Lulu the Duck - Part 2 - The Apology

Maybe the video works for you but it doesn't seem to work for me. I get sound but no picture.

If you could see the video - you would see "Bob & Jan Productions printed over a sunset with a coyote howling in the background. You would see Lulu in her nest hidden in the corner of the house. You would then see her fly away and hear her "quack, quack". Then you would see a picture of her eggs in an empty nest. Way cool!

So I guess the next best option is - "USE YOUR IMAGINATION"!!

The Saga of Lulu - "the Duck"

(This is a test to see if a short video will upload to this blog. Video in Google Blogs is still in the Beta stage so consider your self a Geek if you can get this to work on your Internet/computer.)

The Saga of "Lulu the Duck" is continuing amazement to us. While we were on our last mission to South Africa, a wild mallard duck hen decided that it was nice and quiet by our front door and built herself a nest. Each spring since (this now make fours years running), Lulu has returned laid her eggs, hatched them and then sneaks out in the dark of night with her ducklings without us having a chance to even see them. How rude!! All that she leaves us is a hollow nest, broken egg shells and a few feathers. We call her Lulu after the hit song of the 1930's titled "Lulu's Back In Town". We're always excited when she returns.

She'll have a quiet next spring to herself while we're in Africa and the following spring we'll be back and excited to await her return. I hope she'll be excited to see us too! Now Sophie that's a different situation! However, as long as she knows Sophie is on her tether and can't reach her, she's quite relaxed knowing her camouflage makes it difficult for anyone to see her.

Somebody or Something Doesn't Want Us to Go

A funny thing happened to us on the way to the MTC. First me (Bob). I had to have typhoid live virus pills for which I always get flu like symptoms. There are 4 pills in the series, one to be taken every other day. The first two nothing. The 3rd, I get a reaction like the flu, aches and pains everywhere. The 4th nothing until about 2 hours later it feels like someone kicked me in the back. I can hardly move. In fact I end up using Jan's old cane just to go to a family 4th of July outing. After 3 days I decide I'd better see a doctor. He prescribes an anti-inflammatory and muscle relaxers. After about 6 days, I'm basically back to normal but the whole experience takes about two weeks. Now Jan. She's doing her normal daily exercises and pulls a muscle in her hip. She can't hardly move. After 3 days she decides she'd better go to the doctor. Pain pills and muscle relaxers are prescribed for her. We're now about 6 days into this bout and she still can't get around. Neither her episode or mine have any bearing on anything logical. We weren't doing anything unusual. The only thing that we can think of is that "whatever" plus the stress we've been under is trying to keep us from our appointed task.

Jan did shout as loud as she could at the devil - "You can't deter us! You're wasting your time!!

By the way - if you can spare an extra prayer (we don't want to impose on anyone, as we know you all have your own problems - but) we could sure use some help in the prayer category! :)

Our Previous Second Assignment

This was the office building of our second assignment. It was located in a suburb of Johannesburg called Roodepoort. This location is probably about 15 miles from the Temple in a westerly direction.

We occupied small offices in this building. A good part of the building is not shown in this photo. The rest of the building was occupied by the South Africa Missionary Training Center which includes dormitories, cafeteria, kitchen and classrooms. Included in this large estate was a full size chapel and another office building which housed the Church Education System offices and the area facilities management offices. This area is large enough that many more buildings can be constructed on the grounds.

We worked in our office with two other American couples and the mission president and his wife along with the mission president's two assistants. While working in this office we had the opportunity to attend a Black ward in the townships. Here we made many friends among the non-white population and got an even greater appreciation for the kindness and humility of these wonderful people.

Because of these two assignments of our previous mission we wanted to return to Africa. We look forward to furthering our knowledge of South Africa and meeting and loving the people of the African countries within our assignment.

Our First Assignment Last Mission in Africa

Our original assignment last mission was to the Johannesburg South Africa Temple. We served here 9 months before being reassigned. I like this picture because of the jacaranda tree in the foreground. They are huge trees with a profusion of the most beautiful purple flowers. Jacaranda bloom in November (that's in the spring in the southern hemisphere) and we will see them in bloom soon after we arrive this time. Jacaranda are not native to South Africa, being originally from Australia, but they have been widely planted throughout South Africa. When the blooms fall they create an amazing purple carpet on the ground.

During this assignment we worked with and became friends with many couples from South Africa. Many of these we consider among our dearest friends. These couples introduced us to the history, beauty and culture of their country. And most of all they helped us understand an English language quite different from our own. Their English is spiced with Afrikaans (a dutch based language) and many native dialect words. Through them we learned to love South Africa not as tourists but as accepted members of their community. We are looking forward to renewing theses friendships.

As you look at this photo our new office will be located on the other side of temple but down below it on the edge of a hill. There is a large secure compound down there with many offices but more about that in a future post.

Southeast Africa Area Map

We have been asked and wondered ourselves which countries comprised the Southeast Africa area. This map is a little small but by double clicking on it you can enlarge it. Caution: it might take you away from this post requiring you to navigate back here.

