....hillbillies....

We’re free!

We got up at the crack of dawn and Randy packed the car up while I scrubbed the house down. Peter the Fisherman helped tie the mattress and a little table to the top of the car. I underestimated the size of our roof. The mattress looks like a crib mattress sitting up there. It was strange walking away from the paddock and knowing that everything we owned was crammed in the car.

Together, the four of us headed off down the coast and then up towards Stellenbosch. You should have seen the looks we got. I had two reactions. The first one was, "I'm glad we don't know anyone here..." and the second one was, "What are you looking at? You're the ones that toss your whole family tree in the back of the truck to hold down the old appliances."

Speaking of appliances, our refrigerator source fell through so we had to go buy one. Who wants to spend money on a fridge? Not me. We looked at old junky used ones. There were only large used ones so we would have to get it delivered. And that made them too expensive. So instead, we decided to buy a new mini-fridge. Like a dorm fridge. We loaded it in the trunk and came home.

So we're here now. I hadn't actually been in the cottage yet, so today was my first time to see it. It is perfect and beautiful. When I can summon the energy to stand, I'll take some pictures. You'll get the grand tour tomorrow. I wish I could have someone over so they could see our cool bathroom. I guess pictures will have to do.

:)

Dog Day

I opened the door today to let in some fresh horse-air and found the local dogs sitting there waiting for just such an occurrence. They came in and we had some treats and then we hung out in the paddock together. Bezel is the brown dog (he belongs to Peter the Fisherman) and he and Wumpy are personality twins. They’re both sweet and slow. Its fun hanging out with a bunch of animals (that we don’t have to own…..)

I would have loved to do this all night, but somehow we got suckered into having farewell “goodies” with the landlady and the neighbors. It was painful. I would have rather sat out in the horse paddock and eaten my weight in dirt. Our new (older lady) neighbor, Penny, who Audrey and Francoise love because of her sophistication, spent half the evening in a drunken rage over loud-mouthed American idiots and our politics. I sat and watched her, like I would a car-wreck in motion, horrified, but unable to look away, and simultaneously stuffed cashews into my mouth in order to keep it occupied with something more worthwhile than entering into an argument with a person who can’t listen.

But we got a call from our new landlord saying we can start moving in today, so I’m getting stuff ready. I will be sure to document our attempt to cram everything we own into the Merc, including the mattress. Yes, we’re going for it.

Happy Happy, Joy Joy

We drove up the northern coast to take these pictures. Table Mountain, in the distance, is right smack-dab in the middle of the city of Cape Town. I *loved* this beach. It wasn’t very crowded and these kids were having a blast. It’s always so fun to see African children having the time of their lives and to know that happiness can occur without a Nintendo Wii, and without the newest shoes (or shoes period). It stretches my idea of what joy really is and I have to reevaluate my opinions of where it comes from.

Coastal Towns

Whenever we have to do anything “official”, we drive into the coastal towns near Noordhoek. They have “real” organizations, such as…….law enforcement.

I’ve almost forgotten how shocking these villages were to me when we first drove through them. One flows right into the next and all of them are mounted against the mountains by the beach. For most of the drive the road twists between waves and civilization. Kalk Bay has beautiful shops and nice restaurants. Muzinburg is old and “surfy” and Fish Hoek is a fishing village that has just about everything people need, from a public library (sort of) to a very popular KFC (where we dropped Bernard off today to meet a friend).
Most of these buildings have been there since before the 1800’s, and the houses are insane! They’re beautiful, in a crumbly “this pink mansion has been in the family for 200 years” sort of way.

These pictures were shot as we were zipping through the narrow streets at an alarming speed, while a train of impatient locals were building up behind us. It was a foggy day too. But I think you can still see some of the coolness. It’s amazing to park and get out and walk down the street with these people who think they live in a normal place. It’s so lively and crazy and foreign. Don’t they understand that?

Mountain Fires

For the past month or so, Randy and I have seen indications of fire in this area. One day a helicopter flew over our heads towing a gargantuan bucket of water. Several times we have seen smoke on the horizon, or smelled burning trees. Last night Randy came home from the library and said he saw a glow nearby. We pulled out onto the street and were halfway down the block when Randy came to an abrupt halt (scared the tar out of me). “Look at that,” he said and pointed. I got out and stood on the hood of the car in my PJ’s.

