The Kindness of Strangers

This past weekend I had an absolutely lovely time going on a mini-safari kind of adventure at Lake Eland Game Reserve - a place actually quite close to where I live - with two ladies in their 60s. How did this come about? Let me tell you.

A long, long time ago in January when I was first flying here, I was on the last leg of my three day journey and waiting in the Joburg airport to catch my flight to Durban. A few of us sitting around the gate to board were just chatting away mostly about nothing and about flights, and it was a nice little sociable time to keep me awake in my state of complete jetlag. As we boarded the plane, an older couple that had been part of this chatting were actually my seat-mates for the flight, so that was a happy little coincidence. They pointed out different sites as we flew over the landscape, and we had a nice talk over the whole flight. I told them I was a nurse from Canada and I was going to a children's village called Rehoboth near Port Shepstone - "we're FROM Port Shepstone!" So we sort of chatted about where I thought Rehoboth was, and they were interested a bit since they hadn't heard of it before. When the flight ended, we said a little goodbye, and off I went - didn't think about it again really.

Three weeks ago, a phone call came to Rehoboth - 'is there a volunteer from Canada there with you? Heather?' - they had tracked me down! And wanted to visit! How old world friendlier can you get?! It was so sweet. :) We had a nice chat on the phone and made some potential weekend plans that we ended up changing to this weekend when Denise's (that's her name) friend could also join us since she 'really knew' Lake Eland and 'where all the animals like to hide'. We talked on the phone a few more times to solidify plans, and then it was Saturday and the big meet-up! I think I've been successfully adopted. Haha! It was like meeting an old friend, it was really lovely. Perhaps this means I've been accepted by the locals? Huzzah!

The animals were really spectacular to see and get close to in our massive 4x4 - we went off-roading almost the entire time to get closer to anything we saw. I think they called it "bushbacking" or something instead of 'off-roading'. Oh, South African slang :) Shame, man!

One of the house mums has started teaching me more Zulu:
Kubuhlungu? Laphi? La!
(It's sore? Where? Here!)

Turrah for now!
Heather