Christmas Holidays

We have had a good time visiting South Africa at MCC retreat and back in Zambia during Christmas break. Since schools are closed, I have had a chance to think, read and refocus. It has been helpful to think things through, realizing I have 7 months left in my term with MCC. The time is going quickly, and amidst school breaks, it goes even more quickly.

Some of the fun things that we did while in South Africa were hiking in the Drakkensberg Mountains. We only did one day of hiking, but we divided and conquered. Dad and Josiah went one way, Keyana and I went another, Karlene took up the trail with her camera attached to keep her company, and Mom stayed with the vehicle. Keyana and Josiah were amazing, hiking for over 2 and a half hours. I did carry Keyana for maybe 200m, but otherwise she was leading the way. We kept wanting to go around one more corner to see what the view would be like - they were all great - so we ended up going a long ways. The mountains were spectacular, but quite different than the Rockies we were more used to. Not as high, rocky or cold. It was surprising how much grew way up high. We saw some snow spilling over the edge of the tops of the mountains in small patches. Josiah said it wasn't snow, it was nshima, the porridge served for breakfast.

Keyana spottend a dog on the other side, which turned out to be one of 40 baboons feeding in the trees that surrounded the path we had to walk through. Keyana and Karlene were not so eager to go through, but we made it, finding the baboons mostly ignored us. Karlene even got brave enough to take pics of some that were 2 or 3 meters from the trail in the trees. We could almost reach out and touch them if we wanted to.