Happenings for the week of 3-9 May

As of 1 May, Durban has a new international airport named after King Shaka, a Zulu king famous for his part in thousands of deaths. It is located to the north of us. Not knowing how chaotic things might be, we decided to be at the airport plenty early for our planned trip to Cape Town before going home. Parked our car in long-term parking and made our way to the check-in counter without a problem. The flight to Cape Town had its share of turbulence, an indication of the weather we were anticipating after checking the weather forecasts. After securing our rental car, we turned on the GPS and made our way out to Pinelands, and Howard's End Manor, our Bed and Breakfast for the next 3 days. After settling in and changing into warm clothes, Elder and Sister Harms, the Public Affairs Couple, came to fetch us for a trip to Table Mountain. There was a small break in the clouds which allowed us to travel up the side of the mountain and to spend about one hour on top seeing Cape Town from different angles and degrees of cloud cover. As the locals describe, the tablecloth (clouds) was on the table, but what a spectacular sight we had. Sister Harms had brought a picnic to share for dinner before making our trip down. The last car goes down at 6 pm and it was made very clear to us that we must be on that car or one would be forced to climb down which isn't a great thought as our pictures show. After leaving the Table, we spent time in a large craft market looking for a particular nativity that Sister Pier really wanted.. The first shop we came to had what we came for and then we wandered around seeing if there was anything else we thought we couldn’t live without. Returning to the Harms' boarding, we were met by three other couples serving in Cape Town Mission – Herbert's and Phelm's (office couples) and Mahler's (Family Search). It was an enjoyable evening, visiting with and learning about these couples. They also had questions about the Perpetual Education Fund and our mission in general.
Harms became our tour guides for the day on Tuesday. The plan was to drive down the peninsula along the coast to Cape of Good Hope and Cape Point and then return to the city up the other side. First stop was Boulder’s Beach where we were granted the blessing of about an hour of sunlight so we could enjoy the penguins waddling here and there, jumping in and out of the ocean. Second stop, Cape Point and, our objective was to climb to the top of the lighthouse for a spectacular view. Two little details made for a rough climb-the stone stairs almost became the death of those of us a little out of shape, and trying to just stay connected to the stairs because of the gale force winds. Then we drove over to the Cape of Good Hope, the most south-western point of the African continent, the winds didn’t make for a very long stay. On the road back to the highway, we came across families of baboons, many with babies on the backs, ostriches and several eland. As we drove back to Cape Town, we marveled at the beautiful coastline with distinct differences, some rocky and dark water while other parts were beautiful aquamarine blue and white sands even in the rain. Came back to the Waterfront Mall to get warm and have some dinner and the Herbert's joined us for dinner. About 7 we bid everyone an early goodnight as the Harms needed to be gone early the next morning to fly to Lesotho.
As we awoke Wednesday morning, we tried to prepare ourselves for the possibility that our trip to Robben Island would be canceled due to the terrible weather, still hoping that a window of opportunity might come again to us as it had in the previous days. But it was not to be - received a message on our cell phone telling of the cancellation of the boat trip for safety reasons. Robben Island was the place Nelson Mandela spent 28 years incarcerated and a place that we had really wanted to experience. Instead, we filled our day with visits to some museums and walked in the spectacular Company Garden, even though it was lightly raining. One of the museums, South African Museum, had a photo gallery with award winning photos of 2009 (Arlo’s comment, “This was worth the price of admission!”) and so this helped with our disappointment over Robben Island. Walked through the Waterfront Mall, an area that has been renovated in the past years for an early dinner at Ocean Basket, one of our favorite places to eat. It was so cold and we had a hard time getting warm, even in our room, something that hasn’t been a problem for us Durbanites for many a month. Sandy worked on some of the 13 blessings, which she had done in the airport and on the plane, hoping to get them finished and back to Patriarch Courtney for his final review before he goes back to Swaziland again in a week or so.
Thursday, there was no change in the weather; in fact it was even worse than the day before. Decided to drive out to Strand and find The Fenix ceramic factory. The 81 year old owner met us at the door and as she saw our missionary nametags, she indicated that she knew what we had come for – the nativities and she was correct! She told us that many missionaries from Salt Lake have come there to visit and make purchases. Before making our purchase, she guided us through the shop and all the processes that go into the making of these unique ceramic pieces. What started out as a little family business, has become a larger operation, but each piece is still handmade (Raku process) by a staff of 15-20 employees. Our flight back to “warm” Durban went smoothly and we were home in time for dinner..
Friday morning, Arlo reached down to file one of our PEF student folders in the box on the floor and then found that he couldn't get back up easily. So the rest of the day he tried to find a comfortable place to be without much success. It almost seems like déjà vu because shortly after we arrived in Johannesburg for our training, he was brushing his teeth and couldn't straighten up. Sandy was able to make another dent in the patriarchal blessings and more office paperwork, while Arlo tried to rest.
Life started looking much better after we made a short trip to the nearby chemist for some advice on how to deal with the back problem. Jonathan (from Scotland) and Stephanie made early Mother’s Day calls, while Jared called first thing Sunday morning (his Saturday late evening). We stayed in during the morning because any of the church meetings we needed to attend only have hard chairs to sit on and we didn’t think it would be the best. Since we have not had the opportunity to watch General Conference yet, we listened to that for our church experience today. The Phoenix Branch elders came over so that Elder Selman could use our land line phone to receive a Mother’s Day phone call from his family in South Jordan, Utah. As we have said many times before, we are most grateful to have the ability to use SKYPE so as to receive Happy Mother’s Day and other holiday wishes from our children.

The cable car which took us to the top of Table Mountain. The floor in the car would slowly rotate so everyone had a 360 degree view.

View back down the cable when we were almost to the top.

Sandy with Elder and Sister Harms (our tour guides) at the top of Table Mountain. The Harms are Public Affairs missionaries who work out of Cape Town. On Wednesday they were leaving us on our own as they had to fly to Lesotho where they had organized a dinner for government leaders of that country. They were excited as they had received word that the king would be able to attend. They had also invited each of the ministers and their secretaries and including spouses were expecting about 80 in attendance.

View from the top of Table Mountain looking south. The mountains shrouded in clouds are on the peninsula with the Cape of Good Hope at the tip.

View from the top of Table Mountain looking north at the business district of Cape Town with Table Bay at the top. Note center-left next to the bay is the new stadium - one of several built or updated in South Africa in preparation for the FIFA Soccer World Cup which begins in June.

When we got back to the parking lot after our cable car ride to the top of Table Mountain, it was getting dark and we took this picture of Cape Town. Cape Town is a very nice, clean and modern city comparable to nicer large cities in the US.

The business district of Simon's Town which we went through on our way down the peninsula to the cape. It reminded us of the beach towns in southern California.

Next to Simon's Town was Boulder's Beach which we visited to see the penguins. This picture made the name very fitting.

Jackass penguins - so called because they make sounds like a jackass.

There is always one non-conformist in the crowd.

Another sign for our collection.

Cape of Good Hope - the most south-western point of the African continent. On the left is the Indian Ocean and on the right is the Atlantic Ocean.