Crazy month!

So I am finally back to my village after 4 weeks of traveling South Africa! It was a fun month and nice to get to see some new parts of the country, but pretty exhausting and needless to say I was very ready to get back to my home and not live out of my backpack any longer! So here’s an update on all that went down:

LST


Life Skills Training was my first stop and help at the Sparkling Waters Hotel near Rustenburg – this in itself was awesome as we had incredible meals, nice rooms with awesome showers, two pools, and a SPA! The counterpart I brought was the administrative assistant at one of my primary schools who has been wanting to get involved in some sort of community project. The workshop was run by David Patient and Neil Or…. Two very interesting South Africans who own a company that gives workshops and trainings on healthy living and HIV/AIDS. In fact, David Patient is one of the longest surviving people with AIDS. We learned all sorts of things about the virus itself as well as how to live a healthy life and keep your cd4 count up once you are already infected. My big complaint was that it was mostly directed at the Americans and not so much the South African counterparts we all brought, so it will be interesting to see what they got out of it (hopefully some of it seeped in!). The last half of the training was on project design and management and grant writing, so maybe some sort of community project will be able to come out of this!
Me and my PC besties being awesome...


My counterpart (Lorato) and I


Longtom Marathon

From LST we piled in a coombie to take us to Sabie where we ran the half marathon! I ended up running most of it and finishing in about 2 hours 34 minutes. The marathon went from Sabie to Lydenburg down the windy and hilly Longtom Pass that provided us with spectacular views as we ran! The water stops were also awesome, where people would give us not only water and powerade but also coke, sweets, and at one point even mini potatoes!!!!! Haha… I haven’t done a marathon anywhere else but I have a feeling that was one of those “only in South Africa things”. Again, THANKS TO ALL WHO DONATED!!!!!!!! I ended up raising about $200... 100 more than required, and as a group we raised over $17,000!! That is about $1500 more than last year. So give yourselves a pat on the back for taking part in sending a disadvantaged learner to a prestigious high school on a 5-year scholarship! I look forward to doing this again next year, possibly even training for it and shooting for 2 hours.

Here is a link with some pictures from the race!


Kloofing and hiking

After the marathon (and a much needed rest day on our sore muscles) a group of us decided to go “kloofing” (canyoneering in US terms). This involved putting on a padded wetsuit, a helmet, tennis shoes, and a “rubber bum” (shorts with rubber on the butt), hiking down into a canyon and basically trekking down the river. It was pretty much like a bunch of sports combined – we hiked, did a few small cliff dives, swam under waterfalls, rock climbed, scrambled over boulders, went through a couple caves... at one point we even slid down trees like fireman poles!! IT WAS SO AWESOME! My new favorite sport for sure. The canyon we were in was extremely jungly and made me feel a little bit like Tarzan (in a silly looking suit), making it extra awesome.


Haha I love this picture, we look like little bobble heads!

Us in our awesome suits, complete with rubber bums..

After this we went on a 3-day backpacking trip on the Fanie Botha trail. The first day was pretty easy and we ended up at hut #1, right on the edge of a thick jungly forest. The best part was that there were a whole bunch of monkeys jumping through the trees that we got to listen to all afternoon while we relaxed and napped! Day 2 was much more difficult but incredibly gorgeous. We went through extremely dense forest and had to cross a whole bunch of creeks and stumbled upon many waterfalls and beautiful pools along the way. The uphills were pretty rough and were covered in extremely slippery rocks… it took us almost a kilometer an hour through the hard stuff! Once we climbed out of the forest we were pretty much on top of a plateau and walked through the clouds a few more kilometers to our next hut. We also saw some animals on the way – not sure if they were springbock or gemsbock but they were way cool! Day 3 was mostly downhill and looped back to where we started. Overall it was an awesome hiking trip and I was pretty much like a kid in a candy store being back in the mountains again!!
View from Hut #1
Crossin' a creek..
Bunch of awesomeness at the last hut


Camp GLOW

After Sabie and a stop in Nelspruit along the way, a few of us went to help a PCV who was holding a girls’ leadership camp in Schomensdal (which is right near the border of Swaziland in Mpumalanga). We did sessions on journaling, goal setting, dealing with peer pressure, overcoming challenges, and some guest speakers came to talk about HIV/AIDS, child advocacy, and other issues. We had a lot of fun and learned a lot for the camp we will be holding in December! One of the best parts of this week was the place we stayed, which was a home for orphans that this Irish woman runs. The compound was amazing and there were about 15 orphans living there along with volunteers from all over the world (U.S., Zambia, Canada, and Germany to name a few) living there and volunteering in various places in the community. The kids all have amazing English and are tutored by the volunteers, and the household runs smoothly with everyone helping out with various activities. It was awesome to see and be a part of for a week (although I have to admit I had major site envy to know that a PCV has been living there for 2 years… what an awesome site to have!!!)
The whole group!
One of the facilitators running a session


Pretoria/ Global Camps Africa training

From camp glow we made our way back to Pretoria for a couple days before heading o yet another conference. We had a lot of fun staying at the backpackers, gorging ourselves with delicious food (we found an amazing Lebanese restaurant..), and seeing a couple movies. We then went to the camp training with about 8 PCVs and many other people from organizations all around the country. The days were packed (8am to 9pm everyday!!!) with info on how to run and manage youth camps. Some of it was very helpful – especially being able to network with other South African organizations – but much it was directed at American-style camps and didn’t really include the African perspective as much as it could have. While it didn’t really cater to the South African cultural context, everyone seemed to really enjoy it!

Back home!

Yesterday I FINALLY made it back to my village, after an exhausting ride into Kuruman on Sunday. I have never been more thankful to be back at my site and stationary again. I wasn’t even upset to find my new bug friends that have taken over my room in my absence! I was also THRILLED to find that the weather has actually become chilly!!! Everyone keeps saying the winter has come early…. Which is better news than I could have ever hoped to receive. Today I went to school in both a sweater and a scarf, and I am fully planning on taking out the extra blankets for my bed tonight! I have officially made it through my first summer in Africa.. only one more to go. I am feeling good about my work at school, as I also learned that one of the mothers in the community has volunteered to help with the creation of our school library!!! I could not be happier with this news, as I was really hesitant to begin a library project without having a community member on board to help. My principal kept telling me that no one in the community would want to volunteer their time… so this was a good lesson in persistence paying off! I am much more eager to take these projects head on with a little community support. Term 2 is pretty short since it’s ending early for the World Cup break and I have a lot of work to do for my classes, projects, and PC stuff… it’s going to be a busy couple months!