Isandlwana!

So this is the namesake geographical feature of the area. It is at the
base of this that the British made camp and were then decimated by Zulus
before retreating to Rorke's Drift. Now, it's just a rocky protuberance
that is fun to climb up. Actually, at the base of the other side is
Katie's village. Last Sunday I hiked to the top along with two other
PCVs, Chad and Katie. It was a gorgeous day and the view was pretty
cool from the top too. This is only 8km away from where my village is
for reference.

Bucket Brewing!

Some of you may be wondering how I have been keeping myself busy. One
project I began when I first arrived was to brew my own wine. Now
obviously I do not have access to all the fancy equipment that one would
use back home so I improvised a little. I decided the simplest (and
cheapest) set up would be a bucket with a blanket tied on top to vent
the resultant CO2 from fermentation. So I boiled together a bunch of
orange peels, 2 bananas, 1 pineapple, and 750 grams of raisins with 20
liters of water and a couple kilos of brown sugar. I let that cool down
in the bucket then added about 12 packets of bakers yeast the next day.
8 weeks later and you can see me here siphoning out the finished wine.
I ended up with about 12 liters of wine that really tastes pretty good
for coming out of a bucket! I will be entering a sample into the
homebrew competition at In-Service Training coming up in December.

Mangeni Falls!

Braai Time on top of Mangeni Falls, about 30k from Isandlwana

Fugitives Drift

Spent the night at Fugitives Drift and thought I would share some of the scenery. The fellow in the hat is Mr Ben Henderson, CEO of the David Rattray Foundation. We will be coordinating with him for the next two years.

. . .can you hear me now

Spoke too soon

It appears I may have spoke too soon on the weather (and integrity of my
roof..). Serious thunderstorms this weekend. They tend to come
quickly, dump rain like I have never seen before for about 30 min then
move on, typically accompanied by a good bit of thunder and lightning.
Though on Sunday I was taken aback by the size of the hail that was
raining down.

Good Morning America!

I am now ONLINE! Cell service is hardly anything to write home about
though, never thought I would see the day when I would miss Comcast (and
verizon for that matter). I
have been at site 4 weeks now and much has happened. I have settled
into my rondavel and more importantly have noted that the roof is mostly
waterproof. We are transitioning into summer here and with summer comes
the rain. I keep hearing it rains a lot here but have yet to see
anything that serious. The wind can be quite formidable at times but
that is it for now. As far as work goes I have completed my first round
of teacher interviews at Ntalantala, the high school, and will finish
the rest of the interviews at the primary school Ncepheni next week. I
am about to go into Nqutu here soon to get groceries and kerosene. It
is about a 25min combie ride into town from here. Nqutu has everything
you need but nothing you want, as they say around here. The grocery
store is not much different from one you may find in the states and
there are variety stores like Pep and Jetmart that sell all sorts of
stuff. There are also 'china shops' that also seem to sell everything
(again, everything you need, nothing you want). Ill attach some pics to
give you an idea of the area. It may seem rural (and it is) but luckily
it is quite pcv-dense. There are three other PCVs about 5miles due
west, another one 4miles south, and 3 more near Nqutu. Feel free to
engage me with your questions and comments. PEACE