Mormon Helping Hands Across Africa

Saturday, August 20th was a day of service for Church members across all of Africa.  Wards or branches of the Church each select a service project that benefits their community.  It can be for schools, charitable organizations, public entities, etc.  We chose to go to the project for the Berea Ward of the Durban Stake.  It was at an orphanage.  We had a number of tasks including, moving a huge pile of dirt and filling in places, gardening, fixing jungle gyms, sorting archival papers, pruning a couple of trees, and general cleanup of the grounds.  Like many of the orphanages in Africa, this one houses children who have lost their parents to AIDs.  First photo is getting our assignments.

Sister Gunderson and three of the young adults of the ward.  Phumile Pungeni on the left is a PEF student.  The yellow bibs are those you see all over the world when there is a disaster and the Church members step in and provide aid and physical labor to help those in need.

Bishop Scott, making assignments and talking on a cell phone at the same time.  He is a ball of energy.  We had to get  a Priesthood Endorsement from him for a student shortly after we arrived here and were waiting for him prior to a ward council meeting.  The Ward Relief Society president and Young Women's president went into the meeting and told us we would know him because he looked like a fire hydrant :-)

Some of the ward children enjoying a service project as only kids can.

Sister Gunderson with her little clean-up crew.  She is quite a task master but they were rewarded several times with cookies and candies, after they picked up several bags of leaves and trash..

The pile of dirt that we moved about 2/3 of the way completed.  I was thankful for Ibuprofen after that.  The mission is making me soft.  It felt good to do some strenuous physical labor.

More of the same.  The dirt was somewhat sandy and part was taken to fill in  a sand box for the children.The rest was used to fill in holes and areas of erosion on the grounds.  It was also nice to be in jeans!

Gardening.  They have a nice little garden at the orphanage where they grow fresh vegetables for the children.  The soil is very rich and good.  Covers and screens are to keep birds and monkeys out.

More gardening.  Notice the Zulu women wearing dresses to work in the garden.  We rarely see the older women in this country in pants.  Long, and often very beautiful print, dresses are traditional.

Taking dead leaves out of the banana trees.

President Bricknell, of the Durban Stake, up a tree so that he could cut limbs off that were overhanging the clothes line.  He got out on some very small limbs.  His wife was not at the project or she might have had something to say about this.  I could not help but think about Bill or Dan Winn when he was pruning.  Except they, almost always, use safety lines.

Repairing the jungle gym.  One funny kind of sad story.  One of our PEF students, who we have met with several times, quickly volunteered for this job when the assignments were being made.  He later asked What is a jungle gym? We have never seen a jungle gym or any playground equipment in the schools in the townships so he probably had never heard the term.  He is well on his way to becoming a doctor, by the way.

A couple of the member's children who took a liking to Sister Gunderson.  It may of had something to do with the candy that she was sharing; or maybe just because they know that she loves them.  I think the latter

I spotted this little baby gecko while cleaning up limbs and trees from the pruning.  He was well camouflaged but, when he moved I saw him.

Sorting archival documents as to what needed to be kept and what could be tossed.  Some dated back to 1909!
We had a great day and are thankful to be able to meet the wonderful Saints here.  Projects, like these, really help you get to know people better.
We are gearing up to teach a couple of  Planning for Success Workshops this week and for the next four Saturdays and Sundays.  One workshop that serves  two wards may have over 20 students.  Now we only have 36 more units to get the workshops going!  We keep plugging away.  We are working hard to get the Bishops and Branch Presidents to call teachers that we can train.  We can be much more effective if that can be accomplished.  We have six new teachers so far, so that is a start.

Our Anniversary

 August 11th was our 44th anniversary so we took a couple of half days to celebrate.  This was at LaMercy Beach just north of Durban.  There were some pretty, but little, seashells along the high tide mark.  It was a windy salt spray day.

 We also went to Shaka Marine World on the beach front in Durban.  It is a water park on one side and an Aquarium with Dolphin/Seal shows on the other.  The wrecked ship in the background is actually the aquarium and you go down into the bottom for the viewing tanks.  It is really pretty nice and they have some great displays of big sharks-see the video clip.  Remember that before they installled shark nets along the major beaches, Durban had the highest incidences of shark attacks in the world.

Out on a pier at sunset.  We were going to eat there but have been advised that the beachfront in downtown Durban is not the safest place to be after dark so we drove to Hillcrest (near Pinetown) for dinner.

Lest you think all that we do is play, here is where we spend much of our time when not traveling.  We just got a computer hookup that allows us both to use the PEF Website and Internet at the same time.  So Sister Gunderson is hard at it.  Anytime we speak to a PEF Student, we are to record it on the PEF record for that student.  We had to trade back and forth previously.  This new connection is DSL but kind of slow.  

