Thanksgiving
This past thanksgiving I was the proud host of about 15 people. There were 9 volunteers from around Mpumlanga Province, and 6 South Africans (my host parents, 3 co-workers, and a volunteers host brother). Everyone brought a dish to pass, and the menu included turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, fried rice, stuffed mushrooms, brussel sprouts, corn bread, bruschetta, beets, cake and pie. Considering my kitchen capabilities, everything was served decently warm and was delicious!
When I first came to the village, my co-workers had often wondered if I could cook (due to the high prevalence of white people having in-house help who cook for them). It was a bit difficult to explain that most people in the States DONT have in-house help, and that I had been cooking for myself for awhile. Over the past 2 years I had made simple things (omelettes, banana bread, cookies) and brought them into work to prove myself. Needless to say, Thanksgiving finally laid to rest this notion that I couldnt cook. My co-workers want another Thanksgiving feast prior to me leaving. The 4kg turjey was only about R100, so I will have to go check for another one next time I am in town! Hell, I will buy one just for me and live off the leftovers for the next 2 months!
COS
In early December the remaining ten people in my group went to Pretoria for our final training. COS (Close of Service) was the last time for many of us to come together as a group and look back on our service. It was great to get together one last time with everyone. I have put in an application to COS about 2 weeks early, on March 17th (our official date is April 1st), but I am still waiting on approval from the Country Director. Hopefully I will know soon!
December Holidays
From mid December to mid January every year South Africa essentially shuts down and goes on holiday. The cities are deserted, and holiday accommodation is booked up months in advance. After some last minute changes, myself and another volunteer went down to Warner Beach, south of Durban. It was great to be able to spend Christmas on the beach. Christmas Eve we went SCUBA diving on the Aliwal Shoal, considered one of the ten best dive sites in the world. I was really hoping to see my third species of shark for 2010. Alas, it was not to be! I will have to content myself with 2 species in 2010! We did see a turtle right as we were about to get in, a small ray, a giant star fish, and plenty of really amazing fish. I was a little scared to dive again after so long (2 years) since my last dive, but after a few problems getting down I did fine. I blew through my oxygen really fast, but still surfaced with the group. Warner Beach as a town was a bit of a disappointment (I think anything would have been after Tofo), and the backpacker was sort of weird; all families and not the usual young travelers that I have come to expect. For Christmas we ate a meal provided by the backpacker; curried lamb and duck, and some veg. It was delicious!
A few days after Christmas we were expecting to meet up with some volunteers in Lesotho. We took a night bus from Durban back to Pretoria; not even 15 minutes outside of Durban the bus broke down(I think exploded is a better way to put it; there was a loud pop under my seat and then smoke billowing from the rear tires). Luckily the company just sent us another bus (rather than a mechanic to try and fix the problem). I am delighted to report that that should hopefully be my last night-bus experience EVER!!
Due to a late start f rom Pretoria(one volunteer forgot her passport at site and had to go back and get it), we drove to Clarens, a town in the Eastern Free State just north of the border with Lesotho. It’s a small town with a lot of little shops and TWO breweries (this is amazing for South Africa)! Since we arrived in Clarens after dark we pretty much ate pizza (at the Nottingham Road Brewery) and went to bed. The next morning we walked around a bit and then crossed into Lesotho via the Camdoonspoort (Camel Rock in Afrikaans) border. Lesotho was the easiest border crossing ever. We didn’t have to pay a road tax for our car, or even register it! A few hours into Lesotho we stopped at some ancient dinosaur footprints. Apparently there are the markings from three different species in the rock at this particular site, but two were completely covered under water, and the third had to be scrapped out for us to see it. “Covered in water” certainly foreshadowed the rest of this trip!
We arrived to the Maseru backpackers to find that the lodge was out of water (toilets, showers, taps, etc). We went to dinner at an Indian restaurant, and discovered that Lesotho’s Maluti beer cans look exactly like Swaziland’s Sibebe beer cans. I bet they’re brewed by the same company…
The next afternoon we left Maseru and go on the road to Semonkong. We were booked to stay at Semonkong lodge in the mountains from the 30th until the 2nd, and to take a donkey pub crawl for New Years Eve. Roughly 50-60 Km’s outside of Maseru we noticed a clump of cars sitting on the road. Thinking it was an accident of some kind, we pulled over and got out of the car. It was an accident for sure, but not of the automobile variety; a flash flood had come down the river and was covering the low bridge. The water was quite high, and moving very fast. Our tiny clown car was never going to make it across. We were told to wait about 3 hours and the water would go down. We climbed a mountain next to the river and watched a large delivery truck attempt the crossing. He made it, but his giant wheels were completely covered. Next a Basotho man crossed on a horse. After that the minibus taxis (Combis) started crossing at a pretty fast pace. It started raining again, and at about this time we noticed that the river behind us had started spilling over the bridge immediately behind us. We had to leave or we would be trapped on a tiny peninsula of land! We made our way back to the nearest town and found a restaurant/shebeen to wait out the storm.
After about an hour and half we headed back to the river. The water level had dropped considerably, and was no where near as fast. However, it still looked slightly too high for the clown car. We hung out and watched how other cars made it. It appeared that the water was no longer the biggest problem; the raging river had washed away a bit of the concrete road on the far side of the bridge, and left a divot that our car would not be able to manage. Some Afrikaaners in a Jeep helpfully offered to cross before us and tow us out should we get stuck. This was a nice offer, but what if the bridge flooded again on our way back? Eventually we decided not to risk the divot and the 70KMs of untarred road on the opposite side of the bridge. After making a phone call, we found that another lodge about 3 hours away still had space for us that night. Off we went!