You can see that it starts with Equatorial Guinea and Gabon up in the northwest, then proceeding east includes the Republic of the Congo (Brazzaville) and Democratic Republic of the Congo (Kinshasa). Continuing east is Uganda and then northeast through Kenya, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Djibouti and the Sudan. With that as the northern border countries, you can include everything south to the Cape of Good Hope. Don't forget the islands in the Indian Ocean, Madagascar, Mauritius, Reunion, the Comores, Mayotte and who knows what else. Whew! In all, about 30 countries, a lot of territory to cover but there are several of the countries that do not have organized units nor missionaries yet. If I am not repeating myself or if the numbers haven't changed, my understanding is that we have 230 English speaking units, 103 French speaking units and 17 Portuguese speaking.

I discussed our work load with Jan and suggested the following: we could split the English speaking units evenly. Then because I have the stronger background in French, I could handle the French units. That would leave only the 17 Portuguese speaking units and with neither one of us speaking Portuguese, I thought Jan should learn Portuguese. How hard can it be! There's only 17 units! (Her response is unprintable and best left to your imagination!)

My first job after graduating from BYU was with the International Division of the Carnation Milk Company. (Surely you remember the canned condensed milk from "contented cows".) I was the marketing manager for Africa and the Middle East. I traveled to many of these same countries but that was back in the early 70's. I suspect that there will have been many changes in the past 30 years. I am looking forward to seeing what can change in that period of time. I think that in some of the more backward countries of Africa, I'm not going to notice too much improvement.

Our Future Home in Johannesburg

We know where we'll be living. It's in the same building as the first 9 months of our last mission. The apartment complex is called Dukes Court and was built in the 50's. There are just over one hundred "flats" in this complex and the Church owns about 25% of them. We understand that the church's demand for flats in this building is so great that they have had to lease some additional flats and that we will be assigned to one of the leased units.

Last time we lived in flat number 313. This time we will be one floor lower in flat 219. As a point of interest floors in South Africa are counted like they are in Europe. So by U.S. measuring we will actually be on the 3rd floor of the building. This building is a secure builing in that the doors on both ends of the building are locked and are manned by security guards 24x7. Parking is below ground and is also security controlled with electric gates.

Across the street from our building is a very nice small indoor mall, where one can do their primary shopping for for all the basics. The Killarney Mall has a very nice PickNPay supermarket. It also has some fast food restaurants and some nicer restaurants. There is a drug store, a stationery store, a hardware store, electronics store, clothing stores, and typical shops that one would find in a mall in the U.S.

Going back to an area that we know will be nice in that we know what to expect and know how to take care of our basic needs right away. The bad thing is that this area is very close to downtown and as such is more dangerous than the suburbs where we spent the last 9 months of our previous mission.

Blog Invitations

As we get closer to actually being in Africa, hopefully this blog will have a wider interest. Several more persons have been invited to join the blog. Since the blog is by invitation, I need to have email addresses of those interested in order to add their names to the invited list.

The blog is primarily for family and friends and friends of family and friends of friends or those who might like to know more about our special assignment and our life and travels in Africa. We welcome your comments, suggestions and questions.

If you have other email addresses that would like to be added, you can email them to me at robertdtaylor@digis.net or add them as comments in this blog.

If you have been invited and feel insulted that we think that you might be interested, please feel to call 1-800-weluvu2 and register your complaint. Just kidding!!

The Dean Taylor Family with Grandma Dowlin

Grandma Dowlin with Dean, Jennifer, Dowlin, Mercedes, Brittney, Zachary and Olivia. (if I didn't spell everyone's name correctly, it's because I'm under stress!!)

We enjoyed a great visit with each of them on our California and Arizona trip.

Truck for Sale

Another sad day to come! I've put up the truck for sale (this is a "bakkie" in South African parlance). I've really enjoyed this vehicle and it has served us well in our travels. But it'll give me something to dream about in Africa - a new truck when I get home. Do you know anybody who wants to buy a lovingly cared for truck??

More pictures available by clicking on this lead or if that doesn't work, copy and paste it into your address line.

http://picasaweb.google.com/bobtaylor55/MyTruck

Time is getting short

Where have we been? What have we been doing? When we initially submitted our mission paperwork we felt that we had all the time in the world!! Not so!

It's been 6 weeks since our last post and we've been busy. Our last trip to California and Arizona to say goodbye to family and friends. That was tough and it was just a taste of the goodbyes yet to come.

We've now completed our series of inoculations for Africa. Yellow Fever has been a nasty shot for both of us making us feel really yukkie! Four Typhoid pills with live virus has been a knock out punch for me. Jan took the shot with the dead virus and didn't have any problems at all. I opted for the pills with the live virus because they said it was cheaper and the effect lasted longer. It seemed like a "no brainer". Bad decision. I got through the first two pills just fine then the third pill was last Sunday morning. I had aches and pains in every joint like a bad case of the flu. Spent Sunday trying to sleep it off. Tuesday morning was the 4th and final pill. WOW! Everything was fine for the first hour then I'm standing at the mirror shaving and it felt like someone kicked me in the back. I could hardly get around on Tuesday. Wednesday was the 4th of July and I was totally dibilitated. I had to use Jan's old cane to get around and so Jan started me on pain pills. With those I survived Thursday and then when things didn't get better I thought I'd better get to a doctor. Friday the doctor started me on a six day regimen of pain pills and muscle relaxers. It's now Sunday and except for the pills making me a little loopy I feel that I'm getting back to normal. My mother before her death in her 90's used to say with all of her aches and pains that "getting old wasn't for sissies". Well I can add that getting ready for a mission to Africa "isn't for sissies either".