A Beautiful End

On Tuesday morning we left Outapi and headed toward Etosha National Park.

This is the outside of our room in Outapi Outside of the hotel. Not fancy but very nice and clean and we eat all our meals there and the food is really good. It takes a while to get it and you might or might not get what you order but it is good. We stopped here for a photo op. The Namibian flag is on top of this termite mound! YES, that is a termite mound! In route we stopped at place that was the first missionary house in the area. We toured the home which is now a museum. On the property there is a village where people still live. You pay a small amount to go into their village and they will make mahungu which is a staple food for them. She is getting ready to pound it into a flour. These sticks are HEAVY! I am telling you, these are REAL women! They do this in rhythm and sing also. A and Richard trying it out This was the little girl in the village and as you can imagine they train them early. This is the grandmother of the village and she is making the mahungu which is like a porridge. Like our children would sit and wait to lick the spoon, she is waiting. We tasted it and to me it tastes similar to meal and water but very gritty. The lady told me to just use my tongue and not my teeth! They also do a lot of weaving and it is sold in the gift shop at the museum and to those who come in to visit the village. Very pretty pieces. Also, makes it special to have it knowing exactly where it comes from. Weaving Mrs. Melba giving it a try Outside of one of the huts. Can you imagine living in these? We are beyond spoiled! A inside the missionary church These are the gravesites of some of the children of the first missionary family that died. This really touched me. First of all, the family traveled by wagon and it took them a very long time to get there and they knew it was a great possibility they or their children would die from the many diseases. Would we be willing to do that? I was worried about missing mine for 2 weeks… The church Mrs. Melba giving the little girl a doll. Of course she was thrilled! We drove on to just outside Etosha so that we would be ready to go into the park the next morning. Normally the teams will stay inside the park but this time all the accomodations insid the park were booked so we had to stay outside the park. It was very nice! Definitely NOT sufferin’ for Jesus!!! This was just outside our room. Walking to breakfast the next morning. Very nice! We checked out of there and went into the park. I was excited about it but not as excited as I got once we got in and started seeing the animals. This is not like being in a zoo! Seeing these animals in their natural habitat is A-Mazing! I was taken away once again by all of God’s creation! I have tons of pics and we saw tons of animals but I can’t possibly share them all so here are some. Our guide said this was a great Elephant sighting. All the animals are close to you but this elephant was very close! A of course wanted to touch him but it is against the law to get out of your car! Movin’ on! There were lots of elephants at this watering hole The zebras were my favorite! At the end of the day and close to the end of the park we were able to sit for a while at one of the watering holes and we watched this elephant take a bath. It was really neat to watch. I say take a bath but maybe it was just cooling off! Coming in for water We spent that night on the other side of the park. Very nice room again. It was more like chalets. This was the view from our room. A enjoying his coffee EARLY the next morningA really wanted us to experience an African sunrise so I got up with him and I am glad I did. It was beautiful and a beautiful way to start our last day in Africa Shot of our chalet as we were leavingWe still had to drive about 5 hours to the airport and then we began the long journey of plane rides home. We sat on the runway in Joburg for over an hour and had rough weather most of that flight which is the 17 hour flight so we literally ran to catch our flight to Bham in Atlanta but we missed it. We were pleased to get out a few hours later. We were exhausted but very glad to see our girls. The drive back here the next day was LONG but we made it!

I know I have reflected a lot on my trip as I posted but I will do one more post of my overall reflections! Coming soon!