Mthatha

Wow. I knew we all needed a break, but I wasn't aware of how desperately we needed one until we left Pietermaritzburg Friday morning, the Ballade packed full of our stuff, making the ride feel extremely painful on our already low-riding car. (The roads – or collection of giant potholes – in Eastern Cape didn't help either).

We had been hoping to get to Mthatha for awhile to visit Joe and Anna Sawatzky, more Mennonite Mission Network people and thankfully this past weekend we were able to do that.

We arrived in Mthatha, a city in the Eastern Cape province (about 5 hours south of PMB), around 3 or so in the afternoon – just in time for the really hectic Friday traffic. And I do mean hectic as some of the robots (lights) didn't work, tons of people walking around the streets and tons of potholes to avoid. We met Anna and Joe at the Bible school where they work (but not without first having to all get out of the car – except the driver – in order for the Ballade to get over the speed humps in the road. Yikes). This past weekend their school was having a workshop called "Farming God's Way" conducted by James and Joan Alty – more Mennonite connections from PMB. We actually didn't participate in the workshop on Friday at all. Instead, Joe and Anna took us to the backpacker's place where they were putting us up for the night. After we said our good evenings to the Sawatzky's, we went out for pizza at a local (hooray!) pizza place and then came back and completely and utterly crashed. Wow. We hit some type of wall. Since this place had a television, guess what we did all evening all? Yep. Watched TV – and not even good TV either. We ended up watching parts of documentaries – one of which had to do with prehistoric predators (known as the "terminator pig") and one about "wild Russia." It didn't really matter because all of us were zombies even before we started watching TV anyway. We actually were all in bed by 9 and that was when I realized how much BCI takes out of us.

And I continued to discover how true this is the rest of the weekend. But I'll come back to that – first let me give you more of the rundown of the weekend

Saturday: After checking out of the backpacker's place, we went back to the school where Joe and Anna gave us a tour, both of the school and downtown Mthatha. Towards the end of the walk, people kept asking us if we needed directions or if we were lost. One woman was very pleased that Joe and Anna were showing us the downtown area. Afterwards, we went back to the workshop and sat in on the rest of James' lecture before we had lunch and headed outside for the gardening demonstration. It was all very interesting but wow was it hot. In the evening we moved all of stuff to the Sawatzky's household and spend the rest of the time eating nachos, reading, interacting with their four boys, and having tea and scones (ah! They were wonderful!). It was completely relaxing.

Sunday: We went with Joe and Anna to their church in Mandela Park. It was a one room building with plastic chairs set up on a dirt floor. The congregation was very small but very welcoming, even though we didn't speak the same language. After being in the machine that is BCI for so long, I sat there feeling completely overwhelmed with gratitude. It was hot, but wow, what an experience. Plus we got some more basic Xhosa food, so that was great.

Monday: On Monday, Joe and Anna took us downtown to visit the Nelson Mandela Museum. (Mthatha is close to his birthplace). Afterwards, Anna took us fabric shopping, thus we females spent the rest of the afternoon sewing wrap around skirts (which turned out awesome). Connie really wanted to make donuts the whole weekend and on Monday night, she got her wish. Wow. We had so many donuts – it was the best. And after they put the boys to bed, they made us Fajitas. So needless to say, we had a ton of great food this weekend.

Actually, it was a complete blessing being there this weekend. I didn't realize how worn out we all were until then. I wish we could've stayed longer because even though the whole thing was relaxing, I still don't feel very well rested. Regardless of that, Joe and Anna are incredible people. It actually kind of felt like we were visiting family this weekend. Not only did they make us feel completely at home and feed us yummy food, but they also listened to us vent and debrief about a lot of things. That was probably the most crucial part of this weekend. Being able to take a step back from the madness that is BCI and be able to rest, read a Wendell Berry novel in 2 days, listen to a ton of awesome blue grass, watch and die laughing at the Colbert Report, see a different part of South Africa, play with Isaac, Moses, Levi and Jesse, eat about 100 donuts, make skirts, eat soup for second breakfast at 10 in the morning today, and generally just be, wow, that was exactly what I, and I believe my whole team, needed.