Wonders!

Josh wrote about it already, but the rains have come! It’s magic to see the environment becoming green so quickly. The burned sections of the reserve are covered with carpet of lush, green grass. 

 

The toads are croaking loudly, especially the first night that it rained. I thought for a moment that the birds were singing… Moths and other insects like to come into the house now. Ross warned us to keep doors and windows shut: ‘soon you won’t be able to see anything in the evening inside because of all the insects going for the light’, he said.

Beautiful ground lilies appeared on the bare soil just a day after the rain.
 

Have a look at our flat-crown. Isn’t it amazing to see the changes? These changes took place in just three days. 

Walking along the Isibhicayi River. Wow, we feel so free when we walk along the river towards the open plain. 

'Like an ocean', Josh says.
Some men and woman, with red-brownish paint on their face to show that they have their period, are line-fishing. 

 

We get a little taste of the life that the local boys have on the weekend when they don’t have school. Walking with a knobkierrie they follow the cows,  who either belong to their father or uncle,  over the plain and lead them to the good places to graze and drink.
Two boys, maybe 8 and 11 years old, offer to make us a cow out of the clay close by. We watch them modelling the tough clay. We are lucky. Our cows are very creative, so they’ll come back with us to Cape Town. 

We try to take a little fever tree to bring it home. The first one we try would not move one inch. We dig for quite a long time and then give up. The roots go deep in their search for water.
We find an even smaller one that comes out of the soil surprisingly quickly. This one wants to come with us! We hope to bring it safely back to Cape Town to plant in our garden.