Ngiyahamba ePitoli!

For the past week I have been in Pretoria facilitating Life Skills training to the latest class of PCVs. Pretoria is 10 hours and a world away. It takes 2 public taxis, a ride on the metro, and a ride on the new Gautrain! Follow me on my journey.

The first leg is from my village to town. Taxis run pretty frequently along the road through my village in the morning. It takes about 30 minutes to get to the taxi rank in Nqutu. 

This taxi rank in Nqutu will take you to a number of towns around KZN. Unfortunately there is no taxi to Pretoria so we must go to Germiston first. There is also no schedule so you must wait until the taxi is full. Sometimes that is 10 minutes, sometimes that is 3 or 4 hours!

Your typical South African public taxi

Five-and-a-half hours later we arrive in Germiston, a suburb of Johannesburg. From Germiston we board The Metro. 

Not all of the doors close . . .

A couple of stops later we arrive at the Gautrain station. 

Quite a nice train! We need to transfer trains once but after about an hour we arrive in Pretoria only 3 minutes from the backpackers!

The Happiest Cheeseburger. Ever

The Mega Mac. How has this not caught on at McDonalds back home?? It should go without saying that there is no McDonalds in my village so I must have been in Pretoria. Sure enough, we just completed our Mid Service Training. It was great to see other members of my class, most of whom I have not seen since last December. We had some great sessions and decompressed a little from our first year. The hot showers were welcomed and necessary.
But that is behind us now as I am back at site. Term 4 has begun and that means Matric! All 12th grade students must take an exit exam in order to graduate from high school. This exam is called the Matric and will stretch the majority of the 4th term. What that means for me is no more Life Sciences class. We will have about a weeks worth of review in November but until then the students will be reviewing for their other exams. That gives me time to focus on my computer classes and plan for next year.
There have been some great strides made at my primary school regarding the computer lab. Educators are finally feeling comfortable enough to come in on their own and utilize the computers for research and class activities. This has been the culmination of nearly a years effort. Well worth it. Classes at the high school in Isandlwana are also going well, as are the Saturday principal's workshops.
I have nearly completed Shaka's new dog house so stay posted for pictures on that!

The Saddest Cheeseburger in Pretoria

All Hail Shaka!

I would like to introduce uShaka. I found one of his brothers at school the other day and could not pass up on the low price of R10. He has been welcomed into my family, despite some of my sisters being deathly afraid of all five pounds of him. For the meantime he is living with me but this weekend I will be starting construction on his house. He will get either a small rondavel or a 4-corner. Tomorrow I will be making the bricks!

Grade 12 Life Sciences

As we approach the end of the school year it is time for review. I have been team-teaching grade 12 Life sciences at Ntalantala all year. It is a class of 38 learners and akin to a high school bio class.

Here are the learners, this is not our usual classroom but one of three mobile classrooms the school uses until the new building is completed.

Reed Festival

Last weekend was part 2 of the annual Reed Festival. Each year all of the virgins in zululand assemble for the King carrying reeds. They present these reeds (and themselves) to the King, after which he picks a new bride. Times have changed so he no longer chooses a new bride every year, but the ceremony persists. I had the chance to attend the second round of the festival that takes place at the royal palace in Ingwavuma.

We were warmly welcomed to the event with VIP passes. Naturally.

Here you can see the King Goodwill Zwelithini . This year marks his 40th year of reign.

It was hard to keep count of all the virgins but here is the collection of reeds.

Highlight of the festival: eating hippo at the palace.

Biggest Effing Spider

I made friends with this little guy last night during a run to the latrine. Probably the last time I ever do that at night. Ever. I wanted to fetch a ruler to measure him but decided not to risk losing a hand to this beast. Best guess is 4 inches tip-to-tip. Kudos to anyone who can identify the species.

Summer Cuts

It seems there is no word for spring in isiZulu. We have just emerged from a chilly winter to find summer waiting. With summer come the summer hair cuts. Chad and I decided to shed some of our winter coats last weekend at Katie's place. The close cuts will also afford us a better aerodynamic coefficient in anticipation for our persistence hunt.

Follow by Email!

Are you tired of checking my blog and NOT finding any updates? Do you wish there was a way for my blog to TELL you when I blog? Well today is your lucky day as it seems there is a new feature available: Follow by Email. If you enter your email in the box to the right, my blog will ostensibly notify you every time I post a new entry. If you try it and it works, leave a comment so I know! Of course in order for it to work I actually need to blog so I will try to keep up on my end.

