Messing around in the river

Days like today remind me how much I love it here. Started off super early with a prayer meeting at 6am in my house for those in my group at church - basically all my friends (is in a different house every other week). I then made pancakes for breakfast for everyone - American style!! I'm learning! Then it was church and then I went with the same group of friends to the river this afternoon!

Hollie, Israel and kids joined us too and it was great fun. It was about 20 mins away and we parked the car and went on a short hike along some v dusty paths and tracks. My favourite part was when we were told to be quiet as people were shooting - practice maybe? I didn't like to ask to much for fear of the answer! I could definietly hear all the guns going off!! Least favourite part has to be going down the steep, dusty slope in my slippery sweaty flipflops!! Hollie and I decided it was definitely easier to go down on our feet and backsides!!

It wasn't really the river so much as a water hole! It was lovely to be rid of the dust and intense heat for a while and relax with friends. The guys - and Amanda - jumped off the cliff into the water. Not so much a cliff but not sure how to describe it. And we swam around underneath. The scary part was the nearly drowning!! I asked Sindy if she wanted to go over to the other side of the water hole with the others. She said yes and then I discovered she couldn't swim! Not a prob I thought, she can hold onto me and I can swim over! Hah - no! She can't even float! So, my plan was flawed at this point and she pulled hard on me and I went under!! Luckily Carina saw and came to my rescue! I'm not trying that again.

Then the guys got the bar of soap out. So many of us don't have water at the moment (ours comes and goes) and so they used the opportunity to bathe themselves - and they attacked me with the soap too. Can't complain about being clean eh? Sigua has a big prob with water right now as it is so dry, I think we are going on red alert - or so I have heard. Many many houses in the city don't have enough water - or any. We are lucky we have ours more often than we don't!

I'm sat here now waiting for more friends to come round and chill out here tonight. Really - I love my life!!

Thanks to all those who have donated money towards my new car. I appreciate it so much. The whole car situation makes me want to cry it is so stressful - and apparently so expensive!! So, a huge thank you!