Happy Diwali!

Today is Diwali- the most important festival in the Hindu religion. The Indian population here in Durban is very, very large so Diwali is a very big thing here. As a result, there have been fireworks booming for the past few hours. Diwali is like Christmas in the Christian religion. It is a five day festival of lights. Insteading of exchanging gifts, they exchange parcels of food- like sweet meats. The cats don't like the fireworks and have been sneaking around the house.

Sofia and Sienna have reached Silver Medallion status with Delta. They are little world travelers with priority status now!!!!

Luckily, the flying ants disappeared as quickly as they came and there haven't been any more swarms! We did have a very large group of lime green striped grasshoppers come through. There were probably 200 of them. They stayed together and moved in unison eating my patch of ivy. After a day, I had to spray them as they were devouring everything. I took pictures of them. They were quite amusing.

They girls had a play date today. We had one of their friends come to the house and spend the afternoon. Her name is Izabella. Her mom, Jonita, is a friend of mine. The girls go to school together.

I was on national tv this morning. Last Thursday, the day after I arrived back in SA, I had a tv interview. A film crew came to Limpopo to get footage of our work and do an interview with me and my provincial manager. This morning, the segment, about 5 minutes long was featured across the country! It was pretty neat! I will have to get a copy of the feature to share! Sienna was baffled as to why I was on tv talking!

Thousands of Flying Ants Descend

Last night, we had thousands and thousands of flying ants descend around the house. They are the size of a dragon fly. They are the queen ants who have emerged from the ground to mate. They pick a perfect day that is hot and muggy (which perfectly describes yesterday) and come out to mate. They swarm to protect themselves and after mating they lose their wings. The mating occurs mid air as a much smaller, less conspicious male latches on. That is the annoying part. So, not only did I have swarms of ants exactly at 7:30 pm around the house but now this morning, there was a carpet of wings covering every concrete and asphalt surface outside the house. And even worse, the pool had hundreds of them floating around. The queens mate and then try to go find a place for their colony. The males die right after mating. We had quite a few of them, wingless, in the house. They are fat and move very slow. They girls were not so happy about this but the cats were delighted. I was not so happy because I don't want any colonies started in the house. There are enough ants, large and small, ambling around in the house as it is.

They say the queens don't bite. And they are a delicacy to eat around here with the locals. The locals snatch them up and eat them alive. I am told they taste like butter. I think we will pass on trying them for now. They also like them deep fried.

Luckily, this mating ritual doesn't happen every day. It is just a few days and then it is finished.

Always an adventure in South Africa!!!!

Settling back in

After a 5 week stay back home in the US, we are now back at our South African house. We departed the US on Tuesday of last week, arrived in SA on Wednesday. Instead of coming directly to Durban, we stopped over in Groblersdal (which is about a 2 1/2 hour drive from Johannesburg). I had board meetings and project visits from Thursday until Sunday. The girls fit right in with staff and board and then at the project visit. We got on a plan on Sunday and came back to Durban. Sunday was Halloween. Since we were on planes and in cars most of the day, we didn't have much time to celebrate. And South Africans really don't celebrate. However, we did have one couple with two children come to trick or treat. It is very, very rare so we were excited. The girls then wanted to know why they didn't go...

Yesterday, we were back into the swing of things- school and office. Very busy.