Nairobbery

Ah, Nairobbery.  The name isn't arbitrary.  Well, it's all been a little dramatic since arriving in the 'City of the Sun'.  First of all, I decided to save a little cash by staying at the Nairobi Youth Hostel, a converted YWCA, which charges 600 Kenyan shillings (roughly 8 bucks).  You get what you pay for.  Toilets:  nasty.  Sharing with 17 other girls, but I figured I could tough it out for one or two nights after staying at the oh-so-opulent Kivi for a couple of nights of decadence when I first arrived.

I had just nodded off to sleep after seeing the latest Denzel Washington movie ("Unstoppable'.  Is that the latest?  Or six months old?), when I was awakened to the sound of a man shouting, 'Fire, fire!'  Luckily, I was sleeping in my hoody with my wallet zipped into the pocket for safekeeping, so I quickly grabbed my cosmetic bag (only because my contact lenses were in there and I needed to see) and hightailed it outside to the main road, where I could see the huge lick of flames biting the skyline (very reminiscent of Namibia, except that this was night.)  I was imagining my passport and credit cards going up in flames in the safe when the other girls from my dorm trickled towards the road coughing in the acrid smoke, commenting on how fast I had left the dorm and how I was the first one out.  I had to laugh because they had all their luggage with them! (to the chagrin of a 'tsk'ing security guard).  I was wondering where the Fire Department was, especially since the security guards were yelling, "Everybody! Please come and assist!" but I did not leave the main road.  It's one thing in Namibia where there's no fire department, but quite another in the big city; I leave that to the pros.  Eventually, with the aid of the 'First Response Team', and Security Guards, and eight massive fire extinguishers, they were able to put out the fire.  I was told the fire engine had been caught in traffic (believeable, since there was a huge holdup on O'Campo the other day and it took people four hours to drive in from the airport, as opposed to thirty minutes) but when I chatted up the security guard, he told me:  "No we do not call the fire department.  Because we are men.  We fight by ourselves."
I said, "But, what if you can't put it out by yourselves?"
"Then we call the fire department."
"But why wouldn't you call the fire department first?  Just in case? Because by the time you realize you can't put it out, it's too late."
Shaking my arm, "Ah, this is Africa, you have to be strong!"
Following this infallible logic was the manager, ushering everyone back inside (also there was a madman gesticulating wildly out in the street and shouting, so we were now inside the gates).  "Come back in.  The fire is out.  These are mistakes caused by man, and they must be solved by man.  Go back to your rooms and relax!" Hah!  Not to mention the fact that I found out that the fire was caused by a live wire meeting a petrol leak in the already-closed kitchen.

I went reluctantly back to my room, where the other girls and I dubiously inspected the fire escape (a long metal ladder made of cylindrical iron bars that cut into sock feet...I can barely manage the ladder to my top bunk!)  I tried to reach my cab driver (loud party music) and my previous hotel (no answer) so reluctantly took out my contacts and climbed back into bed.  No sooner was I drifting off when all the power suddenly cut.  I rocketed out of bed again, popped in my contacts and went to investigate.  Well, wouldn't you know it, things were sparking up again, so they had to cut the power.  Yet another reason to call in the experts.  This time, I packed up all my stuff and headed straight to the Kivi to see if there was room at the Inn.

The next morning, I decided to head for town in one of the matatus.  Now, the matatus are not the recommended form of transport for Nairobi.  They're crowded, loud, jostly, and play loud Jesus music at top volume.  Which is why I wanted to travel in one.  Since I'd travelled in what are basically matatus all over South Africa, I didn't really see it being a problem.  I had my small changepurse with small bills and change for the matatu and my day pack.  I popped my memory card out of my camera for safekeeping, and tucked my memory card, my wallet and my phone into my zippered pocket, thinking it would be safer there.  I thought if anything, they would go for my bag.  Fuelled by my memories of hotels-on-fire and armed-robberies-at-camp, and knowing I would need to get a ticket to Mombasa that day I had more on me that usual. I took a Visa and a Mastercard because sometimes one works and the other doesn't, and kept some stuff locked up in the hotel, thinking it would be safer on me, because I wasn't about to let myself get pickpocketed...Ha!  Ten minutes later...

So I get in the matatu, and the only seat is in the back, I have to cram through loads of people, but it's cool.  The music is jamming, there's lots of people-watching to be had. I'm sitting next to a clean-cut, well-groomed professional guy, immaculate crisp white shirt, pressed and collared, vested, carrying a large manila portfolio. (My immediate thought was, this guy's a professional, no way he could keep a shirt that white otherwise.  I know, because I've tried.  All my white clothes are grey despite numerous washings.  Of course, as my taxi driver, Francis, comments, "Ai, but muzungu, the money he took from you buys his next white shirt!)  In hindsight, he was moving in a weird way, but I thought that was because he was trying not to get his portfolio crushed by the throngs of people, as I imagined him on his way to an important presentation.

Then, the mkanga (conductor dude) was telling me to get off, I was arguing, because we were in the middle of traffic, he was talking to the guy next to me in his language, people were getting off, I was crushed anew, the mkanga was getting aggressive with me... so more concerned with my own personal safety and the confluence of traffic, trying not to get killed, I missed that Mr. Clean-Cut swiped my pocket.  The second I was on the sidewalk it kicked in, but by then the matatu was gone, along with everything in my pocket.  Hence the term pickpocket.

As Shiundu later told me, "You wanted your local experience?  You got it."  Whenever I tell people I was robbed in a matatu, they all say, "Guy in a suit with a newspaper, right?"  Close enough.  But it does seem that everyone, locals included has been robbed in a matatu at least once.  The good thing is I had all my photos backed up, extra cards at the hotel, and not much cash.  And no passport.  But the hassle.

I grabbed the first nice person I saw, this unassuming college lecturer, as I later found out, to ask where the nearest police station was.  Thinking about it now, I think I must have overwhelmed the poor guy because he's very unassuming and politic and I was swearing a blue streak, like a beached sailor, not watching my language at all, I was so mad.  Though, I guess I had it coming.  I know better than to carry stuff, but then sometimes after travelling for so long, you get exhausted from being so safe all the time.  I carry the Mastercard, I only find machines that take Visa.  I take the Visa card, I only find machines that take Mastercard.  You leave the memory card in the camera, they take it.  You take it out, they take it.  You leave everything at the hotel, you miss the perfect shot.  You know that runners are the best, but sometimes you just want to wear a skirt and flipflops.  Then that's the day you need to run.  So, anyway, I should've travelled lighter but didn't and you have to give the guy credit:  He identified a market niche, got his target audience, applied a strategy, went in and got his revenue.  Merry Christmas.

Steven was awesome, though.  I really just wanted to know where the police station was, but he took me there himself, lent me his phone, went with me to the Embassy and waited while I used their phonelines and internet to cancel my cards and get emergency ones shipped, and accompanied me back to my hotel.  The hotel staff were amazing too because they pulled strings so I could stay there until my departure (I'd been planning to go to Mombasa and the hotel was fully booked) and seriously discounted my nightly rate.  Shiundu was awesome too as he lent me emergency cash and took me to buy a new phone for 20 bucks, which probably would not have been the price if I had gone alone, but which is probably the price Guy-Fry got for my phone on the street.

The police were substantially less helpful.  It would seem that Muzungu robberies are their source of entertainment and the guy who wrote my report just chortled away as he wrote.  Granted, looking back, some of my suggestions were preposterous, like should I check the garbage cans along Kenyatta and Uhuru for my stuff.  Shiundu called my phone to tell them to just dump the cards somewhere, but of course they could care less.  Anyway, that's why they call the city 'Nairobbery' and I am now a patchwork piece in that quilt.

I've placed myself under house arrest at the Kivi (never warmed to the idea of being a prisoner of Paradise, but sometimes Destiny leads you in strange directions.)  Of course, it's that time of year when up go the fairy lights.  They are strung all over the bushes here.  I just shake my head.  Let me tell you, I did a recon. of the entire hotel and now have mapped the position of every fire extinguisher and fire exit and know exactly how to operate all fire-propellent devices.  I've got a 'snatch bag' beside my bed with all important items tucked inside, and tie the sleeves of my jerseys together just in case I need to go over the balcony (which I try to make sure is on the first or second floor, and over the pool.)

I have to say that being under house arrest for a couple of days gave me an interesting insight into some Kenyan TV programs.  Do you know there's a program called "Fun and Fortune" which consists entirely of a woman making people guess a word hidden in an envelope and call their answer in for cash?  The other day, the topic was "Countries in Africa".  The entire show was a monologue of:  "A country in Africa...but which country is it?  Which country is written on this piece of paper?  53 countries in Africa.  Find an open line and call it in...Zambia?  No, it's not Zambia, but you still win 5000 shillings just for calling in...what about you?  South Africa...not it's not South Africa, but you still win 5000 shillings.  Who will win the grand prize of 100, 000 shillings!"  And this went on for an hour!  An hour!  Still, I couldn't shut it off.  I was so convinced it was Senegal.  The first clue went up:  S.  Second clue:  E.  (It was Seychelles).  At least I didn't waste my airtime calling though.

One good thing about being robbed though was that I met some great and sympathetic people.  Steven was my guardian angel, and guardian, showing me the sights and scnes of Nairobi that I wouldn't have otherwise seen.  We grooved to some local tunes and he was my bodyguard through the crazy streets where traffic is a constant on-flow regardless of the colour of the robot.  I also met a businessman lunching at my hotel one day, Simon, who took me around Nairobi and introduced me to the Westlands club scene.  A couple of days after meeting Stephen, he invited me to accompany him out to the countryside to visit his mom in Kitua.  Being a little gun-shy still from the matatu incident, I was debating the wisdom of doing a road trip with some guy I'd only known a couple of days.  Of course, later I find out that his gram (who he also went to visit) is 125 years old!  And Steven brings this up in casual conversation as though it's no big deal. "Yes, she is aged," he says.  At first I thought that must be an estimation or a San Bushman'esque situation where the person is unsure of their age...but the math adds up and it seems she might actually be that old.  Steven told me she's wrinkly and stooped and wants a dress for Christmas and a long bar of Sunlight detergent soap that she can cut off in sections like Christmas bark for the neighbors who do her wash.  Four years ago, she was walking along the road and encountered a cow, tied to the post by the road.  The tether was long and granny was close.  Cow headbutted gran and then proceeded to stamp her, but one of her grandsons rescued her and brought her to hospital, bruised but not broken.  And I could have met her!  I HATE playing it safe!

