Adjusting to South Africa
I met a new friend as all of us were playing outside a few days ago. His name is Siyabonga (pronounced C – YA – BONGA). He is 12 years old and in 6th grade. He is one of the farm hand kids and his mom is Esther. Siyabonga is on holiday (off of school) for 2 weeks. Since Esther works everyday in the kitchen, we will see him everyday for the next two weeks. He shows up at our door at 7:30 in the morning and leaves at 5:00 when they go home, so we get to play with him all day. He has a sister name Thobile (TOE – B – LAY). She is very shy and won’t talk to us yet, but we keep trying to talk to her.
Here is a picture of Siyabonga and us going swimming.
After swimming we were all walking to the obstacle course, and we were talking and none of us noticed that we almost stepped on another snake. It is called a puff adder. They don’t move much, they are thick and not very long. Once we realized it was a snake, we all jumped back and Tate yelled for Sydney. Sydney was the one who killed the spitting cobra, so we knew he would help.
We found out later, it is the snake that kills the most people in Africa. Many local South Africans have told us that the puff adder can strike you twice by the time you say the number one. Thank God none of us got hurt, and we all know to watch where we are going, and never touch any snake.
The other thing that I wanted to tell you about is that we were playing outside yesterday and all of a sudden it started blowing, and in less than a minute, it was pouring down rain.
Mom and Dad are still adjusting to the driving, and when we went on our walk tonight this was the sky.
Love, Austin
heavenishomeforus.com 
Wow so glad you met a friend. I will share this with the hands and feet class at church. Those snakes are crazy. We love you all so much 😄😄😄🌍