Lazy Sunday

Hi Everyone! I hope your Sundays are going well!

Here at the Hands Village, we (the new intakes) had a pretty easy day. Because we've all traveled quite a distance and are still recovering from jet lag [personally, I'm feeling fine. I switched over right away, which probably means I won't be quite so lucky on the trip home...] anyway... we stayed around the Village while everyone else ventured off to various Churches in the area. Marj had mentioned having monkeys in the area. They come to the Village on Sundays because they have learned that everyone leaves to go to Church. They swing in the trees and try to get into the Village kitchen to find food. In the past they have been successful, and have made quite the mess! Well, sure enough a few of us were talking on the deck and the monkeys made their appearance! Joe rushed to close his windows and Mariah tried to get a closer look, followed by Dave and his camera. They were not the best photography subjects, but it was nice to see them, even if briefly. Then Mel, Dave, and I took a walk to the chapel. It is unfinished, with open windows, so it is the favorite spot of the monkeys. They just swing in through the windows and have a grand old time. Then it started to sprinkle, so we headed back because you never know when a sprinkle will turn into an outright downpour!

Then some of us ate a quick lunch, and all of us got ready for our first experience with shopping in South Africa. It's different than in the States, things aren't organized the same. You just have to know where everything is, so we had a few of the current volunteers along to help us if we got stuck. I was finally able to get some coins, I've just had all bills up to this point, so that was exciting! As for the food, there are cupboards and small refrigerators that we all share, mostly two people each. After shopping our van stopped to get ice cream which was an unexpected surprise.

After that it was time for meetings and paperwork, and then we got to make dinners with our fresh groceries. After dinner we relaxed, and played a round of Dutch Blitz. There are lots of Canadians here, and that game was a hit. I had to have a refresher on the game, as I haven't played it for quite a few years, and we had to start from scratch with the volunteers from Australia and the UK. Now some people are playing a game with scrabble pieces, I missed the actual instructions. Others are already in bed. There are so many frogs and lizards here, the frogs especially are active at night.

Russell is finally here! So our intake group is complete! Tomorrow morning we have our first full-group meetings, and head off to our first day of orientation. Things are going to get very busy, very quickly. I'll hopefully be able to post some pictures soon, I was able to pick up batteries at the store today. But, I won't be able to post any pictures from community visits just yet. I'll try to update at least a few times this week to tell you a bit about what we are doing during our time here.

Thanks for praying!