Chicken, it's what's for dinner

Less than $10!

MILKY WAY!

As you may have guessed, I live in an area with very little light pollution. I have been taking advantage of this to practice some astro photography. Here is the resultant image of 7 or 8 exposures stitched together. I can GUARANTEE there will be more like this to come!

Drakensbergs in July

It was the fourth of July weekend here and I was lucky enough to be accompanied by Brielle for a 3 day hike into Lesotho! Whereas over the Christmas break I hiked to the Sani Pass via Giant's Castle, this time we decided to approach the Sani Pass from the south. We began inside the Cobham nature reserve, right outside of Underberg. From there we made it half-way up the escarpment to the Gxalingenwa cave. The weather was perfect and the cave quite cozy. The next day we made the push up the escarpment between Hodgson's Peaks. The last 1500 meters was by far the toughest as we gained 600+ meters of elevation! Nothing we couldn't handle though, we made it to the top with just minutes to spare and found a nice spot to set up camp. Soon after the sun set we were greeted by a devilish wind and what from the inside of the tent sounded like rain. It was bitterly cold and the "rain" did not stop once. At first light there appeared to be something accumulating underneath the fly of our tent. It was ice. The rain was actually snow. There was a good six inches on the ground before we even got moving. Luckily our final destination was only several miles away. We packed up and made it over the next pass in a veritable whiteout, eventually making it down to the Sani Pass Chalet. I never thought I would be snowed in on the Fourth of July, especially not while I was in Africa.

*click on picture to see gallery

Wildlife

Since I have been in South Africa I have been lucky enough to spend time in a number of game preserves. Here are some pictures I snapped in my time here. So far I have been to the Pilanesberg National Park, Hluhluwe-Imfolozi Park (twice), St Lucia Protected wetlands, as well as the Nambiti Private Game Preserve. Kruger is next. . .
*click on picture to see gallery

35mm Fun

When my mom and sister visited they were kind enough to bring my Pentax K1000 along with them. Over the course of their visit I snapped some pictures and only recently had them developed. Enjoy!

*click on picture to see gallery

New Favorite Snack

It's a South African original: Kaas en stroop samie. It will play well into my new low-fat diet.

Lambchop!

This is my new pet, Lambchop. I adopted her a couple weeks ago after my family ate her mom. Luckily I am not Lambchops sole support system, she has an extended family of sheep that she pals around with most of the time.

Hard to be sneaky in Zululand

A couple weeks ago we were blessed with a long weekend. Looking around the homestead that weekend I recognized that it would be a great time to do some exploring. I looked for the highest hill in view and set off for an overnight adventure. Now from the pictures I have posted, one could easily come to the conclusion that this is a very rural area and that would be correct. That being said, you would be hard pressed to walk in any direction and not run into a village after awhile. After skirting around several such villages I made my way up to the top of the hill I was shooting for, only to realize that it was directly above another hidden village, Mlahane. Confident in my ability to blend in to the surroundings, I pitched my tent in a wooded area overlooking Mlahane and Magaga just beyond that. I had hardly finished pitching my tent when I realized I was discovered. Allow me to paint the scene from the perspective of the youngsters that happened upon my camp. You are bringing the cows in, as you do every night before sun down. You are hurrying because the sun is setting earlier and it is getting colder and colder at night. As you are walking down the hill to return home something catches your eye. Something is contrasting with the prevailing greens and grays of the hillside. You don’t believe your eyes, is that a white person?? In the woods behind my village?? Time to investigate. The last time white people set up camp in this area was 1879 and it did not end well, so you go get your older sister first. When you return you see an unshaven American man who speaks your language enough to tell you that he walked all day to get there and planned on sleeping in some kind of plastic house he brought with him. Not only does he not seem worried about snakes or the cold, there is a sense that he is thrilled to be sleeping outside…What do you do? Luckily your older sister has the phone number of the American woman who teaches at her high school. The phone call Katie soon received started something like this: “Khetiwe, I am very worried. There is an American man who is sleeping in the woods. It is very cold. I am afraid that he needs help. I want to bring him food and offer him a place to stay. What should I do?” Lucky for me Katie had heard I was off exploring and assured the girl that everything was fine, that walking up mountains and sleeping in the woods is just a cultural thing.
I pieced all of this together after the fact. From my perspective, some kids came to say hi, I told them I was going to sleep here and that I only live a couple miles away. Twenty minutes later I get a phone call from Katie, “Are you sleeping in the woods? Okay, just making sure.” Love Zululand

These Colors Don't Bleed

Ever since I moved into my rondavel I just couldn't feel like I could call the place home. There was always something missing, a certain je ne sais quoi. I had my terrible towel, I had my warm sheets, heck, I even had a shower! Yet something didn't feel right...Well it may remain one of those unsolved mysteries like Sasquatch or Justin Beiber. All I know is that after my mom and sister visited I felt much better. I now feel like there is a presence that was not present before. As if something were hanging over me, guiding my every decision...

