We made it! (Sorry, no photos yet...working on it.)

I have been dragging my feet like nothing else to write this blog post.  I have no idea where to start or how to describe life or my thoughts, so I think I need to give up on that and just tell stories and hope something even slightly coherent comes out of it.

I guess one place to start would be the flights from Chicago to Durban, South Africa:

First, to the three first-class passengers who (on separate occasions) saw me boarding the plane with a 1 year old and a 3 year old (David had all of our gear) and commented to me “Wow.  Good luck!”  I think instead you should have said “Would you like to swap seats with me for even just 30 minutes?  I’ll be bored out of my mind anyways and your kids could entertain me on such a long flight, while I’ll bet you could use a break.”  And sadly I would have had to say ‘no’ because I can’t leave my kids with complete strangers but WOULDN’T THAT BE SUCH A WAY BETTER THING TO SAY TO THIS MOTHER GIVEN WHAT IS AHEAD OF HER???

We left David’s parent’s house in Michigan at 9am Thursday.  We arrived to our house in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa at about 11pm Friday.  Minus 6 hours for time zone difference.  That’s 32 hours of straight traveling, cramped in 3 airplanes surrounded by strangers (who are WATCHING us because, really, wasn’t the O’Neill family circus the most interesting thing around to look at?), toting luggage around, racing through airports.  David and I woke up that Thursday morning and just agreed to put on our battle zone, A-game mentalities.  That mental “psyche-you-up, got-to-get through this, Lord we plead for Your mercy” attitude.  We knew it would be long and possibly absolutely horrible.  BUT ACTUALLY………after it was all over we both agreed that it went okay and not nearly worth all of the loathing and dread that had preceded the flying.  Really, not even kidding.  We packed a bijillion games, activities, food, entertainment-related stuff.  We packed the really Big Guns like Ring Pops and candy and new Kindle games, and playdough, and blinky lights stuff and new toys that actually cost us money.  And we barely touched them on any of the three flights.  God answered the prayers for a safe and sane arrival (to those praying for us - THANKS!).  Timothy watched videos and chatted with neighbors around us.  He likes asking strangers their full and complete names.  Matthew slept in my arms at least half of the time in the air.   When Matthew was awake he was largely content to put stuff into and out of the seat pocket, or smile and play peek a boo with the strangers around us.  Works for me.  So there are only two “horror” stories I can relay since, I get it, that’s what people want to hear: 1) We didn’t notice we dropped a packet of jam on the floor and later found it smashed all over David’s (only) jacket.  2) Matthew was sleeping in my arms for a long stretch, and I feel this warm wetness quickly spreading across my stomach that every Mother knows.  And so I was in a dilemma…wake him up to change us both and have a tired, screaming baby on an airplane that I’d need to resettle…….or just sit and be content with a beautiful, sleeping baby on my lap.  You can guess my choice.

We are living in a very hilly area, with windy, narrow roads.  People who ride bicycles around here are crazy.  There’s zero public transport where we live.  So, we do have a car and we need to use it to get anywhere.  However, South Africans drive on the left side of the road, something I have never done before.  So today was my day to learn.  Steph graciously guided me through my day of driving and somehow did not let on how nervous she HAD to have been sitting in the passenger seat with me driving.  My favorite odd sensation of driving on the “other” side was when I jumped in the driver’s seat for the first time, started driving, and WOAH, there’s a bunch of car on my left that is MOVING when I hit the gas pedal.  It was quite different than just being a passenger in the car.  (Sounds ridiculous and inane, I know, but isn’t that what blogs are for?)  My worst driving moments were actually not the turning or going the right way in my lane, but the SPEED BUMPS that jump out at me with about 1 second warning.  (The Zulu word for speed bump is “sleeping policeman” which I think nails it.  We asked Timothy if he noticed anything different in South Africa and he first mentioned the bumpy roads, including the speed bumps.)  So as I was learning to drive here…my apologies to the people driving behind me since I was the slowest driver in Pietermaritzburg today.  Mercifully Steph and David had a thing you can hang from the back of your car that indicates you’re driving on a learners permit.  Technically that’s not true for me, but I was plenty grateful to have that sign up and hopefully increase the grace and mercy extended my way from other drivers.  Only a few people honked at me to go faster.

Other than that…there have been three attempts to start dead car batteries, a visit to the pediatric burn unit at a government hospital (Timothy and Matthew are fine…this was a service trip with David and Steph’s small group...hope to blog about this later), church, a braai (barbeque) with David and Steph’s small group, David starting to work remotely from South Africa, going to the local fair, exploring our house (THANK YOU Binions!!), missing trash pick up day (oops), failing to get cash about five times and then trying to convince our bank that we are not fraudulent users…(please give us our money!!!), visiting Timothy’s preschool,……and the stunningly long time it took me to cook the utterly uncomplicated meal of spaghetti, spaghetti sauce, and canned green beans heated up in the microwave.  About 45 minutes.  Either cooking will get easier or we will move to a peanut butter sandwich diet.