South Africa Recap

Some of the guys enjoying Bob’s freshly brewed coffee. Having someone so passionate about his beans was nice to have along on the trip.

It’s hard to believe it has been over a week since we got back from South Africa. We had such an amazing trip. I don’t think it really hit us until the first morning when Melissa woke up, poked her head outside, and said, “we’re in Africa.” Seeing that view for the very first time was just the first of many such experiences that week that would far exceed our expectations.

I remember that going into the trip, I had a lot of anxiety over how our time with the people would go. When I found out that we wouldn’t be building houses, digging ditches, or painting fences, but rather doing Life Exchanges instead, I instantly went into retreat. My reserved nature was nearly enough to keep me from going, just on the basis that I would have to spend time building relationships with the people in QwaQwa. I fought and overcame those feelings, and pushed myself to sign up, and I’m so glad that I did. The time spent with the Bosotho people led to some of the highlights of the trip for me.

Some of the guys enjoying Bob’s freshly brewed coffee. Having someone so passionate about his beans was nice to have along on the trip.

It’s hard to believe it has been over a week since we got back from South Africa. We had such an amazing trip. I don’t think it really hit us until the first morning when Melissa woke up, poked her head outside, and said, “we’re in Africa.” Seeing that view for the very first time was just the first of many such experiences that week that would far exceed our expectations.

I remember that going into the trip, I had a lot of anxiety over how our time with the people would go. When I found out that we wouldn’t be building houses, digging ditches, or painting fences, but rather doing Life Exchanges instead, I instantly went into retreat. My reserved nature was nearly enough to keep me from going, just on the basis that I would have to spend time building relationships with the people in QwaQwa. I fought and overcame those feelings, and pushed myself to sign up, and I’m so glad that I did. The time spent with the Bosotho people led to some of the highlights of the trip for me.

Melissa and I were placed into a ministry group with three others: Katelyn, Jason, and Mateo. We lost Mateo on the first day do an all girls group who needed a little manliness in their midst, which left us with four, plus our sweet, little Bestho interpreter, Victoria.

We took a ninety minute bus ride each day from the Thrive base to the village of QwaQwa (village here is defined as “city of 1.8 million people”). While in QwaQwa, we based our operations out of one of the local churches, led by Besotho pastor named Abram. From there, we walked several blocks down grassy paths, and dirt roads. The first house we came to belonged to a woman named Matukalo, a widow of two months. She told us all about the mourning clothes that the Besotho wear, and how her family had decided that she should wear them for six months, never taking them off except to wash them.

Posing for a picture in Matukalo’s kitchen. She was such a warm woman.

The conversation quickly turned to food, as it often does with the Hunts. She made a maize porridge for us (known as mealie pap in Afrikaans), which was thin, gelatinous, bland, and hard to swallow were it not for the sugar on the table. They eat this as a snack, when they’re not hungry enough to have a full meal, and when they’re sick. They also use it as baby food, and we saw some in a bottle on at least one occasion.

We then asked to help out with the dishes, which didn’t go so well. You would think that the act of doing dishes would carry over fairly well between cultures. No so. Matukalo pulled out a large bowl, which she put a little water in to briefly soak the dishes with to get the big chunks off. Then the dishes were removed, and the bowl was dumped into the grass outside. Then she filled it up again about half way with the perfect mix of hot and cold water. She put a few drops of bleach into the water, and a chunk of lye soap and a couple rags. The process was this: rub the soap on the rag, rub the rag on the dish, squeeze the soap water out of the other rag, whipe the dish dry with the wet soap rag, and put the dish on a tray to finish drying. Needless to say, even with the help of Victoria, it took us a while to figure out this process, and even when we felt like we were getting the hang of it, Victoria took over and said we weren’t any good. I think she was afraid our poor dishwashing skills were going to offend Matukalo. What can I say? We tried.

There’s more to come in the following days, I just wanted to get something out there to appease the masses. You can also peruse the photos while you’re waiting (I know that’s what you’re here for anyways).