The hills to the south were consumed in flame. It was nearly impossible to get an accurate picture but we took a few. With the naked eye, we could see the fire eating up the mountainsides and the whole sky was glowing red. You can see from the picture that two towns are built on those hills: Kommetjie on one side and Simon’s Town on the other. We parked in a field and watched the land burn. It was beautiful and terrifying (for anyone with a house on that hill!) This morning we walked over and took a “daytime shot”. It was weird to see a fire that big and to not hear a single siren. In fact, I don’t think I’ve actually seen a fire-truck here. Weird.

More prep work

Randy and I were talking about our non-blogginess lately and admonished each other over not recording even the mundane events of our life. You get used to a place and stop thinking about the fact that in a few years these will only be memories and we will regret not keeping better track of our lives here. And that’s what this blog is really; the visual and written story of our years in Africa. I wish we had one of these to look back on from our years in Chicago; riding the subway; living and working among skyscrapers; doing laundry in the rat-infested basement; the constant chaos on the streets below our apartment. I would love to see more of that as I’m sitting on a log, swatting at flies. It’s a world that barely exists to me now.

After enjoying one last evening of familiarity, I painted the living room white again. It’s the ritual of my adult life; make it interesting, and then cover it back up. This morning our flat feels like a garage again. But last night I was sick of painting, and the dogs were being lazy, so Randy grabbed us and drove us to the beach to watch the sunset. We missed the giant, flaming orb by seconds, but the aftermath was beautiful. Wumpy can’t stand sitting in the car, unable to sniff and mark all the shrubby wonders he sees out the window, so I ran him down to the beach real fast. It was windy and kind of cool, but it was fun. The beach is beautiful and we’re lucky to have lived this close to it for a time. I feel like we’re going into new terrain next week. Really, we are! I can’t wait. And to answer my good friend Denise’s question, we haven’t made up our minds about the strapping-the-mattress-to-the-top-of-the-Benz scenario. It takes over an hour to get to our new house and there is a huge stretch of winding seaside towns where the streets are really narrow and the traffic is really fast. We might de-throne any number of motorcyclists who love to zip down through the middle of traffic. Apparently they have an invisible motorcycle lane here that they don’t have in the States.

Our new neighbor moved in next door. She has also rented our flat, and she is going to re-open a boarded up doorway and have the entire ground floor space. She signed a lease for March 1^st, but agreed to take over our lease for Feb because she has so much stuff that she really needs our space now. So thank God! We don’t have to pay a double rent in Feb. Yee-haw.

Packing.......

Today I pulled out my shipping bin and put all my personal possessions in it.

I’d like to introduce y’all to everything I own……..

Our few dishes as well as our toiletries will fit in there as well. Then we’ll just have to pack up Randy’s “research lab” and we’ll be ready. This is the dogs’ contribution (cuteness). I love having to move nothing, but unfortunately, this move is going to require accumulation. Like the bed. And a fridge. Or maybe we could just look for a couple of those hideous Barcaloungers that have the mini-fridge built into the arm; knock out many birds with a couple of extremely unattractive stones.

Seating+Sleepable Recliner+Mini-fridge=all the furniture we need!

Mailing Address

Here is our new mailing address. The addresses here always throw me off because there are no states, and nobody bothers to write out which province something is in. I guess its not vital information.

P.O. Box 258
Blackheath, 7501
Republic of South Africa
Here is a picture of Randy looking great and me looking confused. We kept trying to take this picture (for someone we both love), but whenever the camera would start beeping, Enkidu would run over there and stick his face in the lens to see where the noise was coming from. Finally Randy pinned him down and the picture was taken successfully, but I seemed to be fresh out of natural smiles. All I had left was my Olan Mills face.
:)

This week

Hi.

I’d like to announce that we have been African couch-potatoes recently. Or rather, we’ve been doing things like reading, and packing, and eating. The kind of stuff that doesn’t make for a good blog. But in two weeks we’ll be entering into a new atmosphere so I’m sure you’ll get all kinds of tidbits.

There’s been a little excitement this week. We heard that our neighbor, Peter the Fisherman, lost his son in a car accident. He locked himself in his cottage and went into a deep mourning. It was heartbreaking. But the next day, his son called him from the hospital. It turns out that the body had been misidentified. I’ve never seen a man as shook up as Peter was when we went to see him afterwards. How do you deal with that psychologically? I don’t know.

