The Beginning

We arrived at our hotel Sunday night after about thirty hours of travel. We were tired, but the travel passed without any hitches and we were grateful. Our saving graces were probably the vast selection of airplane movies and the showers we took during our stop in Amsterdam.

Sharon came up with a head cold somewhere along the way, so Monday morning she slept in and I took some time for myself next to and in the pool. Already, it feels good to have left the job pace and to make time for a few moments of quiet and reflection every day. After getting up and about on Monday, we left the hotel in Cape Town and headed up Table Mountain for a bird’s eye view of our surroundings. It’s a pretty phenomenal tram ride up the mountain, and the view is spectacular. In our pictures it looks hazy because of some fires that have been burning on the other side of the mountains. Cape Town is reportedly one of the most beautiful cities in the world, and it’s easy to see why with it’s location nestled between the mountain and the ocean with beaches, old world architecture, and beautiful trees and flowers. The clouds here move extremely fast.

Monday, after exploring some more of Cape Town, we also headed to the place we’re staying for the next ten days, the home of the Cordles. Cathy received us with some of the most gracious hospitality I’ve ever experienced. Their house is 300 years old and sits outside of Cape Town in an area called Constantia. It is a truly beautiful setting. We enjoyed dinner and deep conversation last night with Cathy and her niece Lara. We were laughing tonight that we’re already picking up some of the local vernacular and accent. Sharon is becoming “quite” fond of the word “lovely”. Absolutely lovely.

Today, Tuesday, we met up with Derek Lovegren – also a Portlander – to see what he’s been up to in Cape Town. He introduced us to his friend, Ricky, and the next thing you know we were touring around one of the townships, Guguletu. A fact of which I was not aware: The city of Cape Town has the greatest wealth disparity in the world. The townships are the neighborhoods outside of the city where the historically black residents of the city live, and they are pretty drastically different from what you experience in the rest of the city. We ate some barbecue in Guguleta with a boy, Sia, who is friends with Derek and Ricky(fun and interesting), visited The Warehouse where supplies and gifts for orphans and the poor are organized and distributed, and then came back to Silverhurst. We enjoyed our time at The Warehouse chatting with Craig Stewart – a new friend of ours but an old friend to many of you – so much that we are headed back there tomorrow to help load a truck with necessities and Christmas presents for deliveries to orphans all around the city. Our experiences today made for some meaningful conversation over a great little dinner at a local restaurant. We found ourselves asking lots of questions we couldn’t really answer…

The day ended over a glass of wine, watching the clouds speed past the moon. This has already been a great trip. We have shared lots of new experiences such as driving on the left side of the road in a busy city, a fruit called litchi, a township, foreign grocery stores, life without a working cell phone, humbling hospitality, random goats on the side of the road, strange smells, interesting birds, etc., etc., etc. We miss you all very much, and we’re thankful to feel so connected to such great friends and family at home. Based on the last several days, I’m sure the next six weeks are going to go very quickly.