2/27/2009: Pretty Much Healed

I am "four eyes" no longer! I must keep my eyes moistened with drops throughout the day but my vision is getting more and more clear. It still fluctuates a little bit, which will clear up as time goes on. As it stands right now, I have non-prescription contact "bandage" lenses in, which will come out Monday. I think they're probably the main source of the cloudy vision at the moment.

2/26/2009: Vodacom

Today I had April drop me off at Vodacom to attend a meeting to discuss where we are on our location software. I again neglected to take any pictures since I slept until almost 10 a.m. The doctor told me yesterday that they had to "cut deep" with the laser because my prescription is (was) so high, so it would take me a day or two longer to heal up. I'm still sensitive to light so I wear sunglasses all the time, which makes me look awfully cool.

2/25/2009: Ash Wednesday

No pictures today - my eyes still sting badly but my vision is getting more clear. I spent the day "relaxing my eyes" after we attended mass at Maria Regina at 8 a.m. I'm still taking Benadryl but not as many (two at a time instead of four).

2/24/2009: Phat Tuesday

Today we decided to start a Fat Tuesday out in a proper manner, which meant having French Toast for breakfast. Nothing like syrup-laden bread fried in eggs and milk! Yum!



After breakfast, we got on the road to go to my eye doctor appointment. The drive was about an hour to the eastern side of Joburg. I guess we found out the reason why roads here are perpetually under construction:



If you can't see clearly, those are all the road workers sitting and/or laying down at 11 o'clock in the morning.

My EPI-LASEK surgery over, we headed back to the house. Here are all the medications I had to take, although I neglected to take the eye anasthesia, so my eyes stung something awful. I seem to have had an allergic reaction to something as well, so I think I took about 20 Benadryl to get through the night.

2/23/2009: Mexican Food Night Improvements

April has been working diligently to get the Mexican food she's been cooking just right - tonight was no exception. The tortillas turned out pretty well - let's say they were the #2 position. This time the shape was better but there was too much oil, so they were a little crispy.



The beans were excellent and the rice was pretty good too. Combine that with sour cream, jalapenos, and pico de gallo, and one might think that we were in Texas!

2/22/2009: Sunday Sunday Sunday

After mass at Maria Regina, we just went back to the house to have lunch, swim, and do quiet time with the kids - overall a relaxing day. I decided to cook the "Pork Fillet Armadillo" (a pork tenderloin wrapped in bacon strips) for supper:



Remember - there was an entire section of the beauties at the grocery store - they seem to be quite popular! Here it is in the convection oven:



And the finished result - yum!



Here is the third reference to all things "Texan" I have found (besides the pork fillet armadillo and the Texan steaks) - ranch dressing, Texas style! Every meal is a story! Yea-haw! (yes it actually says all those things on the bottle).



Requisite cute picture of Sarah, who loves her daddy:



After supper we started on the "Out of Africa" puzzle (a picture of the Big 5 animals of Africa). We (re)discovered that children lack the virtue of patience, so April and I completed the outer edge while the others went to bed.

2/21/2009: Saturday Routine

Today I woke up and, yes, made pancakes. However, this time I found a new flapjack recipe that makes more traditional, fluffy pancakes like my mother makes. John ate four - more than anyone else. Guess they tasted O.K.!



After pancakes, I let the kids watch some Saturday morning cartoons. They arranged their seating, although I added Sarah on the end.



We then went to Menlyn Park Mall (I again forgot to take a picture of it) to get the food products we forgot to get on Friday. While there, I took the kids to see Bedtime Stories with Adam Sandler - quite a cute movie with a minimum of potty humour; not too shabby! What's even less shabby is that tickets cost R33 ($3.30) per person, kid's combos with popcorn, candy, and a drink cost R20 ($2), and all together I spent R120 on snacks.

2/20/2009: TGIF

Today was action-packed! After school and swimming (and quite a bit of work on my part), I took the kids for a walk. You'll notice that they each have a bamboo walking stick. We were attempting to find the Irene library, again to no avail. Sarah was ready to go on a walk as well - with her mismatched shoes and all.




After our walk we went grocery shopping. Friday has turned out to the be the day we go get food since we have been most excellent in our consumption habits - by Friday our fridge is almost completely empty.

Pollo borracho a.k.a betrunkenes Huhn a.k.a. drunken chicken has made it to South Africa! I'm telling you, I love any culture that loves to cook out (braai). Notice the two hot chicks here?



We keep our kids locked in the house. I'm only half-joking. With a pool out front, they are not allowed to go out there without supervision. In addition, the house has no portal that is not covered by some sort of steel grating. Think east Lubbock - all windows actually incorporate said gratings into their design:



Friday is also our day for a weekly out-to-eat treat. We eat at and stay at home all week long, so we try to do something special. Today I took the family to Dro's, a nice steak house. April and I both had steaks, the kids all had copious amounts of food, and everyone had dessert for less than $60.