Anyway, Kenya concludes my final chapter in Africa and I am now off to the Middle East...Jordan!!
Jenn









 

 

Mr.Cheese-on-Toast and the Malawi Wowi

Now, that I've finished my first Intrepid Trip (I now know why rock stars need rehab after they go on the road), I thought I'd sit back and recap some of the hilights.  I did the teaser last time about Mr. Cheese-on-Toast and the Pink Tam, so thought I'd lead with that one.

The Beach Boys
On Lake Malawi, there are plenty of beach boys.  They've named themselves with such monikers as "Donald Duck", "Destiny", "Mel Gibson", "Sugar Daddy" and "Big No No".  Generally, when you leave your camp compound to go on a village tour, they attach themselves to you like barnacle guides, two to a tourist, coaxing you to buy batiks, hand-carved key chains, bao games, and maps.  My two guys, hopping along like the devil and angel, one on each shoulder, were Gift (being that he was the first boy to arrive in a long line of girls) and Cheese-on-Toast (he claims his mama gave him that name).  Cheese-on-Toast had a very cool tam, black with green and red stripes that I coveted. I asked if he had any for sale, but the ones for sale were 'same, same but different' and I wanted 'the one off his head', so I paid far too much for a wood-carved bao game and got it tossed in.  The next day, at another camp on Lake Malawi I spotted another tam that I coveted on the head of a beach boy floating in Lake Malawi.   I think they just look extra good on dreaded hair and cocoa skin;  I never covet the tams I see in the shops!  This one belonged to Mr. Bob.  In retrospect, it looked awesome against his dark skin, but it kind of makes me look like an ice-cream cone.  Still, I love it.  Now, there's a special something, home-grown and medicinal in Malawi that they like to call "Malawi Wowi" and our boy was high-strung on.  He would float implaccably in the lake and then spout random sayings like, "Fantastic.  Mr.  Bomb-bastic."  or (my personal favorite) "Lover's Nest" a propos of nothing.  I tried to get a conversation going, asking if he could trade me his tam for something, but he'd bust out with, "I hate you...no...I love you.  No bilhazia here.  Other side."  Eventually, we wrangled a deal wherein I gave him a Canadian tee-shirt and doo rag for his hat.  And 500 Kwacha.  ("For yarn for the next one".)  So, even stoned, he landed that deal.  But there you go. I got my tam.  The beach boys are also infamous for their illicit beach bonfires, 'offside, man, offside', which the security guards bemusedly tolerate.  However, I left Shiundu snore-dozing off in their company one night, while I took a walk aways down the beach with the restaurant cook and Acacia girl and he later said, "What were you thinking, leaving me with the beach boys!  I could have been robbed blind!  Next time, wake me up!"

The Delta
I think the Okavanga Delta is one of my favorite places on the trip.  You cruise into the delta in mokoros, these dug-out canoes (formerly made from hollowed-out trees, but these days made from plexi-glass), poled by river guides.  They actually teach you how to pole them if you want. Let me tell you, it looks easy, poguing down the river like a New Orleanian in the bayou, but testing it is another story.  Those things are wobbly as hell and you have to balance in them, standing up.  My river guide, John, was coaching me:  "Deep left!  Close right!" but eventually I just had to go by instinct.  I found this way of doing a bastardized J-stroke, sticking out my bum and asked John if I could just do it that way.  He said absolutely not, but then later modified it to:  "You know what?  Somehow it works for you.  Go with it."  Then, I made him incorporate it into his poling on the way back.  We poled through the Delta to a little enclave where we jumped out to go swimming, and then poled out further where the hippos cluster together like stepping stones, opening their huge maws in angry threat displays.  You have to make a lot of noise to put them on high alert, as some of the guides have had the nasty experience of poling on top of a hippo and having their mokoro promptly split in two, rocketing them into the air.  Hippos have been 'Disneyfied' as indolent, slothful, chubby cartoons, but in reality they are responsible for more tourist deaths than any other animal.  They rival Usain Bolt on speed and their acceleration rate (they are standing up in the water, contrary to common belief) is fierce.  One night, I was heading from my tent to the ablution blocks and I heard a hippo roar like that.  That's your first warning.  I couldn't tell if he was in the Delta or not, but I hightailed it like never before back to my tent.  Shiundu's right.  If it's a short call, pee outside the tent.  The next morning, I was awoken by gunfire.  It was a security guard firing a warning shot to an elephant who'd encroached the borders of the camp.  Actually, a girl from one of the Acacia Overland trucks was showing me pictures of some elephants who'd trashed their campsite after draining the swimming pool of water and trying to get at the pipes where they could still smell water underneath.  They subsequently trashed the restaurant and rondavel of the camp as well.  You don't mess with elephants.  In the evening, we poled the mokoros into the Delta to watch the sunset.  Rhonda was with us on that leg of the trip and she's a raw foodist (vegetarian for the purposes of the trip) who found some kind of plant floating in the Delta.  She asked if it was okay to eat, and I'm not fully sure she got the okay on that in retrospect, but started munching it right out of the water, and brought back a handful as a side salad for us at dinner that night.  Rhonda was notorious for collecting up bits and pieces of nature.  During one of the many pit stops on the truck for a bush pee (you know, you start the trip all high-maintenance with pocket tissue and hand sanatizer, brushing your teeth with bottled water, applying Deet like it's holy water, and by the end of the trip it all goes "Lord of the Flies"); anyway, Rhonda scampered back onto the truck after her "short call" never so happy as to have discovered some elephant dung by the side of the road.  Back in Swakopmund (the German town where we never saw any people.  Ever.), Rhonda and I had visited a healer on one of the village tours, who was extolling the virtues of elephant dung as a homeopathic medicinal cure-all.  Because elephants are such picky-eaters (unlike baboons) pretty much everything that goes through them is pure and natural.  Thus, their dung is pure and natural also, but having gone through the digestive process, has now been 'treated' in the natural lab that is their stomachs.  So elephant dung is like gold.  As such, Rhonda picked it up and housed it in a plastic baggy in a locker for the rest of the trip, spawning such jokes as, "Make sure you take all your shit with you when you leave, Rhonda.  How are you gonna get that shit on the plane?  Don't forget your shit!"  Ah, it never gets dull.  I learned a lot of cool endeavors from Rhonda, like walking down a path with my eyes closed and being completely aware of my body in space and trusting its movement, or walking without ever looking down at my feet.  (We do that a lot, subconsciously.)  One thing that made me chuckle though was in Livingstone when I was itching to go for a run.  We'd been warned by Shiundu not to go for any walks or runs outside of the campsite as it was notorious for elephant tramplings and bandits.  In fact, one girl from the Acacia truck attempted this, and was promptly robbed by two machete'd bandits.  When she didn't cough up the goods right away, but instead decided to defend herself (she was a former Army cadet) they sliced her open until her intestines popped out (urban exaggeration, maybe but she ended up in hospital and as Shiundu likes to finish off his horror stories to us, "That was the end of her trip."  It always makes me laugh because I picture Harold Van Buuren, the coloured judge on 'So You Think You Can Dance South Africa' saying in his Afrikaaners accent to the dancers who don't make it:  "This is the end of your journey." 
Anyway, suffice it to say I had no intentions of jogging at that camp.  But then Rhonda, who is very spiritual and surrounded by orbs and guardian angels that the rest of us lack, piped in with, "Why don't you just take a little walk about 500 metres, where the village paths branch off?" 
I said, "But what about the wild elephants and bandits?"
She responded with:  "Just surround yourself with a white light.  That's what I did." 
All jokes aside though, I think Rhonda must have telecast me with a white light when I saw that lion, so it didn't eat me!  And I so miss the way she turned her tent into the massage tent and gave everyone massages with all these creams and lotions she'd bought.  She had us on a timed list, all the clients, crew and Okavanga Delta guides!

Muzungus
'Muzungu' is a Swahili word for white person, and it really makes me laugh when we're on a village tour or something and people call out 'muzungu' really excitedly.  It's like they're on a game drive and we're the elusive leopards. One day in Marangu (or Karatu?), one of these little villages, there was a little boy about two years old, toddling through the mountains in striped pygama bottoms with saucer-wide eyes, and in his loud little voice, he clamoured "MUZUNGU!  MUZUNGU!  Mami, Mami, (tugging insistently on his mom's arm), MUZUNGU!!!"  Sometimes the little kids tell us, "Give me my money."  One day, back in Spitzkoppe, one of the girls was giving a sob story to Bernhard about how she needs money because her dad is an alcoholic and beats her.  Ursula was cautioning him against falling for that violin sonata.  When we returned to the camp and were tipping James, our guide [for those of you from the Intrepid trip reading this:  I know I call everybody 'James' when I can't remember their name, but he really was called James] he made the connection and laughed, "Yeah, that was my daughter."  Some kids were calling out something to us in Swahili on one of these walks and when I asked our guide what it meant, he said, "Oh, they want your empty water bottles.  Then they fill them up with water and pretend they're tourists."

The Big Five and other Animals of Note
During the course of our overlanding, we've been to Etosha National Park in Namibia, Chobe National Park in Botswana and the Serengeti and Ngorongoro Crater in Tanzania.  We've seen so many, many incredible things.  I can't count the number of animals I've seen (at one point I purchased a book of all the animals in Etosha and was checking them off, but the book has changed hands so many times, I've lost track of it.)  However, some of the highlights were seeing all the animals clustered around the night watering hole in Etosha.  It's amazing to see the watering hole floodlit as a silent auditorium for all the different herds and flocks of animals clustered to drink together.  That said, there is an inherent hierarchy and some of the Alpha animals on the foodchains will cause the minions to scatter in a hurry, but at one point we saw wildebeest, springbok, giraffes, warthogs and zebras all harmoniously drinking together.

Chobe was amazing in that we did an evening river cruise (I think I was on a 'sober day' that day, but the River Guide encouraged us to drink to our heart's content to see twice as many animals as everyone else.) and at one point saw seventeen crocodiles glistening along the river bank (well, Shiundu did.  I spotted seven, and maybe three of those were actually logs).  We also saw a myriad of elephants, and a scene I'll never forget:  A mama elephant giving her baby a mud bath.  Because of the time of evening, the mud shimmered and sparkled and the elephants looked gracefully playful, splashing shining mud on one another, like they were dancing.

