Dandelion Juice and Fruit Pouch Angst

We are counting our victories around here.  We remembered tonight to take out the trash that we think will be picked up tomorrow morning.  I think we have the recycling system figured out here.  (And in South Africa you can recycle just about anything, and none of this “What number plastic is it?” nonsense.)  David and Timothy will eat packed lunches tomorrow that are way improved from a week ago when we first arrived.  The worst lunch snafu last week was when Timothy, as a sweet present, gave me a bunch of dandelions and grass in a water bottle.  Then the water bottle made its way back into the cupboard.  Then I took it out and put juice in it for David, and David drank about half of it before he realized he was drinking juice infused with dandelions and grass.  (Although they do have a dandelion burdock soda here in South Africa that we did get to sample…not as terrible as you might think it would taste.)  David in his wisdom opted to pack a drink box for tomorrow’s lunch.

In my good moments here I am feeling super thrifty/sustainable living/content-with-less a la Philippians 4.  In these moments I wash out Ziploc bags to reuse them and hang them above the kitchen sink to dry.  We are composting way more.  We don’t have a dryer so we hang stuff on the line to dry.  We have a fraction of the toys for the kids to play with here, and they are totally content with that.  And picking up toys at the end of the day (when toy pick up happens) goes way faster.  All of these are things that I’ve wanted to do in America but I have failed many times, because hanging laundry on the line takes major will-power when the clothes are coming out of the washing machine and a dryer is sitting right there.  But don’t get me wrong…we “cut corners” here too, just in different ways.  In the States, when the kids get into their PJs, their clothes they wore that day go in the dirty laundry bin.  Simple.  Since laundry is so much more work and we have fewer clothes here, the clothes get a looking over first.  If they don’t look dirty, then they go back into the drawer.  And my definition of what counts as actually dirty enough for the laundry hamper just may be slowly shifting each time I hang clothes on the line.  Don’t judge me until you have no dryer and then it was cold and/or rainy when you tried to hang clothes on the line.

In my not so good moments here, I am grateful for the strength of the American dollar and that I can buy things to make my life easy that the average South African (even middle class South Africans) would not buy.  Exhibit A is fruit pouches for the kids.  In America, I give these to the kids way more than I would like to admit.  But they are so easy, simple, portable, healthy, and clean (never mind the fruit pouch stains on our back car seat of our car in the US).  In the States, fruit pouches at Target cost $0.89/pouch.  In my middle class, suburban existence this is fantastic and affordable.  And Target has half of an aisle devoted to fruit pouch consumers, so I know that I am not alone.  Needless to say, I was thrilled to find that they also have fruit pouches here in South Africa for the same lovely price of $0.89/pouch.  But, for the average, middle class family here in South Africa that’s an outrageously high price, which would explain why there were a total of just 8 fruit pouches on the shelf at Spar (the grocery store in Hilton).  Except that I bought out half of their shelf stock, so now they’re down to 4.  And although my thrifty/sustainable living/content-with-less badge was tarnished with that purchase, I cannot say that I regret it.  Although maybe I do feel a bit guilty.  Argh.

A Geography Lesson from Timothy

How does one prepare a three year old to live on a different continent for three months?  I don’t know either.  We read library books.  We looked at maps.  We talked about going to Africa to visit Aunt Stephanie and Uncle David.  We have thoroughly enjoyed hearing Timothy’s thoughts and questions on the topic.  When we arrived in Johannesburg and were walking through the airport to our connecting flight to Durban, Timothy asked, “Where are the elephants?”  Because, really, we had been in Africa for an entire 30 minutes and he hadn’t seen any elephants in the airport yet…what was that all about?!  (Safari animals are the major theme of kids books related to Africa...so you can hardly blame him for coming to this conclusion.)  Yesterday we were driving in the car and he informed us that Africa is a continent.  I had no idea he knew the word ‘continent’.  At church he asked people he met if they also live in Africa, like maybe we live in Africa but they might live in a neighboring continent and just came over to Africa for church.  Once he told me that he wanted to go outside to South Africa, as if inside our house is not South Africa, but outside our house is South Africa.  Today we were at a view point where you could see many miles off in the distance.  Steph was pointing out the various communities and places we had visited.  Timothy asked if we could see Minnesota in the distance.  So…he’s picking up on bits and pieces of the world around him, while other concepts are still forming, and of course way more is soaking in than he can articulate.  But I do think the magnitude of a continent or the distance between the USA and South Africa is a bit lost on him:-)

Electric fences, spiders, and learning to walk

If you want to know what it’s like to touch an electric fence…you can ask David.  Either my brother David or my husband David could tell you, since they were both zapped by the fence last Sunday.  Our house is on the campus of Union Bible Institute (UBI) in Hilton, South Africa.  UBI is surrounded by this electric fence, which runs right behind our house.  On the other side is a soccer (football) field where kids play.  Last Sunday a ball came over the fence and into our backyard, but it was stuck between the concrete wall and the electric fence.  The kids on the other side of the fence were shouting over the wall at us to please get their ball.  They sounded quite desperate, so we had to do something.  So David and David tried a few things, and the first attempts were indeed shocking and unsuccessful.  But you can’t quit when a group of kids are begging you to please get them a ball so they can keep playing?!  So eventually it turned into a 3-man effort with 2 people using some tool to hold the wires apart, and the third person reaching in to successfully grab the ball :-)

