spring in september??

it's funny all the differences just living in the southern hemisphere.  people always talk about the toilets flushing backwards...why don't they talk about spring in september?  i mean really who cares which direction the toilet flushes?  how does that affect my life??  i'm waking up these morning feeling the cool air, seeing the beautiful sunshine some days and rain others and thinking in my brain it's fall!  but guess what it's not!  the weather is on it's way to 90 degree (that's 30 celsius for all my south africa readers :)) days!!  flowers are blooming, there's no sight of leaves changing color and yet people are playing football games (in the u.s.) and i have the sudden urge to make chilli.

it's great this being the start of our second year here because there are some things that i know from last year.  not everything will be new this year.  last year at this time we lived in a different house so i find myself reminiscing about some of the things we did/learned when we lived there.  we moved into our house in harfield village last year on december 15.  it was hot!  steve's family was going to arrive soon and be here for christmas then after that it only got hotter.  i have to say it was a difficult time for me.  all my normal scheduled activities were off for christmas/summer break and i was in a new house in a new neighborhood with a 7 month old.  no air conditioning, not even a ceiling fan, our pool was green and it was HOT!  did i mention that it was hot?  so in someways i'm looking forward to a retake on that...finding a new way to survive the summer and hopefully enjoy it more.

but for now, i'm enjoying spring.  i love that the days are lengthening and that we are getting more and more sunny days.  spring and fall (here they only say autumn, they kind of laugh when i say fall :)) are definitely my 2 favorite seasons.  it's funny that i find that they are the hardest to adjust to being during different months.  but they are beautiful!  and so many amazing flowers in the spring!

[reposted from Diana's Facebook page / Sept 23, 2011]

just another day...another dirty shirt.

so i'm sitting here looking out my back door, watching the clean laundry swing in the breeze and dry in the sunny rays.  table mountain is in the background, our grass is too long, and our pool is too dirty but none the less a gorgeous day for clean laundry.  here's the thing, as a mom, maybe it's more oppressive than it would be without kids, but laundry happens everyday...come on guys!  everyday!!  steve gets up and goes to work and does little of this, a little of that, with the intention of completing something each day but a least moving on to a new part of the task.  i get up and stay at "work" and do the same thing every day...laundry!  and dishes, and watch our kid, but mostly laundry.  :)

you know i didn't really start this note to complain about laundry because most days i don't even really mind doing it.  it did take me a long time to get into the swing of things washing the dishes everyday, especially after being used to having a dishwasher but now even that is fine.  i think i started this post tho b/c outside looked so beautiful and sometimes my accomplishments each day aren't that grand.  the other thing is it seems so weird that i sit at my computer typing away emails to people that are so far from that line of clothes, even that mountain in the distance.  how can i communicate to all of you what's going on in our life effectively and personally and constantly without getting bogged down, losing touch with our life here, or spending too much time at it?

communication is like laundry it can become overwhelming or if dealt with in a manageable way it can actually be enjoyable.  i actually love emailing friends and family.  it's hard to do tho because i'm not much of a writer or a sharer or even a very good communicator.  it takes a lot of hard work to come up with great, witty things that i think people might care about.  not all of you are like that...i know!  such clever friends i have. xoxo

anyway, i'm not sure i started this post to end this way either but it did so this is what i'm going to do...if you have any questions or things your interested in about cape town, post them here.  i'll try to answer them and hopefully it will paint a better picture of our life and the place where we live.

cheers! diana

[reposted from Diana's Facebook page / August 10, 2011]

New Year Resolutions

 Every year, like a large portion of the World's population, I resolve to change something about my life each January 1st.  These resolutions meet with varying degrees of success, the majority of which never make to the end of the year.  This year, like previous years I have set out three resolutions (see below), but hopefully these are a bit more realistic (fingers crossed :).  I will try to keep you updated on my progress!  Cheers, Steve

 

1. Pray weekly with Diana. We have chosen Wednesday mornings. So far in Jan, we have been successful 2 out of 4 Wednesdays, not great, but a start.

2. Keep a record of our spending, by tracking our receipts and bills. In the US, I was good about entering everything into an Excel spreadsheet, but the system did not make it across the ocean, mainly because we have been living paycheck-to-paycheck, but when I was getting our taxes together, I realized that it is virtually impossible to find the information that I needed without it, so it needs to make a comeback.  So far, nothing has happened, but the receipts are all piled up waiting to be entered.

