Camping and things

First and foremost, for those of you that don't know, the puppy I showed on a previous blog entry, Buckner, is no longer with us. He got distemper a while back we suspect and had been sick for the 3 weeks that we had him, and over time it got worse. We didn't know he had it, and actially the no-kill shelter where we got him are very good about vaccinations. Unfortunately, we think Buckner got it before the vaccines and it just took over his little body. We had to put him down and out of his misery. It was very sad, but each day it gets easier to move on. Juno is getting back into things, but she was quite confused about where he was. I'm glad we got to give him a good, loving home in his last living days.
Grant and I will never have another Buckner.
On a more positive note, a few weekends back, I went camping with some friends in the Nyanga Mountains. It is about 3 hours from Harare. We got up there late afternoon and just hung out and then made some dinner and had drinks. The next day we took a nice long hike. The weather was perfect. Grant didn't get to come because he had a sports tournament. Here is the link for the pictures from Nyanga: Nyanga Camping Trip
Last weekend was another volleyball tournament for Grant so he was quite busy and I went to support his team who played pretty well. It was a nice relaxing weekend just like this weekend will be. Today we had Tarasai Day which means a celebration of Zimbabwe. We do all these fun activities to celebrate Zim and then everyone has a picnic and a band.  I will try and upload a small video clip of part of it. The main actor in my video is Siphesihle, one of my students. He is just so cute I had to video him dancing. I tried to upload it today but it was just too much for our broadband to handle.

Finally!!!

So we have been super busy trying to get back into our life here so sorry for the delay on catching everyone up. To make a long story short, we have been very busy with the following things:

1.  Getting our house back in order...when we left the school agreed to put in new cabinets in our kitchen because we couldn't use half of them for vaiour reasons. So they put them in and did a great job! They also took out some fencing we had around our yard because it was, to be honest, just an eye sore. Now we have a big open space from our outdoor sitting area to our grassy area in the front of our house. I am sure this is all difficult for you to visualize since you have not seen the house but once we rae finished with the details of our house, we will make a video and post it. This time we will actually do so because our school is trying to catch up with the times and has increased our bandwidth of internet and now we can actually do things within a reasonable amount of time. Our ceiling was also repainted and things done to our bathroom. Because of all this, we bascially had to pack our house up and put everything in closets. When we got back, we walked into an empty house that we had to put back together. So that's that!
2. Getting back to work...we got back Wednesday night and had to report to work Thursday morning. I was actually surprised at how well we handled the morning, but the afternoon...not so much. We didn't have much down time once we got back. But our classrooms are great, we are enjoying our kids. I have 19 students from my 12 last year so it has been an adjustment, but they are hilarious. Grant got a lot of new supplies for his classroom and I got carpeting in my class which is so much better. We have both been implementing this program called Responsive Classroom. Part of it is building community in the class by having these fun morning meetings filled with games and whatnot. We love it and our kids love it and first thing in the morning we laugh.
3. Juno....the week before we got back, Juno was poisoned by rat poisoning that was put down on our property without our consent for reasons I will not go into. Needless to say, if our friend Stephanie hd gotten to our house 15 minutes later, Juno would have died. This is her second near death experience (first being tick fever last November), and our friends John and Danielle had to spoon feed her for days after that. When we got back she was so skinny and still recovering. On top of that she was really not happy with me and Grant! She refused to play with us for almost 2 weeks because we left her for so long. I am convinced that ridgebacks hold grudges as part of their personality. Now she plays with us and we are back on track, except for Number 4.
4. Our new puppy...Grant and I got a new puppy last weekend. We did this to get a play friend for Juno since we are gone so much and she is quite an anxious dog. We got a German shepard mix (we think maybe part collie) male from a no-kill shelter here called Friends Foundation. Grant named him Buckner. Our friends thing he looks liek a gremlin, but I LOVE his ears! He has a great disposition and is so sweet. He is 11 weeks so a bit of a baby, but we are wokring on that. Juno loves to knock him over, take his whole neck in her mouth, fight for my attention with the puppy and bite at his legs while he yelps constantly. Fun. Once he gets bigger I think he will be more fun for her. Here are some fun pictures of Buckner and Juno.

5. We also had a wonderful day at a music festival this past weekend. Here is a link to the pictures. It was at these people's home about 30 minutes outside of Harare. They rent it out for festivals and weddings and it was so beautiful. Beautiful day with our closest friends here! Here is the link: Spring Strings Concert

So that is wht we have been up to. Grant's parents, Debra and Jesse, and his Aunt Sally will be here in a little over a month. We are very excited about them coming to visit and we have all kinds of fun things planned so once that gets put into place, we will make sure and post the pictures of our adventure. This weekend, Grant and I are going for one night to Nyanga, which is the mountainous part of Zimbabwe about 2 hours from us. We are going with many friends for Saturday night so I will take pictures of that as well so be on the lookout! We miss everyone so much, but very much enjoying our quiet, simple life here in Zim.

