Wrapping Up at GGA

As many of you know, we leave GGA on Monday morning to embark on a time of relaxation and adventure before coming home.  We’re continuing to wrap up all the projects that we’ve been working at.  There are still reports to write and files to organize.  Dan threatened to pull an “all nighter” in order to get everything done, but instead he has been waking up way too early in the mornings.  I have tried hard to wrap up my office in order to concentrate on organizing the packing.  We’ve realized that we can only bring home about ½ the weight we brought here, since South African Airlines is much stricter than Air Canada on luggage weight restrictions.  That means that in order to bring home some of the cool African things we’ve bought here, we have to leave many of our clothes and books here.  This is not too bad, since they will be well used and appreciated by those we give them to here.  The packing is a bit tricky, since we need to pack some things that we’ll not need until Canada, some that we’ll need on our holiday here in Africa, and some that we’ll need for our stopover in London.

 

So, here’s the plan for the next few weeks.  We will leave our little home on the farm on Monday morning (the 26^th) and head north into Swaziland.  We hope to lay low there and just relax and recover from the stress of the past few weeks (and months!).  There’s a great game park to visit, good hiking, and wonderful craft markets in Swaziland!  Then we’ll head east to Mozambique to spend a few days days in the coastal city of Maputo.  Apparently the snorkeling is world class (comparable to the Great Barrier Reef, Australia), and the seafood is great!  Since this is quite a way north of where we are now, we hope to hit some hot weather.  Due to finances, we had originally planned to stay in the Durban area for our last 10 days in SA, but we’ve decided to throw caution to the wind (what’s a little more debt!?) and see a bit more of Africa before we leave.  We’re all excited about the trip, and about our 3.5 days in London on the way home.  This will bring us back to Calgary on the afternoon of July 10^th!  I think I’d told a few of you that we are coming home on the 14^th, but that is incorrect.  Good thing I looked at our tickets recently (blonde moment!).

 

The good-byes have begun, and we’ve had a farewell party every day for the past 4 days, with 2 more to go!  On Wednesday, the lovely Zulu couple that live at the farm with us had us all over for supper.  This was a BIG deal, since they served us meat that would have been very costly to them.

On Thursday, the Outreach office staff had a dinner for us.  The speeches were so touching, and tears were shed.  Some of the Zulu staff said that 15 years ago, they would never have dreamed that they would someday share true friendship with “white people from Canada”.  At that time, it was illegal to speak to a white person, and a gathering such as the one we had would have landed them in jail.  These dear people grew up with this fear and oppression, and it’s to their credit that they’ve taken us in as family.  They have loved our girls and in turn, Jess and Micayla have loved them back.  Micayla was recently given a Zulu name which she is VERY proud of.  She is called Ntombanhle, which means “pretty little girl”.

On Friday, we had a farewell party at the main preschool, which was attended by ALL the teachers from the preschools that Dan and I have worked with.  It was heartbreaking to say goodbye as the children sang for us and the teachers showered us with hand-made gifts.  With tears, the teachers said, “we hope you will come back to us, but if not, we’ll see you in heaven!”  Dan was too choked to give a speech.

Today is packing and cleaning day, and tonight will be a farewell party with the other volunteers from GGA.  Tomorrow will be our last farewell, as we’ve planned a special dinner with our dearest fellow-volunteers here at the farm.  We’ll certainly need a holiday after a week of teary good-byes!  It’s stunning to us that we’ve managed to fall in love with a country and its people in 6 short months. 

 

We may not be posting an update for the next 10 days because our internet access will be sketchy.  So, don’t worry about us…we’ll be out enjoying our final days in Africa.  However, we’ll still be checking email as much as possible.  See you all soon!