3. This idea was stolen from Elisabeth Cutrer.  We were sharing our resolutions on New Years Eve on Skype and she is resolving to read more books this year, lamenting the amount of time spent with electronic devices and Facebook.  I realized that my own reading had dropped significantly, of course having a kid and a full-time plus job doesn't help, but still, I should read more.  So, I am resolving to read more books, the question is: what is realistic?  After some thought, one book a month seems doable, so the resolution is to read 12 books in 2012.  My not-quite-complete list is below.  Three of the books are carry-overs from 2011, so I thought that I would start with those.  Since we recently unpacked the books from our move, I decided that a picture would be nice, so see that below as well.

Book List

   1. Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton (from 2011) / finished (great book)

   2. Joy Unspeakable by Lloyd-Jones Shaw (from 2011) / in-progress

   3. Bringing Up Boys by James Dobson (from 2011) / in-progress

   4. The Teeth of the Tiger by Tom Clancey (been sitting on my shelf for 5 years)

   5. The Convenant by James Michener (massive 1000+ page book on South Africa, Diana has finished it)

   6. Same Kind of Different as Me by Ron Hall & John Denver (highly recommended by Diana)

   7. The Associate by John Grisham (just love his books)

   8. The Me I Want to Be by John Ortberg (gift from Joy and highly recommended)

   9. No Well Worn Paths by Terry Virgo (biography of New Frontiers founder)

   10. Treasure of Khan by Clive Cussler (Dirk Pitt has the best adventures)

   11 & 12. Undecided, waiting to see what peaks my interest in 2012. 

 

Dis!

Now that Aaron has turned 20 months old (a milestone, I know), he has picked up a lot of words, like truck, horse and choo-choo (see list below, over 60 words!)  But his favorite word is "dis" accompanied by empathic pointing towards something (see video).  This action is followed by a look of expectation as he waits for ma-ma or da-da to go retrieve this item.  As we try to decipher which of the myriad of objects in that direction he is referring to, the look quickly turns to impatience and then insistence, and typically ends with severe whining or possibly crying if he is pointing to something that he cannot have, like the iPad.  

It has been fun to see him pick up words, but I am amazed at his grasp of "this".  Somewhere along the way, he picked up that "this" refers to anything, that it is a non-specific descriptor (which he uses to his full advantage).  There is probably some child development psychology reasoning behind this, but for me, it reveals the amazing capacity our brains have to learn and develop.  Cheers, Steve

Some of the words Aaron knows: truck, horse, choo-choo, one - ten, drink, dog, door, gate, car, bird (his first word), hi, bye, please, ma-ma, da-da, Jo-Jo, Louise, Joshie, pool, ta, rice, meat, milk, nose, eyes, mouth, ears, hair, head, bull, spanspek, flea, hat, boot, peas, fish, blocks, pawpaw, dip, poo, wee, dance, books, stairs, toes, feet, bite, big, tall, small, spot, dash, this, what, bowl, plate, fork, spoon, knife, teeth, yes, no and more everyday.

 btw, this is my first blog post from my iPad, using the Blogsy app

what does coffee cake mean to you?

living in a culture not your own exposes all kinds of misconceptions.  things that you tend to take for granted like "coffee cake" means cake that goes with coffee not cake that tastes like coffee. :)  i made said coffee cake today for our mom's group.  this came up a couple of times.

but it also happens in all sorts of situations all the time.  words that i don't know, words that i thought i knew, words i'm using that nobody knows...and other stuff.  for example what does pavement mean to you or robot or costume?  let me tell you what it means to a south african: pavement = sidewalk, robot = traffic light, costume = swimming suit.  there have been moments in my life here when talking to someone i have a completely different idea of what they are saying then what they are actually saying!  it's awesome!! 

i do love learning all the language stuff.  we're lucky in some ways because to communicate, for the most part, we don't have to learn another language.  but language is such a part of the place and the people where you live.  and here, it seems, language is huge!  there are 11 national languages.  many are african languages but in this area the most common african language spoken is xhosa.  other than the 9 african languages there's also english and afrikaans.  steve and i have a deal that i'll learn afrikaans and he'll learn xhosa.  (i certainly got the better end of the deal...don't tell steve)  the xhosa alphabet includes many letters that make clicking sounds. now i can click or i can talk but i've found that i can't actually do both at the same time. :)  as far as afrikaans there are actually quite a lot street signs, names, words just assimilated into everyone's vocab english-speaking or otherwise.  it seems like afrikaans could be quite helpful. 

we'll see if we actually learn another language but aaron will be.  the thought is to put him into the schools here and everyone learns english and afrikaans no matter what language they speak at home.  it will be exciting for him to have that background and that edge on the culture that we don't have.  i'm sure he'll be our translator in some situations.

