Sunday July 24

London

Drew at St. Raphael's

Hello! 

Wonderful happy greetings from the St. Raphael's retreat center located in Faure, Cape Town!  Group 2 arrived to a warm welcome from the rest of the singers.  The retreat center is a really nice campus of buildings surrounded by a tall large gate.  

 

Rachael by entrance to dining room

The girls are in one building - two girls per room, joined in the middle with a large comfortable common room and shared bathrooms and showers.  Across the way (a short stone's throw) is the building that houses the kitchen plus two bedrooms with Ellen and Jane.  Around the back is a third building where the boys and the rest of the chaperones stay.  Each building has a nice common room where the singers hang out, have meetings, and play.  Right now I'm listening to the rehearsal in the little chapel.  We have a wonderful staff of people who make our meals and give us hugs.  :)  Ask your kids about "Mama Africa" (as she wants us to call her)...just lovely.

View from St. Rafael's

 

As you may have heard via email, internet connect time is not as regular as we would like.  I will do my best to post daily at least, please check back often.

And now a note from Gwen, today's blogger  (I sat with Gwen and Gabe on the plane, cool kids!)

Hello!

It’s currently 15:58 (3:58pm) here in Cape Town, South Africa on Sunday, July 24. Everyone is completely confused as to what day it is because of all the time changes, but we double-checked. That means back home in Boston, it’s about 9 am on Sunday morning. In other words, while you all at home are getting ready for church, sleeping in, checking the news, or checking the latest standings on the Tour de France, we’ve all safely arrived in Africa, eaten breakfast (those of us who arrived this morning have eaten two), moved in to a local retreat center, taken walks, taken showers, eaten lunch, and are currently waiting for the youths of a local youth group to arrive for some bonding time. Overall, it’s already been amazing.

In order to get all 38 singers to Africa with proper supervision, we had to travel in two groups. I was in Group B, which left Logan Airport around 11pm on Friday, July 22. Although we were a day behind Group 1, there were our own adventures to be had, mostly including a day in London, England, in which we had a layover between flights. I sat on the flight from Boston to London between Katie and Daniel, and we watched the red sunrise come over the water—most likely the only sunrise we will ever see at 2:30 am—as the woman in front of us repeatedly told us to lower our voices because she was “trying to sleep.” Laughing, we enjoyed our sleepless night of seat-changes and popping ears. Later, the three of us would fall asleep on a 45-minute subway ride from Piccadilly Circus to Heathrow Airport in London. It was a great day, but we were all so tired that we didn’t exactly get the most out of our day-trip in Europe. At one point, Katie and I spent half an hour sitting on the steps of a restaurant where I told a Spanish girl she looked like someone I knew, not knowing if she even knew what I was saying. She assured me in her Spanish accent that she did, and we said our goodbyes in order to go meet up with the other 8 singers and two chaperones that were also in Group B.  Our flight to Cape Town, South Africa left Heathrow Airport at 18:30 (7:30pm).  I was asleep before the plane even lifted off the ground.