Power weekend.

The last few days here have been full ones so I am going to try to highlight them in bullets- easier for me to get to the point and easier for you to read.

Friday:

• After school- grade 8 fashion show of sorts. Students and community members packed the school hall to listen to house music (party music of sorts), dance, watch the grade 8 students model a variety of outfits (including school uniforms which we thought was odd), and sing a long to R&B. Sweaty, loud, fun. See the video Alice took of some of the dancing:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCNpJf450jo&feature=youtu.be

The school hall

Saturday:

•  Ran a 5k at a beach near my house- so unorganized compared to races in the US!! No organized start line, a large majority of people who pushed to the front of the ‘start’ ended up being walkers (huh??), poorly marked course- but overall very fun! Finished 3^rd for the women, but didn’t have much running competition… the overweight women walkers category was the most competitive by far. Hopefully found a club I can run with here- will meet them tomorrow for the first time.
• All the prefects came over for lunch/beach- AWESOME! 

Snapping photos from our flat as they arrived

• They ate every bite of lasagna we prepared, hung out, danced in our apartment before the beach.

The gang

• At the beach- they went running into the water in excitement and minutes later came running back screaming- they had all been stung by jelly fish (which we realized later was why everyone was swimming at the beach next to ours). The lifeguards smothered them in vinegar and they were good to go.

Divas beach bound

Running along the beach before anyone realized the jellies (you can see a string of the washed up one on the bottom right frame of the pic- click to enlarge!) 

• Spent the afternoon at the jellyfish-free beach, played games on the shore- felt like we were running a summer camp- but had a blast! Went back to the flat for ice cream and sent them back home.

• Greek food and lots of sleep for us Saturday night.

Sunday:

• Early start to the morning- showered and spent a good bit of time dressing ourselves for church
• Walking out of the apartment, just about everyone we passed (people in the elevator, security guards, and window washers) told us we looked nice and asked if we were going church. A testament to how disheveled we must normally look leaving the flat in athletic clothes, bike helmets, and all our school stuff piled in our backpacks.
• 9am: Taxi to the township to meet Melissa’s family for church (her dad is the pastor). Phoned Melissa's mom and she told us to wait, we would be fetched shortly. By whom, we had not a clue, but we waited nonetheless (and spoke with the many curious people in passing about why two white girls dressed for church were standing lost in the township Sunday am).

The township, or 'location' as they call it

• At last, one of our students who lives across the street from Melissa's family fetched us and walked us to church. Arrived around 10:15am. Were told to wait until the congregation returned from baptisms at the ocean. 

St. Johns Church

• 11:15- people arrive. 11:30 church begins. The next 3 hours were full of beautiful music in both Xhosa and Sotho (as if Xhosa wasn’t hard enough) and bible readings/sermons by various people (in Xhosa). They were so kind to select a gentleman to translate the various readings/sermons into English for the two of us. Small congregation- 30ish people, but you wouldn’t believe how much music could come from so few people.
•  Melissa's mom said in her part of the sermon that she would sew us church uniforms to bring back to the states to show our friends/family… we’re still not sure if she was kidding or not. 
• 2:30- church ends. We were served a plate of holy bread (4 small rolls) and cokes and chatted with her family/friends for some time. We returned to Melissa’s house to continue conversation and then went home around 3:30, exhausted but so happy we went- they were very kind to welcome us in and cater the entire service to us with translations and small explanations.

Melissa's family, Alice, and I. Melissa came straight from a school event, but all the women typically dress in the same outfit Melissa's mom is wearing here. We obviously didn't pack such attire, but were told we did a great job wrapping our heads (which is essential for women of her church)

•  Al and I are used to drinking a whole camelback of water (3 Liters) before school ends at 2:00pm each day- but we didn’t bring much water to church because we didn’t know the bathroom situation= dehydration.

The church kiddos with Alice and I. Their church uniforms are a bit different. 

•  Our neighbor downstairs, Scott, an American who does research for a program called Grassroots soccer texted us that afternoon to tell us he had gone shopping with us in mind and was making us dinner because we’d had such a long weekend- salad, lamb, potatoes, fresh bread, a bottle of pinotage (South African red wine)- SO NICE OF HIM! And such a great way to end the weekend.

Monday: pretty standard, but I must add a quick story. We appreciate the times that we are reminded that we are indeed in Africa, and this afternoon was one of them. Our stove has been pretty finicky and our landlord told us we should be expecting a new one ‘soon’ (Africa time). Today we came home and the apartment smelled super weird. It smelled like burning and we looked to find it was coming from our new stove! A new stove had been installed and they accidentally left it on… or so we thought. What really happened is someone put a bunch of black materials on the surface of our old stove to make it look new, messed up the dials so when the oven knob said “off” it was actually turned on. I’m not sure if the repair folks actually thought we would believe resurfacing the stove would trick us into thinking we got a new one, but it was pretty comical. And now we’re even worse off stuck with a stove we can’t control the heat on so its power is cut off until someone can come truly repair it. A comical end to our day and well wishes for a good start to yours- happy Monday!