Update

Wow, I can't believe how long it's been since I've written!!

This is not for lack of trying, some days the internet is just too slow or not working at all and it's impossible to get on. Other days I've been out of the office at meetings (or in the office in meetings) that last for houuurrs. African meetings never start on time, and then once they do they go for hours and hours while every person repeatedly tells their life story. They always start, "In the interest of time, I'll keep this brief.." and then, twenty minutes later, actually start talking about the matter at hand. After a three hour meeting or so, they stop in time for lunch. This is the good part, as usually the host organization provides a really delicious meal of several kinds of meat, vegetables, potatoes, and rice or something. I always have to ask for a knife as I just can't bring myself to eat with my hands in the middle of a business meeting...

So anyways, I've had lots of meetings. After a month of not having much to do we're finally getting busy. I've gotten a couple of big projects that are exciting, working on things like educational outreach about Ukuthwala (I think I wrote about that in a previous post) and helping villagers get fair treatment from a coal mine that just opened and things like that.

Other than that, not much else happening. It's a pretty slow life in the small town, we go to work (which I really enjoy, I spend a lot of time hanging out with the other people in the office and they're hilarious), go home, I walk on the beach every night, and then we have dinner and watch TV and go to bed. We haven't gone anywhere since Port Elizabeth, we probably won't until our big trip to Cape Town and the vineyard for our Michigan retreat in November. Planning trips on the weekends is difficult when you have to work. So we'll probably postpone our birthday trips (mine is on the 20th and Lill's is on the 27th so we were going to do something) for another time. We'll have more time after we stop working.

On weekends we most watch TV or go to the mall. We often braai on Sundays if it's nice out. Well, yesterday we braaid (braaied? not sure about the past tense on that one) through the sprinkles because we really wanted bbq! That's about it. We're sort of like two little old women but without cats or polyester sweatsuits. But it's fun and relaxing and I'm getting a lot of reading done and it's infinitely better than being in law school. Realistically, I could be being a lot more productive than I am, I have two papers to write and some other things to get done but the problem with having nothing to do is that it's so hard to get yourself to do anything.

So yeah, that's all. I'll try to update more frequently, even if there isn't anything to say. I was trying to add pictures of the new house but it's taking hours to load so I'll try again later.

Ciao!
kat