Pretoria: Week 1

Well, we made it!! We just recently got limited internet, so this post will be quite long to catch you up. Hopefully in the future they will be shorter.

South Africa is beautiful. After a 15 hour nonstop flight from Atlanta, we arrived on Wednesday, January 19th. A little word of warning if you ever come to visit us: ** DO NOT sit in the back of the plane. The 777 was so bumpy the entire ride. Almost made it unbearable.** Our sponsor family took us to dinner that night and they have been a great help in getting us settled.

We are currently in “temporary” housing until our permanent house is ready (should be 2 weeks from now). It is a great house. Much bigger than we need or want. But the yard is amazing. We have a pool that I have been taking advantage of and the yard is huge with beautiful trees and flowers.



This is as soon as you drive in the gate



The pool



The "garden"



The length of the backyard with the garden at the far end



This is just off the kitchen. The laundry room and maids quarters building is to the right, just out of the picture.



The front yard



And we have come full circle through the rest of the front yard


We have spent the first week trying to find cars, get internet and cell phones, learning how to drive on the left hand side of the road, etc. There are many little stories in there, but I won’t bore you. I will just say that cars are super expensive here and it is hard to find a used car that will be reliable. Some of the most expensive cars are the Toyotas, Fords, and VWs. Believe it or not, we are getting a Mercedes because that is affordable and will hopefully be reliable!

We were able to go to Church on Sunday and think we will really like our ward here. Everyone was so friendly and welcoming. There are several Americans, but it is mainly South Africans, which presents a bit of a problem because it is sometimes hard to understand their accents or certain words they use that are different. But I love the accent and wish I could pick it up myself.

Rather than continue on about what has happened each day, I have put together a list of things we have learned or want to share with you about Pretoria. I know there are many more to learn and I am sure we will frequently be sharing them with you.

PRETORIA LIVING: 12 Things We Have Learned

1. After a few days of driving on the left hand side of the road, you get used to it. It is getting in the car on the right side that is the hard part!

2. The Afrikaner (white South Africans) children DO NOT wear shoes. Anywhere. The mall, school, walking down the street, etc. Blows my mind.

3. Things at the grocery store are a bit different: mince meat= ground beef, streaky bacon= what Americans call bacon, treacle sugar= brown sugar (but still isn’t the same)

4. Beggars, hawkers and mimes at every intersection.

5. There are no outlets in the bathrooms, so I have to do my hair in the bedroom.

6. Weather is most like San Diego.

7. When someone tells you, “Now”, “Just now” or “Now Now” it doesn’t mean what you would expect. If someone tells you they are coming over “just now”, that could mean tomorrow!

8. Don’t ever order Iron Brew as a drink. You would assume it is their version of Root Beer. Big mistake! It tastes exactly like cough syrup.

9. Eggs are sold in the store on the shelf, unrefrigerated.

10. Nothing is the same here. I bought a Twix the other day for something familiar. It had the same wrapper, looked exactly like what I am used to, but tasted nothing like a Twix. And the ice cream is pretty nasty. Which makes me very sad!

11. You tip the parking lot “helpers” because they “help” you back out of your parking space (like its your first time backing up)! But hopefully they also keep an eye on your car so nothing happens to it while you are shopping.

12. Everyone seems so nice and friendly. It is going to be hard to remember to keep your guard up because there are real dangers here, it just doesn’t seem so on the surface.

We really are loving it here and are excited to see so much more of the country. Hopefully tomorrow we will get to go to a Nature Reserve that is about 15 minutes away that has giraffe, zebra, and other animals.

But of course we miss all of you too. So come visit!!

PS- Lee felt the baby move for the first time this week!! He acted like it freaked him out, but secretly I think he thought it was really cool!

The Other Carnell

In non-Foreign Service related news... we thought we would post some pics of the "other" Carnell, Rugby.



Look at that profile


Polo is a little too small. And she hated it!


Dog days of Summer




First camping trip. She loves the great outdoors.


A little firednly match of tug-o-war at the bulldog meetup group.

