5. The joy of meals together

[NOTE: My apologies for the fact that I wrote this many months ago and somehow never published it on my blogsite.]

I loved our trip to South Africa. I loved all that we experienced there. The thing I loved most, however, was spending it with family. I would have loved to have had all my children and their children there, but that was not feasible for numerous reasons.

I am going to write again about what we saw and why those things and places were so enjoyable. Today I want to talk about why I loved having family there with me.

I particularly loved our meals together. Not so much the casual eating along the way – we stopped at petrol shops and sometimes had a snack at a café in a town – but the actual restaurant meals we enjoyed as a group.

The first was in Brits. It was breakfast the first morning we were in South Africa. The hotel was nice, but it was hidden in a fortified area that you could not easily access. This was in the middle of a really sketchy, rundown neighborhood.

We sat and ate across from a number of high-ranking police officers who had been staying at the hotel for who knows what reason. It was the first meal there and so the food was new and different and the people spoke different languages. It was all strange for some of the family who had never experienced such, but we were together. We had a great time!

The second real meal like that was at our first Air BnB just outside Kruger Park. It was at Selati River Ruins in Gravelotte, Limpopo. Archi and the staff there were magnificent. They fawned over us and treated us like royalty. We had supper there after arriving and it was truly a great experience. There was a python skin and animal heads so it really did seem like Africa. We also saw our first animals on the way, a Sable antelope, as well as one outside our rooms down by the river.

I will try to write about our family meals more but in order so that you get a little feel for the trip itself.

Let me leave with our third meal, inside Kruger Park. We had lunch inside the camp we were staying at, Letaba. Almost everyone tried “pap” and wors (Stiff porridge and farmer sausage). James Maverick and I watched hippos and different antelope through binoculars below us in or near the river. It was really wonderful! We ate and watched and everyone chatted. It was idyllic!

More about our times together in another writing.