Adventures around Gabs

Sunday was a restful day: church (J&J were overwhelmed again with the privilege to worship on earth as we will in heaven - among many tribes and nations), brunch at a cafe, afternoon naps, and birdwatching in the Shinns gardens.
Monday we began our adventures around Gabs. Here are some pix taken by our 9-yr-old photographer (Jon took only bird pix, and we'll enter those sparingly to not bore you). We went to a village called Gabane (pronounced Ha-ban-ay. the G's sound like hard H's and E's generally have the long A sound) to see pottery, glassworks and metalworking. Unfortunately only the pottery place was open. We then ventured past the David Livingstone Memorial (we chose not to take the very rugged dirt road to see a hut foundation) and followed the pottery signs to Thamaga. We shopped some more and then picnic lunched on the porch. Back in town we had our first experience with a Gabs supermarket and rush hour traffic (TIA - they closed one of the two main traffic arteries for repairs during evening rush hour). We have now tried 3 different brands of pinotage, and the current favorite is Mrs Shinn's favorite - Landskroon.

Our photographer.

Sampling of pottery in Thamaga.

Outside the Thamaga pottery store.

Part of our lunchtime scenery. We also had fun playing peek-a-boo with the kids who lived next door, watching their goats roam the yard for lunch, and identifying a couple more birds (we are up to 16 species identified so far, and only 2 of those also live in North America).

J & J Arrive on the African Continent

Hey all, the Shinns have graciously allowed us to Shanghai their blog. We are Jon and Julie, college friends of 'Mr. Shinn' (yes, very OLD friends). We have the awesome opportunity to visit Africa through the month of June. We arrived safely in Botswana on Saturday afternoon, just 16 hours after we were expected. The last leg of our journey was canceled - no idea why. This apparently is an example of "TIA" (This is Africa). The airline did put us up in a nice hotel near the airport and we enjoyed a good night's sleep after we tried the much acclaimed South African Pinotage wine and watched a rugby match on TV.

In the Jo'burg airport (prior to hearing about the canceled flight), we had our first meal in Africa -- Savanna hard cider and our leftover Puccini's pizza. Don't I look great after a 16-hour flight, in economy class, right in front of the party couple, in a chair that had broken earphone jacks!!



The Shinns yard is a wildlife haven. We have already seen many new birds. Here are a red-winged starling eating from a papaya tree and a male white-breasted sunbird sitting on a hybiscus.





Stay tuned for more adventures!!!

Mother - Daughter Weekend

Our eldest daughter and I finally had our mother-daughter weekend. We'd been talking about it for months. The purpose of our trip was two-fold: for just the 2 of us to spend some one-on-one time together, and to have 'the talk'.

Our weekend wasn't just about 'the talk', but also to discuss what the teenage years are like: peer pressure, choosing friends, dating, etc. FamilyLife publishes wonderful material (CD based) just for this type of talk, called Passport2Purity. The material is designed for a mother to talk with her daughter, or a father with his son. (Thanks to my 'Dr. Laura' in Georgia for telling me about this material. ☺)

Here are a few photos of our weekend: (Yes, I asked our daughter if it was okay to share these pics and tell a little about our weekend.)

Us!!

We stayed at the Cresta President hotel in downtown Gabs.

If you've read any of "The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency" books, we had tea at the 'Mma Ramotswe Tea Corner'. This is where 'Precious' liked to go and have tea on the weekends.

We had a nice walk and explored a bit of downtown Gabs, the area known as The Main Mall.

While out and about we discovered some wildlife!!!!

Wild Dogs!
(I don't think they saw us.)

Wow! A leopard - with its prey.

More wildlife!
(We went to the museum in downtown Gabs. Pretty nice. I'd like to go again and spend more time reading the plaques and info about the exhibits.)

This is a model of a 'the medicine man' for a tribe.

Everyday life for a family.
This was a great exhibit. Very life-like.
I'm glad my hubby doesn't bring home freshly killed animals
for me to skin and cook!!

Yes, our daughter enjoyed going to the museum. It was a spontaneous thing. We had a great weekend and shared lots of laughs.