U2 in Jo'burg

We'll post a longer write up on our Jo'burg trip later, but wanted to get these pictures up while we can.
U2 in Jo'burg

Imire Game Park

Maggie and Jennifer took a trip to Imire game park.  Rhinos, lions, giraffe love... enjoy.Imire Game Park

Our time with Maggie and Winston

            So we have been very busy since Grant last posted details about where we would be going for our New Year's trip with Maggie and Winston. We had an amazing 9 day trip with them and did all kinds of amazing things. They successfully flew into Vic Falls airport from Jo-burg and we went straight to our hotel and had drinks looking out over the national park. Safari Lodge was an amazing place to stay. We had a New Year's Eve dinner at the hotel restaurant and were in bed by 10:30. All the flying and driving we did exhausted us all. New Year's Day, Maggie and Winston did a sunrise elephant ride and then walked with baby lions which is a popular thing to do here. They had a great day. They met back up with Grant and myself at the hotel. Grant and I decided to have a quiet relaxing morning and walk around the town in Vic Falls instead which was fun. On the 2nd, we did a half day rafting trip down the lower Zambezi River. We were supposed to do the first 10 rapids but literally the day before we went, they closed down the first 10 rapids because the water level was so high. It is rainy season here so everything is really green and water levels run very high. People we having bad experiences going down the first 10 rapids which are much more intense than the other 12 rapids (by the way reminder...my mom went down the first 10). Our boat ended up being the only boat that didn't turn over. Other boats were turning over at least 2 times so we were lucky. It was challenging getting people back into the boats because of the fast currents so I'm happy we stayed safe in our boat.
             Then that afternoon we got picked up for our camping/canoeing trip. We did a small game drive before sunset and then we were brought to a already set up camp (which you will see in the pictures). It was just the 4 of us and our guide and some other guys cooking and it was fantastic. The food was delicious and they were great. We slept pretty good considering at any point wild animals could walk up on us. The next morning we got up at 5:15 am and went on a morning game drive, came back and ate breakfast and then started putting our inflatable canoes into the water. By the way did I mention we heard hippos grunting all night.
             We were pretty sure before this trip that we would have 2 guides on this canoe excursion and one of the guides would definitely have a gun....well that was not the case. One guide with no gun in his own canoe. We had to have safety training about what to do if our canoe got knocked over or bumped by a hippo and how fast and where to swim to avoid crocs. Awesome. Anyhow, we got in and just had to put faith in this man, our guide, and a higher power. I prayed for weeks before this trip and I think our moms did as well. So you will see in the pics some of the many hippos we came across. There were only 2 times in that day where our guide got serious and made us paddle quickly. We went down some small rapids and had to focus really hard on not tipping over. Other than these issues, it was beautiful and relaxing. When the day was done, that was when our guide told us how happy he was we got through safely, and then he proceeded to tell us bad stories about other people who had done this. We are so glad we did it, but never again.
              We had an amazing time at Hwange. The coolest thing we saw was a pride of 7 lions/lionesses at night in the rain. It was so intense, but unfortunately we didn't get pictures. We did a lot of other great pictures though. Saw lots of babies and even though we were told we wouldn't see that many animals during the wet season, I beg to differ. We saw all kinds of animals and even ones we hadn't seen before. The Hide is one of the most impressive places any of us have ever stayed. I think it was unanimous vote that it is in the top 5 places of all time. So nice, relaxing, all inclusive and the food is amazing.
             We also went to Matopos National Park which is naturally formed rock kopjes that are really impressive. We did a game drive and some rock climbing which was fun. We did try to find rhinos there because they have a heavy population of them but no success (Maggie and I saw plenty of them at a later date). While on our game drive at the national park we saw a large part of the park burned down.A few weeks before poachers came in to try and kill some rhinos for their horns, but when they were discovered, they started a fire to distract park workers to escape. They escaped unfortunately, but at least they didn't kill any rhinos. We learned a lot about how bad rhino poaching is here. It's really sad and disturbing. People work very hard to protect those animals, but it always seems rich, bad people are always one more step ahead.
           We had a great time with Mags and Winston and loved having Maggie here in Harare. I will write more about Maggie's visit here another time to break up these long updates. We want to set up a donation fund for the orphanage Maggie volunteered at so maybe save up a few bucks!
          Other news: Grant is in the process of getting our wedding website finished so we will post that up very soon. Love to everyone!
Pictures from our trip with Maggie and Winston: New Year's road trip pictures

New Year's Road Trip

We leave tomorrow (Thursday the 30th) to start off on our road trip.  We're meeting up with Jen's sister, Maggie, and her husband, Winston.  It's basically the same trip that we took with Jen's mom in October, but with a few minor changes.  We'll update once we get back and post pics, but here's an idea of where we'll be.
30th - Stay over at the Bulawayo Club
31st, 1st - Head to Vic Falls, meet Winston and Maggie at the airport, staying at the Safari Lodge
2nd - Canoe/Camping trip on the Upper Zambezi (the river above the Falls)
3rd- One more night at the Safari Lodge
4th, 5th, 6th - Head to Hwange National Park (stopping by the Painted Dog Conservation) and then staying at The Hide
7th, 8th - Drive to Matapos National Park and stay at Camp Amalinda
9th - Drop Winston off at the airport in Bulawayo and then drive with Maggie back to Harare where she'll stay for 2 weeks

We've got lots of things planned, and we've got a new camera for this trip, so we'll be able to share lots of pictures from the trip.

Juno and her cigar

I swear Juno thinks she is human sometimes. She loves to hold her sweets from her Tennessee Grandma in her mouth like a cigar and not actually eat them. Doesn't she look like she has an old man face? I think she's an old soul.