This is the south side of our house. You can see a couple of our next door neighbors. The large leaf plants in the middle of the picture are banana trees.
I turned 180 degrees and took this picture looking back up our driveway. I paced it off and it is about 80 yards up our very steep hill to the street.
This is looking from our back yard to the northeast. The uniform green hill directly behind the apartment building is covered with sugarcane. Behind the next hill you see with trees and buildings, you would see the Indian Ocean. We live on the north edge of Durban and as you take the freeway going north you have rolling hills on each side and sugarcane fields as far as you can see. This is the landscape you see for more than 50 miles with periodic peeks at the Indian Ocean looking east.
One day while working in our home office, we heard this loud racket on our roof and found we had been invaded by a troop of about 15 monkeys. They were swinging from our trees, landing on our roof and picking our papaya for lunch. This picture is one of the babies in the group with a sibling behind it. They stayed around for 15-20 minutes and then moved on. They made a brief appearance the next day. We are told they migrate through the neighborhoods and pass through your yard every week or so.Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday were full PEF office work days, but Thursday and Friday were slower, so they became our “saturday” and enabled us to scrub carpets and floors, something that has been badly needed since moving in.
Tuesday, Sister Mann appealed to the local missionary couples to come and support the Westville Boy's High School (their two sons attend there) production of Oklahoma. The female parts were auditioned from among the girls high schools in the area. The Durban City Symphony Orchestra was enlisted to accompany the production with ten high school orchestra students added to the Symphony, making a wonderful musical evening. As the play progressed, we were interested to hear the kids trying to maintain a Midwestern drawl. Kept up pretty well, but by the last act, they were most likely tired and it fast became a straight South African accent. A fun evening with fellow couples and the Mann's.
Saturday, we drove into the Berea chapel to meet a student to go over her application. A Stake Relief Society activity was going on, so we were invited to crash it! There were presentations on food preservation in bottles, 72-hour kits and preserving in the mylar bags. Could have been any Relief Society in the USA-set up was attractive and all the sisters were laughing and seemed to be enjoying themselves. You could buy an empty bottle and it would be filled with something as part of the demonstrations, then you take it home full. Saw tomatoes and jams leaving in the arms of some sisters. The handout sheets included recipes for curried lentils and beans, tomato chutney, pickled curry cabbage, and canned bananas (a first for Sandy's recipe book-can't even imagine what the consistency would be like). Most food home canned here are things like jams, jellies and food with vinegar in it. We were able to sample, the lentils and beans, scones (liken it to a baking powder biscuit) with peach jam, and a sandwich made with a canned fish called pilchard. You see it everywhere on the store shelves and it is packed in a tomato sauce base. Sandy didn't try it (sounds awful), but Arlo thought it was ok-maybe could it have been that he was hungry!
Sunday, we traveled to Pietermaritzburg Ward (about one hour northeast of Durban) to present a PEF orientation. Some “more mature” people came into the room and listened and asked questions. We figured they would leave when we reached the point about having to be between the ages of 18-30 to participate, but they didn't. Found out they are parents coming to get the information for their children. Whenever we think we are running out of work, more (six today) seems to come our way!
Stay Well and know how much we love and appreciate each of you ---
Elder (Dad, Papa, Arlo) and Sister (Mom, Grandma, Sandy) Mickelsen
Tuesday, Sister Mann appealed to the local missionary couples to come and support the Westville Boy's High School (their two sons attend there) production of Oklahoma. The female parts were auditioned from among the girls high schools in the area. The Durban City Symphony Orchestra was enlisted to accompany the production with ten high school orchestra students added to the Symphony, making a wonderful musical evening. As the play progressed, we were interested to hear the kids trying to maintain a Midwestern drawl. Kept up pretty well, but by the last act, they were most likely tired and it fast became a straight South African accent. A fun evening with fellow couples and the Mann's.
Saturday, we drove into the Berea chapel to meet a student to go over her application. A Stake Relief Society activity was going on, so we were invited to crash it! There were presentations on food preservation in bottles, 72-hour kits and preserving in the mylar bags. Could have been any Relief Society in the USA-set up was attractive and all the sisters were laughing and seemed to be enjoying themselves. You could buy an empty bottle and it would be filled with something as part of the demonstrations, then you take it home full. Saw tomatoes and jams leaving in the arms of some sisters. The handout sheets included recipes for curried lentils and beans, tomato chutney, pickled curry cabbage, and canned bananas (a first for Sandy's recipe book-can't even imagine what the consistency would be like). Most food home canned here are things like jams, jellies and food with vinegar in it. We were able to sample, the lentils and beans, scones (liken it to a baking powder biscuit) with peach jam, and a sandwich made with a canned fish called pilchard. You see it everywhere on the store shelves and it is packed in a tomato sauce base. Sandy didn't try it (sounds awful), but Arlo thought it was ok-maybe could it have been that he was hungry!
Sunday, we traveled to Pietermaritzburg Ward (about one hour northeast of Durban) to present a PEF orientation. Some “more mature” people came into the room and listened and asked questions. We figured they would leave when we reached the point about having to be between the ages of 18-30 to participate, but they didn't. Found out they are parents coming to get the information for their children. Whenever we think we are running out of work, more (six today) seems to come our way!
Stay Well and know how much we love and appreciate each of you ---
Elder (Dad, Papa, Arlo) and Sister (Mom, Grandma, Sandy) Mickelsen
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