In South Africa

 Well here are the pictures that we promised some of the kids we would send.  Pictures of an elephant, lion, rhino, and cape buffalo.  Give us another month and I think that we will be sending pictures of the real things.  By the way it takes 6.7 rand to make a dollar.
We arrived in Durban after a gruling 32 hour day, 20 of which was in the air, the rest in airports.  When we got to Durban our luggage was left behind in Johannesburg.  We were told that that happens sometimes so our carry-ons got us through the night and we were blessed to get our luggage the next day.  Our apartment is on the 13th floor of a 23 story complex and is really quite nice.  We have all the modern appliances and comforts.  We really feel pretty spoiled compared to some senior couple missionaries in other parts of the world.  The weather is absolutely beautiful with highs in the mid to low 70's and lows in the 50's.  Not too bad for winter!  There are many blooming plants which remind us of Southern California, especially San Diego. 
We have spent most of this week getting situated and oriented as well as learning to drive on the left side of the road.  That is a pretty weird experience and would cause gray hairs if I was not already there.  The traffic moves fast with lots of cutting in all the while trying to remember that i have to stay on the left side of the road.  It is not bad except making a right turn and just feeling that I need to stay right.  There are very few turning arrows so you just have to wait for a break in oncoming traffic and then go for it.  Another complexity is taxis which are really minivans that make up a huge part of the transportation for many of the poorer people.  They are loaded with 12-15 people and absolutely pay no attention to the traffic laws.  Defensive driving is an absolute must.  Added to the traffic are the pedestrians that also walk between cars and walk when their light is red so, add all that together and it is a pretty scary thing to drive.  I am sure that we will get used to it.

This is an African sunrise from the veranda of our apartment.  We cannot actually see the Indian Ocean from our apartment but those cloud banks are over it.  It is probably only 5-6 miles away.  Tomorrow we are going to the Molweni Branch of the Church to meet with Nosipho Bhengu, the first PEF student we will meet.  She forgot to sign some papers and we need to get that done.  We have talked to several others on the phone and, although they speak very good english for the most part, they have heavy accents that we have not gotten an ear for yet.  I think that it will come.  We are already making progress on pronouncing their names.  They do better with Elda and Sista Gunduhsen than we do with their names.  We have been in several parts of Durban and are impressed at how polite and friendly the people are.  We have felt none of the threats of being robbed that we heard so much about.  But we have not been in downtown Durban at night either. 
The bird life is great here and I am adding new birds to my life list nearly every day--not hard when nearly every one I see is new.  I had to buy a bird book for South Africa.
Monday we begin some serious work.  Thembinkosi Mhkize the PEF Area Coordinator will be spending two days with us in training that is much more specific than we got in Salt Lake City.  Maybe then we can actually provide intelligent answers and advice to students when they need help.
More later.