Work aside

Work aside things are pleasantly calm around here. Municipal elections were held at Ncepheni Primary on Wednesday. Everything went off without a hitch, community members even remarked to me about the great turnout! Despite being asked by anyone and everyone if I had voted yet, I kept my distance and instead attended a pick-up soccer match near the schools.
While most of those reading this are anxiously ushering in the spring, here the cold is moving in and moving in quick. The days are also noticeably shorter. The sun isn’t rising until half past six and is setting closer and closer to five. The consolation is that when the sun is up it stays warm enough. The most disorienting part of the change in seasons is that with the shorter days and cold, I am in an October/November mindset. I will walk to school on a cold windy morning and think, “Halloween must be right around the corner. Better start thinking about costumes.”

Yes, that is a real elephant

Yes, I am riding an elephant. In April, I was lucky enough to be visited by mom and sister. One of the first things we did was drive to the nearest game park that would allow us on top of these gentle giants. The ride was nice but the best part was getting to feed and interact with the elephants afterwards. It was difficult to see mom and sis leave after their 10-day adventure here but it would have been even more difficult if I didn’t get to see them at all.
Following their departure things got back to normal around here. April marked the beginning of term 2 in the schools and with it the beginning of my involvement next door at the senior school, Ntalantala. I am now team teaching grade 12 Life Science with Ms Dlamine. I will be in the classroom with her 3-4 times a week, helping to plan lessons and sharing different classroom management strategies. It is very exciting for me to be immersed in the world of biology again. So far we have covered human evolution and are finishing up the nervous system in anticipation for mid-year exams in June.
I am still actively working in the computer lab at the Ncepheni. At the moment I am reorganizing my efforts towards working with the educators and selecting a core group of learners to pilot a computer skills package I am putting together.
Some of the more exciting news to come about recently is the selection of Ntalantala for a new rammed-earth building! For a great overview on the type of building that will be built, search on youtube for “Skills Transfer Project.” The building showcased there is just a couple valleys over at Buhlebamangwe Primary. I am very excited, as are the rest of the educators, at the prospect of the new building. Even more exciting is that the building will afford the school room to install a computer resource center. In anticipation for this I am identifying educators to begin training so that we can hit the ground running once the computers arrive.

New Blackboa- err, Greenboards!

I have been meaning to report on this for some time now. Last month, thanks in part to the DRF, Katie and I spent the weekend repainting chalkboards at Siyanda Primary School in Isandlwana. Katie arranged for a number of learners from her girls leadership club to come in one Saturday morning. Drawing on my experience painting houses in Pittsburgh during the summers in years past, I directed the kids in the mantra that makes East End Painting Co one of the best: Prep-Prime-Paint! Whereas many chalkboards you may be familiar with are made of black slate, the variety most often found in the schools here is thin board with a couple layers of chalkboard paint. The learners showed their ingenuity by using rulers and old scissors to scrape the boards of their previous coats while others used steel wool to leave a smooth finish. After that a good layer of primer went down (in this case it was pink). The next day we returned to add the first layer of green chalkboard paint followed by a final layer on the third day. In total we were able to finish 4 of the worst chalkboards and the response from the teachers has been so positive we may have the learners return to do more!

Someone turns 21 = Dance Off!

I wish we had a dance competition when I turned 21. The idea is even more appealing when you find out that the guest of honor isn’t even expected to compete! The competition was among 10 local youth teams that I had been lucky enough to have seen in action before. Far from any of the dance competitions you may see on TV or at a bar, this was strictly traditional. The music was provided by the crowds that gathered to watch, who were directed to sing a variety of traditional favorites to keep the beat. As you can see in the pictures, one of the hallmarks of this dance is the high kick / foot stomp. If I spend the next year stretching I might be able to kick that high, in which case I might just enter the NFL as a punter. The winning team walked away with a goat and the two runners up made off with some cash. How you split up one goat amongst 25 teenagers…angaz