Since we arrived in South Africa, we have been almost entirely dependent on our Garmin to get us from point A to point B. And we have found that neither point A nor point B are ever entirely clear. South Africa is a developing country with a huge mixture of dense city, towns in progress, townships that have just sprung up all over without a hint of planning, and then a lot of open country where nothing is named. We have classes and responsibilities in all of these to which we have to arrive somehow.
One of the seminaries and one of the institutes we visit is in this township, just a block or so from here--it's really important in those areas to know just where you are going.
This is our Garmin's version of the Mission Training Center
where we go for our meetings, materials, training, etc.
We eventually found that there is a way to overcome the
multiple address problem though—each area has a postal code so if when you put
the address into the Garmin you include the postal code you will get to the
right Phillips Avenue. But speaking of postal codes, remember this is the
country that just lived through a five-month mail strike and didn’t even seem
to notice. I think the only people I heard complain were the American
missionaries who were naïve enough to expect the postal system to work. So if
these people with addresses apparently don’t use their postal system, how many
do you guess know their postal code? If you guessed almost 0, then you would be
correct.
I can’t deny though that the Garmin has provided a lot of
scenic adventures. One beautiful morning we traveled outside of Tzaneen to find
a business for which we clearly had the correct address. They sell products
worldwide and even have a web site for crying out loud (http://www.kaross.co.za) But because the craftsmen in the business are native men and women, the
facility is where their workers are—far out of town in the middle of a lot of
orange groves and chicken farms. The Garmin knew exactly where the business
was, but alas could not determine how a vehicle might get to said address. We traveled
through some beautiful bush country and were not deterred when the Garmin
assured us that the business was on our right (maybe hidden behind the dense
brush?) Several hours later, after inventing our own alternative route, we
finally reached Kaross, the manufacturer of the gorgeous hand embroidery. Sadly it was closed but the drive had been beautiful.
On occasion our difficulty is multiplied by human error. This
morning we left our flat at 6:30a to inspect the apartments of eight sets of
elders. The furthest were about two and a half hours away, but they were all to
be in their apartments until 1:00p and we had carefully plotted out the
coordinates so we knew the path we should follow for efficiency. At 11:30, five
hours later, we finally found the first flat. We had approached the incorrect
coordinates from three different directions on dirt roads with huge potholes.
Finally
we began to suspect that it wasn’t our approach but the coordinates that we
were given that were causing our difficulty. But before that was confirmed by
several calls to the elders, I turned on the carefully budgeted cellular data
on the iPhone and found the address with Google Maps. Yippeeee! Google Maps was
somehow sorting through satellite data to direct us onto actual roads to the
given address and after another half hour or so, we heard the welcome words
“your destination on your left.” Except this was the destination that was on
our left! J
This is 84 Park Crescent Drive, where our Garmin claims that two fine
young elders live. What do you think missionary moms?
And below are some of the places we have visited unexpectedly, compliments of our GPS system.