i guess this is actually not that unfamiliar to most people just on a much smaller scale.  i mean anytime you walk into someone's home they have their own family culture where they just do and say things in a way that has a certain meaning to them.  for instances when you get married, you merge those 2 families and you find out in that first year a whole lot of that cultural stuff.  then over the years the 2 cultures become one and when you visit your parents you find that that is not your culture anymore.

anyway, this is getting long.  i'm sure you get the idea.  so embrace the differences and enjoy the experience because it will only be new for a while and then it will be so a part of your culture that you won't remember that it wasn't.  ;)

[reposted from Diana's Facebook page]

why our kid is like a kid...

so i think when i was a child i was mildly offended or maybe i just thought it was an odd coincidence that a young goat was called a kid and so was i...hmm.  oh well, but now that i have my own kid (child that is) i don't think it's a coincidence at all!!  aaron is just a like a baby goat!  although i haven't spent much time with goats i have a couple similarities worked out that i believe to be true.

1 - anytime there is anything that can go in the mouth it will go in the mouth

     a - grass, leaves, things on the ground of any sort

     b - pens, ooh he loves pens!

     c - yarn...did you see my recent pic upload?

     d - etc, etc you get the point but as a side note i have a hard time getting food in him, actual tasty, yummy food.

2 - he drinks from his sippy cup just like a baby goat from a bottle.  have you ever done that, at a petting zoo or something, feed a baby goat from a bottle?  very fun, def let your kid do it some day but aaron drinks the same way...he kind of tucks his arms in, gets in position, curls his tongue around the sippy part and goes for it!  he sucks very hard to get that water out.  anyway, check the pic below. very cute. :)

i'm still working to formulate other similarities so i can make a full report but this is all i have for now.  so just to sum up, kids are like kids and babies are a lot like goats. ;)

[reposted from Diana's Facebook page]

The Mountain

The first thing that you will see when you enter Cape Town is the Mountain.  It is impossible to ignore.  The city surrounds it and I feel like it defines the city.  Although there are many aspects of Cape Town that help give it its personality, I don't think that any other attribute (beaches, ocean, cultural diversity, history) has the same impact as the mountain.

View of Table Mountain from ferry out to Robbin Island.  Table Mountain is the flat part in the middle with Devil's Peak on the left and Lion's Head on the right.

Now, let me define what I mean by the mountain.  There is Table Mountain, which is the most recognizable image of the mountain and probably most visited, at least by tourists.  But the mountain (as Capetownians call it) encompasses all of the "mountain" that extends from the city bowl to Cape Point.  It has all been grouped into the Table Mountain National Park (check out the website).  The range of hills and mountains extends for 47 miles, along the entire length of the Cape Peninsula.

View of Devil's Peak from Rondebosch.  To the left of Devil's Peak is the side of Table Mountain.  Notice the campus of UCT (with the red roofs) just below Devil's Peak.

Two things about the mountain that immediately grab you are its beauty and its proximity.  When we first moved to Cape Town, I would walk up the hill to the campus, and would stare up at Devil's Peak, which is adjacent to Table Mountain and directly above UCT, and be amazed that it was so close.  Now, it is not particularly high mountain (just over 1000m or 3280ft), but because the city is so close to the mountain, it can feel like it is on top of you, although not every one gets to work under the shadow of the mountain like I do.

The walk up Stanley Road to campus and Devil's Peak.

I hesitate to go as far as I saying that the mountain is the heart of the city, but it is certainly close.  It is a part of everyday life for many of the residents of Cape Town.  It is very common on a Monday morning during the "how was your weekend?" conversation to hear people discuss the time they spent on the mountain.  Two weeks ago, it actually snowed on the mountain and there was a buzz around the department.  This last Friday, rain was forecasted for the weekend and people were scrambling to make plans that did not involve the mountain (although we went hiking anyway).  The mountain is also used as a navigational tool, directions are given relative to the mountain.  The most interesting impact of the mountain is in dreams, on occasion someone's dream will come up and there are an inordinate number of dreams involving mountains or steep slopes or hiking.  I don't think that is a coincidence.

The view of the mountain from our kitchen window.

Lastly, the mountain provides a certain measure of comfort.  While we were in the US, there was this sense of something missing.  We drove into Houston and saw the impressive downtown skyline, which is a comforting feeling, but just doesn't have the same impact of the mountain.  As I sit here writing this, I look out the window and can only catch a glimpse of the mountain (it is rainy and cloudy), but it is just nice to know that it is still there.  Just like the reminders that we get from God to reassure us that He is still there.  Cheers, Steve

Picture of Aaron on our recent hikes.  We got a little wet, but he enjoyed it anyway :)

PS.  We have now been on three hikes on the mountain on three consecutive weekends, so I feel like we are fitting right in as proper Capetownians :)