So here is a little story about a little spider. He is oh about 1/8" around & likes to jump. Well, this little spider is also poisonous as are a LOT of the smaller spiders here in Africa apparently. Now why the Lord didn't make the big ones.. and I mean BIG ones (like Max who is about 3" across, or the yellow & black dude who is a tad bigger)...the poisonous ones & the little ones harmless, I don't know. Would be SO much easier to avoid you know? Oh well, my brother Mike says there is probably a good Sunday school lesson in that somewhere but that is for another time.

Anyway, this little guy at some point in time managed to bite me just under my chin. No biggie..at first I thought it was a mosquito bite.. or maybe a pimple (ya ya gross). So I cleaned it up & then went on to Nellmapius with the team. Now we were having a Christmas party for the kids on Saturday. It was held on the grounds behind the library.. a big field with lots weeds & red-dirt-clay that this area is famous for. We played with the kids..hung out on the ground getting our hair done (yes even Mike) and our nails done and just sitting down cuddling some. So on Sunday I noticed my chin was a tad sore... hmmmm. By Monday it was beginning to swell and look funny, not quite so much like a mosquito bite or pimple any more. By Tuesday it hurt..I had to take Advil every few hours to get thru the day and the swelling and uh..stuff was beginning. That night I tried some homeopathic remedy that came highly recommended... and shall we just say that besides making me smell like an onion all night, something Mike enjoyed immensely *giggle*, didn't work. I made it thru Wednesday because it was a 1/2 day, but that was it. ByThursday night the swelling was bad, I could hardly move my mouth & the "little" bite was about the size of a cigarette burn & starting to hollow out... (pretty cool huh? uTube here I come!!)

Needless to say, the doctor was called on Thursday afternoon & he agreed to meet us Friday am at his office WHICH was really nice of him because today, Friday, is Heritage Day and a National Holiday. Upon arriving at his office he took one look & said "yup spider bite. However, it had gotten abscessed, probably because of the party outside on Saturday or whatever, but there you have it. The only way to clean this baby out was.. well you guessed it pressure & scrape AND apparently the use of any kind of numbing agent causes just enough swelling that you cannot clean the wound sufficiently soooo, you guessed it, no drugs.. Thank goodness for Mike's hand & my remembering how to do the old Lamaze breathing - even tho I could only use my nose. Ok so I won't go into any more details except to say Mike's face when white then slightly green then just shocked.. lol AND I am proud to say I didn't throw up OR pass out... yay me!

So, here is sit on the bed loaded down with meds .. I get to put a salve on this baby 2x a day; pain meds 3x a day, hard core antibiotics 3x a day AND another antibiotic fixer upper thing that keeps the hard core ones from hurting my stomach or giving me a yeast infection.. Whooo hooo

Meals are still having to be soft, but all in all its cool. The swelling is down & the pain is a lot less. But in the meantime the good thing is folks don't have to listen to me talk all the time... Mike gets a word in edgewise AND actually can lead the conversation. Good lesson for me to slow'er down I think.

Man, what will come next eh friends? Stay tuned for the next Gooch-family adventure
Much Love, Jeanine & Mike

1 Month Mark

Greetings from South Africa! We are continuing to acclimate ourselves to the time, weather and lifestyle here. The weather has been hot summer temperatures, however we were privileged to witness a few days of rain showers. The lightning in twilight sky creates this spectacular glow of blue and purple light that flashes across the entire horizon. It is truly an amazing spectacle.

Within a few days we will have a vehicle. It has been quite a process to find the right car for the right price, but the Lord has been good and has led us to it. Soon we will have the flexibility to travel and see some of our other friends here that we have not been able to meet up with yet. We are excited to have that opportunity soon.

Recently we have been working with BEAM Africa on various tasks. We pieced together old computers to create a few working machines, cleaned up and added new information in the BEAM database, and helped with some web site updates. They launched a new donations web site for US contributions. Check it out here. We also get to play with the kids in the afternoons.

 We were heartbroken to have missed the traditions of the Thanksgiving holiday this past week. The feast, fellowship with friends & family and of course, football. We did have a Thanksgiving dinner on Sunday with our friends. They were grateful to have participated in an America holiday tradition. It was tricky to find a turkey. We were ready settle for a guineafowl (there are plenty that roam around in the backyard), but we did find a grocery store with whole turkeys. It is not a popular commodity here. The pumpkin pie was also a task. The tasty round orange pumpkin common in the US does not exist here. Instead we used a butternut squash type vegetable that tastes similar to pumpkin (it is actually called pumpkin here). In the end, everything turned out well and we loved our American Thanksgiving meal here in South Africa.

