The kids and I were nostalgic on Sunday morning and looked through my photos of my internship/travel in South Africa. I have so many more photos but I was able to scan a few so I'll start with these.
In August 2000, I moved to South Africa through the BYU international studies program. I had to take a class during the summer quarter to study Xhosa culture as I'd be living with a Xhosa family. We read about Nelson Mandela, studied Apartheid. My dream of going to Africa was going to come true. I lived there for four months. I took a few courses independently and also did a social work internship with the Child Welfare Agency. I'm so happy to have had this experience. I met incredible people. I need to dig through my journal to put names with pictures, but my heart is happy because of every person I met.
We rode to town on taxis or these mini buses. People would squish inside. We were the only white people I remember riding the taxis. We would point which direction we wanted to go. One person self designated to be the money collector for the driver. We would pass our Rands up to the money collector who would give them to the driver. I met so many fun people. I even got to practice wrapping a baby like all of the beautiful mamas there.
Here is my sweet family that I stayed with. One memory I have of this living room is watching the Bold and the Beautiful. American soap operas were a big deal. They were also years behind in their episodes. I never caught up when I returned to America, but I have that fun memory.
We got to attend church with some amazing people.
We even got to go on a temple trip with our ward family.
One adventure was riding horses at a wildlife refuge. All of the animals here were animals it was safe to see in the wild. We rode through fields and saw giraffes, zebras, water buffalo, gazelles, springbok and others. I even got to gallop for the first time here. During my BYU horse riding P.E. course, we cantered but we couldn't gallop in the arena.
At the end of our ride, a giraffe got into the horse corral so we got to be Annie Oakley and ride around and shepherd the giraffe out of the horse corral.
In East London, South Africa, we lived near the Indian Ocean and got to visit it regularly and enjoy the beauty.
Our Xhosa family took us to the rural lands to meet their extended family. They slaughtered a cow and gave the heart and lungs to the elders and the liver to us because we were guests. The kids got the entrails.
In this picture we are gathered around and they are showing us how they squeeze the contents out of the entrails before they cook it.
At the end of our time, we traveled. Janet and I took a safari through Krueger National Park. I have so many pictures but here is a baboon, elephant and ostrich were were all over and super dangerous.
This is the cell where Nelson Mandela stayed on Robben Island.
I really need to get all of my pictures and my journal scanned.
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