovered that the mission assistants live in an apartment behind the mission home, so he went up to visit. Like most young missionaries, they have lots of "toys" they have collected during their missions. Tyler had fun playing with Star Wars Happy Meal toys, a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle and a 10-inch long Lamborghini.
That night we invited the assistant over to play the Great Dalmuti, which is similar to a game we played in the States with our friends called President.
On Saturday, we went to the Rhino and Lion Park about 30 minutes away from the mission home. It is a large, 3500 acre private game reserve with lots of animals.
OstrichThe most interesting animals in the park were the lions. They are kept in a separate part of the park so that they don't eat the other animals. They spent most of the time napping right next to the dirt road. We pulled up in the mission van next to several other cars and watched the lions. They just lounged around until they saw (or smelled) a blue pickup truck. Then they all got up and started moving towards the truck. They passed right by the mission van, and one of the lions sniffed our back wiper and then looked in the back window at Tiffany and Mom.
Many kingsJust a few minutes later, the lions were climbing on the pickup truck. The driver started honking his horn and driving slowly to get the lions to leave the truck alone. Scott was able to take a short video with our digital camera. If you listen carefully you can hear one of the truck tires deflate as the lions bite or slash it. You can also see a puff of dust from the air escaping and the truck settle several inches.
The Kill (video)Once the lions deflated the two rear tires of the pickup truck they left it alone. The owners of the truck called the park rangers on their cell phone and the rangers arrived a few minutes later and held off the lions while the truck owner jacked up the truck, removed the two rear wheels and sent another ranger into town to replace the tires.
Vanquished pickupThe lions had left us alone, but by this time, Tyler was getting scared of the lions. We left the lion section of the park and drove to see other animals. Of course within a few hours Tyler was talking about how he would have chased the lions off if they had tried to attack our van.
We tried to see some wild dogs, but they were hiding in the tall grass. We did see lots of other animals, such as white rhinos, zebras, springbucks, impala and this blesbuck.
Blesbuck with Joburg in background
We were surprised that some of the animals hang out together, such as these springbucks and zebras.
Springbuck and ZebraAfter the park, we ate grilled shrimp at one of Scott's parent's favorite restaurants, Three Peppers. Then we went home and got ready for the Soweto stake conference where Mom got to speak.
It was interesting to visit Soweto, which is a black township near Johannesburg famous for riots in 1976 about South African apartheid policies. It is a very poor area, but the church is growing quickly. The members are very strong and they have beautiful church buildings to meet in. The weather turned cold that evening and we soon felt like we were freezing. It was odd for us to experience the opposite seasons in the southern hemisphere. It was March, but it was fall. After the conference, we visited Irene, a Zulu woman who helps take care of the mission home. She lives near the church building where we had conference and has a son a little older than Tyler. Whenever Irene came to the mission home, Tyler would follow her around and talk to her. Mom taught Tyler how to say hello in Zulu, which thrilled Irene.
On Sunday, we attended the rest of the Soweto stake conference. Dad spoke in this meeting. Afterwards, we had dinner with the assistants. Then we watched Pioneers in Africa, about the growth of the church in Africa, and the documentary March of the Penguins which the kids really enjoyed.
On Monday, we packed and then drove to Pilanesberg, a national park about three hours from Johannesburg. Pilanesberg is an enormous animal preserve in an extinct volcano. We checked into the Kwa Maritane bush lodge inside the park and then decided to drive into the park looking for animals while it was still light. We were fortunate to see elephants right on the road. They were amazing to watch.
Baby elephant goes under its mom
We continued farther into the park and also saw zebra and wildebeest. We then returned to the hotel for dinner. We decided to eat on the patio from where we could see a waterbuck. The most exciting part of the dinner was that we could hear a lion growling and roaring somewhere out in the long grass nearby. We figured it wasn't a very common occurrence because even the hotel staff came out on the patio to listen and try to look for the lion.
Hotel patio restaurantTyler-isms:
"Hippopotom" - Hippopotamus. Tyler was mixing Hebrew animal names with the English names.
"Milk store" - the grocery store
"I want to water can" - Tyler wanted to water the flowers again and play in the water.
"My favorite thing about missionaries is to shake their hands" - Tyler was excited to meet so many missionaries.
"I want to watch the lion, zebra and giraffe movie." - Tyler got hooked on the animated movie Madagascar.
Brooke-isms:
"Cheese" - While taking pictures with a toy camera.
"Eight, nine, ten" - Brooke loves to count, but only knows a few numbers.