Weekend

After a week in the Cape Town region, what to do in Pretoria/ Johannesburg? For me the thing to do was just rest and relax in our host's home. For Wanda the thing to do is not sit around and do nothing.

On Saturday I did hang around the place just catching up on emails and relaxing while Wanda went out and did some shopping. By afternoon everyone was back and it was time to hang out around the pool. We had a wonderful supper with fresh sweet corn and stuffed chicken, baked potatoes and Greek salad. And wine. The fruit here is wonderful, right now the nectarines are ripe and we've had our share. It's just a reminder that we have something to look forward to when we get back to NA this summer!

Sunday we headed out to Soweto (SOuthWEst TOwnship suburb of Johannesburg) to a worship service at the Roman Catholic church of Regina Mundi. This church was in the middle of the Apartheid struggle, especially on the night of the youth protests when SA police entered the church and shots were fired. The bullet holes have been preserved. But what we saw was a church full of people, guessing at least 1,500 worshippers, with a choir leading some amazing singing. I love black South African music, especially in church. The 4 part harmony goes deep in my soul, it is similar yet so different from my own Mennonite 4 part harmony. Even though the whole service was in another language (Zulu? Xhosa?) I recognized 3 tunes; an 'amen' tune that I think is in our green songbook, the doxology and a familiar hymn, What a friend we have in Jesus, sung in such a rich way I wish I had recorded it. Again, we understood nothing but being in the middle of the service for 2 hours and 15 minutes was an opportunity to get a glimpse of worship in this part of the world.

We went to a Mall that allows crafts and flea market folks to set up in one of their parking garages on the weekends. All types of vendors and buskers, bustling with people. We then went to Walter Sisulu Memorial Botanical Gardens to have a picnic lunch. What I thought would be one thing (in my mind I have a certain idea about what a Botanical Garden is) turned out to be more like what we call a public park in NA. Lots of people out on the open lawn under trees doing the picnic thing. Lots of trails to go hiking on and a beautiful waterfall. And of course we came back, relaxed, napped, swam in the pool and had a wonderful dinner of boerwars (farmer sausage), sweet corn and Greek salad. And apple cider cooler.

The plan was to go to Pilanesburg Game Reserve for a safari. We agreed to get up a 4:30 a.m. in order to be on the road at 5 a.m. to get to the game park at 6:30 a.m. Seems like quite a plan for those who are on vacation (to get up that early). But the best sitings are always in the early morning, just around dawn. As we went to bed it started to rain. It thundered and lightninged and rained through the night. We got up, checked the weather reports online for Pilanesburg and saw nothing but rain all day and said, naw, we'll stay here. So our hosts went to work while Wanda and I went back to bed and then took our time getting breakfast in before walking to the nearby Brooklyn Mall where we hung out. First stop was at the Seattle Coffee Shop where we ordered mocha coffees, a healthy muffin and played Scrabble. We walked the mall, did some shopping and had lunch there, then walked back to the house. All in all a very pleasant day. What will happen tomorrow, a safari? We'll see.