Sunday 10th January 2010
3:16pm
Wow. Where to begin… as briefly mentioned in my last, short, post Camp was amazing. In the course of 2 weeks we gave over 70 kids the chance to be kids. As leaders we were up by about 5am and didn’t sleep til close to 11pm! I could have slept for ages, but alas, there were fun holiday activities to stay awake for. :)
On the 23rd I got to return to site for close to 18hours. In which time I unpacked, repacked, wrapped host family’s Christmas gifts, got a bit of sleep and then jumped back on a bus heading toward the first festive stop of vacation. I celebrated my Christmas Eve and Day with 9 wonderful volunteers in Nhlangano. We have a good relationship with a lady that works for another NGO, and she asked some volunteers to house-sit during the holidays. This meant we had a place to meet, relax, cook food, watch tv, and utilize running water!! Oh, the Christmas miracles!! I stayed in my pjs all Christmas day, we cooked an assortment of non-traditional but VERY American dishes, watched seasonal movies like The Holiday and Love Actually, opened Secret Santa presents, and received a plethora of calls from home throughout the day. And I believe it was a comparatively cool and pleasant day at around 80-85 degrees F in relation to the high 90s to 105 the previous days. :) “I’m dreaming of a white Christmas”… for maybe five minutes. Ha!
On Boxing day, 26th, we took off in public transportation across the Swaziland/South African border for the first time since our arrival. We (including the AWESOME group of Ali, Cameron, Brandon, Laura, Rachel, Tristan, and myself) rented two cars and were DRIVING toward the Indian Ocean! When I say “we” I mean the two people in our group that know how to drive a stick. Surprising tid bit: almost all vehicles in at least part of Africa are manuals. You can rent an automatic, but it costs a lot more. The freedom of having control of your transportation is … blissful. I think that first day we were giddy/ punch drunk with the excitement of cruising on our own schedule, with ROOM to move, and the prospect of zero buses/khumbis/delays/chickens/smelly and/or drunk people/etc in the transportation. Obviously we were an easy crowd to please.
Before reaching Mtubatuba, our town of residence for the first few nights, we drove through Hluhluwe Game Park. I got to see giraffes, water buffalo, zebras, rhinos, a small alligator, warthogs and many impala. It was a fun, couple hour, drive, and we left (found our way out of the maze that was the massive game park, aka. Jamangi :-P) with just enough time to find our way to the backpackers before it got dark. This happened to be Brandon’s birthday, so we went to one of the few restaurants in Mtubaba for a delicious Italian meal and then promptly crashed in our bunked, air conditioned haven.
Our main intention for staying in Mtubatuba (I really like the name) was its drivable proximity to St. Lucia. St. Lucia is a well known for being a beach front tourist trap… exactly what we wanted! The first day there we all sported our much missed bathing suites and proudly displayed our freakish “Peace Corps tans” (dark arms and feet, neon white everywhere else) on the St. Lucia beach. It was overcast, but that didn’t stop the UV rays from spotting us as easy targets! No worries, my SPF 70 was in tow and mine was not the highest SPF on the trip! How I missed the water! When first hitting the beach it reminded me a lot of Lake Michigan with slightly higher waves and different vegetation past the dunes. At one point Ali and I perused the beachfront and stumbled upon a sign to the effect of “Stay away from crocodiles and hippos”!! Then we saw in the middle of a river that meets the ocean a family of hippos poking their heads in and out of the water! (Thought of you, Shelby, but couldn’t get one in an envelope to the States, sorry :-P) The more I think about it, NOTHING like Lake Michigan. Ha ha.
A few meals in this leg of our trip were at restaurants, but most evenings we shopped for ingredients and cooked food at the hostel, which was also quite enjoyable. I was the resident popcorn maker on the trip, and my skills were utilized almost daily. :)
The following day I petted cheetahs!!! No joke! We drove north a bit to an African wild cat rehabilitation center. After a fascinating demonstration by a man we affectionately nicknamed “Krueger Joe”, who we at one point feared was about to be devoured by an angry male cheetah (literally not a part of the demonstration - I was praying for him), we paid a bit extra to love up two 6month old baby cheetahs. Definitely a highlight of the trip! They seemed particularly fond of suckling pointer fingers, so I can now state I have had my hand in a cheetah’s mouth! After a lunch of seafood pizza and sangria we decided to procure snorkel equipment for the following day, indulged in ice cream, and enjoyed an early evening back at the hostel.