Because the grandchildren liked it so much, here is another clip of a monkey.  This one is much braver than most others who just vanish if you stop the car.

Newcastle, Dundee, and Margate

We have had a busy two weeks.  And, I must admit that I got a little lazy thinking, perhaps that the new had worn off our blog and, that no one was really reading it.  But I heard otherwise, so here it is.  The pictures loaded in reverse order so I will start with this week.
We went to a youth conference (convention as they call them here) at Margate on the south coast of KwaZulu-Natal.  It is a beautiful drive about 2 hours south of Durban and right along the coast.  With the foliage and vegetation, we got only occasional good looks at the ocean beaches.  This flower is another wonder here, growing like this in what is the equivalent of February in the Northern Hemisphere.

 This was at Margate.  It was a stormy day  and huge waves breaking but these guys are typical fishermen. Going to do what it takes to catch fish!  Margate is the home of the 1924 Margate Monster or Trunko.  Look it up on Wikipedia for a laugh.

 There are a lot of banana groves along the south coast.  All the bunches of bananas were covered with blue plastic bags.  I am not sure why, unless it is to protect them from the weather while they ripen.  Monkeys certainly know how to get around the bags as they are open at the bottoms.

 Stopped at a little retirement type area with restrooms and saw this little pool that had been made with some kind of cement and rock.  Margate is a huge summer destination for South Africans in the summer.  It was not at all busy during the winter.  I can just imagine how fun it would be for kids in this little pool in the warm Indian Ocean.

 A little closer view of the same pool with waves crashing on the rocks.  The coast around Durban is mostly sandy while the South Coast is very rocky.

 At the lodge where the youth convention was held with a wall decoration made from date palm pods and the fruit vines.

 One of the youth on a John Deere.  Made me feel at home.









Sister Gunderson was speaking to the youth about education and the Perpetual Education Fund and the opportunities that it provides.  We had a fun time with them.  They are quite eager to get additional education and know that it is the key to a better life.  When asked about what they wanted to do after matric (graduation) to become better educated, one young man said  "serve a mission because that will help me be a better student when I get home."  From what I have seen among the young returned missionaries that we work with, nothing could be truer.  They learn so much while on their mission, if they are obedient to the mission rules, that prepares them for college.

Who says that it does not snow in South Africa?  On our way to Newcastle in the northwestern part of KwaZulu Natal Province.  These are the Drakensberg Mountains that practically surround the little country of Lesoto and are northwest of Durban.  It is not unusual to have snow there, but this is a couple of days after a particularly cold spell that put several inches of snow on the ground in Newcastle and Bloemfontaine.  The first that they have had in 10 years.  Where is that Al Gore???

With the Elders in Newcastle and the remanants of a once 7 foot tall snowman.  Not these elders, but two in Bloemfontaine who had never seen snow, rolled their bakkie (pickup) while driving on snowy roads.  Fortunately they were wearing seat belts and no one was hurt.  Some people helped them roll it back over, it finally started and they were able to drive it to where they could get help.  They were in an area of dead cell phone coverage.  Note the classy slacks and sweaters-still a little chilly.



Just an interesting way to build a dam.  There was a wetland behind this rock/cement wall that was just choked with tall reeds-hardly any open water.  Because of the way it is constructed, we thought it was natural rock formation.  Glad it was winter and no snakes out!

This is one of our PEF students Khulekani Nkambule of Dundee.  We took him to lunch and he sure does like pizza.  He returned from a mission in Uganda about 4 months ago and is planning to go to the University of Zululand in Durban in January.  His name is one of many that here that sounds Hawaiian.

Entering Ladysmith with artwork shaped in the form of traditional Zulu ovens.  The town is named for the wife of Sir Harry Smith, the first British Governor of the Cape province.  Several bloody battles were fought here between the British and the Boers.  Gandhi served as a stretcher bearer during one of them. And Winston Churchill was war correspondent during the same war and was captured by the Boers during that conflict.  Lots of history here.

A Hadada Ibis.  These birds are as common as robins and like robins, feed on worms and other insects of the soil on fields and lawns.  The make loud squawking sounds, especially early in the morning.  One of Sister Gunderson's favorite waking sounds at our boarding.

A yellow mongoose spotted along the highway near Ladysmith.  Larger wildlife in South Africa is sadly found only on reserves.  Poaching, some of it for subsistence, has pretty much eliminated all but the smaller predators through nearly all the open countryside.  The area south of Margate called the Wild Coast might have a few of the larger species left. While driving out on a dirt road from the youth convention a small deer, maybe a duiker ran across the road.  It was so jungle like I got only a glimpse.