So when I learned that our back yard has an electric fence running behind it, I was concerned as this didn’t seem like a very friendly yard feature for a 1 and 3 year old to play.  But actually, with the warm afternoons, we have been outside quite a bit and I don’t think it will end up being a problem.  In many places the electric fence is set off with a concrete wall that Timothy and Matthew couldn’t get up.  Other places it’s blocked by a thick bush.  So, although they are too young to run around campus unsupervised anyways, I don't think the electric fence will be an issue.  (Lord willing I can still say this in 3 months…kids do grow and change fast.)  A bonus feature of our yard is that our neighbors have chickens, and there is a gap in the bush so we can observe the chickens.  Both Timothy and Matthew were enthralled at their own level and I suspect that checking in on the chickens will become a routine occurrence.  Another entertaining feature of our yard are the hadedas, which are a type of ibis with long beaks that flock together on the grass around campus.  Today Timothy ran off to chase the birds, and in his exuberance he fell and started to cry.  (He was fine.)  He had tripped on the bumpy, uneven ground.  This was after jumping along the sidewalk earlier and tripping on the sloped, uneven ground.  More crying and his hands were scraped up a bit.  (Again, he was fine.)  I could tell him until he was blue in the face to be more careful, but this suburban American kid used to smooth, predictable ground will just have to learn how to walk and run again the hard way, with some good old-fashioned watch-your-step falls.  And then there’s Matthew…he was just getting the hang of walking as we left the States, and now we throw this at him!  But at least he goes a lot slower and doesn’t have much distance to fall, so no injuries for him (or none yet).

Yesterday we also spent time at the UBI playground, about a 2 minute walk from our house.  It’s small and old, but Timothy and Matthew are too young to care.  They are totally enthralled by it.  As a bonus it’s located right in front of the married student housing here on campus, and a number of kids live there.  So that was a fantastic way to meet some kids here on campus.  I’ve thought this many times, but Timothy and Matthew are great people connectors.  Kids naturally break down adult “stranger danger” fears, their smiles transcend language and culture and skin color, Timothy’s chattiness and favorite “What is your name?” question is a natural conversation starter between me and other adults, and the kids force me to get out of the house to burn off their energy.  I love this aspect of traveling with kids, and in the 4 days here it had more than made up for the plane ride:-)  So…also at the UBI playground is a sandbox.  Timothy was off to investigate it and remove the sandbox cover, when a 12 year old girl at the playground (who struck me as trustworthy and not needlessly trying to freak out this foreigner) warned me that a spider is living in there*.  So maybe we’ll wait on the sandbox for a bit until I decide if the potential pros outweigh the potential cons.  And now in my brain this spider is probably the size of my face and would surely head straight for our house if we opened up the sandbox.  I just know these things.  So the cons of opening up that sandbox are looking quite large right now.  *(David just told me that he and Matthew did open the lid – it’s full of several inches of nasty water, and an old pop can.  They didn’t see any spiders, although that’s hardly proof.)

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.

The Final Countdown

The final countdown is here…4 days until we leave Minnesota, and 8 days until we fly to South Africa.  We’ll be there for three months, returning in late August.  People have asked if this is a missions trip, or a work trip, or visiting family……..yes to all of these in some regard, but mostly we’re just calling it a life adventure.

Since David works from home, and can work from anywhere with an internet connection, we’ve talked for years about the possibility of living and working abroad.  (For a while we talked about maybe going to Chile for a bit, because hey, why not live in Chile?)  We knew that by May my PhD classes would be done, my research and teaching positions would be wrapping up, the money was saved up, David’s boss approved a 3-month stretch working abroad, we’re past the foggy-brain, happy-just-to-have-showered newborn stage…the one thing holding us back was finding someone to care for our dog and our house.  How would we find someone for just 3 months?

Then we got an email in January from some friends of ours who are missionaries in Kenya.  They were planning on coming to the States for three months this summer and asking a group of us to pray that they would be able to find housing for them and their two boys, ages 10 and 12.  Preferably somewhere in the northeast metro of the Twin Cities (where our house is) to be close to church and their family.  And a dog would be a nice bonus since they have a dog at home in Kenya.  We remember reading their initial email and thinking “This would be perfect!!”  It turned out to be answered prayer on both ends:-)

So we didn’t end up deciding to go to Chile…Ultimately we decided to go to South Africa because my brother (also named David) and sister-in-law (Stephanie) live there.  My brother teaches math at a high school in Hilton, South Africa, and Steph is working part time at a Christian ministry (iThemba), and part time on a Master’s degree in sociology.  (She’s studying post-apartheid whiteness in South Africa, and how whites are the minority race and yet also the dominant culture…this makes South Africa unusual and therefore interesting to sociologists.  But I digress.)  Steph grew up in South Africa, she speaks Zulu, she knows the culture…and in our eyes this is the best way to see a new part of the world.  We’re so excited that Steph and David can be our local translators…from interpreting the world around us into our cultural language but also help in opening doors to friendships, relationships with locals, their church, stuff to do and see, where to eat, etc.  Plus they are just a blast to hang out with and their 10 day visit at Christmas to Minnesota was just not long enough :-)

All that to say…we’re off to South Africa SOON.  Below is my inspiring picture of the various lists of things that need to be listed so that my brain does not explode in the process of getting our family out the door, and our house ready for another family.  (Passports…just don’t forget the passports Ann…everything else is gravy.)  The stuff on these lists are about all my brain can focus on for the next few days so I thought it deserved a photo in this post.  Timothy had to remind me yesterday to feed him lunch because he was hungry.  (The hunger was partly because he accidentally “donated” his breakfast bagel to our dog and didn’t like his backup breakfast option.)  So maybe I just need to add “feed the kids” to the to-do list if lunch is going to happen before 2pm.