A little taste of South Africa

We heard that there was a fast food chain restaurant from South Africa in downtown DC! So we decided to go check it out with our best buds Mike and Courtney. Nando's is a worldwide chain, but was started in South Africa. It is an African-Portugese grilled chicken joint. They use a chile (peri-peri) found in Africa in their marinade and you can get it in several different "heats." Lee and Mike had HOT, which is the 2nd hottest and it was definitely a sinus cleaner. But for a fast food place, the inside is really nice and cool. It wasnt the best food I have ever had in my life, but it was a fun experience and at least now I know that there will be one place in South Africa I will like to eat!

The Fronces!

mmm! Peri-Peri sauce

Nando's decor

FLAG DAY!!!!

We have been waiting for what seems like forever for this day to come. Today, the "Flag Day" ceremony for my class was held. Which means, we now know where we will be living for the next 2 years.

To build up the suspense, I'll tell you about the ceremony before I tell you where we are being sent. There are 87 people in my class, which means there were a lot of people getting there orders along with us. Within the first three minutes, three of our top choices were taken. This stressed us both out. So when it was announced that Lee Carnell will be going to PRETORIA, SOUTH AFRICA it was a pleasant surprise. This whole experience has been quite surreal, but we are very excited and very happy. Pretoria was our #3 choice out of 20. So that's not too shabby!!

I'm sure we will be having plenty of visitors interested in going on safaris. Book your trips now. The hotel Carnell is booking up fast.

I should not be allowed to blog

Today as I was trying to update the blog, I accidentally deleted one of Lee's posts. I was trying to change the picture, but instead I lost the entire entry. So I am recreating the post. Idiot.

POSTED BY LEE JULY 31st:

This is what happens to me when I don't work for a month.

Work starts Monday so I will most likely be shaving off this mess some time tomorrow afternoon.

This one is for you Mom. I just know how much you want to see pictures of your handsome son ;).

Anticipation

A few months ago we thought this day would never arrive. Now it is here and I might be freaking out a little bit! I have been waiting in anticipation to find out where in the world we are going to be living. It's all we talk about at work. My co-worker Shawn jokes that Chad is definitely where we will be going. Then when we did the office drawing, he randomly picked Chad. I really hope he doesn't win. But it has been fun to speculate.

I am a bit worried that while I have been very open to all of the places on our list, I have really been hoping for one in particular... Rome. I have told myself time after time to not get my hopes up. We only have 1 in 20 chance of actually getting it, and I dont know that we are that lucky! But last night I saw the movie Eat, Pray, Love and she spends a lot of time in Rome and I started fantasizing about living there. I realized at that moment it was a bad idea for me to see this movie. So I had a bit of a breakdown, but am doing much better this morning.

It is a big step. One that I have not been nervous about for one minute. But as the Flag Day Countdown on the blog gets smaller and smaller, my lungs feel a bit like they are closing in on me. I am sure that the moment they call our post and Lee goes up there to get the flag, it will be a relief and time of celebration. Like I have said from the beginning, it will be an adventure no matter where we go. I just hope it is somewhere that some of you will want to come visit.

Ugh! More Changes

The experience of applying, interviewing, and on boarding with the State Department is a unique one, and as we now know, the confusion and sometimes frustration doesn't end once you finally become a State Dept. employee.

Back in June, when I received the initial offer letter, I was told the training was going to total 19 weeks. A few weeks later we got an email informing us that the training had been shortened to 10 weeks. That is a big difference! We figured, with only 10 weeks of training we could be shipped out as early as November. Katie decided to notify her boss that she would be leaving her job in the middle of September to focus on the things necessary to make the move overseas.

Two weeks before orientation started, I got another email reversing the last notification, making the training period 19 weeks again. This was disappointing. The lack of details and the ever-changing schedule is a bit frustrating.

We got our bid list Tuesday afternoon with the initial 20 posts listed. Tuesday morning they made some changes, which were fine because the new posts seemed much more desirable. The estimated time of arrival for the posts were listed as December of this year. So this week we have been making our plans according to what we were told. What we are learning now about the State Department is the only thing that is certain here is uncertainty.

Last night I received another list revision. Stockholm Sweden has been removed from the list and replaced with Lagos Nigeria (which was on the original list). The estimated dates of departure are now between the months of February to June of 2011. We are coming to terms with the fact that we should be patient and expect changes to occur.

We are frustrated, but we are learning to expect changes and not to rely on any decision to be final. This whole environment is new for us, but we know that we are very blessed to be able to have the opportunity to experience the new places and adventures that lie ahead of us. We are just ready to get this show on the road!!!!