His girlfriend Tia is going to lend us a little fridge and possibly even a washing machine! Peter is giving us his old bed. But of course, we have to get it from here to there on these tiny, winding coastal roads. Randy says we should just strap it to the top of the car and go for it. I’m still thinking about it….

Hope y’all are good. Somebody say hi!

Heather

Cool sky

So, we were driving to the store today and the clouds were amazing! The wind patterns here are so erratic that we get all cloud-shapes and all cloud-sizes.
Randy thought this formation looked like a cat eating a Sloppy-Joe, but I think it looks like it might say "Happy B-Day, Dave."
And coincidentally, today is Dave's birthday!!! I'm taking it as a sign from God that it is, in fact, a birthday message and not (as Randy insists) a cat eating a Sloppy-Joe.
Happy Birthday Dave/Dad!
Heather and Randy

Happy Birthday Cristin Raiford!

Happy Birthday Cristin! Randy and I got up today, ready to go out and make all your birthday wishes come true, but it was raining, so I made your birthday cards inside instead. I even talked Wumpy into giving you a birthday smile. We love you! And miss you. Wish we were there to eat cake.

The Jakarta

Let me blather on a bit more about our new land. The couple who owns it, Duncan and Veronica, are both originally from Holland, but they’ve lived all over (including the Caribbean). They bought 10 acres from a farmer in ‘98 and turned one of the buildings into Jakarta; the only Indonesian restaurant in South Africa. I took a few more pictures of the restaurant, although I didn’t make it into half of the rooms. It is spectacular and my pictures don’t do it justice. It’s a total gem out in the African countryside.

You pull up and park amidst aviaries and tropical trees and drive into a courtyard in front of the low-lying building. The front of the restaurant is deceiving.

Inside, the restaurant is filled with antiques and hand-carved walls and animal skin chairs. The lounge has a central fireplace to heat it in the winter, but even the inside feels open and….outside-ish.

There is a small non-smoking section for people who really want to sit inside. And of course, this is wine-country, so they have a beautiful collection of wines.

The veranda is still my favorite.

It’s so relaxed and beautiful, surrounded by lush palms and African reeds. (Our cottage is right past the tropical foliage)

The bridge leads over a pond full of the largest orange fish I have ever seen.

There were many other rooms that I didn’t photograph, but I wanted you to get an idea of how pretty it is (in hopes that I can lure people here). It really is amazing. As soon as we move in, I’ll do a tour of the property.

February first! Continue to pray that our landlady is cool in regards to the deposit, etc.

Also pray that this new beautiful area isn't harboring unseen craziness. I'm sure it is....Maybe just pray that we'll be able to deal with it in a loving way.

:)

Tengo Un Casa!

I would say “we” have a house, but I had a hard enough time remembering first person Spanish verbs. Tengas? Tengamos?

Anyway, it has been a rough couple of weeks. The demand for housing near Stellenbosch far outweighs the available places to rent. And then when you add dog ownership onto that, it’s nearly impossible. Its not that people don’t like dogs, they just don’t trust the owners and therefore refuse to rent to them. We’ve driven all over tarnation in our hot gas-guzzler, trying to find a suitable place. Today was a scorcher!

This morning we got the number of a couple who has several “cottages” for rent on a farm outside Stellenbosch, so we got in our car and went. So far, nothing that we’ve looked at has been great, but we’ve been willing to take anything.
But finally, God showed us something great. For those of you who come to stay, it’s still small, but the area is spectacular.
Its in wine-country, so the plantation is right in the middle of tall rolling hills covered in vineyards. Our directions were to go into the Jakarta restaurant and ask for Veronica. We pulled into this exotic driveway and found this unbelievable Indonesian restaurant surrounded by beautiful landscape. The restaurant itself is like walking into a rich Indonesian estate filled with rugs and statues and fountains. The restaurant is on a large acreage that contains many little cottages, the restaurant, a huge nursery and a bed and breakfast (anyone, anyone). Our little cottage is one of the few with its own “stoop” or porch and a large hill of grass in front. It’s a fairly private area. It also comes with a stove! (just no fridge or bed. darn).

While one of the staff was showing us a few vacant flats (former workers houses) a dog came rambling in. I saw it as a good sign. I was right. They allow pets. It’s about $15 more than we wanted to spend per month, but I think we can take the hit. I didn't take a picture of our cottage or the view. I'll save that for later. :)

Pray that we get our deposit back here and that our end with Audrey is smooth!

