This is mid Feb as well. Realizing this is a bit out of order...sorry (ngiyaxolisa)

I got the sweetest Valentine's Day cards from my sister and a neighbor! The girls are both 8 and colored these beautiful cards for me. Not quite the same as a kiss from you, but close. :) I spent the day hiking aka walking along cow paths in the Eastern Cape, close to Port St Johns for 5 hours. Destination amazing waterfall at the edge of the continent. Could see for nothing but ocean and coastline mountains (actually hills but lots bigger than hills) dropping into cliff and grass upon savanna grass. Breathtaking. I climbedbehind the waterfall which is 1 in 5 in the world that drops directly into the ocean and the only one in Africa. Super!!! Lots of pictures to share in June. Oh and lots of cows roaming free.

We were supposed to head to Gwexintaba on Sunday but heavy rain on dirt and rock roads=bad news bears. Spent the night at a backpackers instead getting chewed by mosquitoes and developing a virus. Everyone except 2 got explosive release, either up or down. Myself, I'm fine now (wed. morning) Just did some food purging (only rice and crackers) and gatorade-sque juice. Drove there Monday. Only 10 of us instead of everyone because the rest were really sick. So glad-would have been overwhleming otherwise. Can't really explain my time there because i'm pressed for time and everyone is talking around me. Bottom line-village life is hard hard hard but refresing for someone like me. No electricity, long drop toilets (look that up), fire cooking for food, livestock everywhere-chickens sleeping in the house, horses in the yard, goats and cattle running around. Adult jobs =animal husbandry for men, maize (look that up) tending, samp and beans, household stuff for women, school for children. Clinic is 45 mins. Away by our car along the “road” but not a car around=lots of TB sick kids. Saw my first visibly HIV+ kid. A little 10ish year old boy with a huge lesion on his arm (look up what that looks like). So traumatic knowing he will die because though dirt cheap by our standards, too expensive for people here. Healthcare is done by sangomas (look them up)=traditional healers, part diviners, part medicine man or by iyangas-female diviners. Money doesn’t really have weight here-live off the land. School nearby is only up to 5 and then a minibus taxi supposedly comes for the older kids. Logistics of that sound terrible though.

Only stayed one night. Got there around 2, unloaded our payment for the families-160R, 2 cabbages, 2 butternut squash, 6 onions, lots of pap (finely ground maize basically white corn meal). Each family has a homestead like set up-mine had 2 roundevals (look up-traditional Xhosa/Zulu housing), a sheet metal shack for fire cooking and storage, icebox, chickens living in the house. Actually had a bed but everyone else on dung floors. Dung walls too. Cow dung.
Today we’re off to a TB clinic in the Valley Trust (land region in KZN). Going to shul with Mr. Simpson this Friday, spending the night there vs. traveling with him into Cato at night. Not because its Cato but because all travel at night here is shaky. Going to cook dinner on Saturday for everyone because its Stembiso’s bday on the 23rd. He’ll be 17. Beach outing with everyone and our families on Sunday.