Week 71 - Oct 4th - 10th, 2015

Sunday, October 4th - Saturday, October 10th, 2015

We took a little p-day road trip to a spot south east of Polokwane called Graskhop.  We went with the two other Senior Couples that serve over the mountain in Tzaneen, the Campbell's and the Butler's.

Our excursion took us to a little village of the Shangana Tribe where we met the Chief, toured his village, met his lady 'witch' doctor, saw some drumming and dancing entertainment, and enjoyed some time with them.  They still practice polygamy in some of the tribes here and this chief had three wives until one died.  Also has 25 children.

Another stop was an interesting little canyon called the 'Potholes' which is a popular stop and became better known after a gold miner and his crews happened upon it long ago in the 1800's.  Some erosion created these fun spots to cool off in the little river without worrying about the crocodiles.  Getting to them was almost impossible though due to the sheer cliffs above them, so we stayed up high on the bridges and trails.

While on our road trip we stopped in at a place called 'African Silks' where we saw how they spin and weave silk from the worms that eat on the Mulberry leaves.  It was a really nice shop and Melanie made friends with one who knew how to establish a sales relationship!  Cost me less than $40 to get out of the store but it was well worth it.  The dark color in the scarf she's holding is actually made using Mopane worms, but not the ones that I ate, some other cousin I suppose.




Melanie shot some pictures of the place she goes to get her hair done and this week the Jacaranda tree was out in full purple bloom.  These purple trees are famous in this area and down in Pretoria too.  They are in full bloom now and are really quite a sight to behold, thus the picture.  Don't know what type the orange tree is but it probably doesn't grow oranges!

Friday we met the kids at Seshego for our weekly basketball community service.   Not as many kids there due to school break, but we had fun with the ones that did come.  Plus, since it was Zone Meeting day we had a few extra Elders along to experience this type of service with us and they had fun as well.

It is growing unbearably hot in our flat.  Our outside temperature now ranges from about 90-95F during the day to about 60F at night.  Our flat has been consistently in the 85-88F range and the fans were just blasting around the hot air.  Since we're still moving on the calendar from Spring into Summer and we still have a couple of months to go (suffer), we had to find some type of solution because we spend more time in our flat doing office support work now.

So, we went to a store called Makro (sort of like Sam's) where we shop occasionally.  We bought a portable A/C unit that can be passed along to another flat after we leave.  It took a day or so to get it adjusted but it is such a help and relief just to keep the flat between 69F and 79F for the most part.

Saturday we enjoyed our weekly visit with Jimmy Letsoalo followed by our video calls home to the kids and grandkids!