Well, I have missed my Sunday update by a day, but I will try to keep this up on a regular basis. Things have been going good the past week. I am beginning to get my bearings around here and get into the swing of how things go in Africa. It turns out that Murphy takes up residence here in SA as well as in the states. Just like at home, whatever can go wrong, will go wrong. We worked most of this past week putting in a new sprinkler system on the rice pivot. Each of the sprinklers will be individually controlled by a computer, so we can set up the field to water different areas with different rates of water. The system has been installed, and we spent most of Saturday testing the whole system. Each time we tested, new problems kept coming up. We tested and tuned sprinklers from 7 in the morning until dark that night. When it was too dark to keep working, we still had 5 sprinklers that weren't operating like they were supposed to. Hopefully we will have all the bugs worked out before the rice gets planted.

On Sunday, we had a fellowship at Dennis and Linda's house. We all got together and talked about how we got into the areas we find ourselves in, and how God has helped us make the "leap of faith" to come out here to the middle of nowhere. It was good to hear everyone's story, and to realize that so many people with like minded faith in God have found themselves in the same place 8,000 miles from home. I think this is something that we will be continuing on a weekly basis, and I think it will be good for all of us.

We also held another braai Sunday night. Lots of us got together and brought whatever we wanted to eat, which ended up being way too much for any of us. We had chickens cooked over a fire in a 50 kg oil drum, boerewors (a brat like sausage that is about 2 feet long and coiled up), lamb kebobs, steaks, and all sorts of sides. The braai had to take a break for a lightning strike fire that happened out on the edge of the farm. Despite all the wild animals that roam around, the biggest fear in most of the people of this area is fire. Everyone pitches in to make sure they can get them out quickly. An unkept fire in this area during this dry time can set the hills all around ablaze. Luckily, the rainy season is on its way. We are instructed not to have any open fires until we get a significant rainfall. After the fire was extinguished, everyone came back and we had a great time socializing and eating great food.

I also got to make my first trip into town this weekend. The nearest grocery store is in Modimolle (Mo dee mo lay) and takes about an hour to get there, most of which is down those washboard dirt roads. I got excited when we got there to see a KFC, although we didn't have time to stop. The grocery store reminded me a lot of home, although there is not quite the variety of items that one would be used to in the states. I got the main items that I needed, particularly clothespins and some spices for cooking. My meals have been very bland as of late, so I hope to remedy that with some of the cooking skills I have learned from watching Sam in the kitchen. Hopefully all that watching will have paid off. Coming out of the grocery store, a security guard double checks your items against your receipt, which was something that took a minute to get used to as well. Out in the parking lot, people would also come up to you asking for donations to funds that you weren't really informed of what they do. They basically just hang out in the parking lot looking for people to give donations.

Right now it is Monday around lunchtime, and I am doing laundry and watching the 80's Knight Rider on TV. Other than that I get soap operas that are sometimes in English, and lots of WWF wrestling. I don't think I have watched wrestling since I was 12, but when it is the only thing you get, you learn to cope with the cheesiness. My laundry would have been done yesterday, but while it was out on the line we got a rain. I was happy for the rain, but I wasn't too keen on re-running my laundry. I guess you take what you can get. I'm also over the peacocks, which happens quickly when you have to start mopping the presents off the porch.

Thats been about the extent of this week. I just got radioed that a portion of my seed should be here tomorrow, so this week should get more interesting. The animals for the reserve should also be here this week. I will work on getting some pictures posted as well, but the internet connection decides whether I can do that or not. Until next week.