Long time no see...

Wow - time is zooming by. It's been so long since I've been able to sit down and catch up on internet business... I've had many many adventures since September!! I've actually added it up to be over 125 hours of bussing these past few weeks. It all started with SCORE midterm training at a beautiful game reserve. We trained during the day but in the evenings we had an amazing game drive, fire side wine and waterfall showers!! It was a really great time of "unpacking" with the other South African volunteers. From there I bussed back to Cape Town with Nico. We rushed home, showered, then met back up at the bus rank to get to Windhoek, Namibia for KICKING AIDS OUT training with the other Canadian volunteers. I felt like I was in School again... Sooo much information to remember. But it was a really great training - I learned a LOT! From there, a few of us rented 2 cars and drove down to Sossuvlei to see the sand dunes. It was incredible. I can't believe how gorgeous big piles of sand can be. It was so red and very hot! One girl even got a burn blister on her foot!
From there, i went into another community visit in the Eastern Cape province of SA. It was RURAL!! No running water, electricity or telephone network. I loved every minute of it. It's a Sotho speaking community and they gave me a Sotho name within 2 hours of me being there: Dimpo Molutsoane. I went hiking almost every day, saw beautiful star scenes and fell in love with the people. They were so kind and taught me a lot about what we miss when we become too busy to get to know our neighbors.. My host mother, Macobano, said to me one day, "You make smile my heart". I almost lost it right there. Her family just accepted me right away and took me in as one of their own. Unfortunately they didn't speak much English and I learned only a few words in Sotho, but it's amazing how close you can get to people without communicating in the same language.
The same day I got back to CT, my mom flew in to visit! So last week we took a trip through the magnificent garden route along the South Coast. The tour guide in me came out in full force. I had every hour packed with activities... After canoeing, hiking, boarding, a river and yacht cruise, dolphin watching, tree top zip lines, shopping, and lots of beach - we came back to CT, exhausted and booked ourselves massages today! Superb. Sounds like I'm working very hard eh?! Well, I took my 2 weeks of holidays while my mom is here and it's been awesome. So good to enjoy all the touristy things for a change. I've been trying so hard not to be too obvious, you know?
After mom leaves, I'll be heading back to the Eastern Cape for another rural community visit, a new place... Sorry I've been so bad at keeping in touch. I'll do my best but things are hectic here. See you on the flip side!
Love Myr