Founder's Day/Elephant Riding

This picture was taken on Sarah's first walk on the Port Elizabeth beach! Pretty incredible.

I want to use this post to share some videos and pictures from our past weekend so you can get a taste of what we experienced!

On Friday, we celebrated Founder’s Day at the elementary school. VP Grey honored 138 years of education! A special program was created for the assembly, and me and Rachel's first graders performed a song they learned in music class!

Here is the video of their performance:

Weren't they great?!?

The song the students are singing is in Afrikaans which is a language spoken in South Africa that the children learn in school.

Our main source of excitement this weekend came from our trip to Elephant Back Safaris where we rode elephants! There are 3 elephants on the company's game reserve that are trained for riding .

 It may be the most touristy thing we do while we are here, but it was an experience I would never trade!

 It took us nearly two hours to get to the reserve and while the scenery was beautiful, it was not the most enjoyable of rides. At first we joked about it being like a roller coaster, but  it wasn't as funny when the whole ride ended up that way. The important thing is that we made it AND WE RODE AND FED ELEPHANTS!

Everything happened so quickly. We arrived at the center and before I knew it the guide was helping me onto an elephant and away we went!

It was a surreal experience! I could not stop smiling. 

The elephant was big (obviously) with rough skin that had very long hairs. The hairs are thick and probably would have hurt if I was not wearing pants. I want to add that the elephant's back bone poked into our rears while riding, but I felt very safe  because of how large the elephant is. He wasn't even a full grown elephant! He was only in his 20's. 

After the ride we got to take pictures with the elephants, walk with them through the bush, and at the end of the walk  we fed them! I felt rather attached to the elephants after feeding them. They were so sweet and are such  beautiful creatures. 

All three of us agree that it was an incredible experience that will remain one of our fondest memories here.

Here is an "up close and personal" video I took when we were walking with the elephants through the bush:

Our guide is the one who was talking in the video

The monkeys follow the elephants because they eat any leftover food. They were all over the area.

This was our cab driver- he also got to feed the elephants

The inside of an elephant's mouth :)

I want to add a small disclaimer- while we did spend our Saturday riding elelephants, our life in South Africa is NOTHING like the Lion King! Some of our South African friends have given us a hard time because many Americans view Africa through the stereotype of little water and wild animals roaming the streets. We are here to tell you that Africa is a  large and diverse continent as is the country of South Africa, and there are no lions roaming our streets! Just like each state in America has its own unique specialties, climate, and culture, so do the countries in Africa.

With that being said, I also would not have had the opportunity to ride elephants in Georgia, so we are glad to have taken advantage of the experience while we could! :)

Our lives and schedules are much more consistent now that it is me and Rachel's third week in the school. We have our own "daily grind" of school, planning, and home. Since I do not want to bore you all  with blog posts of our daily routines, my goal will be to blog once or twice a week with all of the interesting highlights.

We have begun to earn more of our class' respect at school. They realize now that we will be here for a while so it is in their best interest to make good choices while we are teaching! :)

I hope you all are doing well and enjoying your Tuesday afternoon! (South Africa is 6 hours ahead of Georgia so it is already dinner time for us!)

Thanks for reading!

Love,

Casey