The Serengeti was incredible.  Mainly by the toilets of our campsite!  I remember on the game drive I did in South Africa two years ago, I didn't see a single cat!  On this safari, we saw leopards, cheetahs and lions!  Leopards and cheetahs are completely elusive so that was a thrill I didn't expect to have.  When we saw the cheetahs, they were placidly bookending a rock, one posture mirroring the other.  The first time we saw a leopard, we only saw it's tail and bum, queuing down the tree, but the second sighting was full flegded.  I'm reading "The Rainbow Diaries" and it talks of a guide who, after the game drive, propped his back and gun against a tree to have a smoke and was subsequently attacked by a leopard hidden in the tree (as Shiundu says:  "Never trust the bush!").   The clients panicked, hopped in the vehicle and drove it back to camp.  By the time the rangers returned the leopard had devoured the guide's shoulder and back.  Oh, we also saw a zebra carcass, haunting in the fact that it was skeletal aside from its nappy mane and one fully intact striped leg.  We saw two hyenas splitting a kill.  They tore the flank in half and each ran off with their share in their maws.

For me, the most exciting thing (I hadn't seen my campfire lion yet) was creeping our vehicle up close to an entire family of lions, recoiled under a shady tree.  The two cubs were snuggling and Mom and Dad were just reclining nearby.  Also, we saw two lions mate!  During the season, they mate once every 20 minutes, but we actually had to wait 35 minutes.  We were laughing a moment later though, because the whole process took exactly 3 seconds.  A few minutes later, the male lion tried to mount the female again, and she swatted him away.  No wonder.  Poor girl.

In Livingstone, I got to actually interact with the animals. I rode an elephant, went on a walk with lion cubs, where we got to watch them tumble and bumble with each other close up, and could pet them, and rode a horse, bareback into the ocean and swam with it.  That was a surreal experience.  It makes me laugh because every time I go horsebackriding in Africa, it's a bit of a mindspin.  I say I'm 'Intermediate' because I've ridden about twenty times in my life, but there are people in our group sometimes who have never ridden at all.  Then the guides say things like, "Who wants to canter?  Okay?" Meanwhile these riders have no idea what that even is, and even I need a refresher on how to trot and can barely canter.  There are of course, no instructions, just "Let the horse know who's boss" and it's English riding style here anyway, which mixes me up.  There we were in the water, and one of the girls who was quite new to horseback riding and had been traumatically capsized by one as a youngster, was riding bareback up a steep dune on one of the horses and was falling right off the side.  It was comical, yet alarming.  Anyway, she righted herself in the end and we had a good chuckle up at the bar.  TIA.  Still, the experience of riding bareback in water at sunset is like nothing else.  You really have no way of getting purchase on the horse (that I know of, or have been instructed.)  It's a bit like riding a giant caterpillar.

At one point, in the first part of the trip, we had five people (in the second leg, just three, and in the third leg, six), but when we had five people, Shiundu jokingly assigned us each an animal from the Big Five:  Bernhard was the Buffalo because he's like the head of the Bachelor Herd, being the only male, and knows how to bulldoze to get a deal.  We nicknamed Bernhard 'Let's Make a Deal Man' because wherever we were, Bernhard could make the best deal, even where there was no negotiating welcomed.  Free wifi in the rurals?  He could find it.  They offer free upgrades at some of the camps, and Ursula was craving one after a lot of camping on rocks, but Bernhard wasn't seeing the deal in that.  I still had my tent up at that point (I had to save the upgrades for later. Like now, I've been at this luxury hotel 3 days.  Must. Find. Backpackers.)  Bernhard said, "Why isn't Jenn falling for this upgrade stuff?"  Still, he managed to get the upgrade, get a deal, AND get a cooler installed in there with cold beers!  I need him here in Nairobi.  This guy tried to sell me "skim milk" the other day when it clearly said "thick and creamy whole milk" on the side. And he wouldn't let it go.  Ursula was the lion because she's strong and regal and like the den mother looking after us and protecting us, keeping us in line.  Rhonda was the elephant because she collects all the elephant dung! and can walk among the wild elephants, unharmed.  Sandra was the leopard, cool and elusive but swift like the leopard with incisively witting comments.  Then I was the Rhino because apparently I'm independent and like to do my own thing (the girls on this leg of the trip were teasing me because I'm always the last one to finish eating, the last one to get the final picture on the walk or practise Swahili, the last one off the booze cruise (because Ross and I decided to swim back to shore, while the others sailed it.  I blame the Konyagi) but I mix well with the other animals.

The other theme phrase from the trip (in addition to TIA) has been "Go Down".  On the first (second, and third) legs of the trip, the crew (Shiundu, Henry and Lelei) had us all watch this movie on their i-phone called "Mr. Bones".  It's a South African flick, and one of the missives from Mr. Bones is the warning 'Go Down' which he shouts right before imminent danger.  But no one ever listens.  Hence the phrase, "Why must you bleed before you listen!?"  When you think about it, this phrase can be applied to any situation.  The nut hailstorm onto the pool:  Go Down!  Armed robbers entering the campsite:  Go Down! The thatch collapsing under fire, and men still up on the roof with water buckets:  Go Down!  (BTW, since that fire, I've seen far too many ablution blocks with petrol tanks hooked up to the thatch roof for hot showers.)  In additon to the "Go Down" litany, Henry also comes up with his own Henry-phrases.  He's notorious for saying "Tomorrow never dies.  That's why there are seven days in a week, Monday up to Sunday."  Henry always has a smile on his face, even when he's muttering "Bloody Mzee" or telling us to chop smaller.  One day he was stressed out by the clients' food demands and he said, "Somedays you tries your best, but at the end of the day, it's all shit."  But he was still smiling.  He has tutored me now on the breakfast shift and I have graduated from pancake, french toast and fried eggs 101.  He's such a chill, easy guy but after one particularly gruelling day in the Delta we were chatting in the bar hammocks and he chatted about two hours straight. Later, when I went up to the bar to settle my tab, and saw all the tick marks next to Henry's name, I knew why!  Cooking for so many different people from different cultures and backgrounds has got to be a huge challenge.  Also, Lelei, our driver, quit smoking this trip.  I think he's on Day 30 or something of not lighting up.  Also a huge challenge in this line of work.
Nightime is pretty tame in Africa, when darkness hits most people go to bed, but we've had a few good nights beach dancing, midnight swimming, playing Trivial Pursuit, telling campfire stories and songs and watching Californication on Shiundu's laptop.  In Chitimba, the owner rescued two fallen owls and they bopped their heads 360 degrees to the music.

Now that our 45 day Overlanding is over, I'm flying solo in Nairobi, on a bit of a low.  Let me tell you, there are conmen everywhere. If I hear "Where you from? Canada?  Vancouver or Toronto?"  one more time I might scream.  At one point on Day One, I had a bit of a soft spot for one poor guy and bought him some rice for his family.  Then, in the store, he said, "Also, you buy me some cooking oil." I said, "Hey, you're lucky you're getting the rice!"  Now, my soft spots are all gone.  I am off to the beach to chill-ax.  Tonight.  Night Bus.
Jenn

Campfire Lions, Armed Robbers, Mr. Cheese-on-Toast and the Pink Tam

It's been so long since I last blogged, I can't even remember half of the things I've done this month (partly attributable to Kongayi, far more omnipotent than tequila!)  I swear, in Canada I drank once a week; in Africa I have to declare a sober day once a week.  Part of it is that you need a sip of Kili after the kinds of encounters you have here.  The theme of the trip has been TIA (This is Africa), a catch-all used to explain and exonerate all the little mishaps that occur along the way.  You never know what's coming at you.  It could be armed robbers, wild animals, engine trouble, or a sudden hailstorm of  monstr nuts (which happened to me while swimming in a pool in Zambia).  Ouch!

In Dar Es Salaam, we stayed at a campsite which had this message painted in calligraphy on the back of every toilet stall:  Camp=Safe  Outside Camp=Not Safe.  Which was a crock, since the next day armed robbers broke into the camp and the security guards had to use gunfire to scare them off. We weren't there at the time, as we'd gone to Zanzibar to the beach, but our cook, Henry, and driver, Lelei, had stayed behind.  What I find funny is that I really wanted to know what had happened, as in details, since we were heading back to that camp, and also, it's interesting!  But the whole thing got brushed under the carpet. I do remember Fana making the comment once that white people like to know all the details whereas black people want the big picture. I have been accused by Shiundu, of 'CSI'ing things too much', and my travel mates always laugh at my 'morbid curiousity'.  Sandra jokes that my favorite question to ask people is 'What's the worst thing that ever happened when (fill in the blank)'. There are some crazy horror stories here in Africa, though.  Also, I'm in withdrawal from not watching CSI three times a week.  Anyway, the details I managed to wrangle out of the guys were that the robbers broke in and pried off a log from one of the cabins, digging a hole up into the main space.  But I guess they only managed to procure a cosmetic bag before the warning gunfire ensued, so they now have muzungu items like sunscreen and aloe vera gel, for their troubles.    We had masaais, tribal warriors from the bush, guarding our camps with their spears and traditional attire.  But it would appear they're armed, as well.

Speaking of morbid stories, we were out in the Delta one day,  stick-poling our mokoros (dug-out canoes) through reeds and hippos, and taking a walking safari, when our guide told us this funny story.  He was out on a walking safari with a group including two honeymooners, when a wild animal appeared (I forget which one now...wildebeest?  buffalo?).  The guide told everyone to climb trees (so it wasn't a tree-climbing animal) while he staved it off.  The honeymooner guy tried to heave his wife up the tree first but she wouldn't go.  As the animal got closer, the guide urged them to hurry up. In a moment of desperation, the guy used his wife as a ladder to scale the tree.  The guide ended up shooting the animal to rescue the woman, but at that point, the honeymoon was over and the now-feuding couple concluded their stay in separate camps.  The moral of the story:  Learn how to climb a tree by yourself!  The guide couldn't understand why he didn't get the girl in the end, since he'd saved her life and the guy was now out of the picture!

We had our own close encounters in the Serengeti.  It's weird how life works, because during one of the game drives, our jeep broke down and Shiundu and Henry spent a good two hours fiddling under the hood and calling in the troops.  I'd say it was the typical manfest under there, no one being the wiser, but Shiundu's got a mechanical background so they did manage to do some piecemeal repairs. (Although at one point we did see once of the men collect some hay from the bush and return to the engine with it, MacGyver-style). You would think that would be the time wild animals would approach and circle, but...nothing!  We amused ourselves playing Six Degrees of Separation (I can now link Kevon Bacon to anything) and yelling things from my Swahili phrasebook out the window:  Check the radiator!  Kagua katika rejeta!

