Saturday July 6-About our neighborhood in Durban

Saturday is P Day. We slept in a little bit, wore casual clothes and walked to the mall to get some groceries.  I took some photos as we walked with my new camera to try it out and to show you what our neighborhood looks like. Whenever we go walking we have to climb this very steep hill and put in a gate code to get out the gate.







The streets are barely big enough for two cars side by side, so you have to try to walk where ever there is a sidewalk of sorts (asphalt sidewalk). This could change from block to block, so we keep changing sides. We saw a Muslim guy driving out of the gates of this place. Elder Holt runs around this neighborhood. It is supposed to be safe, but we are still taught to be careful. It really was a nice day to take a walk to the mall.



Other homes in the area look pretty nice, like this place with a swimming pool in front. I've never seen a soul out in the yard of any of these places. It seems so odd to us that people do not do anything themselves. They seem to hire black people to do their yard work and they are happy to get the jobs. So not everything changed after Apartheid. There are not that many who are trained to be in management, so a job doing anything is better than nothing.

You can tell from these photos that security is a big issue here...lots of home burglaries, so there is a lot of barbed wire and electric fences and electric gates. It's a shame, but the police don't seem to ever be around, so the robbers have no deterrent.

No matter how nice the house is, it is surrounded by fences and something to keep people from going over the fences. When we first got here, one lady was asking us if we really had yards without fences where people went outside and talked to neighbors. She saw something on TV and couldn't believe that we actually lived like that. I remember telling her that our front yards usually don't have fences and kids play outside and she was really having a hard time grasping that. We take a lot for granted.

This is the street where we go to the mall. It's only five minutes from our flat. What you see in the distance is mall parking. We are pretty sick of the mall, but that is the only place close by to purchase groceries. There are also two pharmacies that we frequent and a store called 'Crazy Store' that is like going to a dollar store or Big Lots, on a very small scale. I like looking for inexpensive items there, like books, kitchen storage, toys, etc.

Buying groceries here is so different. Instead of driving to the grocery, parking and going inside, getting a cart, buying groceries and then going outside putting them in the trunk and home, we usually drive this way and drive underground to park, get a parking ticket out of a machine...go into the lowest level where the banks and post office are...then go up the escalator to the first floor. You get off the escalator in the middle of the mall. Grocery stores and pharmacies are at each end. You go to one end to buy most all the groceries you need, except for fruits and vegetables and meat which are better at the store located at the other end of the mall.

You fill up your basket with groceries and then go to the checkout line where they ask you if you want packets, which means, "Do you want to pay for bags to put your groceries in." I say, "Yes" and then they put the groceries in usual plastic bags. Because you are paying for each one, they pack them with as much stuff as possible - to keep you from having to pay for more packets, but they are so heavy that when you are walking...watch out. Then you go to the escalator down to the parking level and before you get on, you take your groceries out of the cart and carry them down...tricky carrying several sacks of groceries down an escalator.

When you get off the escalator, there is a parking machine. You put your groceries down on the floor and put your parking ticket into the machine where it calculates how much time you have been in the mall and bills you accordingly. Then you try to put money into the slot (In most cases, Elder Kyle has to find the money in his pocket while holding the ticket in the machine, because it will fall out if you don't hold it). Then you have to put coins in until you've paid the right amount and wait until the ticket is stamped paid, before you take it out. You go out to your car, put the groceries in the trunk and drive to the parking machine where you put in your stamped paid ticket, the gate lifts and you exit the parking garage. At other malls, you pay people in orange vests for watching your car while you are in the mall and helping you back out. Just a few coins are expected. How is that for going to the grocery store? Well this day we walked, so we skipped the parking machines, but had to carry the groceries home. They were heavy, but we made it back and took a nap (just kidding).

That evening, I made Mexican food and homemade chips and hot sauce. We actually really liked the hot sauce, so I have made a breakthrough and can make hot sauce now without tomato sauce or El Pato sauce. I use canned diced tomatoes, fresh jalapenos, cilantro and onions and crushed red peppers, oregano, salt, pepper and garlic...put in a blender and it is YUM! Put that with homemade chips and it's almost like home! I then got on the computer and made an agenda for our PA meeting Sunday after church. Sipho called and asked me to make one. I also made some bread dough for rolls. I put it in the fridge so that I could make my rolls the next day for 4:00 PA meeting.

We read the scriptures and discuss every day after dinner. It's a good time and we are buzzing through the Book of Mormon. I look forward to it and it's an easy time to fit it in. Hopefully, we are creating a habit that will stay with us when we return home. Kneeling by our bed to say prayers at night is also a habit we will keep when we return. Sometimes Elder Kyle wants to go to bed earlier than I do, so we just have our prayer before he goes to bed. In the morning we have our own personal prayers and Elder Kyle reads the Bible after breakfast, while I am still getting ready for the day. Ha.