The next morning came much too early. To safely snorkel at Cape Vidal, a beach/game park drive located just North of St. Lucia, you could only be in the water at low tides. During this particular part of the year, that meant two hours around 7am and 7pm. The park only allows 120 cars in at a time and we were told that to get in at this busy vacation season we would need to be at the park’s entrance at least 30min before it opened… 4:30am. It was well worth the groggy, caffeine necessary start. One of our group members lost his wedding ring while snorkeling in the Indian Ocean and miraculously an hour later another member found it! We saw many cool fishes, corals, and even massive ship wreck items all before 9am! By 10am we were driving through other parts of the game park, and by 11am we were enjoying a packed lunch at a picnic/braai area at a lookout point called Mission Rocks. Probably around 1am we were all passed out in the air conditioned room at the hostel completely spent from salt water, snorkel masks, rhino spotting, and a beer on the beach. :-) To not waste any opportunity to swim, we utilized the hostel’s pool and got ready for our next destination, Durban.
So what do 7 Americans do when they get into a big city for the first time in ½ a year? After getting lost (due to an awful lack of street signs) and finding our hostel we headed to a mall!! We eagerly consumed the most American style foods, burgers, beers, and malts and then bee lined it to the cinemas to purchase our movie tickets for the evening’s entertainment! FYI. There are NO movie theatres in the entire country of Swaziland, we were pretty psyched. After realizing just how out the popular media loop we were the girls insisted on seeing New Moon (nope, not ashamed to admit that) and the boys chose a movie none of us had ever heard of, Avitar. For the next while we wandered the Mecca of consumerism that so much reminded us of home, and lavished in the choices of products (mostly cheeses and home decor :-P) that we knew we couldn’t feasibly transport back to Swaziland. The movies, and massive amounts of popcorn were perfect in every way possible!
New Year’s Eve Day the girls spilt to tour the city of Durban while the guys chilled at the beach. We walked through markets, took the “People Mover” to Florida St. where we ran into some other Swazi PCVs, and I even saw a professional theatre! We tried to visit a museum and even thought about seeing a show, but sadly many things closed early for the holiday. No biggy, we ushered in the New Year (7hours before the New York ball dropped) at a restaurant called Tacozulu with champagne, music, friends, and James Bond decorations! It really was a blast. Then we went back to the hostel and I made popcorn! Welcome to 2010 in Africa!
We wanted to take full advantage of our final full day of vacation by hitting the beach. Unbeknownst to us, the New Years Day tradition in Durban is to go to the ocean, so it was rather crowded. Near a casino there was a more private beach, so we traveled there and enjoyed a few more hours at the soaking up the sun and waves. Most of us came out of the water with a few jelly-fish welts that stung pretty bad, but after spending ½ a year in a landlocked, drought tested country nothing was keeping us out of the water! A nice dinner and another movie (Sherlock Holmes) were enjoyed to cap off the first day of 2010.
As my Father later put it, we had to finish of our trip with “pizzazz”. I am not referring to the 8am McDonalds run that my friends insisted we do on our way out of town, but tragically, one of our cars got into a accident on the way back to Swaziland. I was in the front passenger seat of the car. Miraculously we all walked away from the accident without any major injuries. A couple, who we consider to be Angels, really helped us out and even took us to their house while we waited for Peace Corps vehicle to come pick us up. The next few days were spent in Mbabane at a backpackers making doubly for sure we were medically and emotionally alright. I assure everyone I am 100% okay, and would love to become a poster child for the public awareness campaign for wearing seatbelts!! That is how you end a vacation with a bang!!
Now I have been back to site for a few days. After being gone for so long and with other Americans, the first night was a bit of a shock. My already limited siSwati had escaped me and I truly felt the isolation of site for the first time. The following day, as I waited for transportation to a meeting that eventually was cancelled, everyone who passed asked when I had gotten back. The Babe (man) who was waiting with me at the siteshi (bus stop) told me that everyone missed me while I was gone because they “love” me. That made me feel wonderful, and I realized I had no reason to feel isolated. I had family and friends all over my community. I was truly “home” from a wonderful holiday vacation.
