10. We're not in Kansas anymore, Toto

We had a tornado the other night. It felled a pine tree with a 30cm trunk within site of our house. I don't have a theological point to make about that, but thought it was cool enough to mention, and it made for a good link to that great title I've been waiting to use. As I write this there is a terrific thunderstorm starting, I think about the tenth since we have been here. The last big one took out our Internet connection for a week, so if you're reading this and it is not mid February you know why. Coming from the UK this has all been something of a surprise: one thing you can say for definite about the British weather is that there really isn't very much of it. Overcast, light drizzle, heavy drizzle, light rain, heavy rain. That's about it. In the UK you can safely go out of your door with only the tiniest chance of being electrocuted by a cloud or cast three hundred metres by an errant cyclone. Still, it is all quite exciting. Unless the bread maker is mid-cycle when the power goes out. Then it's just irritating. But the sudden, run-for-your-life rain storms that come from nowhere and five minutes later go back to nowhere have to be seen to be believed.

We've been here a month now, so apologies that we haven't put up more blogs; but honestly we just haven't had time. Our days have been really intense: here's a summary.

• 06:15 get up (anyone who knows me knows what that is doing to me)
• 07:15 pack the boys off to school with Auntie Tara
• 07:30 staff prayers
• 08:00 small group time with trainees
• 08:30 breakfast
• 09:15 lectures
• 11:30 short break
• 12:00 lectures
• 12:30 one of us goes to pick up the boys
• 13:30 lunch
• 14:30 lectures / one of us looking after boys
• 16:00 odd jobs / acts of service
• 17:00 exercise
• 18:00 break
• 18:30 dinner
• 19:00 one of us puts boys to bed
• 19:30 evening meeting (or free time)
• 20:30 finish
• 21:30 bed

We have another week of this level of work then it should calm down a fair bit; there are twelve trainees here plus us. The split is 50% South Africans and 50% Other, the Others being from South Sudan, Gabon, Rwanda, Nigeria, Mozabique, and of course the UK. The South Africans are all young guys (well, young to me, anyway) doing a month of training now as part of a full gap year program, while the others are doing the training in one block of three months before they head back home. We are slightly different as we have a foot in both camps: we are being trained in the JLife ethos and material for three months while also working as staff for JLife international. At the end of this week all the South Africans leave to go and put the training into practice in their own communities, while we and the others stay on for two more months of lectures.

The cultural mix is great, from the obsessively polite English guys, through the Nigerians who really really don't get queuing, to the interestingly gallic, French-speaking Gabonaise, and the Sudanese woman who catches giant grasshoppers to keep live in her pencil case and stick on people in class. All in, I think there are seven different first-languages spoken and many people speak at least three. I've really enjoyed conversing in French with the guys from Gabon and Rwanda, although I have come to realise the many limitations of learning a language solely by watching subtitled movies and reading Harry Potter a l'ecole des sorciers. Knowing how to say "quelle fantastique baguette magique!" has, I have discovered, limited utility when discussing the tragic drain by Chinese conglomerates of the natural resources of West Africa. It means "what a fabulous magic wand!", by the way.

One great thing is that the Africa Cup Of Nations is on at the moment, and if there's one activity that can unite any mix of cultures, it's football. The guys upstairs from us have a TV and so we all pile up there to watch games (I discovered they also have a porcupine in the fridge). Here's Daniel in his cherished Bafana Bafana shirt celebrating with Uncle Makgale. (sadly, shortly after this photo was taken, SA got comprehensively whipped by Mali and are no longer in the competition). Makgale is an awesome guy. Yesterday he gave me a small bag of biltong which cost him about half his week's budget, it really was a sacrificial gift for him. Nice biltong too.

Reuben has become something of a camp mascot, everyone loves him and he'll go to anyone for hugs and high-fives. His cheeky grin gets him a lot of attention, particulately from the girls. Last weekend, the boys and girls were split, with the boys heading off to a lake house for a couple of days of paintball, bromance, and talking about the things that have developed out of our past which hold us back from being Real Men (anger, resentment, insecurity). The girls made cookies, played with Reuben, and talked about the same stuff. Great weekend actually, and a lot of the guys had real deep-rooted stuff which came out and was dealt with. Here's Reuben helping out with the cookies.

Thembe, Dhombe, Funile, and Spiwe

It is awesome being here with our boys for so many reasons, but one big one is that children just don't recognise cultural barriers. Today we had a bit of a treat and went out for a coffee to a place with a little play centre. Daniel hooked up with an Afrikaans kid and they just played together, Daniel speaking English and this kid speaking Afrikaans, quite happily for an hour. What adults could do that? Then a couple of weeks ago I came home from a lecture to find eight Zulu kids in our house playing trains with Reuben. It was chaos, but it was awesome. There's one little girl, Thembe, who's six and is so sharp it is scary: we have a memory game, about fifty cards you lay face down then turn up one by one to find pairs. Once each card has been turned up once Thembe remembers every position and then just cleans up. She's unbeatable. It is heartbreaking that the school she goes to with her brother and sisters is pretty poor: she's not going to get a good education, she's unlikely to reach her potential in life, and the chances are that she's going to follow her parents and live in a shack on a farm. Not through any lack of love, but just through lack of opportunity. One of the JLife guys teaches her big sister maths, so she has a chance of passing her matriculation at sixteen, and, you know, maybe she'll get a scholarship to go to college and thereby break the cycle for her family. I really hope so.

Apart from lectures we have been doing bits and pieces for JLife: Claire getting to grips with some of the JLife documentation, while I have been building a set of spiral stairs around a grain silo which is being converted into habitable accommodation. I've done bits and pieces of building in the UK, but building in Africa is a whole different ball game. On the first day I asked where to get building sand and the answer was "you dig a hole, you'll find sand eventually". Then there's the bricks. In the UK bricks vary at worst up to 10% in size. Here I would say at best it's 10%, more like 25%. Add to that the mortar which, using sand dug out of the nearest field, tends to be full of twigs and the bones of assorted small animals, and the fact that I was at first given a plastering trowel, and you have an interesting challenge. It's going well though, and I am working with a Zulu guy who is teaching me his language. For anyone who is interested in building in a Zulu area, the Zulu for stairs is 'steppies', bricks are 'iBricki' and cement is 'cement'. Don't say this blog isn't educational.

So a month down and I think we are settling in, finding our identity here. We love the cultural mix and the community life, and the farm is a beautiful location with almost endless trails for hiking and biking. When we need a break from the camp we escape the hour's drive to Joburg to see our good friends from the UK who now pastor a church there and have kids the same age as ours (and, moreover, a nice pool belonging to their church). We have lots to do and are feeling inspired for the impact we can have in JLife. After settling in to the community here we're nervous about leaving for Zambia in five months, but are just trying every day to do what got us this far: trusting in the plans God has for us.