On the Sunday 21st of October, my family and I set out to the “Addo Rose Show” with the Pederson’s after church. It was quite amazing driving along the bumpy road seeing all the “government housing”, the beautiful beaches and the vast stretch of country side that rolled past our car within the hour and a half of driving. The government housing is a system set up for the homeless. Instead of having families live in the shacks that they were previously living in, the families have been given houses that are small but a definite step up from the terrible circumstances in which they were in before. Next to such housing, there is a cemetery for those whom have died of AIDS. The tombs go on forever.
Driving past the ocean was so breathtaking. My Australian appreciation of such a sight was maximized when I saw the gorgeous colours of greens, blues, and sandy white. The beaches here are truly a sight to behold!
We finally reached our destination after a long stretch of bumpy dirt road that was actually quite tame compared to the rest of what the country contains. The roses were amazing. The theme was “rainbow” to which they had every colour of the rainbow have its separate corner of the room. From red to purple the roses where so delicately and intricately placed to form amazing works of art. There were seat cushions made out of flowers and an ACTUAL bed made out of roses. In the center there was an enormous bouquet that displayed the brilliance of the rainbow with its variety of coloured flowers.
I am not exactly a “flower obsessed fiend” like my mother but I was quite impressed with all of the displays. Although the two things that really seemed to intrigue me the most that day were not in the form of a flower. They were totally unrelated but both seemed to result in the same reaction of total shock…one ending in delight and the other…well…disturbance. The one that ended on a happy note was the spiraled frie. Well, it was in between a frie and a “crisp” as some Canadians would say. It looked like a whole bunch of crisps on a stick, but was in fact soft and hot and connected. The spice was bold enough to almost choke my mum. I enjoyed it a little too much…the spice not my mum choking that is! The other shock of that day was when our families started our trek home we stopped on the side of the road to buy some oranges from some of the local people there. The elderly woman amongst them seemed especially delighted from the sale to which she responded in dancing. The situation quickly turned to the most awkward when the grandmother started to have her dance go from a light hearted dance of joy to a rather scandalous sexual one. Dave Pederson, the driver just responded by putting his foot on the accelerator much to our relief.
All in all the day ended up being a lovely one. A definite cultural experience in some ways that was good enough to write home to! Later that night my dad and I went to the Michael W. Smith concert. I think he wrote about our experience there too… that was an amazing experience as well, if you have time, you should definitely check that blog out as well. God showed up in some unexpected ways!
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