Zebra and hippos and giraffes, oh my!

(See the rhino?? Me and my roommate Amanda Torres)

So this week I have been pretty tired. This was the only week of intensive work so far so I am very thankful, bus still, I'm very tired! Today I had an art presentation, tonight I'm turning in a 12 pg paper (which I already have about 7 pages of) and then tomorrow morning I'm speaking in chapel on Joshua 3&4 so I have to prepare for that.

But this week did not go without some fun too :) We had a great night at the Keg&Hedgehog (a restaurant down the road and the only place we can go at night basically...) on Tuesday. Wednesday I got to tag along with the Biology class and go to a game reserve. I will add pictures later because my camera died the moment we got there :( but it was SO great!! There were TONS of zebra, giraffes, hippos, white rhino, a warthog like Pumba!, lots of animal that look like deer but I have no idea what their names are. SO awesome! I REALLY felt like I was in Africa for one of the first times. Like the typical, Lion King Africa. It was hilarious because we were in a safari car like in Indiana Jones (and no doubt we sang the theme song...) and taking pictures like tacky tourists. Then the place we were at was a tourist site and had an awesome outdoor pool so we got to swim for a while.



When we came back from the safari we were realllly tired but had to go to dinner then right after go to an AWESOME presentation by Sean Wisedale, the first South African to climb Mt. Everest and the other 6 highest peeks on all the continents. His story was sooo awesome. I didn't know that you didn't just go up Everest when the weather was good. They were on the mountain for three months and he was the only one in his group that was strong enough by the end to go on. Wow! He had a really captivating presentation and story. Great speaker. And I guess he is a big celebrity here in SA.. it was hilarious we had to be TOLD that. It's like Michael Jordan coming to a meeting and you're just looking at him like a "normal" guy. Which is probably what we should always do, but it was funny being on the other side... ignorant!

We then went over and had a surprise birthday party for Laura Jane, chocolate cake and all :) THEN I got to finish my art presentation... about 10pm. The internet had been out since I got back and so that was frustrating as I was looking forward to talking to Jeremy. But this is Africa! No "unlimited" or "guaranteed"! The internet goes out mostly when there's a storm and man there was a huge storm last night! I love them here though. I don't really do my hair so I don't mind if it's wet. But I was happy to wake up this morning to a sunshine and hot day. Had art class and my presentation went well. Man, that class is so long though. 8:30-1p of lecture. *Yawn!* Now I'm in Life & Teachings of Jesus learning about the Gospel of Thomas and why it is not legit and Luke's account of Jesus' crucifixion.

Tomorrow after chapel we are going to Bonginkosi after chapel which is a preschool we have all been to before, and helping them plant a garden and playing with the kids. Then I will have my first free afternoon in a while :) Saturday morning we board the bus at 5:45 AM and have a FULL day of Battlefields tours. Haha... yeah, we're all SO excited about that. We get back at 7pm and I'm sure we'll be drained! Sunday hopefully we all can recover in time for finals week next week! I only have Art so it's not that big of a deal for me but the bio people have lots of work.

And that's that :) Hard to be away from home and Jeremy. But I have 10 weeks left here and am really enjoying it :) It's good I'm staying so busy because it makes time go by quickly! I just hate experiencing all of these awesome/growing things without some of the closest people to me! Glad for blogs and internet :)

With love from Africa,
Paige