Tuesday, July 10, 2012

Temple Trip to Joburg and Art Fest in Grahamstown


Excerpts from the latest adventures!

We had the opportunity to go with the ward on their annual temple trip. It was a quick three day adventure involving a lot of driving and a lot of baptisms. We left on a Wednesday night at midnight and drove and drove and drove…
We reached the temple about noon. The temple is built on a hill, at the top. The temple grounds are not super huge, but the temple complex includes the hill and several more buildings, including patron housing and offices and a house for visiting general authorities. The hill has several little stone trails and trees and a little stream with several waterfalls. This little wilderness area was so cool – I mean it was tiny, but green and the water running sounded beautiful. You could either walk around on the road, or you could cut through this little nature area that had flat round stones for a path and a section where you cross the stream using two big rocks. There were several benches scattered around. There was a distribution center too. Our rooms were not ready when we first arrived, so we went into the lounge/dining area and piled all our luggage around and relished being out of the car. . .Then we went to wait for our rooms…which took a long time! But it was okay. There were some couches, so I got out my bracelet making equipment and set up shop. Other people were sitting around and Emily, Holly and Yondela got down to talking about dominion and race and gender…ha so interesting to listen to. Holly and Emily are both really passionate about that kind of thing and Yondela is a very outspoken guy. He brings race into everything, half joking, but half serious. And they had some issues about cultural differences. For the black guys in South Africa there is a strong culture of being dominant and always being right etc., so of course that leads to some clashing with the gals. I enjoyed listening and occasionally piping in and I worked away at making friendship bracelets. I got sweet colors – purples, blues, a turquoise. Everyone really liked them – by the end of the trip half of the YSAs were wearing a bracelet : )

We did one round of baptisms Thursday evening after which everyone just relaxed, ate dinner, and played games in the patron housing.
The next morning we went up to the temple for another round of baptisms.
It was just our group this time and I really liked it – it was nice having a smaller group and it was nice knowing what the routine was going to be. We all sat in the waiting room and watched some old LDS movie for a while and then Brother Jubber came and got everyone sorted and we got our clothes. There was a couple from Mdatsane that joined us and a couple of men, which was good because they helped do confirmations. They were short a recorder, so when you were confirmed you just held the words and the name for them, worked perfectly. When it was my turn the guys asked if I was from America, I said yes, from Utah. Oh Utah! They said – but they pronounced it Oohtah, it was great. Gerhard did all the baptisms. The black sister helped with towels and hair elastics (they were really strict about not wearing any color hair tie expect for white). She called me sissie, which I thought was cool. She was just a cool lady! The lady who helped us on Thursday was a Sister Bird, definitely from Utah, we could tell from her accent. But we didn’t get a chance to visit with her.
After baptisms all the YSAs went ice skating at this mall. The Quantum and its driver showed up to transport us there, so we got to see some of Joburg – it is a big, sprawled out city. Ice skating was pretty fun. The ice was awful! Super cut up and it was rather wet – there were puddles of water. And the skates were not super sharp. And there were a lot of people there – there was a birthday party, so lots of little kids and high schoolers. They liked to stand right in the middle – who goes to an ice rink to stand!? They were playing music really loud and they would turn the lights off sometimes and use colored spot lights. It was a regular sized rink, at least not three quarters. We had a good time – Hyrum and Yondela and Emily worked on going backwards, Dylan picked it all up pretty quickly and was speeding all over. Most of the YSAs had never skated before or had gone only once or twice. There aren’t many ice rinks in South Africa.
We had one major mishap when Shantal wiped out and split open her chin. People were pretty calm and we got her bundled off to the hospital. That kind of put a damper on the rest of the day. We all went back to patron housing and had dinner and wound up playing games again – 30 Seconds and Settlers of Katan. It was a nice relaxing evening, everyone was worn out. The next morning we had a brief Testimony Meeting with everyone up on the temple grounds. That was very sweet. We took a bunch of group pictures after and then everyone rounded up their luggage and we set off on another long drive.
 The other recent adventure was a trip to Grahamstown for the National Arts Festival.  We convinced Dylan to drive us and spent a lovely Saturday in rainy Grahamstown. We watched a film called The Last Lions. It was a documentary, sort of…it was all about some of the last wild lions, a pride in Botswana, in the Okovango Delta. This place keeps showing up on my radar, I think I just need to go and work there. The film was all about this one female and her three cubs. Her mate is killed by a pride that is pushed south by humans and takes over their territory. It was Lion King on steroids. Amazing animal shots and a really amazing story. It was filmed by a married couple – they’ve been working for National Geographic for ages. Incredible! And it was narrated by the guy who does Scar’s voice from the Lion King – so it was even narrated by a lion.
              Our next destination was the Village Green, where all the crafts and souvenirs live. It took a little while to find parking, we had to make loops around the green. Grahamstown is a really cool place, I wish we had more time to explore it. It reminded me a lot of New England or Ireland – old stone buildings, thatched roofs, the rain. Luckily all the crafts and stuff were under these huge white tents. There were several craft tents and a couple food tents and a big information tents with tables and chairs. We all kind of split up – Emily and I stuck together. We were going to try and watch this free show of dancers, but couldn’t find the venue…instead of wandering around in the rain, we just went back to the Green and really scoped out the possibilities. We walked through each tent and asked about different prices. I kept notes in my notebook about where things were and how much they cost. I got all of my gift shopping done! There were tons of African crafts – jewelry, bead work, wood carvings, wall hangings, drums, traditional clothing, animals galore. And then there were all the indie hipster booths with their vintage clothing and scarves and adorable prints. And leather booths with belts and wallets and jackets. And the hippie booths with those simple baggy cloth pants and shirts and wool ponchos in earthy colors. And soap and paintings and herbal remedies and olives. I mean it was all the fair stuff, but on steroids, so much cool stuff!
After we were shopped out we went in search of this little theater where different groups were dancing and singing. We wandered through a few buildings and asked directions and finally found it! It was a group of guys dancing and singing in a little outdoor amphitheater, covered from the rain, thankfully. They were really fun! There were four dancer/backup singers and the lead guy was a hoot. And there was a bassist, a drummer, and a keyboard fellow. I filmed a bunch, it was great! They are super into rhythms and it was fun to hear this traditional kind of music played on electric bass and guitar and keyboard. Next we went and watched this Chinese Acrobat and Dance group.
They did fun things with spinning plates and juggling and jumping through ropes and some crazy acrobatic stuff and dancing and magic tricks. Garron and Dylan were both used in the magic trick portion, those dorks. Dylan helped with this sweet trick. He tied up this little Chinese lady – her hands were behind her back and then her arms were tied to her body and the rope was tied around her legs. Dylan had his jacket on and sat down next to her. They covered them both with a big cloth and then the magic trick lady, who was dressed in this spectacular sparkly pant suit, counted down from five, and they flicked off the cloth and the tied up lady had Dylan’s coat on, underneath the ropes! It was pretty crazy, even just getting Dylan’s jacket off him and then on, without being tied up, would have taken a couple seconds. Magic : )
So that was Grahamstown! Whoo, I wrote a lot, but there has been so much cool stuff going on! We have only four weeks left, which I can’t believe. It has gone by super quickly! I am determined to make the most of our remaining time. 

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