Pig Stalking

Randy would like me to announce to everyone that we have trained our dogs to track pigs………………….......

We pulled onto our street today and were like, “What the heck is that?”

It was a big, gnarly, potbellied pig casually walking down the road.

How are dogs so convinced, even from a distance, that a pig is not another dog?

Our dogs cautiously stalked it for a while but when I bent down to touch it, they both went ballistic. I held Enkidu and he howled like there was no tomorrow (although he didn’t try to get away).

Who knows where the pig came from. Just another random African animal.

Monkey on the Rock

The other evening we decided to drive south along the Atlantic coast. The road carried us along a seaside cliff overlooking a village famous for its fishing and surfing. I was able to take one photograph before the battery in my camera died and thankfully it captured something interesting. The sun was going down and its last light warmed the white rocks along the cliff. This little monkey sat on the very edge of one of these rocks (and the cliff itself) looking out towards the sea in perfect contentment. (see him there?) This morning as I was sitting here fretting over our potential homelessness, I found this picture and was suddenly whacked over the head by verses that I love to forget when I’m spazzing out.

Look at the birds of the air (or the monkey on the rock), they do not sow, or reap, or gather into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Aren’t you more valuable than they are? And which of you by worrying can add even one hour to his life? Why do you worry about clothing? Think about how the flowers of the field grow; they do not work or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his glory was clothed like one of these! And if this is how God clothes the wild grass, which is here today and tomorrow is tossed into the fire to heat the oven, won’t he clothe you even more, you people of little faith?
And why would God bring you all the way to Africa only to let you be homeless and destitute, Heather? Chill out!

(Jesus didn’t say this last part, but I think it’s implied)

Sometimes I’ll be driving to the store and I’ll think, “Oh my gosh! We’re all alone on this continent!!!! Who will I call if my car breaks down?”
Wouldn’t it be great if Randy and I didn’t have to learn the hard way to really trust God? Just trust God is such a pat-answer, church phrase. I hate saying it in a conversation. Trust God for what? Do we trust Him to give us the material things we want and need? I don't ever want to think of Him as my own personal genie. Could it be that He is telling us something more complex in these verses? Maybe its a matter of trusting Him to change our hearts to be content with the things He has in store for us? If I can trust Him with my eternal life, I should be able to trust Him with this one, even if His plans are vastly different than my own. I do believe the “monkey on the rock” peace is real, but I know its only through a deeper understanding of Him. Maybe instead of praying for a fancy new flat, I should be praying for Him to mold me into the right shape. He is, after all, the shaper of my soul.

Blowing Smoke

Today was not a fabulous day for Heather and Randy.

We had two different flats to look at near Stellenbosch, so we drove in. I emailed back and forth with the owner of the first one several times. We discussed the dogs, the fact that we needed a long-term lease, and I repeatedly gave her our budget. So after driving an hour and a half in the African heat, we got there, only to be told that she really only wanted us to stay for a month or two. Her price was over $100 more than we could afford and when our mouths hit the floor, she said that she was willing to take $15 off if we took care of her dogs (like, 24/7). Her response to our “no thanks” was, “I thought you were desperate.” I wanted to say, “No, you hoped we were desperate.”

It’s amazing how much dishonesty we’ve run into here. Maybe we’re dumb, but it always takes us aback when friendly, educated, otherwise decent adults lie and manipulate just to get a few Rands. It would be laughable if it weren’t so irritating. I want to point and laugh with open-eyed wonder and say, “Oh my gosh! Did you just lie again? Randy, she just lied again!”

The second place we looked at was in a neighborhood that may or may not have been a city dump. There were rows and rows of tiny houses built within feet of each other and there wasn’t much grass, and no plants to be seen. Only waste, diapers, cans, tires, etc. And it wasn’t a cheap place.

On the way home we went through miles of smoke so thick we couldn’t see the mountains. Something was on fire. I got my camera ready but never really did see anything...besides smoke

And this guy riding in an enormous pile of twigs....

We’re looking at another place tomorrow. Pray that they will be convinced to allow our beloved monkeys.

Red Hill

We met a fascinating older man named David from Zimbabwe. He runs a library at a nearby college that Randy visits. David travels all over the world and has friends everywhere: Amsterdam, Tokyo, England, Spain, and San Francisco. He has been everywhere but you would never guess it. He’s way too quiet and reserved to be as interesting as he is.