However, at night, by the campfire, it was a different story.  First of all, we were camped in the middle of nowhere, fully on the animals' terrain, with our tents pitched a good 30 second run from the toilets (I timed it).  Given that most animals can run that distance in a third of the time, you are SOL for a running escape.  We were near a kitchen compound (Henry, our cook, pitched his tent inside there), but that's about it for buildings.  Shiundu advised us not to be going to the toilets for "a short call", just to pee outside the tents, but then he would shrug and say, "But you ladies like your amenities" because a couple of times we did travel to the toilets in a group.  The first time this happened, I was in the toilet with Rebecca and Nienke just outside.  I guess they heard someone at the campfire say "I see a lion" (actually, they said, "I see a light") because the next thing I knew, they were screaming my name and jumping in the toilet with me, me with my pants around my ankles, very confused.

Next, it was the triumvirate of Sandra, Jules and Karen who went to the toilets.  The rest of us were sitting around the campfire, when all of a sudden we saw Sandra booting it back towards the campfire, hurtling at top speed and talking so fast and warbled we couldn't make out a word she was saying.  I was a little nervous seeing her hurtle into camp like that, because isn't the thing chasing her also going to hurtle into camp right on her heels?  Sandra is usually unphasable.   Implaccable.  She has a wry sense of humour and says things like 'Three, Two, One.  Day is Over' when the sun sets.  One day someone told me I had the thickest Canadian accent they'd ever heard and I was asking the group what I say that's 'Canadian'.  Sandra piped in with:  "You say the word 'wow' and the thing is not even amazing." (I think it's because no one gives a damn about the lilac-breasted rollers on the game drives, except for me.) All this to say that Sandra is completely equilibriated at all times, so to see her in a panic is something. 

As it happened, on their way to the ablution block, the girls saw this nebulous shape which they took to be rocks, and when Sandra lifted her torch to see more clearly, it illuminated the eyes of a buffalo, so that she was staring straight into its eyes.  Buffalo are so unpredictable.  Hunters fear them the most because if they are injured or irritable, they can stampede every bone in your body flat like a paper doll.  These buffalos were a bachelor herd, ousted from the pack and we watched their migration the following morning.

The following night, we were all around the campfire telling stories again, and singing songs.  Shiundu kept trying to freak us out by pretending there was some wild animal, spiking up in a panic, and saying "Let's go, guys!"  (Which does work, by the way.  Time and again!)  Eventually, everyone went to bed and only Shiundu and I remained.  Being that Shiundu's job is pretty much 24-7, he has mastered the art of catnapping and was snoring away at the campfire.  That said, if you just tap him, he wakes up on a dime, ready for the next catastrophe.  I woke him up so he could go to bed, and asked if I should douse the fire with water from the jerry can (images of Northern Ontario forest fires resulting from untended campfires, and the fire at Felix United still warm in my brain).  He mumbled, "No, just let it burn" but I wasn't sure if that was nonsense-talk or not, given that Shiundu also has also on occasion sleep-mumbled things like "The red chickens are eating your malaria tablets".  (Which was not in fact the case).  I was thinking:  'What's worse, to have the camp catch on fire again, or to risk that a wild animal comes along in the ten seconds between dousing the fire and going to the tents?'  I was kind of leaning towards dousing the fire (having experienced a camp-on-fire but not an animal-close-at-hand), but woke Shiundu up again just in case, at which point he really woke up, and we started to chat again.  We heard a lion roar off in the bush, reminding me of the hippo's threat display roar I'd heard when camping in the Okavanga Delta.  It sounded close-by, and Shiundu said, "Yeah, we need to be back in the tents before that lion arrives at the camp" (the reason being that lions see tents as objects and don't associate them with prey/humans, whereas humans who are exposed are viewed as threats/prey.)  We were about to get going, but still had our backs to the bush.  Some six sense made me turn around at that moment, and I saw the lion, strolling nonchalently towards us.  My eyes went wide and I gripped Shiundu's arm, hiss-whispering, "The lion's here.  Now!" Shiundu didn't believe me. 

Here's a little backstory on that.  On these game drives, I am never the first one to spot an animal.  Never.
Shiundu of course has laser vision and can spot these animals from the moon.  Somtimes I have the binoculars and can still only see a wisp of a line that could possibly be a rhino horn.  Karen is a huge animal afficionado and multi-tasks between spotting animals, reading the guidebook and finishing her Dan Brown novel.  Jules is even more implaccable than Sandra (being full-on German and not Swiss-German), and says things in this even-keeled voice like, "Seeing a leopard doesn't change my life."  One day, she said in this same nonplussed tone, to a bee circling her soda, "Oh fuck off.  It's diet.  There's no sugar for you." Or, "Who wants the rest of this KitKat Bar?  I'm over it." She's over spotting the animals as well  and admits full on that she can't see them.   Sandra spots things that aren't there, but at least she gives completely specific directions:  "See that branch protruding on the right from the third curly tree, follow it down.  Now go to the shadow by the yellow flower.  Right in that shade hollow is the snake."  We have all ascertained that there is no snake, but at least we know where we're looking.  Rebecca has an incredible zoom camera and can whip from finishing a novel to honing in on the animal with her zoom lens and showing it to all of us on the display.  And Nienke is just as bad as Shiundu:  "It's there!  I see it!  Beside the green tree!"  Then, there's the direction thing, where people are screaming, "I see it! It's at two-thirty!  Two-thirty!"  Two thirty?  Is the animal at the two or the six?  Also, Jules and I discovered that twelve o'clock is not in fact the direction you are facing on a game drive, but the direction the jeep is facing. 

So, anyway, when I spotted that lion, Shiundu quite clearly thought I was hallucinating, but when he turned around, the look on his face was one of sheer surprise.  I don't think in my life thus far, I've ever seen someone with such an articulated look of surprise.  This wasn't just any lion either.  It was a huge Alpha-male type lion with a huge mane.  When we turned around, it paused for a second, made eye contact and then jogged off into the bush.  Jogged, I say!  As Shiundu says, "When I turned around, first I saw the big mane, and then the big balls!"  I will never, ever forget that moment.  I recently read an article where a family was staying at one of these open campsites and each member of the family were showering, consecutively, under a tree.  The Dad was the last one to shower, and the family heard a scream.  By the time the family raced over, the lion had slashed his throat with his claw and mauled him.  Moral of the story:  Don't shower in the Serengeti!  (As Shiundu would say:  This is where the wet wipes come into play.)

Another story I read was about a refugee family crossing the Krueger into South Africa.  They climbed a tree to escape a lion, but lions can climb trees.  The lion nabbed the boy closest to the ground and ate him.  Seeing how effortless that was (lions don't like to expend a lot of energy), he nabbed the second boy the next day.  One by one, he got them all except for the last one, who rangers eventually rescued but not before he'd seen his entire family mauled and eaten.

But back to the story.  Once the lion disappeared, we quickly got up and hightailed it to the kitchen compound, it being the closest building.  Lions are social cats so you know the rest of the pride is hanging out somewhere nearby.  I removed the boulders jamming the door closed, but what I hadn't realized was that Henry, our cook, had booby-trapped the door seven ways to Sunday with all kinds of string, against the hyenas!  It was like being in a bad horror movie. That's when the true panic set in.  I wasn't sure if I could make it to the tent faster or open the door faster, and Henry and Frances didn't even get out of their tent!  Henry wants nothing to do with the Serengeti wildlife. Luckily Shiundu understands Henry's system and managed to get in the other door, but that was the longest ten minutes of my life.  We stayed in the kitchen shaking, listening to the lion roar in the distance.  He sounded mad, let me tell you.  It was probably just his normal roar, but to me it sounded like Chewbaca caught in a trap.  I was quite prepared to stay in the kitchen overnight (Henry and Frances still never emerged from their tent, not even to hear our story!  Henry told me the next day, "I was lying on my back, looking up at the ceiling.") but Shiundu convinced me to go back to the tent eventually.  Poor Rebecca, glimpsing the whole thing from her tent flap, spent the rest of the night 'holding her short call' until she deemed it safe to pee outside the tent at dawn.

One more quick story, and maybe the reason Henry doesn't get out of the tent.  One trip, the cook had stayed behind while the clients went out on a game drive.  This chef had previously worked at a Five Star Hotel and so was unaccustomed to life-on-the-road.  A herd of wild elephants honed in on the camp, and the cook was terrified. I think he hid himself in the kitchen compound initially, but when that didn't seem safe enough to him, he sprinted over to the long drop, and upon seeing the size of the elephants' hooves, and imagining them trampling him, plugged his nose and jumped into the long drop.  Very 'Slum-Dog-Millionaire'.  The Trip Leader and clients found him there, hollering from a cushion of excrement but unharmed by elephants!  That ended his Overlanding Career.  He probably went back to Five Star after that.

Though I haven't mentioned anything about Mr.Cheese-on-Toast and the pink tam, I think it might be anticlimactic after the lion-sighting story, so I'll save it for the next blog.  By the way, we measured from the lion's footprints to the campfire where we were sitting the next day, and it was 2 metres! Damn! Damn!  That is one image I don't need any camera to record.

Jenn

Earth, Air, Fire and Water

 Chapter One -- Fire: 
Hmmm...we'll start with fire since this internet cafe is like a sauna. I've been on this Intrepid Tour now, Overland Africa, for about 10 days, but it feels like a year, so much has happened.  First of all, I have totally lucked out (I think) as our travel group only has five people. It's like being on Survivor, but in the final weeks.  Since the truck and trip are designed for 21 people, we all have double seats to ourselves, three lockers each, extra mats for sleeping and our own tents.  It's a bit like Gilligan's Island.  There's Rhonda, who was a housewife for 26 years, but then did a total life-turn-around and now lives and travels on her own.  She is a raw foodist/vegan, abstains completely from alcohol, is very spiritual and meditative, takes long walks at sunset and does energy healing and massages for us in the 'massage tent'.  She works at a place called 'Smashed-In Head Buffalo Jump' in Alberta and is a true 'cowgirl'.  Then there's Bernard and Ursula, a couple in their sixties, from BC.  Bernard is happy-go-lucky and chuckly and and adopts a 'TIA' (This is Africa), shoulder-shrugging attitude when things go off course on the trip, and his wife Ursula keeps him on his toes and toeing the line.  She's astute with a quick eye, whether it's spotting the first springbok in the wild and capturing it on film (kick-ass camera that puts our point-and-shoot cams to shame) or spotting her husband surreptitiously pulling a beer from the cooler mid-morning.  Sandra is a social worker from Switzerland and has spent the last bit of time in a language school to learn English, in Cape Town.  Bernard and Ursula speak Swiss-German, so sometimes they translate for her.  She's really cute and fun, with a quiet side, but then she'll come out with these dead-pan zingers.  The other day at the campfire she told us, "Many people have say me 'this trip will change your life'".  The trip leader asked, "And has it?"  She just shrugged and said, "Until now, no."  We share a tent and have a lot of fun together.

