The Apex of an Adventure

Last night I found myself standing on a street corner in Beira. I was exhausted, but so completely satisfied to be off the bus I couldn't help but smile for at least half an hour as I stood there, waiting. It was a seventeen hour bus ride, and even though the view from the windows was awe-inspiring the entire trek, I felt myself pushing my own limits - emotionally and physically.

We made it though. What a week! Since Swaziland, we spent two days at Skukuza camp in northeastern South Africa, in Kruger National Park. We went on two official Safaris in the big truck and everything, and spent all the other time we were there driving around in our own little Toyota Quantum van.

I hadn't planned on having an incredible safari experience, and to be honest, there have been so many other things to focus on, to stress about, to prepare for and to do that I hadn't given the experience much thought. I hand't anticipated it or dreamed about it, but then all of the sudden I was there, in a little rented van, stuck on the road as a herd of elephants trotted by. Having a lack of expectiations, the safari experience completely surpassed them and surprised me.

It is probably not worth spending too much time talking about it, becuase I hope the pictures will be able to speak for themselves. I might try after this post to put a few of them here on the blog, but we really shouldn't get any hopes up with this internet connection. So I will tell you about a few of them:

There is one of a group of seven lions - a lioness and her six cubs ripping a kudu to shreds. It was the luckiest thing that happened to us. She killed it about fifteen yards from the road, and in the night we could barely fit the beams of our searchlights through the brush to illuminate her and the kill and get some clean shots. Then her brother lion showed up. It seemed like he was skipping because h has a bad paw. It was any amateur photographers dream moment.

I guess I am not talking straight about the luckiness thing, because really the luckiest part was seeing the cheetah. There are less than 200 cheetahs in the whole park (compared to thousands and thousands of elephants, giraffe and lions) and we spoke to many people who've come dozens of times and never seen one.

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So safari was fun, but the driving this week really pushed the limits. We spent 49 hours driving! Our BYU program expereince offically ended on Friday evening when we made it back to Maputo from Nelspruit, South Africa. We spent most of the night cleaning up and repacking in order to come up to Beira. Some of the other students returned home to the US, but Kristin, Dusty, Christina, Kailey and I all came up to Beira. We had to wake up at 3:45 to catch the bus, and when I tried to somehow carry all of my stuff, I had a great mozambican moment. It dawned on me that it would much easier to carry my duffle bag on my head. So I did. It worked great!

As far as the bus ride goes - it was cramped, long, beatiful, and they only stopped four times to let us use the bathroom. Our voyage was interrupted by a two hour flat tire/get completely stuck in the mud on the side of the road in the middle of the jungle moment.

As the sun was setting over yet another savannah, dotted with mighty boabab trees and scattered grass huts I scratched some bumpy letters into my journal. It is kind of raw, but I will share it with you in the next post.

I am now safely at the Care for Life facility in Beira, and had a happy nights sleep and a spectacular shower. We just got back from church - another fantastic african ward, perhaps the most impressive one I've seen. The reverance, the talks, the attitude and the faith are all astounding and admirable.

This week I will be observing the Family Preservation Program that Care for Life is currently executing in eight rural villages, and doing some teacher training if everything works out right! Thanks for your thoughts and prayers. I hope that all are well.

Oh and the last thing, I received a Swazi name from a wonderful woman in ... oh dear I don't remember the name of the city. I do remember the name though, it is Sihle (said see-hu-LEE) and it means; "where he goes, doors open" or "the good one who brings good fortune."

Cheers,

Sihle
This is a picture of One World University in Changalane