sunrises

This week has been good, no it's been great. I'm having one of those weeks where I am grateful to be alive and really happy to be where I am.
I was struggling, and still do at times, with being in Cape Town. Sure it's beautiful here and I really like my job and I've met some wonderful people, but it's also lonely sometimes and boring and different and hard to be so close to a country where I know I'm happy but can't go there. But it has also been continuously getting better, and this week just made me realize how fortunate I am to be here and helped me look at life in a more positive light.
So we'll start with sunday...
Sunday morning Kelly (other intern) and I made fruit salad for a meeting after church and then got completely soaked walking over (it rains a lot here). I went to the Woodstock church and this week Tembo, my boss, was preaching and the whole service was great, best one I've been too in a while. After that the church had a meeting and social time, talked, ate food, building community. From there Kelly and I enjoyed an episode or two of West Wing and some good discussion and after that just a relaxing evening with a phone call with my mom and some movie on tv.
Monday, was just a fun day at work. Tembo and Greg (2 bosses) are out of town this week so it's quieter but Tembo's daughters and friends came in and had some fun chatting with them. Later went over to Kelly's for dinner.
Tuesday work was good and Kelly and I tried to go to Observatory b/c Kelly was supposed to lead this service at an old-folks home but it got cancelled but it was a fun adventure. From there I went to town for French class and thoroughly enjoyed it. Making friends with a couple of the students to that's good.
Wednesday was amazing. Came to work and then we get a crew together to go to Franschook, a town about an hour or so away from Cape Town. SHADE is hosting a youth camp the first week of july and it will be at Franschook so we decided to go check it out and it was a good excuse to have a nice day trip. Absolutely breathtaking drive through endless mountains, I wish I had my camera, it was really amazing. We get to this place and its just a few cabins and dinning hall in the middle of trees and mountains. The guy shows us around and then we go up to his place at the top of the hill and man this guy has it made, he has 6 dogs, the most incredible view and a built-in ground trampoline which I quite enjoyed. From there we went to pick-n-pay (grocery store) got food then took it to a field and had a picnic, in the middle of mountains, which ended with a small game of tag. I needed to get out of the city for a day and see some nature, it really does wonders on my soul. It was great company and a great day.
Yesterday was another good day. I started the day with a short run and the most beautiful sunrise. I ran up to the office and stood on the railing so I could see over the houses and was taken aback by the beauty. The sun was peaking over a mountain shining on the ocean and the buildings as the clouds just hovered over the tips of the mountains, and it stretched far and wide, truly incredible. Kelly and I decided to take the afternoon off and Joyce, Tembo's 18yr old daughter, joined us and showed us around. We went to the waterfront for lunch and then walked along the ocean (so wonderful and so needed) to sea point to have coffee. Joyce was so much fun to be around and quite handy as well as we tried to figure out the bus system. we went back to waterfront and wandered around for a few hours as our ride was stuck in traffic because the president of the DRC was on his way to where we were (the mall is connected to a hotel). So we grabbed some dinner (I missed french class) and went home.
Today I look forward to the youth coming and tomorrow a braai at tembo and david's house, sunday some music and then we'll see what happens from there. So a great week, great country, and great times. I'm finally starting to good about everything again and that is a refreshing feeling to have.