Hey guys, So sorry for going soo long without posting anything. As many of you know we have moved sites. We are now living in an area called Venda, it is still in Limpopo, just now we are in the northern most area. We live in a village called Dovho, about 2.5 hours outside of our new shopping town called Thohoyandou (toh-yahn-doe.) We are really happy with our new site. We fee like we are finally where we belong and where we really were meant to serve. The people here are so appreciative and welcoming. We have a true family atmosphere and true peace at our new home. It is so relaxing out here. We finally have that "quintessential" placement that we were hoping for from the beginning. We are much more rural and its perfect. We are staying with an old woman named Masindi and her grandchildren. Her son (the father of her grandchildren that live with us) named Calvin lives next door with his wife. Jeffery our other host brother stays here with us as well. The only person in the family to speak English is Calvin, so its nice when he comes around and chats with us. We are not only in a new area but also submersed in a completely new language. The language that we were speaking at our old site was called Sepedi (aka northern sotho or Sesuthu) and now we are living in an area that speaks TshiVenda (aka Venda.) The transition is awkward since we automatically lose all our street cred. now that we don't speak the language, however we are comfortable enough as pcv's to know we can make a difference in any language! Our family has been soo wonderful to us, and we are loving our new schools. Eric is currently working on getting his school cleaned from the rat infestations and my school is happy to have a 4th teacher for the 140 learners. Eric and I both teach combined classrooms, meaning we have 4th & 5th grade learners together and 6th & 7th grade learners together in another class. This provides a whole new set of challenges but after having such large classroom numbers before, the smaller numbers are a welcome change. I have 46 learners in my 6/7 class and 32 in my 4/5 class. Eric's classes are 21 in his 4/5 class and 23 in his 6/7 class. Overall, we couldn't be happier. Now, we have what we feel to be, a rewarding community and equally rewarding work environment. Obviously we do not have the cell coverage that we had before, so we will be even more cut off from the land of the internet magic. We seem to have ok data coverage and receive whatsapp's well as well as e-mail, however voice coverage is sparse. If you wanna keep up with us and chat, whatsapp is the best way to reach us (a messaging app that is free to message internationally) Just add us to your contacts and you can chat at us anytime! As some of you know, we've had a hard month for electronics. We have a new laptop (thanks mom & dad!!!) but we are still sharing one phone, so for now, reach us both using the following number:
+2711846780
Also, our mailing address changed as well. you can send all future correspondence to the following address:
Lindsey & Eric Johnson
P.O. Box 253
Masisi
0989
South Africa
Loves to all! keep up with facebook to see photos since I can upload there from our phone!
