weekend in South Africa

We went to South Africa this weekend for an extended weekend. Monday was a national holiday in Mozambique, and CAM by law has to take off from having school on all Mozambican holidays. So we used the long weekend to our advantage to get some visa issues under control, so a little shopping, and just get away for a couple days. 

I was having problems getting the correct visa  needed to stay here. But luckily it got taken care of, surprisingly enough in an easier way than we thought. It was a direct answer to prayer and God showed Himself faithful once again. I'm relieved to not have to leave the country every thirty days now, which could get a little annoying and become pricy.

While on our way we went through the border. It was quite a pain and very crowded and hot. It wasn't a necessarily pleasant experience, but it was an experience to say the least. Once we got through it was about another hour drive to Nelspruit. The highway is close to Kruger Park so it was exciting when we even spotted some baboons on the side of the road.

In Nelspruit we went to the mall, which was very western, it felt like it could be found in the states, except for that fact that I didn't recognize any of the stores. We had a slight complication when we went to exchange money and they were no longer accepting meticais. Meticais is the money used in Mozambique, and rand is what is used in South Africa. All we had were meticais, except for about ten American dollars, and all of the stores only accept rand. We worked through it even though it did slightly complicate things. 

One other great adventure in Nelspruit was going to McDonalds. It opened there in the past month. Everytime we drove by the drive through was completely packed and the lines were forever long. A fellow missionary from Maputo, told us that they went down last weekend and waited in a line that was all the way out the door just for a McDonalds hamburger. The surprising thing was how similar the food tasted to McDonalds in the states. The only major difference was that it was a lot less greasy. And the only thing that could've improved the meal would have been an ice cold Dr. Pepper, since that is a rarity in these parts of the world.