Then there are the crew:  Shiundu is our trip leader and he has the dubious job of trying to make everybody happy with questions on the budget, special food requests, through bugs, and heat and disasters.  He's a really funny and fun guy from Kenya with a smile that lights up his whole face, but when he means business he means business and he'll whoop your ass into gear.  Lelei is our driver, and he's really chill and cool, though I saw a different, boisterous side of him the other day when we were all drinking at the watering hole, and got kicked out for being too loud.  He's trying to quit smoking, so I usually give him a sweet at the end of the day as a little incentive.  He's on Day Four now.  Henry is the cook and he makes me laugh.  He's quiet and demure, bopping around the stainless steel table with his knives divvying up tasks, but when we do something wrong, he gets this startled bumble-bee look and says, "Ai!  Not for hands, this towel.  Not for hands!"  He is always reminding us to wash our hands in the 'three bucket system' and last night he was quite perturbed because I cut the cabbage pieces for the salad too big.  "Ai! Jenny, what has happened.  Too big, too big,  there will be big matata (problem)"  I told him size doesn't matter and that I stand behind my work, but I could tell those cabbage slices were making him anxious.

Every couple of days we're are doing something new, and being that it's Africa you never know what's going to happen along the way.  Our trip got off to an auspicious start as the first day we were camping out at Felix United, our hotel caught on fire.  I had just finished going for a run by the Namibian border and jumped in the swimming pool when I saw a fire up in the sky.  For a second I thought there must be a rooftop patio I hadn't noticed and they were cooking a braii, but the next second I realized how big the fire was and hopped out of the pool.  I don't know the ignition rate of thatch, but an entire section of the roof was blazing.  Unfortunately, Calas, the owner, in his haste to shut off the electricity also shut off the pumps, so the crew of his hotel were relegated to using garden hoses and buckets of water to put out the fire.  Which was tantamount to putting a band-aid on a gushing amputation.  Also, men from the hotel (who had been 'trained' in firefighting) were scrambling up the rooftop like ants, to position themselves at closer range.  Seeing this from the ground was alarming, as you could see the fire burning like the dynamite sticks in Roadrunner, so Bernhard and I were hollering at the men to get down.  Also, to make things more challenging, there is no fire department there!  Lelei drove our truck out of the danger zone and then we scrambled to get our tents and gear out of the way, though two of our tents melted from the heat and there are openings big enough for a wildebeast to enter, never mind mosquitoes.  I nearly knocked myself out trying to dismantle this dome tent by myself, under heat of fire.

I ended up joining the crew of guys who were trying to douse the neighboring rondawel rooves with water as it seemed a bit more productive than fighting the man fire which was just completely out of control.  It was like trying to block out a shout with a whisper.  So I ran back and forth to the swimming, filling up buckets with pool water for the guys dousing the rondawels, and giving pineapple and drinking water to the firefighters.  The good thing was that nobody was hurt and the way they build in Africa they use lots of individual buildings, so the rondawels housing the double and singel rooms, and the restaurant/bar were all saved.  But they lost all their computers from the internet cafe, the entire gift shop, ATM, and offices.  It's weird how we had just paid and then seconds later all that money was up in smoke.  Also, Calas has good insurance.

The next day we felt like bad luck was following us as we headed to Fish River Canyon.  There were some motorcyclists at our camp doing an overland trip in a group of four.  They left the camp about twenty minutes ahead of us, but the one guy must have inadvertantly popped a wheelie on the railway tracks as he'd flown off his bike and his mate was performing CPR on him by the time we arrived.  I offered to take over the CPR to give the guy a break and Rhonda wanted to do energy healing, but it was a tense situation and this guy was screaming about 'fucking tourists' so Shiundu warned us back and let them continue until the ambulance arrived from Bethanie.  Unfortunately, being that it was remote, the ambulance took 45 to arrive, and the prognosis didn't seem to be good.

We were on tenterhooks the next day, since bad things seem to come in threes, but (knock wood) it all seems to be going well now.  We keep running into this German couple Derrik and Monja and they always ask us what disaster has befallen us now.

Earth
One incredible part of Namibia has been the sand dunes here.  They are some of the tallest in the world and we did a sunrise climb up Dune 45.  It's tough to climb sand, one step forward, half a step back, but it's a compelling view seeing the russet of the sand against the cerulean blue of the sky.  When you see people climbing the dunes from down below they look like small hairs on a rhino's chin.  Our guide showed us how to look for circular indentations in the sand to pry up sand geckos.  If you're lost in the desert you can eat them live and their blood quenches your thirst while their body meat gives you protein.  The travellers store drinking water in ostrich eggs buried in the sand with acacia root straws.  Also, I discovered that the best thing to do when you're lost in the dunes, is to hike to the top of the dune, sit on the shady side and be completely still until someone finds you.  Because of the metallic nature of the sand (iron filaments) the temperature can go up to 80 degrees.  A woman was lost there a couple of days ago, and Fran said that if it hadn't been a windy day she would have died of dehydration.

In Swakupmond, Sandra (my tent mate) and I went sandboarding on the dunes.  It was so much fun.  She's been snowboarding since she was 15, so she got it, but I've only sandboarded once and surfed once (and we know how that went down) so it was a new experience, but I was starting to get how to do the slalom turns by the end, and when you do a faceplant (my position for the day) the sand was super soft to fall into, not like snow!  We also got to do lie-down sandboarding, which was an incredible rush, seeing the dunes sail past your cheeks as you lie pressed against the sandboard.  They clocked our speeds and I was able to reach 71 km an hour.  We also had the same instructors as Brad Pitt.  They said he struggled a bit but his bodyguard was amazing.

Water
I got nothing.  Sand dunes (See above story on fire.  Then refer back to story on surfing.)

Air
No wind. Desert. Daytime hot.  Nighttime bloody cold.

There have been so many amazing things happening on this trip, I feel like I'm in a whirlwind.  Bernhard always talks about making every day a Saturday and that's exactly what we're doing.  We've been to the games park in Etosha and spotted lions, rhinos, giraffes, elephants, zebras, springboks, ornyx, steenboks,  rock dassies, wildebeasts, jackals and a million other animals.  At night, we went to the backlit watering hole and just watched the elephants lumber up to the watering hole to fill their trunks while the other animals skittered away in packs and herds and tribes, out of respect.

We've hiked to remote desert areas with mountains, and slept under the stars or in caves.  We've horseback ridden through the desert, hiked canyons, and yesterday we did a nature hike with the San bushmen (if you've seen the movie 'The Gods Must Be Crazy' that was the San bushmen) and watched them hunt and set traps and make fire (I bought some fire making sticks!).  They are so slender and smooth but they have the most perfectly plump butts, like smooth river stones.  We asked the guide how old these bushmen were but when Johannes asked them, they didn't know their age, only the season they were born (winter.)  I've played with village children, giving them swipes of toffee lip gloss, sunblock and apples, singing the Waku Waku Shakira song with them, and eaten fried caterpillars and Windhoek beer in the Shebeen with the locals.

In the evenings, we usually jump in the swimming pool and then prepare dinner together and have campfires.  Africa has a notoriously quiet nightlife and last night, our neighboring camper screamed at us:  "Jesus Christ!  Shut up!  It's ten to ten at night!"  Yup.  So Shiundu has hooked us up with earphones connected to his Ipod so we can at least party in the bus.  Oh, and last night I was hanging out with Shiundu and a huge Wildebeast and eland rushed by us.  I could feel the hairs on my arm stand up as they rushed by.

We are now heading to the Delta in Botswana where we'll be spending the next few days in dug out canoes with mosquitos.

Must go drink water.
Cheers,
Jenn

From Rags to Riches

Rags to riches has truly been the theme for my journey of the past couple of weeks:  travelling through the Wild Coast, the Sunshine Coast and the Garden route --a surreal transformation from impoverished rurals to opulent suburbs.  I feel a bit discombobulated, being sprung into the lap of luxury this way.  Actually, I feel a bit like Alice in Wonderland, having fallen down the rabbit hole and somehow ending up at the Queen of Hearts' garden party, playing croquet on an immaculate green lawn.  It feels like at any moment the running water might disappear and the marble tiles beneath my feet give way beneath an uprising of termites.

This is the land of smooth cool marbleentryways and granite countertops, swimming pools, Keith Harrington prints, remote controlled gateways and pets napping languorously in patches of tiled sunlight.  After a week of chillaxing in Durban, waiting for my Indian visa to come through, I hopped on the Baz Bus to travel through the Transkei and former 'homeland' of South Africa. You hear all kinds of horror stories about this stretch of wild, but it really reminded me of Ingwavuma, propelled onto a ribbon across the sky.  The rondawels dotting the landscape tend to be a verdant aqua, with aluminum rooves instead of thatching.  We did see an overturned bus on the route, with people scrambling out over the hillside, but no one seemed worse for the wear.  We did all our travelling in the day, though our driver did tell us that when he used to be a transport driver travelling nights, he was hijacked and shot at, and actually killed a man once (in self-defense...but that's what they all say...) 

I spent a night in Coffee Bay at the Coffee Shack, this rural backpackers with swinging hammocks and pool tables next to pebbled coves.  The local Xhosa girls brought their beadwork for sale and performed dances and chanting while we ate warm maize bread and beef stirfry with red wine.  I bonded with a couple from the Netherlands roasting marshmallows over the campfire and before we'd even introduced ourselves, they were inviting me to stay with them in Cape Town (which I took them up on.)

In Port Alfred, a small coastal village, my friend Trevor set me up with his in-laws, who live in a beachside home with gorgeous architecture. Windows stretching from floor to ceiling overlooking a huge expanse of garden, leading out to the sea, and a beautiful bedroom loft overlooking the living room.  They have an incongrous duo of dogs, Stuker, this gorgeous russet Ridgeback who's very mellow, and Chica, an animated dachshund who yips and nips and circles around her companion like a Mexican jumping bean.  The two are both pups, and they love wrestling in the yard.  Stuker sometimes picks up the little one by the scruff of his neck, in his jaws, and drags him about the yard.  I had fun running the beach with these two.  They're such curious little critters, nosing bits of seaweed, and carrying strange prizes home in their jaws.  It's a real change to run along the coast instead of mountains.  It feels so liberating to breathe in the salt air and take a refreshing dip after a sweaty run.  Graham and Helen were the perfect hosts.  Helen and I went craft shopping and out for tea and rolled cinnamon-and-lemon pancakes; Graham took me 4 x 4'ing over russet red roads through the green, green bushveld on a mystery tour, and over to see the springboks bounding across the golf course.  We had a braii outside on the patio, and ate roosterbrood (my spelling might be off there) [toasted garlic buns] and sausage and delectable pork cutlets marinated in some amazing special sauce.  Helen was telling me about how they were robbed one night.  Some youths came in over the wall, and she saw the security light flash on so knew something was up.  She debated telling her husband but didn't want to wake him and knew it would be safer not to disturb the intruders, so rolled over and went to sleep!  When her husband woke the next morning and exclaimed, "We've been robbed" upon going downstairs, she calmly replied, "I know."  The robbers took their laptops, cell phones, food from the fridge and teatree oil!  Now they have fences, gates, security, and the two dogs.  Their son lives next door and is a surfer.  They were telling me a frightening tale of how their son was out surfing with a mate, dangling his legs off his board, waiting for the next great wave, when he threw his hands up in the air and howled. His friends thought he was glorifying the waves, but he'd actually been bitten by a shark. They managed to rescue him and get him to hospital where a surgeon patched him up, but the shark had bitten both his legs and one was quite badly mangled at the time.  It's weird how I decided to go surfing after hearing that story...

