Random News of the Week

We had snow here today. Yes, snow! It was cold. How cold, I'm not sure, but cold enough to turn the tips of my fingers white when I was frantically pulling my laundry off of the line. We also lost power for about three hours, which made it seem even colder. Darin was walking around the house in a stocking cap and I dug out my long johns. The kids said they saw the snow from their classroom window and all the other kids were going wild. I'm guessing this was the first snow most of the kids had ever seen. Did I mention that the "snow" was just little flurries, so lightly falling that you almost missed seeing it come down? Still, having snow in this part of South Africa is pretty amazing. 

The kids are loving school. Tyson has been on green 2 days in a row, which means he hasn't had to move his peg!! Jori knows the names of all the kids in her class and she loves to share little details about each child with us, especially if it involves pegs being moved. Every morning the kids have devotions together. This is one of their favorite parts of the day. They come home singing "Father I adore You", "The love of Jesus is so wonderful" and "Stomp the devil lower, lower". 

I visited an "art therapy" program in one of the neighboring townships on Monday. The arts are not my thing. I mean, I like them, but I'm not so good at them. Monday was a music day, which involved pounding on drums and waving flags. If you know me well, you can imagine my horror at having to stand on a stage and wave a flag. Granted, there were only 5 other people present and they were also waving flags, stomping their feet, banging on drums, or doing some funky (way funky) dancing, so it's not like I had an audience (other than the very curious neighbors who were probably wondering why 4 white people and 2 black youths were doing all the above mentioned things). I had a hard time keeping a straight face and really just wanted to laugh at the absurdity of it all. However, it wasn't a bad experience so I will be going back. Strange and awkward, yes, but not at all bad.

At this same event, I had my first run in with polony. Polony, rhymes with bologna, but they are not the same. Yes, they are both processed and are stuffed with fillers, but bologna comes in a nice package all sliced up. It is firm, like all lunch meat should be. Polony is pink and it comes in a log, sometimes 4" thick, like sausage. Did I mention that it is pink? It is also a bit squishy looking. You could take a piece of bologna, hold it by your fingertips and wave it around. I'm thinking that if you tried that with polony it would fall to pieces. I did not even know how to open the polony and felt like a total dork asking for help, but I didn't want to ruin the packaging. I also was not sure how thick to cut the polony, so again I asked. I was then instructed to cut it with a mandolin type cutting device. It was pretty awesome. I made THREE polony and tomato sandwiches all by myself, however, I did not partake in the polony feast. I just couldn't bring myself to try the stuff, although my American friend Annie did tell me she eats it with crackers and cheese on occasion, so perhaps someday I will indulge. 

We have seen a lot of stray dogs running around outside our fence. We've tried calling to them, but they just run the other direction. Maybe someday we'll see a pack of stray dogs chasing a herd of impala. Or perhaps we'll see a herd of stray dogs get eaten by a pack of jackals. Nice. Or maybe they'll get squashed by the herd of buffalo, a pretty wild group that decided to bust out of their holding pen after they were spooked by a couple lionesses. 

It's only Tuesday night and the week is already chock full of randomness.