It seems like a lot has happened since Wednesday!
On Wednesday morning we were picked up from our guest house and driven into an exclusive, affluent neighborhood in the suburb known as Pretoria East. It was an area full of South African mansions of all different kinds.
As we drove up to the gate and buzzed in, two giant guard dogs bounded up to the gate, each weighing more than I do! (no kidding!). Then we were welcomed to the home by the hostess, a South African “lady doctor” named Karen. Her husband came later, a South African doctor now pastor, as well as their 20 month old son Karsten. They have a large house, a nice yard, a big pool, a balcony overlooking the views of Pretoria and at least three people employed to take care of their home and child. It was very odd for us to be waited on by the hired help. Very odd. We didn't quite know how to handle it! Our hosts left for vacation a few days after we arrived, so it was just us left with the live-in babysitter and re daughter, and we got quite close to them. We ate some authentic African meals and enjoyed talking with them. For some reason I don't have any photos of this at all!
Strangely enough this mansion had no TV service, and we couldn't get the wireless Internet to work, so we felt cut off from the world for the four days we were there. No big deal, but it was VERY ironic that we were in the middle of the World Cup host nation, looking forward to the tournament's opening game on Friday, which the whole country was buzzing about, and we were in literally the only house in the entire country that didn't have a TV to show the game. It was cool to go down to the “shops” earlier in the day though. EVERYONE and I mean everyone, even the little old ladies, were wearing South African soccer jerseys or T-shirts, and everywhere you went people were blowing the infamous “vuvuzela” horns. They were all SO excited and you could feel it in the air.
Of course we could hear the celebration when Bafana Bafana scored a goal, but it would have been even cooler to be in the middle of town instead of in a sleepy suburb. But just being there in the lead-up to it was an experience in and of itself.
We went to the Swedish embassy on Wednesday, all the while not knowing what day we'd be able to go home, and couldn't pick up Sylvia's passport until Thursday afternoon, but there were no flights available until Saturday night. So, after two weeks and a day in South Africa, we were ready to fly home as a family of 4!
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