Goodbye, Hello

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This was a sad week. My Oupa left me and went back home on Tuesday. I cried and cried as he was getting in the car and riding away. He did leave me with lots of beautiful shells that I love to play with.

But yesterday Grandma finally arrived! We went to the airport and watched her climb down the plane steps and waited and waited and waited and waited for her to get her luggage and get through customs. I smiled and smiled at her, and she sat next to me on the drive home and made me smile some more! We are having lots of fun together! And Grandpa is glad she is here, too.

On another note, I wanted to share some photos of me and Daddy and Mavinga. Remember Mavinga, our gardener's 4-year-old son whose mother died last month? His auntie was looking after him during the day, but he ran away one day. We prayed for him and were so happy to see his daddy carrying him into our yard later that day.

So he comes to work with his daddy most every day. He helps to pick up leaves from under the trees, and sometimes I help, too. And Ms. Cathrine plays with us outside most mornings. Sometimes we do school in my craft room together. He loves to play with my balls and dolls and talks up a storm, even though Mommy and Daddy can't understand what he is saying. I am teaching him words in English like "ball" and "doll," and Mommy guesses he's teaching me some words in his language, too.

Bye-bye Ouma and Oupa

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I had a very cool birthday yesterday! I am a year old now!

Mommy is still trying to sort through all the photos and videos, so we can't blog about the party yet.

But I just wanted to let you know Ouma and Oupa left early this morning to go back home to Cape Town. I miss them already. Here are some photos of me with them on my birthday.

Camp Meeting

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Sorry for the delay in blogging. Mommy is overwhelmed with work right now. Well, she is always overwhelmed, but sometimes she stresses about it more than others. Anyway, payroll is mostly done for the month, so we will try to get caught up.

I wanted to tell you about camp meeting. We took a long road trip to Sedaven on Friday, where there is a Seventh-day Adventist camp meeting every Easter weekend, with tents and everything. It is south of Johannesburg and about 8 hours drive from Matola (or 12 hours if you are being a fussy baby). Here I am actually helping to take down camp.


It was really cool - figuratively and literally! I got to wear my warm clothes in the evenings.

I also got to walk and walk and walk and walk until I was tired of walking. Me, tired of walking? That's amazing!




And there were lots and lots and lots of people there. I like people.


I got to play with other kids and share my snacks with them. One boy let me try out his scooter bike. Another boy loaned me his matchbox car to play with - my first matchbox car! I like cars! And I chased another boy around and around the seats in the big auditorium. I did my skateboarding tricks on the terrace there, and one big boy (who borrowed the skateboard when I wasn't using it) was very impressed - he even tried out my method of knee on the board while pushing with the other foot.


Remember Mommy’s blog about older kids that are mean and parents that don’t intervene? Well, there was no problem with that here. Parents were intervening right and left and applying lots of corporal punishment. Interesting – wonder if that has to do with the South African Adventist environment.


I went to my own class on Sabbath and Sunday mornings. We got to play with musical instruments and sing songs and put felts on the board and color pictures. I really liked the “Read Your Bible, Pray Every Day, and You’ll Grow, Grow, Grow” song.


Daddy played volleyball on Sunday and I got to watch. His team won all the way to the finals, but in the middle of the final game of the finals, there was an electrical fire in the ceiling, and they couldn't play anymore. So even though his team was behind, he is not conceding defeat - a bit of a disappointing end to the tournament.

We ate most of our meals at the dining hall, but we went to the Spur one night. Here I am coloring there.

Oh, I forgot the best part. Ouma and Oupa were there! And now they’re with us here in Matola! They came for my birthday, which is next week. I’m gonna become a real big girl then.

Here I am on the drive back on Monday. It was a real long drive and there was lots of traffic going the opposite way because of the holiday weekend. We got through the border by 9:30 p.m., but there were tons of people heading to South Africa that were stuck there filling up the whole road on both sides, so we had a hard time getting past them on our way out the border.

Here’s a photo and video of the geese we fed on the drive back. Though I think I ate more bread than the geese did. I like bread!