3:16pm
Wow. Where to begin… as briefly mentioned in my last, short, post Camp was amazing. In the course of 2 weeks we gave over 70 kids the chance to be kids. As leaders we were up by about 5am and didn’t sleep til close to 11pm! I could have slept for ages, but alas, there were fun holiday activities to stay awake for. :)
On the 23rd I got to return to site for close to 18hours. In which time I unpacked, repacked, wrapped host family’s Christmas gifts, got a bit of sleep and then jumped back on a bus heading toward the first festive stop of vacation. I celebrated my Christmas Eve and Day with 9 wonderful volunteers in Nhlangano. We have a good relationship with a lady that works for another NGO, and she asked some volunteers to house-sit during the holidays. This meant we had a place to meet, relax, cook food, watch tv, and utilize running water!! Oh, the Christmas miracles!! I stayed in my pjs all Christmas day, we cooked an assortment of non-traditional but VERY American dishes, watched seasonal movies like The Holiday and Love Actually, opened Secret Santa presents, and received a plethora of calls from home throughout the day. And I believe it was a comparatively cool and pleasant day at around 80-85 degrees F in relation to the high 90s to 105 the previous days. :) “I’m dreaming of a white Christmas”… for maybe five minutes. Ha!
On Boxing day, 26th, we took off in public transportation across the Swaziland/South African border for the first time since our arrival. We (including the AWESOME group of Ali, Cameron, Brandon, Laura, Rachel, Tristan, and myself) rented two cars and were DRIVING toward the Indian Ocean! When I say “we” I mean the two people in our group that know how to drive a stick. Surprising tid bit: almost all vehicles in at least part of Africa are manuals. You can rent an automatic, but it costs a lot more. The freedom of having control of your transportation is … blissful. I think that first day we were giddy/ punch drunk with the excitement of cruising on our own schedule, with ROOM to move, and the prospect of zero buses/khumbis/delays/chickens/smelly and/or drunk people/etc in the transportation. Obviously we were an easy crowd to please.
Before reaching Mtubatuba, our town of residence for the first few nights, we drove through Hluhluwe Game Park. I got to see giraffes, water buffalo, zebras, rhinos, a small alligator, warthogs and many impala. It was a fun, couple hour, drive, and we left (found our way out of the maze that was the massive game park, aka. Jamangi :-P) with just enough time to find our way to the backpackers before it got dark. This happened to be Brandon’s birthday, so we went to one of the few restaurants in Mtubaba for a delicious Italian meal and then promptly crashed in our bunked, air conditioned haven.
Our main intention for staying in Mtubatuba (I really like the name) was its drivable proximity to St. Lucia. St. Lucia is a well known for being a beach front tourist trap… exactly what we wanted! The first day there we all sported our much missed bathing suites and proudly displayed our freakish “Peace Corps tans” (dark arms and feet, neon white everywhere else) on the St. Lucia beach. It was overcast, but that didn’t stop the UV rays from spotting us as easy targets! No worries, my SPF 70 was in tow and mine was not the highest SPF on the trip! How I missed the water! When first hitting the beach it reminded me a lot of Lake Michigan with slightly higher waves and different vegetation past the dunes. At one point Ali and I perused the beachfront and stumbled upon a sign to the effect of “Stay away from crocodiles and hippos”!! Then we saw in the middle of a river that meets the ocean a family of hippos poking their heads in and out of the water! (Thought of you, Shelby, but couldn’t get one in an envelope to the States, sorry :-P) The more I think about it, NOTHING like Lake Michigan. Ha ha.
A few meals in this leg of our trip were at restaurants, but most evenings we shopped for ingredients and cooked food at the hostel, which was also quite enjoyable. I was the resident popcorn maker on the trip, and my skills were utilized almost daily. :)
The following day I petted cheetahs!!! No joke! We drove north a bit to an African wild cat rehabilitation center. After a fascinating demonstration by a man we affectionately nicknamed “Krueger Joe”, who we at one point feared was about to be devoured by an angry male cheetah (literally not a part of the demonstration - I was praying for him), we paid a bit extra to love up two 6month old baby cheetahs. Definitely a highlight of the trip! They seemed particularly fond of suckling pointer fingers, so I can now state I have had my hand in a cheetah’s mouth! After a lunch of seafood pizza and sangria we decided to procure snorkel equipment for the following day, indulged in ice cream, and enjoyed an early evening back at the hostel.