He invited us to go on a hike with him to a place called Red Hill.

We parked on the private property of a group of people who live in a commune. He knows some of them. Then we hiked out into the veld (bush).

We followed an old path for miles without seeing another soul. It felt very African. We finally got to a lake that was out in the middle of nowhere.

It was a small lake with a dam at one end. We walked the outskirts of the lake, which was about a mile or two around and it wasn’t particularly interesting. I started getting cranky as soon as the sun was setting and we had no water and the lake ended up being much bigger than we thought it was.

I found some relief from my grumpiness in the form of a half-dressed Scottish family who had been swimming all day and were now eating cookies on the rocks. Where did they come from? I would have been happy to sit around with them for another hour or two.

At some point of our trip around the water, we found that it was impossible to continue walking along the shore, so we had to venture off into the bush. Randy and I were wearing shorts so it was scratchy, but we encountered several critters.

We had heard that the African locust was interesting. This one was 3 or 4 inches long.

The sun was setting and we were far from the lake, out in the wild among boulders and tall stiff grass. I was sore and thirsty and anxious that we didn’t even have so much as a flashlight. I was not a happy hiker. Maybe my latent control-freakery was showing itself. As soon as we hit a path, it all got better. There were suddenly flowers everywhere and we didn’t have to push through hard-core bushes and grass.

The sun was quickly setting, but at least we could see False Bay in the distance. After a couple of miles, the path spit us out onto the main road and we were able to find out way back up to the commune. It was nearly dark.

Enkidu's Death Wish

The landlady began marching the hoards through our house today (now that we’ve told her we’re moving out in March). I wouldn’t mind it as much it if….if I didn’t hate it. Our house is so tiny that I have to go hide by the sink so people don’t feel weird. I’ve purposefully left dishes in there so that I’ll have something to do while people are staring at all our junk. Enkidu is by far the leading irritant. This has been our pattern over and over and over and over again every time someone new knocks on the door.......

Knock Knock.
Bark bark bark bark!!!

No, Enkidu. No Barking.

Knock Knock.
Bark bark bark bark!!!!!!!

Dooney! Put a cork in it!
I'm coming!

Knock Knock.
Bark bark bark bark!!!!!!!!!!!

Enkidu! Shut your pie-hole!

Knock Knock
Bark bark bark bark!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

DOG!!!
Do you value your life?!

I'm about to go tie him to a tree.
Other than that, its been a fabulous day. Tonight I'm going to finish cramming all our Christmas chocolate in my face, and beginning tomorrow, I'm an official health-nut......

Mi Familia

Now that you’ve seen Randy’s family, let me show you mine.

Brace yourselves.

I am the oldest of 5 children (three boys and two girls). Together our initials were designed to spell out HaHaa.

My youngest brother is Adam. I was almost 17 when he was born.

He is now a 17-year-old giant. Really, he’s enormous. He is all the things the rest of us are not: coordinated, athletic, ambitious.....How cute is he?!

The next one up is Alex. Here he is right out of high-school. His hair changes as often as mine does. He and I have a lot in common personality-wise. I miss him.

Here he is disguised as Charles Manson (jk Alex!) He is 20.

Hayley is my one and only sister and she is a 22-year-old babe. She a little bit nuts and that’s why I love her.

Andrew is closest to me in age and it was just the two of us for many years. We used to amuse ourselves by sitting on the clothes line pole, digging holes in the backyard or attaching our father’s tube socks to the prickly ceiling with yard sticks. We did little else...... We are lucky enough to have married siblings. (What am I talking about.... I don’t believe in luck.) Here's a picture of Andrew and Cristin on their way to church...... My mom Jan is a tall, gentle, beautiful woman from Berkley, California who has more artistic talent in her eyelashes than most of us do in our entire existence. I have never in my life met another human being like her. She is also the only person to have ever kicked me in the face (she was doing a cart-wheel in the house. Don’t ask why).

My dad Andy is a (short!) charismatic man from Houston, Texas who has spent many years honing his skills in golfing, weaponry, bungi-jumping, piloting, preaching, computering, skiing, moonwalking, singing, guitar-playing, and above all, Astronomizing. Nobody laughs as hard as he does. It will be the death of him. :)

I miss you family.