Day 3: Durban

Today was a good day. The weather was perfect.

We started off the day with some breakfast at the mission. It was a nice and quiet meal outdoors. We had eggs, sausage, tomato, apples, muffins, and some bread. The people here are very welcoming. It's been an awesome place to stay.

After breakfast we helped unload some donated bread out of a truck. Soon after, we left for the main part of Durban with our new friends, Tony and Rafael, and passed out some jackets (aka jerseys) and blankets to some homeless people in the city. During this, we ran into a bit of a hectic situation.

A lot of people started to crowd the van and were getting out of hand, but Tony, our driver, did a good job of getting us out of there. Later, he explained to us that the people who fight over the clothing and crowd the van are the ones who are using the clothes and blankets for alcohol and drug money. He said that we need to find the people who actually need these supplies. And we did. It was a good experience.

Tony decided to give us a little tour of the coast after we were done passing out the supplies. He took us to a boardwalk area and dropped us off to explore. We went to some shops and later, walked around for a while next to the ocean. It was a short, but very enjoyable walk.

After the walk, Tony drove us to the North Beach skate park where we had about an hour long skate session. This park was great, but it was really crowded so Mark didn't get to do as much as he wanted. We still had fun and got a little video recording done.

Tony then drove us to and dropped us off at Gateway, a huge, huge, huge mall in Durban; the largest mall in the southern hemisphere, actually. This mall never ended. I honestly can't say we got through it all. Kyle and Mark had milkshakes at a place called Wimpy's and rubbed it in my face. Literally, they rubbed the milkshake all over my face. It got weird. I had what I think was called a Classic Brikkut Sandwich, which was an egg and ham sandwich. I also found a nice hooded jacket...at Wimpy's...that place had everything. Just kidding; I found the jacket at another store.

Tinus picked us up from the mall later and brought us back to the Mission in Tongaat. Here's a cool history fact: The house we are staying at is an old plantation house. It was owned by a man named Tongaat. The town we are staying in is named after him. Anyways, we got back to the house and had some awesome sandwiches that Tinus saved for us. We made jokes and became less cranky as we filled our stomachs.

It is so awesome to be a part of this trip. I'm going to get some sleep now.

P.S. Mark had a little surprise for us tonight that he hid most of the day. I'm going to hide it from the readers of this post because I can't remember the whole name of the surprise.