National Pie Day

 Tuesday was national pie day in America because the date, 3/14, is the same as the mathematical number pi, 3.14.  I had been disappointed that I would miss it, but it turns out I didn’t have to! Since pies here are meat pies, most of the kids and mamas hadn’t tasted fruit pie. I wanted to make some for everyone in the village so they could taste it, especially since I am a pie baker. Not only would they be able to taste it, but then they would also have a better idea of what my job is at home. And what better day to make pie for everyone than on pie day?  I had several enthusiastic helpers and we made three 9x13 apple pies with crumb topping, which is somewhere around forty cups of apples.  I think most everyone was excited and really enjoyed their pie!  

Making apple pie filling

Enjoying the pie in the evening.
Several of these boys helped make the pie.

Game Reserve Park Safari Drive

         This last week Uncle Brian took fifteen of us to a game reserve park that is about an hour away.  There aren't any guides, but you are allowed to drive through the park.  I'm not sure if it would be considered a real safari drive, but I'll count it.  There are no elephants or wild cats on the reserve.

         People who had been there before were disappointed because there wasn’t much wildlife out that day, but what we did see was still really neat!  We were in the Quantum, so the view out of the windows wasn’t the best, and I know my pictures definitely aren’t the best! 

          I was able to see: ostrich, zebra, guinea hens, a water buffalo, some warthogs, springbok, monkeys, rhinos that were so far away they looked more like specks, but hey, they were still rhinos!  Sadly we never found any giraffes.  The landscape was beautiful though! We drove up one of the tall hills to a lookout point and the view was amazing!

 

We also saw a mama monkey carrying her baby,
but I couldn't get a picture of it. 

Water Buffalo
If anyone knows Veggie Tales,
some of us did sing the water buffalo song :)

Driving up to the lookout

Part of the view at the top of the lookout

 

Visiting the Lion Park

Sunday we got to visit a lion park in Kroonstad which is about an hour away from Welkom.  I was very excited to visit and it was a lot of fun!  The first part of the tour is the lion and tiger cubs.  I have always wanted to see a tiger cub!  The best part though was that we got to play with them!  I took a lot of pictures; they were so cute and fun!  

Tigers greet each other by chuffing (sp?), which is a little like the f-f-f sound.  So when we greeted the tigers it was best to chuff and also to make a fist and let them smell it.  One of the orange tiger cubs was especially friendly and fearless! The lion cubs were a little more shy, but just as adorable.  They also bottle fed them while we were there, but they didn't offer to let us help with that.  :( After playing with the cubs for about half an hour we took a tour of the rest of the place.  

Once the lions are a certain age they move them out of the cub’s pen to a bigger pen.  Inside each of the pens is a watering pool and a smaller pen they can close off to feed the cats in.  The park gets dead cows or chickens and cuts them into four or five pieces.  On Sunday they put a piece for each lion/tiger in the feeding pens.  Then while we walked around they opened the gate to let the cats in to eat. Sunday is feeding day, so we got to watch them eat, which was pretty neat.  The big cats usually gorge themselves about once a week, after eating so much they sleep the next couple days.  Lions only have about a thirty percent success rate when they are hunting, which is why when they eat they gorge themselves till their next meal, because they will only get to eat about once a week.  They also have lighter colored rings around their eyes which helps them to hunt.  Humans have almost an equal amount of light and color receptors in their eyes, but lions have mostly light receptors.  So when they are hunting at night, the ring helps them to see even better and miniscule amounts of light.   Tigers are better hunters, but at the park they stay in the same pens as the lions.  While lions tend to stay together in prides, tigers prefer to be off by themselves. 

We also got to see some leopards, jaguars, and another cat that I don't know the name of.  There was also a little calf in its own pen, its mother had died and they were taking care of it.  There is a side of the park that raises cows and chickens, but we didn't see it.  Everyone was teasing me because at that pen I was petting the calf while they were looking at some more of the lions!  

 

A lion cub

Playing with the tiger cubs

A leopard

These tiger cubs are actually white because
of the recessive gene, their parents were orange tigers.

I cannot remember the name of this cat

Grocery Shopping for the Mamas

One of my favorite days here is Tuesday, for a couple reasons. One of them being that it's the day we help Aunt Jackie grocery shop for the mamas, which is one of my favorite jobs.  First we go to each mama’s house, collect their empty laundry and dish soap containers and get their lists.  Aunt Jackie gives the mamas lists with the food items they may need already printed on it.  If the mamas need it they put a check mark next to the item.  They have a weekly meal plan, so to some extent they all eat the same thing, although the mamas may fix food differently from each other.  Each mama has crates with their names on them, and we line them up on a table in the storage room.  There we also keep a lot of non-perishable items so we can just fill up most of their order.  Every few months the staff has to go bulk grocery shopping to keep the shelves stocked.  There are freezers to keep meat and other frozen foods and vegetables as well.  Aunt Jackie fills up their cleaning supplies and we also keep toiletries on hand as well. When we finish filling the crates the mamas will take their crates home and put their groceries away while we go to the store to get fresh vegetables, eggs, or anything we ran out of.  When we come back to the Village we finish handing out the rest of their groceries and the mamas bring all the crates back.  

While filling up their crates I also get to see some of the more interesting things they eat.  Something I haven’t tried yet but would like to is buttermilk rusks.  I’ve heard them described as similar to biscotti and they eat them with their tea.  They do drink a lot of tea, I think that is because they have some British background. 

Some other things that happened last week were that on Sunday Mama Thambisa, mama to mostly the older boys, invited us to eat supper at her house.  She fixed chicken, beetroot with chutney, pumpkin (which may have actually been butternut squash, any type of squash they call pumpkin), rice, and potato salad.  The chicken was very good, and they all loved eating the bones as well.  Mama Tselang said when she was growing up the children did not eat meat.  The adults would eat the meat and the children got to eat the bones.  The boys were so excited that we were eating with them and I think everyone had a good time eating together! 

Last Friday, Kholisile, (my pronunciation guide would look like this: Coal-i-see-lay), won first place in track for the 80 meter and 100 meter for this region of South Africa.  He has another track meet Saturday.  We were able to watch him run and I also got a couple pictures.  

Some of these pictures go with the post from last week but I just go them uploaded.  I captioned them so hopefully it will be easy to tell what they are.

Sorting clothes

Clothes sorted

The back of the car loaded up with groceries

A little bit of bulk shopping

Kholisile after winning first in two races!

Beginning to fill the mamas' crates

Busi was our little helper this week!