The next morning came much too early. To safely snorkel at Cape Vidal, a beach/game park drive located just North of St. Lucia, you could only be in the water at low tides. During this particular part of the year, that meant two hours around 7am and 7pm. The park only allows 120 cars in at a time and we were told that to get in at this busy vacation season we would need to be at the park’s entrance at least 30min before it opened… 4:30am. It was well worth the groggy, caffeine necessary start. One of our group members lost his wedding ring while snorkeling in the Indian Ocean and miraculously an hour later another member found it! We saw many cool fishes, corals, and even massive ship wreck items all before 9am! By 10am we were driving through other parts of the game park, and by 11am we were enjoying a packed lunch at a picnic/braai area at a lookout point called Mission Rocks. Probably around 1am we were all passed out in the air conditioned room at the hostel completely spent from salt water, snorkel masks, rhino spotting, and a beer on the beach. :-) To not waste any opportunity to swim, we utilized the hostel’s pool and got ready for our next destination, Durban.
So what do 7 Americans do when they get into a big city for the first time in ½ a year? After getting lost (due to an awful lack of street signs) and finding our hostel we headed to a mall!! We eagerly consumed the most American style foods, burgers, beers, and malts and then bee lined it to the cinemas to purchase our movie tickets for the evening’s entertainment! FYI. There are NO movie theatres in the entire country of Swaziland, we were pretty psyched. After realizing just how out the popular media loop we were the girls insisted on seeing New Moon (nope, not ashamed to admit that) and the boys chose a movie none of us had ever heard of, Avitar. For the next while we wandered the Mecca of consumerism that so much reminded us of home, and lavished in the choices of products (mostly cheeses and home decor :-P) that we knew we couldn’t feasibly transport back to Swaziland. The movies, and massive amounts of popcorn were perfect in every way possible!
New Year’s Eve Day the girls spilt to tour the city of Durban while the guys chilled at the beach. We walked through markets, took the “People Mover” to Florida St. where we ran into some other Swazi PCVs, and I even saw a professional theatre! We tried to visit a museum and even thought about seeing a show, but sadly many things closed early for the holiday. No biggy, we ushered in the New Year (7hours before the New York ball dropped) at a restaurant called Tacozulu with champagne, music, friends, and James Bond decorations! It really was a blast. Then we went back to the hostel and I made popcorn! Welcome to 2010 in Africa!
We wanted to take full advantage of our final full day of vacation by hitting the beach. Unbeknownst to us, the New Years Day tradition in Durban is to go to the ocean, so it was rather crowded. Near a casino there was a more private beach, so we traveled there and enjoyed a few more hours at the soaking up the sun and waves. Most of us came out of the water with a few jelly-fish welts that stung pretty bad, but after spending ½ a year in a landlocked, drought tested country nothing was keeping us out of the water! A nice dinner and another movie (Sherlock Holmes) were enjoyed to cap off the first day of 2010.
As my Father later put it, we had to finish of our trip with “pizzazz”. I am not referring to the 8am McDonalds run that my friends insisted we do on our way out of town, but tragically, one of our cars got into a accident on the way back to Swaziland. I was in the front passenger seat of the car. Miraculously we all walked away from the accident without any major injuries. A couple, who we consider to be Angels, really helped us out and even took us to their house while we waited for Peace Corps vehicle to come pick us up. The next few days were spent in Mbabane at a backpackers making doubly for sure we were medically and emotionally alright. I assure everyone I am 100% okay, and would love to become a poster child for the public awareness campaign for wearing seatbelts!! That is how you end a vacation with a bang!!
Now I have been back to site for a few days. After being gone for so long and with other Americans, the first night was a bit of a shock. My already limited siSwati had escaped me and I truly felt the isolation of site for the first time. The following day, as I waited for transportation to a meeting that eventually was cancelled, everyone who passed asked when I had gotten back. The Babe (man) who was waiting with me at the siteshi (bus stop) told me that everyone missed me while I was gone because they “love” me. That made me feel wonderful, and I realized I had no reason to feel isolated. I had family and friends all over my community. I was truly “home” from a wonderful holiday vacation.
The lovely girls having a cocktail before we enjoy New Moon like 13 year olds. Yay Durban!
Rachel and me waiting to see the Wild Cat demonstrations. :-)
My Babe is home for an extended holiday away from work in Jo'Burg. I caught him loving-up Thobile's baby boy. Adorable!!
The family was happy to have me home. We were sitting on the back steps of the house discussing our holidays!
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