A side note - most intersections here have guys out peddling various wares. Usually they consist of car registration stickers, cell phone chargers (yes, really), hangers, (again, really), pumice foot scrubbers (...), illegally copied and burned movies (for example Madagascar 2 which is still in theaters - they had the DVD), baseball caps, and flowers. I like supporting guys that are working rather than robbing, but I usually don't need anything. However today I thought we would make a milestone and actually get something, and a fella was selling long-stemmed roses for R20 ($2), so I got some. This is how frugal we are here - that vase is a Lay's Stackers chip container. Don't worry girls - you can pick one up there in the States at your local grocery store (or even convenience store)!

2/19/2009: Sarah

Sarah's sweet personality continues to develop as we are here in South Africa. She has pretty much stopped screaming all the time (other than when she wakes up and wants out of her crib), and is turning out to be assertive, picky, sweet, and hilarious.

She is 14 months old, so April decided on Sunday that she would wean her off the breast. Sarah has only been nursing at naptime and bedtime anyway, so this isn't a huge stretch (although somewhat painful for April).

She also wants to be involved in everything the other kids are doing; sometimes this takes place at odd moments. Lately she has taken to getting out her swimsuit and putting it around her neck, while no one else is swimming, I suppose to signify that she would like to.

2/18/2009: Checkers

John and Pops began playing checkers sometime last year, typically using "new" rules that favor John. Well lately John has been missing the game, so April helped him and the others make a checker board and checkers.

I was busy with work, so Philemon volunteered to play checkers with John. Philemon won with the real rules one time, then John beat him three times with his own made up rules - big surprise.

When they were choosing colors, John said, "I'm black", to which Philemon replied, "no, I'm black" and pointed at his arm. Wait...does that mean that it is O.K. to revel in our differences, love each other, and just appreciate that we are all God's children rather than being hung up on race all the time? Say it ain't so!

2/17/2009: Worn Out

Vincent has recently taken to walking around without pants or underwear on. This is purely out of laziness - when he uses the bathroom he just doesn't want to put them back on, so we've been struggling with this over the last couple of weeks.

After swimming and for quiet time I let the kids watch cartoons. Vincent refused to stay still and try to go to sleep. When April got back from belly dancing class, she cooked supper and, true to form, Vin fell asleep right when it was ready naked from the waist down. He will hate me in 10 years or so but this is what he gets for being lazy and refusing to listen to my instructions.

2/16/2009: Mexican Food and Electricity

April again cooked Mexican food this evening - this marks the third time she has attempted to make tortillas, and it seems that the third time was the charm! They folded, tasted, and looked like real tortillas! Add to that excellent refried beans, Spanish rice, and "rockamole" (a word John invented when he was three years old-ish for guacamole), and we had ourselves a fine (Tex-)Mexican dinner 10,000 miles away from Texas!



The kids are quite fond of the Paw-Paw (a.k.a. Poor Man's Banana) juice with their meals. "Paw-Paw" is what they call April's dad, so everyone has gotten quite a kick out of this.



The first time I came to South Africa, I thought I was prepared. After all, I had only a few visa pages left in my passport that were blank, signifying that I was quite the world traveler. Well, Mike and I walked into our hotel room that first night with the intention of charging our phones and laptops, and discovered that the great pains we had gone through to bring electrical adapters and converters and whatnot were for naught. This is what we discovered:



No one outside of South Africa has ever seen plugs like this, I'm sure of it. Many of the devices also use the British-style plug with two prongs, but the vast majority of devices use the strange three prong plug with the enormous ground plug. Just because that's not specialised enough, there is a variation - the red plug above actually has a flat edge on one side of the ground plug - if one has a power strip with red covers inside the holes, a regular standard plug will not fit. Fun fun fun!



Lastly, since my sister posted pictures of Easter candy on her blog, I thought I'd take a picture of some of the Easter candy we've picked up from our trips to the grocery store. Some of it is due to children begging, some of it is me being nice. I also wanted to try the Turkish Delight candies since the kids have been talking about TD since I read them the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. They hate it.

2/15/2009: Chic'n Lick'n and Braai

After mass at Maria Regina (still going there, though not sure how much longer - being unable to sing along with ordinaries because they have put them to music that is hard to follow and changed the word patterns is quite annoying), I was going to run by a house where I hoped to procure a Yamaha classical guitar for R400 ($40). We went by but no one was home, so we stopped by the nearest Chick'n Lick'n to get some lunch. It was actually quite delicious and very inexpensive - R123 ($12.50) for the entire family!



One of our favourite items they had there was "Soult". HA! Yes, that is mayo smeared all over everything. Probably why it was so delicious!



We went home and swam, got in the hot tub, showered, then I turned on the braai and cooked up the sausages I bought at the Irene Market on Saturday. The guy from whom I purchased the meat was Russian I believe, and only sold his fare at markets, no store front. Interesting. I also bought a hunk of smoked pork and some dried links.



Bockwurst top left, pork/beef sausage bottom left, and cheese links on the right. The cheese links were excellent!



The guitar turned out to be a Yamaha G-225, an inexpensive guitar from the 70's. However, after researching it on the internet, basically every review recommends that one purchases these if they can be found for less than $100 or even $150. This was $40. Score! The sound is quite incredible I must say.