It happened like this.  In Knysna, there was an ad for surfing lessons, so I decided to give it a whirl.  Let me tell you, surfing is nothing like that Kate Bosworth movie, "Blue Crush".  Actually, the part where she hit her head on the rock and was catapulted by the sea -- it was a lot like that part.  First of all, the phrase 'surfing teacher' is a bit of an oxymoron.  I don't really get it, because surfing I've discovered requires a lot of mental acuity and dexterity, but surfers seem to be tuned into some far-away galaxy that the rest of us aren't a part of.  Our instructor showed the German girls and I how to get up on the surfboards by practising in the sand.  It involves doing a kind of push-up while going on pointe with your big toe and pivoting into a lunge.  A natural movement that you might find yourself doing in everyday life.  The two German girls got it (they were like machines, man) but when he observed me, his comment was, "Nah, man.  That's messed.  Don't do that.  Just in one movement, like."  Once you take the board out onto the water, it's a lot like doing the burpees my trainer was always getting me to do, but on a moving board, while the sea attacks you.  It is much harder than it looks, and my back and arm muscles were aching the next day.  Standing up is a bit of a feat unto itself.  I didn't really get it, and when I asked the surfing instructorfor pointers, he said, "Just like you did it in the sand, bru!" I said, "But you didn't like what I was doing in the sand!"  The sea tossed me this way and that, and used my own surfboard as an instrument against me.  I lost a contact lens and was surfing half blind, which didn't help my case. I got clobbered in the arm, the neck, the back.  I fell off the board and was trapped in this whirlwind of a wave, ass over teakettle, not knowing which way was up or down.  As soon as I made it up I was knocked flat by the next wave.  Then the board came at me and cut right across my jugular, proving to me just why that would be an effective self-defense strategy when confronted by a robber.  I managed to stand up once. Once!  But I did find riding the waves on my knees to be a good thrill.  At the end of it all, Don was grinning, "Ya had a great time, did ya, Jenny!"  Jay-sus.  I am going sandboarding in a couple of days.  Let's hope I'm an Earth sign.  That said, I learned a really important lesson that day.  I wish I could remember what it was.

In Port Elizabeth, I stayed with Trev's schoolmates, Bryan and Leisha.  Their house was incredible. They showed me where my room was and I couldn't even find it again, after hanging out in the lounge.  They have flat screen TVs, a private bar, a gorgeous dining room table that would house the Knights of the Round Table and their families, and paintings the square footage of my rondawel in Ingwavuma.  They have three daughters (and a menagerie of pets including two dogs, a cat and two parrots!) and for the one daughter's 13th birthday, they hosted a 'Pink Party' so when you enter the garage, it's painted in flourescent pink and black checkers, illuminated by a black light.  Bryan works in robotics and animation and Leisha is a Corporate Safety Consultant.  Talking to them was very illuminating.  Leisha was telling me about the group dynamics of working with some of her clients.  In particular the way certain tribes respond to royalty. She was working with the Princess of Venda, (the fourth wife) and when she became obstinate and passive-aggressive towards the workshops and walked out, the others would all follow, at the risk of losing their own jobs.  I had encountered a similar group mentality situation in the rurals, so it was fascinating for me to hear her talk. When she confronted the others of the group without the Princess present, they all admitted that they didn't respect the Princess' actions or her persona, but that they had to show respect and complicity due to her royal status, although she had no 'real' power over them.  Leisha pointed out that although she is not royality, she has more import over their jobs as they could lose them if she reports they are wasting company money (thousands of dollars) by absconding workshops.  They all agreed this was logical, but tradition sometimes is so ingrained it trumps logic.  Even when this Kingdom no longer officially exists under the new regime. 

She was also telling me of two Hydroponics projects introduced into the townships on either side of Port Elizabeth.  Same groups, culturally, economically, geographically.  Yet one hydroponics plant was well-maintained, well-run and profited, while the other fell into ruin, rusted by the sea, leaving the tunnels derelict.  They tried motivating, coaching, teaching in the failed hydroponics project and even brought in people from the successful hydroponics project to model strategies, and took the unsuccessful project managers to the other plant for a tour.  Yet nothing changed.  People, man.

Sometimes I do get confused by the very evident and continued subjugation of the poorer people here.  Yet I've noticed something that I call 'occurence'.  It's as though with some people, it occurs to them that they can have a brighter future, and they take measures to ensure that it happens, while others stay locked into the same gridlock of 'how it always was, and how it always will be.'  For example, Fana went to invest in some MTN stock the other day and the man told him, "You know, you're the first person from Ingwavuma ever to have done this."  Granted, the post-Apartheid era is still young, and integration and success don't happen overnight, but you do see some people seizing the day, while others continue to be sublimated.  I asked a server at a restaurant the other day if she could tell my friends I wouldn't be able to meet them at 12 if they came by the restaurant.  She became flustered, and told me to speak to the manager.  Another time, I was at the movie house, but I was 7 rand short.  I asked if I could still see the movie and bring the 7 rand in the next day.  She became flustered, and told me to speak to the manager.  There's still an attitude of 'White Man Knows Answer' and  a lot of black faces behind the counters, while the white people dine.  I've also seen the domestics, on their hands and knees scrubbing at marble floors which are non-pourous and easy to clean with a simple swipe of the mop, but I think old habits die hard.

I finished my coastal journey in Cape Town, where I stayed with my new friends from the Netherlands, Liz and Jan.  Liz is a Corporate Executive for Shell who travels a lot on business and Jan runs two entrepreneurial businesses from home, one to deliver innovative vocabulary-learning through podcasting and the other to provide hosted, as opposed to 'in-house' servers for new and emerging companies in South Africa.  He is living a terrific lifestyle as he can work from home and go to the beach twice a day.  Liz and Jan have two pets, a black border collie named Snoop whom they got from the Rescue, and a beautiful black cat called Holly.  Jan introduced me to the world of Kitesurfing.  I watched him and his mate, Stein gambol in the waves as I ran alongside, downwind.  What a young boy's dream, it's like being carried up in the wind by a balloon, and then deposited back on a wave.  It's quite something to see all these bright crescent kites carving the sky, and the boarders doing suspended skateboard tricks, hovering over the choppy waves.  We took Snoop out for some games of catch and toss on the shore, which he never tired of, and ate sampler salads and hot chocolate on the Boardwalk patios.  Their home is beautiful too, a U-shaped structure encasing an outdoor courtyard and pool. I had my own wing!

I have definitely seen the other side of life here in South Africa, staying at all these palatial homes.  It's still hard to take in, like running your fingers along a stone motif, tracing all the figures, concave and convex, undulating shapes, some carving in, some protuding out, and it all makes one picture, if you can just stand back far enought to see it.  You wonder what the key is for the 'have nots'.  Education, culture, belief, occurence?  The Indian population, though brought here as indentured labourers, have now risen to the upper echelons of society and are some of the wealthiest South Africans.  You see in Port Alfred these 3 million rand summer  homes, sea-encrusted and abandoned, rising like monikers up on the coastline, while 2 kilometers away are all the RPD homes, where families crowd into one house to be able to rent out the neighbouring one.  Sometimes the poorer people are employed as domestics, but when I ask the locals if the domestics can live there year-round and do maintenace on these houses while the owners are away, they emphatically respond, "No. Then there would be twenty people living here when the owners got back."  So they stand like beautiful empty sea shells, while families crowd into alumninum shacks.

Today is my last day in South Africa and it is a bit heartwrenching.  I have to say good-bye to Fana (and it's his birthday today, too) and my friends in Ingwavuma.  I'll miss asking people for directions and have them wave their hand like a beached fish.  I'll miss hearing "Only with pleasure" when I ask for small favours.  I'll miss seeing people named for virtues:  Beauty.  Confidence.  Assurance. And I'll miss people sweeping in small circles around me wherever I go.  Like right now.  Brooms and cell phones.  Inelastic demand. 

Next stop:  Namibia.

A Swazi Wedding, A Zulu Wedding and A White Wedding

So, remember how way back when I witnessed what I have come to call THE INCIDENT WITH THE CHICKEN and was considering vegetarianism (before I took full note of the putrid state of veggies in the Spar)? Well that is small potatoes compared to what I've now witnessed about The Process of Creating Meat at these traditional, rural weddings. But first, we must start at the beginning.

The first wedding I went to see was a Zulu wedding, which goes on for a couple of days. The first day I didn't see too much as I just went up the mountain with Cebi to drop off my gift. We ate a little stiff pop, pork, and intestines washed down with swizzles of Grape Fanta, watched some traditional dancing, and listened to Shakira's 'Africa' song on a loop. Cebi's five-year-old son, Zhotani was dancing around and I said, "Who did Zhotani come here with?" (since he hadn't come with us). Cebi clucked her tongue and replied, "That's just the sort of boy Zhotani is, he's up and down and around and goes everywhere. Very independent." There were announcements that combi-taxis would be taking people to the home of the groom in the bush on the way to Jozini starting at 4 am , where the next day's festivities would commence. Cebi and I had a plan to call each other at 4 and meet up, but the Night Shift Program being what it is, the network was insane and we never got through, so I headed up on my own, where Nana's mother took me under her wing and ushered me into the combi crowded with people singing and dancing in a manner suspiciously reminiscent of the Elaine-dance on Seinfeld. Once we got to the bush, the men and women took to different sides of the road (men and women are always separated at these things) and the men took out the ubiquitous machete to hack a clearing in the bush. A girl I've never seen before, in a shiny magenta dress, Nomthebo, pulled me over with the girls, where ironically, we all curled up under a cozy-cozy blanket and took a nap (making me wonder why I'd dragged my ass out of bed at 3 am) but no worries, I had a nice nap there in the bush and was woken up by women bringing us steaming Milo and fatcakes.
Then the real festivities began. The guys dragged this lovely salt-and-pepper goat up from the bush for the sacrifice. I thought Dieudonne slaying the chicken was rough; this was far worse, seeing this poor goat have his throat seesawed off. It seemed to take far too long, I don't know if that's because the youth didn't have experience, I was seeing it in slow motion or due to the fact that they sharpen their knives on the sides of rocks. I will never get the image of the severed throat tendons out of my head. Oh, but this was just the opening act. In Act III, we see a pick-up truck spurting up the hill, with a cow dragging along behind it. At least that killing was fast (screwdriver to the soft spot), but what happened next had a macabre fascination for me. They skinned the entire cow and plucked out its organs one by one. I've never seen anything like it.