We arrived at night and in the rain, after 7 Kms of dirt road (Through a pass. In a Picanto.). Since I had been slogging through muddy river water all day, and hadn’t had a shower since South Africa, I was really excited to bath. I turned on the shower, and dark brown water shot out of the nozzle. There was no point to shower, I would come out dirtier than I went in! Eish.
The next morning it was still cloudy, but we were at least able to see the mountains all around us! Lesotho really is the mountain kingdom. We took a 5 hour hike to a water fall. Luckily I hadn’t showered, because we walked through so many rivers and hopped so many banks it was ridiculous. It was definitely an all-encompassing hike; fording rivers, kloofing, climbing up and down rocks, etc. The rain even stayed away until we were almost finished hiking! Luckily, after arriving back at the lodge we were able to shower! HOT water, and it was decently clear! Hands down best shower ever! As it was New Years Eve, we went for dinner at the lodge; rice, turkey, gammon, mashed butternut squash, chocolate cake and some other bits of deliciousness! AND we could go back for seconds!! Turkey! Twice in one year! So exciting!
This lodge didn’t have a donkey pub crawl, but we did head out into the village in order to visit some shebeens. The Basotho people are known for their blankets. Quite a few people wore their large blankets even when dancing at the shebeen. Traditional Basotho dancing involves a lot of shoulders (unlike Zulu dancing, which is characterized by kicking a foot high above the head, and pounding it into the ground), so that was cool to see. Someone even put their Sotho blanket over my shoulders. That thing was hot as hell to dance under!
We rang in the new year with some fireworks at the shebeen. It was a lot of fun…until some drunk guy took one of the still exploding fireworks out of the ground and started running around pointing it at people. Yikes! It was back to the lodge for us, for some dancing. The night got more and more crazy; I went to bed around 3:30…definitely one of the latest nights I have had in Southern Africa. On new years day we took a pony trek. The Basotho, in addition to their blankets, are known for their sturdy mountain ponies. We went for about an hour until we came to some 7000 year old San paintings (the San are the original inhabitants of this area; think of the movie The Gods Must be Crazy). The paintings were beautiful, and it was awe-inspiring to stand in front of something so old! Again, the rain held off for our pony trek, and started just after we arrived back in camp. Later, we met some Bots PCVs who had just completed a 4 day hike through rural Lesotho. Wanting to shower after being on a horse, we found the water worse than the first day; chocolate brown water sludging out of every faucet throughout the entire lodge. I managed to find one tap were the water was clear-ish, and showered there. Most of us were asleep by 10PM the night of the 1st.
The 2nd we crossed back into South Africa. One of our friends had to catch a bus to Durban, and there was an intense half hour when we couldn’t find the Intercape bus, or even anyone who knew where the Intercape bus stopped. Eventually we found it, and the rest of us missioned back up to Pretoria after a brief stop in Bloemfontein. I have never been so happy to get to Pretoria! Sun! Clean Water! Agh!!
Currently, I am back at my site, biding my time until my organization opens again on the 12th. My supervisor, who applied for me to come, quit the organization Monday for a better paying job at the clinic. Even though she is still really close, I feel so sad! It really is the end of an era. Next week our organization will have to elect/ decide on someone to take her position.
Leaving
I now have about 2.5 months left as a PCV. I put in application to finish up 2 weeks early (I will leave the village March 13th, and officially finish Peace Corps march 17th). My plan is to visit Namibia (the only country here in southern Africa I have yet to visit!), then do a crafting trip with Anne (Maputo via Swaziland). Roughly the 1st I will fly to Italy to meet up with Aditi, and then travel through Italy, Austria, Germany, London and possibly Paris. I am thinking I will arrive back states side about mid May. (My mother is decidedly unhappy about this new date). I am so so excited to get back to the states! Driving! Ginos East! All Night Grocery Stores! Family! High Heels! Friends! Newcastle! Wrigleyville! EEK EEK EEK! But I have already started bawling to Anne and my host family about leaving (my co-workers refuse to talk about it, because they themselves don’t want to cry). Life here was hard. Tons of ups and downs. Yes, I did think about leaving, especially within that first year. But at the end of the day I have really enjoyed my time here. I don’t think it would be worthwhile if it wasn’t hard. I will miss a lot of aspects of life here; weekends in Swaziland, traveling, month-long vacations, sense of independence, my host baba, my administrative co-workers (Samu, Nunu, Sibongile, Lindiwe), meeting tons of new and interesting people, my dog (OMG! I don’t know how I will leave him!! Tears just writing this!), certain aspects of village life, and tons of other things. Yes there are certain things I wont miss, like living out of my day pack for 2 years, packing my groceries in from town, drunk men slurring sweetie to me on the street, etc etc. But I have enjoyed my time here more than I have wished it was over.
One thing that really attracts me to Africa is how alive I feel here. Everything is much difficult here. Life and death are much closer to the service. Last week I had a rel-life Oregon trail decision situation: FORD THE RAGING RIVER. I don’t feel this way in America (I am now expecting a sharp rebuke from my father for writing that). There is something about this continent that, after visiting, never really leaves you. I know I will be back one day. Theres no way I could not come back.