More personally, here are some excerpts from our journals/thoughts that we wanted to share individually…

Mike:

Our friend Earl continues to visit each morning. He bangs his beak against the window until we have woken from our slumber beneath the enclosing mosquito net. He likes to eat berries from the tree around the corner, but the after effects cause him to leave a purple trail. It is always a treat to come home to a purple patio in the evening. Earl has recently found a wife to take residence with him and is teaching her the ropes of glass beating. He is also showing off for her. The windows here do not have screen covers and we keep the windows open all the time. So the other day, Earl brought his lady to the bathroom window and started his glass tapping. To prove is manliness and fearlessness, he decided to go into the bathroom and tap the glass from the inside. I walked into the bathroom during this macho dance, startling him to point where he flapped around the room in utter confusion. He eventually found his way out of the window, but not until after he had managed to empty his bladder. So we then had a bathroom splattered with purple stuff that dripped down the walls, covered the toilet and the sink. We really love our neighbor Earl. (See the attached video of Earl).

It is strange to think we have been here for a month. It has felt like 3 months. I think the reason for that is because these weeks have been very difficult, at least emotionally. I find myself sometimes sitting on the porch outside missing our life as it was. I didn’t think I would miss everything as much as I do. I also didn’t realize how happy I was with my life before coming here. In a way it is heartbreaking, like grieving the loss of a loved friend. At these times on the porch, I can see miles into the distance where the horizon is covered with green bushes and trees and the air is filled the calls of countless types of birds. I feel guilty for not being completely excited and content with where I am. I know there are great things to come that I will be a part of here, but I still find myself longing for home. I just keep praying that I will soon embrace that this IS home now. There are so many good things here, and so many good people. I know part of it is I am anxious to get started on some things, but must wait because we are limited on mobility and pace of lifestyle. Nevertheless, the Lord is good and is blessing us with some much. He is also teaching me some lessons that I must learn in order to survive here. For that I am grateful.

Jeanine:

When we first arrived here we had a couple of weeks of HOT. And by HOT I MEAN HOT. 100’s hot. It is semi-humid here as well, not like the east coast but more so than Colorado. Eeeeyikes! Then came the thunder storms... awesome, loud, rolling & lots of lightning storms. It is very cool and now we are hanging in with high 70s maybe low 80s in the day & 60s at night. It is very have a whole new outlook on weather here by how the people in Nellmapius & Mamelodi live. With their homes being either the corrugated metal or cinderblock brick the extreme weather we have here cannot be good. Extreme sunshine & hot on a metal roof (which most of the brick homes have too) creates an oven effect, and the cold nights of their winter a fridge (at least their colder times are minimal, like 3mos maybe). The land in the townships is predominantly red dirt, no trees or shade. Consequently, when it rains, it becomes all slimy with the red dirt becoming claylike.. Things flood, water piles up in huge holes. And yet they are so used to it here they smile & life goes on as best it can. While there is darkness in this country, there is a light here in the eyes & smiles of the people that amazes me.

As for adapting… we are hanging in. Every morning I get up & head to the Center (the BEAM Center where the biz get’s done & the children hang out) with Erika. There I try to keep myself busy. I have designed some place cards, the BEAM Christmas card for this year, sat in on a few meetings about the upcoming Graduation for adults & Christmas Party for the kids, visited with the staff & played with the children, and now I have a new project researching places that give grants . Sounds like a lot but not too much. Things are winding down for the “holiday”. Apparently, folks in South Africa take a break from the 15^th of December thru the 2^nd week in January..they mostly head to the coast or where ever their families are. Shops are run at ½ staff, some government offices and their programs, doctor’s offices and other places totally shut down. Sooo, we are in the process of “shutting down” I guess. But, at least I am ‘kind of’ busy. In the meantime, I love being here! I love the people, love the weather, love the fruit available here…LOTs of apples & oranges, mangos & guavas, and a bunch I don’t recognize J . I love seeing the children, but a lot of them have moved away including our two little girls. There was abuse in the original home they were with & they were moved to the neighboring township with the younger sister’s birth father they were able to track down. Unfortunately the dad, like most here, couldn’t afford to take on his birth child & her ½ sister so Poppy, the older of the two was put back into the abusive situation (unbeknownst to the folks at BEAM). Ok, so when we finally found her again 2 weeks ago, she had managed to find her “uncle” and move in with him. And now, we cannot find her again… man this is a hard place. The kids get traded around w/in the families by who has jobs…who needs the extra government support (the government gives support per child) and due to illness or death. All we can do is love on the ones we have here & try valiantly to keep track of the ones who have to move away. I would purchase a home & snag them all if I could, buuuuut you know how that goes. L (I figure I’ll give Mike at least a year before I spring that idea on him *giggle*)

One of the house spiders here (Max)

The five dogs on the property (Benny, Moppi, Molly, Muffy and Courage)

Our pet ducks with a newly hatched duckling (Clara and son)

Earl hanging by the bathroom window then on the patio railing