They slid the knives under its skin and it peeled off like the brown skin of a kiwi fruit, exposing the pulpous white skin of the cow beneath. I had no idea cows were so white inside. Then, they slid the membranous part of the skin off, (like the outside skin of a boiled egg once the shell has been removed). That's when it got interesting, because we saw the cow's stomach leering up at us like a giant bulbous eyeball. They slit the stomach, and you could see everything the cow had consumed, like sloppily masticated bails of hay. After dessicating the stomach, they pulled back the skin to reveal the intestines, surrounded by this mucousy mass of slime, like worms writhing in spit. As they removed each organ, they would sling it in the branches of a nearby tree, and once the intestines were dangling there, they slit them with knives to let all the excrement drip out. Lovely. They wash these later in a basin of water. Ignominiously draped next to the intestines were the poor bull's bollocks. Upon further investigation (because it's not every day you see this kind of stuff) I realized there were miniscule turquoise and aqua bugs that looked like tiny crabs all over the testicles. My first thought was: My Lord, this cow had an STI. Followed by: Wait. Can cows get STIs? And then: How will I even know which part of the cow they are serving me? (Because you know that as the only foreign guest everyone's going to be studying you, seeing how you react to everything). Fana later laughingly reassured me that they were tics, hmmm...

Slaughters aside, the wedding was very merry. The guys and gals were outfitted in animal hides and bare legs with wrist and ankle cuffs. The bride had to be 'hidden', leading up to the ceremony, so was surrounded by an enclave of women obscuring her with cozy blankets, and umbrellas. During the actual ceremony there was a lot of dancing and chasing each other around with knives, and at one point they all ended up in the coral dancing, and shouting and doing the 'Elaine dance' with some scissor kicks to the forehead, and squats. I'm not going to pretend I understood any of it, but it was great fun. At one point (I don't think this was part of the official ceremony), they threw me into the coral where an old man grabbed me and kissed my cheek and everyone laughed.

Then, there was the presenting of the gifts, loaded up by truck and brought to the groom's house (sideboards, beds and glassware). The bride's family must buy all of the members of the groom's family blankets, so there were piles and piles of cozy-blankets in the back of the pick-up, looking like the bed from the Princess and the Pea.
Everyone was very welcoming, ushering me into the kitchen and feeding me warm maize drinks with sugar and Coca Cola. For dinner, we were served in a large tent: maize, salad and (yup), beef and intestines. I was saved by the bell there though as Gama and Lucky appeared at that moment and helped me out with the meat a bit. Then, a crazy drunk guy grabbed my plate and stuffed all the remnants of beef and gristle down his throat. Power to yah, bud.

I left the twelve hour wedding with Gama and Lucky, wandering down the gravel road to the istolo to buy airtime and water. Sifiso sent me an SMS from across the road at the T-Junction, so we finished the day by splitting some beer outside the Bottle Store, and then hitching a ride back to Ing at sundown, where we made sandwiches of Polony, tomato and strawberry yogurt and hung out at the Rodawel.

My next wedding was a Swazi one, and it was a little different due to the fact that a) it was Swazi, not Zulu b) it was in the city (Richard's Bay: [sidenote: although it is the city, a lot of people here go barefoot, the Whites, the Blacks, everyone, even in the shopping centres] c) it was the wedding of the sister of the guy I've been dating, so I got to meet his whole family (Pindile, Jabulo, Muzi, Gugu, Zoto, Thembile, Nobile, Sabile, Pomilile..).

When I arrived in Richard's Bay, Fana and his brother and cousin picked me up at eleven. I was a little worried, since the wedding started at twelve. But at two we were still sitting in lawn chairs at Fana's sister's friend's place drinking beer and watching the kids play soccer, so not to worry. At aroudn two thirty, we ended up going to this kind of rec. centre where the people in the wedding party started a promenade, chanting and stepping. The chants are very cool and repetetive, so although I can't understand them I can chant them. I also got to see Fana all outfitted in his traditional attire, replete with animal hides festooned aroung the waist, a colourful tassled rope with pompoms over the shoulder, and purple scarf as an armband, animal hide ankle wraps and bare feet. He also got to carry a sheath and a sword and jump around, dancing and lunging at small children. The women wear tassled skirts and bright mandarin orange scarves with the King's face on them wrapped around their shoulders, but once the promenade finishes they shun them and go topless. The promenade ended at the tennis courts outside the rec. centre where the men and women took different sides of the court to dance and continue singing. Pindile, the bride, had a giant black feathered headress and Jabulo (Happy), the Groom had on khaki pants with colourful, tassled patches sewn all over them, like a clown.

It's so bizarre to see so many ages, shapes and sizes of women so nonchalently topless. After the dancing we made our way back to a huge tent and formed an assembly line to get supper: stiff pop, rolls, Coca Cola, beef and (my favourite) intestines! They also had something similar to the Zulu wedding, where they parade all the gifts that people have given out on the tennis courts, hauled by trucks (including furniture), and place the couple's new marriage bed in the centre of the court, make it up with bedding and pillows and blankets and put the couple in it. It's really cute, as they horse around and have fun. They've been living together for five years already though, which on a technicality is not allowed, I guess. It is difficult to grasp the culture here sometimes; I try to be inconspicuous and blend in (ha!) but I'm often between a rock and a hard place, culturally. For example, Fana told me that his mom wasn't happy to see me drinking alcohol. I smacked him and said, "Then why did you tell me it was okay to drink that beer?" (offered to me by his male relatives). He just shrugged and said he didn't think it would be a problem (further corroborating my theory that the male brain is the same all over the world.) Then there is the fact that he can't tell his mom he's dating me, his brother had to do it (the indirect approach). Also, you're not supposed to show affection in public, as it's considered rude. Sometimes Fana goes with that, sometimes he doesn't. But it's strange to not be able to hold hands, yet everyone's bounding around topless. Also, drunk men are always grabbing at you on your way to the loo. Though I saw Fana's sister handle that one by slapping the guy away, and telling him off royally before storming off across the room. So I guess my approach was too understated. They also tend to congregate by sex, girls with the girls, guys with the guys, which I find tough as I naturally tend to gravitate towards the males, as they are more into action, while the girls like to gossip. Since I don't understand Zulu/Swati, I can only go so long listening to the thrum of the talking before I get restless. So I commit a lot of cultural faux-pas as I go, but it's never dull, and I can safely say that is the first time I have met a boyfriend's mom for the first time, topless.

The Swazi and Zulu weddings were so much fun, and when you think about it, the White Weddings can be so stressful, with all that attention focussed on the bride, and the bride having to be perfect. The audience are just passive observers, whereas in these weddings, everyone is dancing and mingling and cavorting together as a team. I remember the bride in the White Wedding I saw looking positively morose and despondent, like an Ice Queen (though I wasn't aware of the 'No Touch' rule at the time.) I think that would be a lot of pressure, to have to appear sad and stoic, never touching your groom, while everyone stares at you, up on a mantle, like a doll.

At the moment, Fana and I are in Durbs, aka civilization with hot running showers (only 7 minutes, but I am over the moo.) exploring UShaka world and abandoned Pirate Ships. The street names are crazy here. They changed all the names after Apartheid ended, so you have the old names (Afrikaans/English) and the new names (Zulu). Sometimes the Transport drivers/maps people go by the old names, sometimes by the new names so it's all a bit of madness trying to pair them up, remember the name and where it is. For example Windsor Street (old name) is now Dr. Langalibalele Dube (new name). I still struggle to be understood. No one understands my accent here, especially when I say words like 'water'; I have to go British. But one cool thing about Zulu culture is that people call you 'sisi' when they're cool with you (actually Zulu's often call their cousins 'sisters' and 'brothers' which was another thing confusing me at Fana's sister's wedding. His nuclear family is actually smaller than I thought.) The littering problem here continues to be out of control. I was in a combi taxi the other day eating a banana and the 'getter' was telling me to chuck it out the window. I said, "No, it's okay. I'll wait. I don't want to litter." The guy just gave me an exasperated look, clucked at me, and wrested the banana peel from my hand, chucking it out the window for me.

Speaking of banana peels, I saw the funniest thing with a piano the other day. I was talking to uBaba Myeni, the security guard at Zisize, when all of a sudden we heard this really loud thonk. There's this old dilapidated piano on the Zisize grounds which kids entertain themselves with, thumping out tunes using the exposed hammers, since the keys no longer work. Well, the guys were playing soccer and I guess Ncane was at the wrong place at the wrong time, because the piano feel right on top of him. He kind of crawled out from beneath it, like an angry worm, dusted himself off while the rest of the guys cracked up, and continued with his game. (In case you're wondering what the connection is, it's this: Slipping on a banana peel and getting thonked by a piano are both things you usually only see in cartoons.)

Anyways, that's the African image I'll close with today!

Ehlu-who?

I officially take back whatever I said about Ingwavuma and eManyeseni being 'the sticks' now that I've been to Ethluhlene...the true rurals. Forget running water, there was no water there period when we arrived. The people were waiting for it to rain, and all up and down the gravel roads were spigots and bore holes leering up from the dry earth, between bristly bullrushy weeds, dry as dust. They carted water in from the surrounds, slung around donkeys' necks, to be transferred to pails and garrafons and placed outside peoples' rooms for cooking and bathing.

