Three weeks in KwaZulu-Natal

Not a bad place to spend a couple of weeks.

 It's been a month since we last updated the blog and as usual so much has happened since we posted about our trip to the far east. Today I'm sitting on a balcony overlooking the Indian Ocean on the remote island of Mauritius, however before we go into the reason why we are here we need to go back a week or so and let you know what we have been upto since we left South Korea.

After our long flight, it took around 20 hours, what with two flights, one from Incheon to Dubai and the second into Johannesburg where we spent the night before catching the early flight to Durban which also sits on the Indian ocean in the north western corner of South Africa.

At the beach

We had been invited to speak at the E3 Initiative annual leaders conference in Pietermaritzburg, but before that and before we share about the amazing work that E3 are doing we spent two weeks in Durban staying in an AirBnB and renting a car which enabled us to venture further afield.

leaving a legacy in the sand!

As you'll know we lived for six and a half years in South Africa but only visited Durban at the start of our sabbatical in 2015, so it was great to be able to explore a new area of a country that we have grown to love. The AirBnB was wonderful, a small self contained flatlet, open plan bedroom, kitchen and lounge with a toilet and shower, overlooking the Indian Ocean with a pool and stunning garden.


We spent most of the time finding local beaches where we could sit and relax, reading our books or listening to podcasts, each morning we got up early, to beat the heat, and either went for a run along the front near Durban town or out at Umhlanga Rocks, a lovely and busy neighbourhood with good access to the beaches, a few bars and restaurants and a two and a half kilometer prom where we joined many runners and dog walkers each morning.

Our home in the trees

One morning we had the chance to meet up with an old friend who we had got to know in London and who had visited us at the Village of Hope before finding her passion at a charity in Durban. It was great to catch up and we are looking forward to seeing how a partnership might build as we seek to share the Leadership for Life programme into the leaders from around 150 local charities that her charity seeks to support.

Driving through the game park

As we had the car we used it to explore further up the coast to the seaside town of St Lucia, not to be confused with the Carribean island, where we spent a couple of nights in a tent which had been built on a platform in the trees of a local home. From that based we were able to take two drives, one to the west and one to the east of the Isimangaliso wetlands parks which sit at the edge of the town.


We've been on many safari's before, both in South Africa, Botswana, Zimbabwe and Uganda and we think we've seen most of the things we wanted to see during those trips, lions when we were on a walking safari in the Okavango Delta, Elephants at the Chobe river, Leopard in Kruger, Gorilla in Bwindi Impenetrable National Park in Uganda but nothing beats taking your own car and just driving through a national park at your own pace, enjoying the wildlife, no matter how great or small and spending time just being.

Spotting animals in their natural environment
(these are Zebra by the way! ;-) 

As always these precious times come to an end and after returning our car back to the airport after two weeks we were collected by our now friend Sinatra from E3, who was also picking up three other people, a Bishop from DR Congo, an ex-inmate from Kabwe where we have spent a few weeks working with Driven Ministries, and a Pastor also from Zambia. As we got into the car for what should have been an hour long journey to the conference center in Pietermaritzburg we were told that we were going to take a detour into the Zula homelands to share a meal with some local ladies who are part of an initiative that E3 supports.

New friends from Zambia and DR Congo

We are never ones to turn down a chance to see new places so it was great to go and share some time with these dear ladies who look after around 150 orphans, mainly losing their parents to the ravages of AIDS. Their heart for those in need was tangible but after singing a few songs, the Zulu language is very close to xHosa so we were able to join in with a couple of songs before we had to leave for our home for the next six nights.

Sharing a meal with ladies in KZN

Pietermaritzburg is a very lush, green but hilly part of South Africa and the conference center was set in some stunning woodland sitting above the busy city below. Upon arrival we learnt that a large tree had not only brought down a powerline but also damaged the generator which meant that we had no power for the first night and well into the next day where we were being joined by the 40 people who had come to join us at the conference from seven different African nations.

Sharing at the E3 Initiative Conference

We shared the Leadership for Life programme over the next three or so days, encouraging the pastors and those key members of the charities that were represented to change their thinking which could lead to them writing a new story for their lives, the life of their finances, their teams and their projects. We are certain that they all found the programme valuable and it was great to hear of the projects that they are setting out to do as they return home to either DR Congo, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Malawi, iSwati, Lesotho or different towns in South Africa.

Financial Management is a leadership issue

These people are truly involved and invested in their local communities, providing support to orphans or ladies and men suffering from domestic violence or human trafficking, and it was a privilege to spend an evening at a women's refuge in Pietermaritzburg, which is supported by E3, before we left.

As always we set up a WhatsApp group for people to share their stories and we are already hearing of how people are applying the leadership principles to bring tangible transformation into their own lives and we are looking into supporting E3 and those that they support with further interventions in the near future.

At Mandela's capture site

Following the week long conference we were put up at a lovely little guesthouse which not only allowed us to chillout for a while before we flew off to Mauritius, but also to get out and run, one thing that I had been doing from the hilly conference center each morning, and also explore the local area. On the Saturday afternoon we visited the site of Nelson Mandela's capture, a poignant place in history, not of just South Africa but the world and on the Sunday after sharing at the local church we took a longish journey to visit Spion Kop, the site of one of the most famous, or infamous, battles in the second Boer war, which saw the massacre of over 350 British Soldiers at the hands of a much weaker (in military personnel) Boer force.

Mass graves at Spion Kop

We visited over the weekend of Remembrance which really bought home the sacrifice that was made by these young men far away from home, but as with all wars one has to ask why does man come to the same old solution to work out our differences, a solution that only brings destruction and heartache for many with little or no change in the lives of those who we are seeking to either protect or conquer.

I did write a detailed Facebook post around that topic but can't seem to be able to link back to it here.

Anyways as we said we are now in Mauritius for near on four weeks and will provide a further update as and when we have news, however please keep a look out for our daily updates via FB and or Instagram and we send much love as we sign off.