Hello friends!

Well, it has been a very busy and exciting time over these past few weeks, hence the reason I haven't written a blog in almost a month! About a week after returning from South Africa, I moved into a new apartment, started back at work and tried to adjust to life again in Southern California. It has been wonderful to see friends and family again, as well as to share all of my stories, but there have been some challenging days as well... going through my day and suddenly remembering the smell of the tea we drank every morning, the feel of hundreds of kids crowded around me, the beautiful African sunrise...and missing that all so much. Since getting back, I've been trying to process through these thoughts and feelings, and so I decided to do some "out of Africa" blogs. Each one will cover something different about my trip: what South Africa is like, what my team did, what I learned, etc. I'll email you all when a new post comes out. So... here is Out of Africa #1:

Cape Town, South Africa is definitely not your typical African setting. It is quite modern and has somewhat of a European feel to it. It was the winter season while I was there, so there were some pretty cold days of wind and rain. We spent some time in the city doing the usual touristy things...we went to a huge outdoor market at Green Point Stadium for arts and crafts, we shopped down by the Waterfront, and we ate at some great restaurants. One of my favorite experiences was going to an incredible, authentic African restaurant called Moyo. We got to sample from a huge buffet (I tried zebra!), they had Afrian dancers perform for the restaurant, and they even painted our faces before dinner. I can't really explain how wonderful this night was...it was an entire experience where you felt completely immersed in the Afrian culture.

Monte Cristo Ministries (the organization I worked with) is located in a small town called Paarl, about 45 minutes east of Cape Town. Imagine the Napa Valley wine country set in a valley surrounded by pristine mountain ranges, and you have Paarl. Our team stayed at a guest farm called Picardi, very similar to a bed and breakfast, situated right on a vineyard. Paarl is a very quaint city... it reminded me of New England in the fall. We visited a number of malls, coffee shops, even McDonald's that reminded me of home...I actually ate more McDonald's in two weeks in Africa than I have in the past two years in the States! The majority of people living in Paarl are white Afrikaaners, so that also threw off my preconceptions of what Africa would be like.

While we stayed in the main part of Paarl, we did most of our work in the nearby communities of Paarl East and Mbekweni (be-kween-ee). These neighborhoods were some of the poorest I've seen...just rows and rows of shacks made of wood, tin, cardboard, garbage...anything. We would drive our vans into the neighborhood and (literally) hundreds of kids would run out into the streets, excited and eager to play games, get their faces painted or simply touch our hair since it seemed so different than their own. And in this picture...I'm probably making some horribly offensive gesture, but the kids just told me what to do!

There is so much more to say and I don't want to overwhelm you all at first. There will be more to come soon, and thank you for letting me share my heart for Africa with you all!

much love... alair