2/14/2009: St. Valentine's Day (Part 2)

How fitting that we were blessed with the opportunity to share a little bit of Jesus on a Saint's Day! We went with the missionary outreach group to an area called Tierpoort, to the parking lot of a shopping center at which all the surrounding farmers and workers gather. The congregation of a church from the area was in attendance, as well as lots of the local folks (the whole intention). All in all I'd guess there were over 100 there.

We were not in a township or informal settlement, and the area was fenced, so I brought along the wife and children. Here is the Jesus Film trailer with April and Francis out front:



The church choir. Just...wow. Imagine any gospel music you've heard sung by Africans and that's what they sounded like.



The crew readying the equipment.



The little boy who was lurking trying to get in on the games my children were playing.



Here everyone is breaking out into spontaneous dance (something that has happened every time we've played Sechaba through the P.A. before it is dark enough for the movie). My kids joined in on the fun!

2/14/2009: St. Valentine's Day (Part 1)

According to my Saturday morning ritual, I again made pancakes for the children. This time I opened a can of strawberries to put on them, and made a hybrid flapjack/pancake (thin pancake batter with milk rather than water).



We then drove over to the Irene Village Market to check out the wares and let the children ride a camel! The girls got dolls (one is a Zulu, one a Sotho, differentiated by their hair styles and dress), and the boys got finger puppets.





We then went back to the house and prepared for Part 2 of our day!

2/13/2009: Busy Day!

Today was jam-packed full of activity. I took off the morning to go run errands corresponding to the missionary work we hope to do and are doing here in South Africa. I drove to Pretoria and found the Archdiocese of Pretoria Chancellery (the place where the archbishop works) and spoke with the secretary there about the upcoming visit from Mark and Mike. She was excited about the possibility of a medical outreach and told me that the most needy group she could think of resides in Winterveldt. The group's name? Mercy Sisters. Yes, the Sisters of Mercy - one and the same! Coincidence? I think not!

Additionally, she provided me with tons of information about mission churches (three of which reside in Mamelodi, the township I've already visited), and who to contact to get involved. She will also try to set up a meeting or two for Mark, Mike, and I with the former archbishop and the current one as well while they are here in March. Exciting!

After I got home, we loaded up and drove to Centurion Mall's Pick 'n Pay to do our weekly grocery shopping. April made up a meal schedule and we've adhered to it pretty well and even established a basic budget. Amazing. Here are the pics - folks seem interested in seeing what kind of groceries are available here, so here we go.

Fruit 'n veg section:



Mexican food section - each of those bottles of salsa will run you $3.50 to $6 depending on the store's location (wealthy areas are priced higher, duh).



Instant coffee abounds! Why, I'll never know. The only explanation I've received is that South Africans are impatient and don't want to wait for brewed coffee. Hogwash says I - somewhere along the road everyone was raised on it and therefore ground coffee has gained no traction. Very interesting.



I. Love. This. Country! Click the pic to zoom in and you will discover that the label reads "Pork Fillet Armadillo". They must love Texas here! Well let me tell ya, this Texan loves any country that takes a strip of pork meat and wraps it in bacon and marinade and offers whole sections of said dish! You would be daft if you thought that I didn't purchase one of these - I'll post pics of the end result next week! Mmmmmmmm!



After driving home and putting up the groceries, we went for our weekly out-to-eat treat, this time at Ciao Baby's Cucina. They have excellent pizza! Unfortunately (and sorta fortunately I suppose) we left the full leftover pizza and half of April's meal in our take-away boxes on top of the machine that takes your money for parking. Not five minutes later when we returned the boxes were gone, so I hope they went to someone who needed some food rather than being thrown away. April checked all the trash cans in the vicinity, so we're pretty sure it's the former.

2/11/2009: More Pics

Since today was pretty routine, I'm just going to post pics I took of April and the kids eating lunch ("wunch" as Vin says it, and he uses that word for any meal, irrespective of the time). Tonight was chicken breast strips and rice! I've been printing out and reading the kids The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe each night; short stories don't provide the same continuity a whole book does, I've found.

2/10/2009: Exercise

My exercise regimen since being here has consisted of a daily swim and walking around malls. I feel better, although I'm not sure I've lost any weight; as I've said before, the cheese here is inexpensive and excellent! I could live on cheese, crackers, and wine/beer, with some occasional salami or smoked beef thrown in (or sausage of course). Lucky for me (I guess) the beer doesn't taste all that great around here - the microbrew I found packages it's beer in PET bottles - that's right, brown plastic bottles. Ewww. That's what one gets when one lives in a country that is dominated by SAB Miller. Everything is made by them, and, while it's good for session drinking, it's not so good for having one with a meal.



But I digress - April prefers other methods of exercise, so she has again taken up belly-dancing classes. The restaurant we visited last Friday gives classes on weekdays, so April attended one yesterday. That is not the only milestone - the other is that she drove herself there by herself, on the wrong side of the road! Her legs are sore this morning, so I guess the class done some good!