Belated News on our 4th of July Festivites

Yes, I do realize that this post is over a month too late, but I'm writing it so when I look back on our year here I'll be able to remember a few things. We had all sorts of plans of things we would, could, should do to celebrate America's Independence, but then things got a bit hectic. So instead of having a bbq and making apple pies we actually made lasagna and packed for field school all day. However, we did redeem ourselves a bit that evening and went to dinner with Linds and Adriann at the Gourmet Garage in Montecasino.

None of us had been to the monstrosity commonly called Montecasino, but we figured it was worth checking it out for what a local magazine claimed to been a "spectacular burger experience" with infinite burger choices. What the magazine described and what we found were two different things, but the food and company were good. The real treat of the evening wasn't the Gourmet Garage itself but the store we found while looking for the restaurant. Montecasino is quite large and we headed the wrong direction at first which was actually quite fortunate because we stumbled upon a store full of America memorabilia. We can't remember the name of the store, but it was full of all sorts of truly American goods. They had everything for Shasta soda to western boots and apparel. It truly was a sight to behold.

Marathon Update

For those of you who are following our running adventures here is a quick update. We are going to do the Soweto Marathon November 1st and then the Las Vegas Marathon December 6th. Training took a bit of a hit the last few months with visitors, field camp, a dislocated elbow, and a sprained anckle, but we are back on track. We are doing the Soweto Marathon along with two other Rotary Scholars to raise money for the Khulanathi Music Project and then hope to qualify for Boston in Vegas. We will have more info about the Khulanathi Music Project and our fundrasing efforts in the next few weeks.

Where does the time go?!?!

It is now official we are the worlds worst bloggers, but we have three months to redeem outsleves before we head home. We comfermed our tickets home this afternoon and are headed out November 5 at 9:30 pm (Jozi time) and arrive home November 6 late afternoon. With that said let's fill you in on the last few months.

For starters we just returned from a five week archeological digg in the Limpopo province. We stayed on the Venetia game resurve which is ownded by DeBeers and had the privledge of seeing African game on a daily basis. On the slightly less glamorous sid of things Chris worked and had class fifty hours a week while I organized the food and cooked for fifteen people. Needless to say we are thankful to be back in Joburg cooking for two with two sets of useful hands. There will be more details about our time in a later post.

Before the digg we had a marathon of guests and a great time seeing new parts of the county with them. Kevin, Chris's dad, was the first to arrive and we had a great time in the Southern Drakensburg and even went into Lesoto. Then Jimmy arrived for a quick trip inbetween jobs and we showed him around Johannesburg and the surrounds. Once Jimmy and Kevin headed home Lizabeth came over for two weeks. During her stay we loaded water and hit the open road ending up in Port Elizabeth (PE)--one of my favorite stops so far. We had planned to head up the coast to Jeffery's Bay, but decided that we wanted to stay a bit longer in PE. Finally, Patty, Scott, and Elizabeth came and we spent two wonderful weeks in the Pilanesburg game resurve and Cape Town. It was so nice to have a bit of home around for six weeks.

Well that is the update for now. I will work on loading some more pictures and writeing a few more detailed accounts.

Thanks for reading,
Mary