Yesterday the blog only allowed as such to be posted, so here were the rest of our journey from Johannesburg to Pretoria.

More farm housing in the distance.....

One huge operation with its own dammed up water.....

With its own facilities of something......

Over a mountain range, a trainer pointed out, this will be where our rest of three months training to be, “Mpamalunga....  Hmm, not totally a village!?!? It was more of a town to me......

And it has a long spread in between hills..... don’t know what the elevation can be here.....

Hope this road will not be the only way in and out of the region Mpamalunga......

Our buses and trucks continued up the mountain, along the side of Loskop Dam, we checked in at Forever Resort for our first week of orientation training.  The majority of work were for all paper works with local government and banking be done before we moved in to each of our own host families after this week.

Our trainers had arrived ahead of us and preforming the Welcoming Ceremony dances and singings for the first introduction of the local culture to us the trainees.  

The rest of the day we were busying to recognize our room and this resort; to know more our roommates assigned before the dinner time.

 

For my roommate and I were too busy to get our rooms squared inside a log cabin, we did not had time to walk around before sun got down at 5:30 and the sky got really dark after 6pm.  

The dinner time was 6 to 8pm, on our way back from dinner we got lost..... It took us many rounds only got back at a same point at somewhere.... until one security person with big hand light found us and escorted us back to our #18 log house, in surrounded by the numbers of 26, 19, 17, 38....    

Thus, I decided that I will pack my dinner at the lunch time, and picked up after the end of training classes, to eat in #18.

 For when we were lost:  1, we were once so glad to have seen a sign from distance, only came close to see it said:

“NO CAMPING.  Be aware of Hippopotamus and Crocodiles.”.... If it was in the day light, I could assure you, I would have run away at my top speed.....

2. In the dark, my roommate did fallen once, with nothing hurt, but enough for me to quit walk in the dark.

As you can see from this map, that we got the night after.  No one told us to walk on the woody, dry grass land, on the straight line, to and from #18 and Conference Room and restaurant.

 

The next morning, in the day light, I can see this Resort is huge, might have hundred log houses along side from the water of the dam.  Some has boats parked at the front of cabins. 

There was a huge RV parking area too.

Some trees are still blooming in these later summer days.....

Some fruit from trees were still can be found on the ground.....  This nut of some sort was so pretty.... One PCV-Trainee creaked it open, the inside looked like walnut..... believe it was not for human to eat..... for it is truly too pretty, I think.....     Cheng  8/21/2023       Posted 8/24/2023