only the best friends show up at the airport with signs…

I love it!

We took a lot of pictures over the last couple of weeks. The links to the albums are below…

Zimbabwe: Victoria Falls, white water rafting, etc.

This one time I tried to learn Afrikaans: around JoBurg/Pretoria with our friend Bianca

Leopard Hills: getting spoiled rotten and seeing animals– it doesn’t get much better than that…

Enjoy! //

Thirty-something hours of travel later I arrived to Minneapolis in the middle of a snowstorm. The other flights from JFK to Minneapolis were cancelled, so I was pretty happy the flight even arrived. Although, I quickly realized flip flops might not have been the best choice in footware. 

I was greeted with signs and hugs. I don’t know if I’ve ever been so happy to get off a plane. 

We were looking at pictures and Gwen saw an African mama holding her baby on her back. We recreated it with her doll Tanara.  

Okay, we’re off to Panara and then maybe I should go buy some appropriate shoes for a foot of snow. 

done.//

Here are some photos from our debriefing trip to Cape Town. There was plenty of time to “debrief” and talk about transitioning back in America, for as short of a time as that may be for some of us. There was also plenty of time for fun. And the sun.

You can see more photos here. Oh, and check out our Thanksgiving adventures too.

Shannon and the Baboons…

Jackass Penguins, one of 17 varieties of Penguins in the world (I sat by a guy that studied penguins on a plane once…)

Normally I wouldn’t post twice in one day…but this was too good to wait until after Cape Town. Enjoy!

The coaches (Basotho young-adults who teach our AIDS Prevention classes in local schools) were here on Sunday to begin a few days of training. It was great to spend an afternoon with them: playing soccer and watching a movie, followed by dinner and a bonfire.

But, the highlight of my night was during the group photo.

We did a normal photo, a serious photo, a silly photo and suddenly Crystal yells, “show your motswele.” 

Laughter erupted. 

She turned red.

She meant “mosepha” (spelling??), which means muscles.

She said “motswele” which is boobs.

My friend told a group of 25 people to show their boobs to the camera. 

Sigh. 

I’m laughing out loud as I write this. Throughout the rest of the evening, all someone had to say was “mostwele” for everyone to erupt into laughter once again. 

I love awkward moments!

Today was our last day at Hope House. 

It was good. But sad. 

Nkosi was so sweet today. Sigh.

One of the kids my mom works with at school sent me a Flat Stanley. On Friday at Hope House, three of my friends (Lucky, Bafana and Morgan), dressed him and then we took some photos of their Flat Stanley and the kids. I’ll take some more photos around the base this weekend and then send it off to Angel in Iowa next week.

Here are some of my favorite photos from Hope House. The boys loved it, especially when I explained that Angel was about their age and I was sending it back to school kids in America to learn about South Africa.

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With the warm weather comes a few things…sweat (especially with the lack of AC), bugs and of course, water balloons.

We’ve been bringing them out a lot lately at Hope House, and last week at LaunchPad. I was on the unlucky receiving end (or lucky…it was hot on Wednesday, so I didn’t mind–besides spending the afternoon looking like I’d peed my pants).