I was doing some mental calculations with Fana the other day about the whole water issue, and discovering how it really oppresses people. Let's say that in Canada it takes 10 minutes for a shower, 5 minutes to run the dishwasher, 5 minutes to load the washing machine and one minute to turn on the tap...that's twenty minutes. In rural South Africa, it takes me 20 minutes to fill the garrafon from the JoJo tank, 15 minutes to haul it up the mountain, 5 minutes to pour and heat water to wash dishes (and then another 15 to wash them), 5 minutes to pour and heat water for the basin (sponge bath), 15 minutes to bathe, another 5 minutes to heat and pour water to do the laundry basins, and a good 30 minutes to wash, rinse, and hang to dry. And God Forbid you want to wash your hair or shave your legs...forget about it. So that's almost 2 hours. Six times as long. No wonder people have no time for anything else, like studying or reading. And with no electricity, your day is done by six pm. It's time to go to bed. Ish! I was reading a book (by candlelight! Trying not to set myself on fire!) that talked about how Apartheid ended only to be replaced by a type of economic Apartheid. I completely agree with that. It's one thing to say Whites and Blacks can ride the transport together, but what transport!? All the white people have 4 x 4's and the rest are left to their own devices.

When Fana and I were coming back to Ing from Durbs, we had to wait in the combi for it to fill, because that's the system here. When the bus is full, the bus goes. Do you know how long it takes a combi to fill with people who want to go to Ingwavuma? I'll tell you -- three and a half hours!  Then, trying to get back from Richard's Bay, I got stuck at the Chicken Licken' (which closed at 6!) outside this petrol station in Empangeni where the transport guys were telling me to 'hike' (hitchhike) with all my bags along the side of the road, because the transport here finishes at six. Everything bloody well packs in at six. Thank God I knew Gama's friend Kanganipo who swung by to pick me up and book me into an overpriced B&B for the night. It did have about 300 cable stations though. Exciting!

The more time I spend here the more conscious I become of the huge disparities in wealth. For example, I know a guy here who is multi-lingual, has experience in a range of careers, possesses fantastic technological acumen and shows initiative and leadership in his job, yet his direct supervisor is getting paid eight times his salary. Professionals here live with no running water, and outhouses. They are spending a quarter of their salaries to live in one-room cement houses. It's absolutely ludicrous. The other thing making my blood boil these days is the whole lobola (bride price) issue. One of our team members isn't allowed to come to the schools anymore because she is pregnant out of wedlock and it's considered hypocritical to be preaching about safe sex, when in her condition she obviously didn't practise it. I find the whole thing to be a hypocritical crock. She's an adult in a committed relationship and just to give you an idea of how lobola works...it's about eleven or twelve cows for lobola here. At 5000 rand a cow, that's about 60 000 rand. Let's say a person here makes about 2000 rand a month. Take away rent (400), transport (350), and food (800), and the person is left with 450 rand of disposable income per month. That's not including trips out of Ing, airtime, clothing or entertainment. Even if the person saved every rand of that 450 rand, it would take them 11 years to raise that kind of capital. And that's assuming they even have a job. And you're telling people they should get married before having kids? These poor Ehluhlenian teenagers; they have no electricity and no books. No disco. No movie theatre. Is it any wonder there's so much HIV and teen pregnancy? It's funny how your connotations of things change. When I used to see people with wedding rings in Canada, the word that sprang to mind was 'traditional'. When I see people with wedding bands here, the word that springs to mind is 'rich'.

A sidenote about the aforesaid airtime: Airtime here is the greatest industry. Everyone here is pretty much using pay-as-you-go, and SMSing here is an adrenaline-sport. On 'Dancing with the Stars South Africa' they have to constantly remind people of the 20-text maximum, and all the soapies and life insurance commercials tell you to SMS them your favorite character or life insurance concerns. Airtime is sucked up so fast you have to get right to the point when you call people, and there is no time for pleasantries like 'hello' and 'goodbye'. They do have this night shift promotion whereby you can earn points to talk free from Vodacom to Vodacom from midnight to five a.m. so whenever Fana and I want to talk to each other, we have to stay up or set the alarm for midnight and sometimes the network is so busy you can't even get through. So talking on the phone here is pretty much a bust. But let me tell you, airtime is inelastic demand. People with no shoes all have vodacom vouchers and Nokias.
But getting off my rants and back to Ethluhlene, I think that place has been the most eye-opening so far. Most of the children don't speak English, so I tried to communicate by showing them the Zulu childrens' book I was reading, or skipping with them. They would crowd around me in huge throngs. I felt like a rock star, but I also felt responsible to say good morning to each and every one of them when doing my morning runs, as I didn't want anyone to feel slighted or left out. They come to school along kilometres of dusty mountain roads between the donkeys, carrying sticks to make firewood and old Coke bottles filled with water. Once when I was running, a young girl offered me a Heinekin bottle. I was really confused until I realized it was only housing water. The children here are completely poor, often without shoes, and they tie dusty bits of rags together to make skipping ropes.

I was doing the workshops with Cebi in a Grade Seven classroom and had the idea that, like in Canada, they'd be mainly 11 and 12 year olds, but because many of them start late, or 'abscond from classes' as the South Africans say, the students span from 11 to teenagers. There was even a twenty-one year old in the class! I was trying to explain how it's different in Canada, but I think they didn't understand the whole IEP thing, and just thought Canadian students are wildly successful, so in the magic circle at the end of the day, this twenty year old made a fervent promise to me that by the time I returned, he WOULD be in high school. God bless that boy (man?) for even showing up to class!

One cool thing we got started in Ehluhlene was a Spoken Word competition. Nonhlanhla and I had seen a Poetry Slam in Jo'burg, and were inspired, so I did a mini workshop on Spoken Word and made my own Spoken Word poem (about water) as an example. We decided to have a little competition with the team, so I rounded up some judges (the Fakuda brothers Mpo and Mlu, and MGomezulu), got some prizes and refreshments, and a hall for us to perform. I wasn't sure what to expect, as this was really new for the Drama Team, but they really blew me away. Cebi and Sifiso did their poetry in English, Cebi about lovers and liars, and Sifiso about grout! (he lays tiles as a second job.) Nonhlanhla, Mbali and Muzi did theirs in Zulu on Tradition, AIDS and love, respectively. They got costumes and props and the delivery was really passionate. I was so impressed. Mbali's seemed really fascinating and I asked her what it was about. She said, "Ai, Jenny, you didn't understand it?" I have tried to explain to Mbali that unless it involves cows, goats, danger, or running, I pretty much don't understand Zulu, but she continues to show me elaborate SMS messages she receives on her phone and asks for my interpretation.

Anyway, after Ehluhlene, we went on a road trip straight to Durban for the Drama for Life Conference, which was really inspiring: Verbatim Theatre, Playback Theatre, performance art and installations, and we ended up meeting this student Dumelo, who got us into a Poetry Slam event with her student card. These slammers were incredibly good, and the lecture hall was filled. The MC was tickled pink to have guests from "Ingwa...where are you guys from again?" and insisted we go up. I was trying to convince Mbali to go up, and Fana, who is able to make up these lucid and rythmic hiphop rhymes on-the-spot, I've discovered, but they refused unless I went up first to do a rap in Zulu. I'd made up this Zulu rap as a kind of in-joke amongst the team, so they dared me to go on the stage and do it. So I did, and even though it was short and silly, the Zulus are always so flattered to have you try to speak their language, so they were really supportive. Mbali and Fana both went up afterwards and I was so touched because I could tell how nervous and overwhelmed they were by all these funky, worldy city-slicker scholars, but they did it. This whole experience is making me realize how powerful poetry, and in particular Spoken Word, is and makes me think that something like this could fuel frustrated teens in remote places like Ehluhlene. It's entertaining, potentially 'lucrative' (if you award prize money) and it's a potent outlet for political and cultural expression. Not to mention the sense of community it fosters through oracy and word play.

Speaking of words and writing, back in eMan, I got it into my head that it might be a good idea to write an article (not that anyone's commissioned me or anything), so started interviewing the staff and students. When I was interviewing the Deputy Principal, a small child came in to pull on Mrs. Mantenjwa's sleeve and remind her that she was expected in a meeting just then. The Deputy responded by pulling the child aside, and whispering conspiratorially, "Tell them I am with a WHITE LADY, and that I am very busy!" I asked for a couple of 'well-spoken' students to interview and ended up interviewing two shy 'yes, ma'am' students (suspiciously both with the surname Matenjwa, though let's be honest, 50% of eMan. have this surname), so I pulled Nonhlanhla, the classroom teacher, aside and said, "Listen Nonhlanhla, those were good interviews (I was lying), but I'm wondering if you don't have some naughty students I could interview, just to get a different kind of outlook." [It cracks me up the way South Africans use the term 'naughty'. I picture a boy stealing cookies from the cookie jar, or someone dressed as a seductive nurse. Here they mean hardened juvenile delinquents stealing their deceased father's shotguns, and scoffing money from their sleeping gogo's.] Nonhlanhla sighed at my request and said, "Ai, Jenny, you are too late. They took five naughty learners to the jail yesterday. They must appear before the magistrate on Monday."
Nonetheless, Nonhlanhla did manage to procure me one naughty boy who had managed to escape arrest. Of course, being a naughty learner, he wasn't much of a studier, so his English left a little to be desired, as evidenced by his answer to my question: How do you think theatre gets learners talking and thinking about issues?
Response: If a girls gets raped to the bush, they must drain the sperm.
We eventually got on track, though I think he was worried I was trying to out him at first. He kept saying, "No, not I. I am not to do these bad things!"
I said, "No, no, of course not. Not you. Others! What are 'the others' doing?"
Then I hit paydirt and heard all about the absconding from classes to go swimming in the dam, smoking in the toilets, spinning for money, stealing from the gogo's...

In my spare time, I continued the s'more tradition and hanging out with my GQ chicken-slaying friend, Dieudonne. I was trying to crazy-glue my sunglasses one day, and I think after reading the warning label, Dieudonne was seriously considering crazy gluing his eyelids as an entertainment option. He is getting cabin-fever, I think, and wants to go live in Canada. Dieudonne always reminds me of a gay French designer, but he is none of the above. Ironic.

In other news (izindaba)...Mbali got a disturbing phone call at 4 a.m. one night while we were camped out in our erstwhile slumber party 'cottage' at Ehluhleni. One of her neighbors murdered his wife by stabbing her to death, seemingly over i.d....but I think something may have got lost in the translation there. In other local violence, one day at Zisize the boys were playing soccer on the grounds, when a dispute broke out and one youth came after the other with a machete. (Personal view: too many people have machetes here.) They eventually calmed him down and escorted him home, but when they held the town meeting outside the Tuck shop the next day with the Induna, they decided that as penance he would have to pay the victimized boy one goat and that would settle the score.

On the running front, I am developing the hamstrings of a mountain goat and even ended up running all the way to Mtabayengwe with Gama one evening, which it turns out is 24km! (my new high score). Two months ago, I was only running 5-8km.

Okay, I am wrapping this up, because along with inelastic demand airtime, the inelastic demand internet time is killing me. I think I've accidentally deleted this log about five times.
Sale kahle!
Jenn