First of all you find all kinds of animals when you go to a game park in South Africa. For instance sometimes you find a whole group of elders ( A group of elders are called a Zone) resting in a tree. Elder Musisi wanted to make sure I did not miss his smiling face while Elder Reeves was jumping with joy or maybe he was doing some strange mating ritual.

We saw a rhino drinking, a giraffe drinking, and an elephant that just finished drinking and was hurrying into the brush to ….

We saw two Cape buffalo enjoying a relaxing mud bath. A herd of Cape buffalo at the river. And a group of zebras that were no where near any water but seemed to be happy being dry.

We had a wonderful time watching elephants at a mud hole – they seem to be able to crowd a lot of really big bodies into a fairly small mud hole. If you look closely at the middle picture you will notice that a couple of the elephants have their legs up like they are either going to take a bow or do a dance step. The last picture is either of a pair of bookends or two elephants who are about to have a duel…

They came in families – mothers with young ones and really young ones. As a guess the smallest one is probably 3 or 4 months old

A couple of the elephants got rather annoyed at us because we were kind of in their space. The big boy on the left flared his ears and tried to stare us down. I had the car in reverse and ready to leave if he started our way. The middle one is a mother who was watching over her youngster. We were careful to not get between a mother and child. The last one is just crossing the road behind us after throwing dust over its body.

So Mary is mentioning that we have not seen any giraffes when we come over a rise and see this walking down the middle of the road towards us. Then we see them everywhere. Most of them are having dinner at the local trees. Some stop and look at us wondering why we do not let them eat in peace.

They are big, graceful animals and they grow darker as they get older.

We could not believe what that bird was doing! Bugs are one thing but really there must be something better to eat then…

In answer to my complaint that we had not seen any rhinos this group of 6 wandered out of the brush. The setting sun turned this one almost golden tan. The birds do not clean off the rhinos. They follow the rhinos and eat the bugs that jump out of the way when the rhinos browse.

These big boys – or girls for all I know – came within 20 feet of the car. That is probably closer than it is wise to get to something that could probably go through the car without even slowing down. They certainly weigh more. Notice the really long horn on the one. A poacher would love to get a hold of that and since these were within a half mile of the fence to the park, it may just happen. They are losing 6 – 8 a year to poachers.

 10 June 2010 – Thursday

The day has started out great. The rain has gone and left behind cool weather which is always good. By 7:00 I was at the Nissan dealer and by 8:00 they had replaced the boot latch and I was on my way to the hospital.

I was very pleasantly surprised to find that Mary was feeling great. She slept well and is not in any pain from the operation but where they put in a valve so they could give her antibiotics it did hurt. The doctor was in and said that everything went well. He took out the mesh and did not replace it because the stomach wall had been solid. He said she would be out by the 17^th for sure so maybe we can go to Durban after all. It was wonderful to see her bright and cheerful after a major operation and that will make my day better. I left because they were taking her down for another x-ray.

I went to the store and got things to take to PD Youth today. I had promised them a treat and since we will only be there one or two more times, Mary did not think I should postpone it until she is well. She also talked me into teaching English.

Just as I got home and was putting things away, sister Mann called to see how Mary was doing and was glad to know that she was doing fine. They are trying to live in the middle of a complete re-modeling of the mission home which includes tearing out the kitchen, all the flooring, and the whole insides being painted. They are certainly not having what would be called a quiet end to their mission. She did have good news that the elder who was having problems seems to at least be getting over the physical illness.

After lunch I headed for Port Durnford and came across the Empangeni district heading out. They had been at the Nzama’s finishing up painting their roof. It was good to see them all together building brotherhood while giving service.

I arrived at the Chirwas about a half hour early. I was very tired so I told sister Chirwa I was going to try to take a short nap and asked her wake me in 30 minutes. I fell right asleep and felt much better when they tapped on my window to tell me it was time to go.

English class went fine but I am sure I was not as effective as Mary. Thandi and sister Chirwa have quite good English, gogo Nzama understands and communicates pretty good, and gogo Malondo probably understands 30% of what is going on but is trying hard to learn.

Since they knew there was something special for Youth there was a good turnout. The only one who was missing was Fufu. Most of them can make a good stab at reciting the theme for the year and a couple of them have it down cold. Hopefully in the next 3 weeks they all will know it and what it means. They of course loved the ham sandwiches, chips, drinks and oranges. I am going to miss them and hope that they will be able to hold everything together until the next couple comes.

I had one of those South African moments when I backed out through our gate this evening to go to the hospital. I was not paying a lot of attention to what was going on around me because I was not going out into the street until the gate closed. All of a sudden I saw movement out the side of my eye and when I looked to see what it was, I was staring into the face of a very large bull. He and another 3 or 4 of his friends were grazing on the outside lawn in the dark. I guess that is why the grass out there has not needed cutting for a few weeks…it has become the local dining place for the neighborhood herd. I tried to take pictures but it too dark for anything really to turn out. I am going to be a little more careful when I back out in the future.

After that excitement,  I went to see Mary and took her some strawberries, chocolate covered licorice, and a bottle of Crystal-lite. She looked really good and said she had a good day. Not much in the way of pain or discomfort. However she is hooked up to a couple of machines that she must drag around if she wants to walk so she decided to take it easy today and only walked when necessary. If she continues to feel this good we should be able to do most of what we have planned before we go home.

When I got home I found that my cell phone had died and nothing I did brought it back. I will have to take it in to MTN tomorrow and if they can not fix it buy a new, inexpensive one and put in the old SIM card. At least I will have the same number even if I have lost some of other peoples.