After 63 hours of travel we made it to Transhaven, Durban, South Africa! I like travel days, but that one was long! I loved getting to stop in Qatar on the way and spend a few hours of the night to see the spice market and camels.
In Transhaven we got to go to a basketball awards ceremony. Our ministry host told us to dress casual so we showed up in shorts, t-shirts and flip flops. However, everyone else showed up in suits and dresses. It made me laugh, nobody really cared in the end.
Our house was on a bluff over the beach. The water was warm and the sand was sandy. There were 2 HUGE German shepherds that acted as our guard dogs, they truly were the sweetest but they looked scary. Their names were Nero and Cleo. They stuck close to us and watched our backs when we went down to the beach.
We got to go to church on Sunday and meet more people there. They picked us up to go in the “church bus”, they cranked the music really loud and we went careening down the roads to get us to church on time.
There was a heaviness Transhaven though. At first I thought it was just because I was so tired and hadn’t really slept over our travel days. But once I was rested I could tell it was still there. I felt safe where we were staying for sure, but I think there was an atmosphere of unrest over the place.
Christmas was really sweet although it didn’t feel like Christmas because I was wearing shorts and flip flops and watching monkeys climb our roof. Our ministry host invited us over for Christmas lunch and they fed us so much delicious food we could hardly walk home. I would eat it all again if I could. South African food is really flavorful because they have so many cultures here and it all comes together. After lunch we went back to our place for a white elephant, cookies and hot coco.
We finished our our week in Transhaven, leaving the day after Christmas for LIV village, a children’s home.
It is beautiful here and gives summer camp vibes. There is a lake we can swim in and trails out back to run on (although they said to watch out for black mombas), a basketball court and a perfect view of the sunset. Every day we are in charge of a 2 hour holiday club for kids 5-12 in the morning and 2 hours for kids 12-18 in the afternoon. It’s kind of like running a summer camp or youth group and it’s a lot of work but totally worth it.
Cheers to the beginning of a new adventure!
Love, Rosella
