Kgaswane Mountain Reserve

Since Noel, the youth pastor, is on vacation with his family this week, we didn't go out to Kanana or Freedom Park on outreach. Instead early this morning I went on a hike with my new friend Angela and her 12-year-old daughter Taya. They just moved here from Ukraine last year, and I met Angela because she volunteers out at Lighthouse each week. She's been telling me about how she goes hiking with a group of people every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday and has been inviting me to come. Today seemed like a great opportunity.



Angela and Taya picked me up at 7am while the sun was just starting to come up, and we drove about 20 minutes to the Kgaswane Mountain Reserve where there are roads and paths all throughout the park. On the way to our meeting point, we saw zebras by the side of the road. Pretty exciting for a girl from Illinois! I'm just sorry now that I didn't get a picture. I wasn't quick enough with my camera.



We met with the group at some little houses where the park staff live. When Angela introduced me as "Sam from the United States," they all wanted to hear about how I ended up here in South Africa for the summer. Later in the morning, they also had some interesting questions for me about American politics, particularly my thoughts on Barack Obama.



The hike took us about an hour and a half, and I spent most of the time chatting with Angela's daughter Taya, a 6th grader. She was excited to find out that I am a Christian and had lots of really interesting questions for me. She goes to a Christian school and really wants to have a relationship with Jesus, but no one has ever really explained how to do it. She was telling me some of the crazy things her Christian friends have been telling her about how many times you have to read your Bible to be saved, etc. I know that Taya was the reason I went on this hike. I invited her to come to the Friday night youth service at the Assemblies of God church and promised her I'd be there to sit with her. She told me as we were leaving the park that she's never had a 21-year-old friend before. :)



When everyone arrived back to the starting point, we had some tea and biscuits (very South African!) and rested a little before driving back. The tea was very good, but I needed about 10 times more than that before I was going to feel properly hydrated again. This was the time when I got asked questions about Barack Obama and the inevitable downfall of America by two of the ladies in particular. I was a little uncertain how to answer their questions at first, but felt like I handled them well. It was actually kind of funny now that I think about it.



On our drive out of the park, we saw a sable and several kudu just off the main road. It was so exciting! These animals are so beautiful. I had never seen anything like them before. Taya and I decided to get out of the car to take some pictures.