MOUNTAINS, INSECTS, GOATS AND TRASH

I arrived safe and sound to Polokwane on a great Greyhound bus that even served coffee/tea and cookie!  One stop on the six hour trip where it cost 2R to enter a very clean toilet and 5R for a nice little soft serve ice cream cone!  The rand is usually about .$10, give or take, and now is worth about $.11.  Gilbert, the PCV who I'll be working with, was waiting for me, and we went immediately to the store to stock up on groceries for me for two weeks.  I thought that someone would be cooking meals for me, but that expectation was false, and I will be preparing my own meals, which is ok.  After groceries, we took the taxi van to the main taxi area, then waited there in one for nearly an hour for it to fill so we could come to Legkwareng, the village within Ga-Mathabatha where I'll be staying.

 I'm sharing this compound with three teachers who are instructing at the new "college" here, which is like a Vo-tech.  They eat pap every night for supper, which is made from white corn, and similar I guess to grits, etc.  Haven't tried it yet.  High carbs and high calories.  The kitchen available to us is very basic, (no forks and only a few spoons and one serrated knife) as are the groceries I purchased, so my diet will be very simplistic.

The area is quite beautiful...mountainous, and very rocky, so hiking in the will not happen.  I wanted to go for a walk down a road that leads to a non-working mine, but was told I cannot due to wild animals.  So, like Morocco, back to the highway early in the morning, which is still nice as there are mainly just a few public taxi (vans) and lots of kids walking to school.

There are more insects in my room that I had in Morocco...Odd looking little ants were all over the place this morning but none present this noon.  Some over-sized box-elder bug looking things that appear once in awhile.  I had a little lizard in here yesterday and have learned from Hawaii to welcome their presence, as they keep the insect population down.  I need to close my windows at dusk so mosquitoes don't come in, so my room is quite hot and stuffy since there is no fan.

Lots of goats roaming around unattended.  When I asked how anyone knew who the owner was, I was advised they are "marked", I think on the ear.  Goats are used for meat and milk.

Goats, wash on the line, speed bumps in the highway, rocky mountain

Lastly, trash.  The aluminum cans and plastic bottle litter is unbelievable!  I tried to find info on a recycler in Polokwane, but haven't found one yet but I'm going to continue to pursue it.

Gilbert is an amazing volunteer and I'm lucky to have him to work with here.  He is a tall black young man, born and raised in Ghana and New Jersey.  He is a Health volunteer, and although that sector's main purpose is HIV/Aids education, he is also very involved with an NGO that provides social services as well as has a bakery that they need/want to be an income-generating social enterprise to help support other activities, and I'm here to help with that, as well as the research on financial education.  Here he is at one of the nearby high schools, having the learners do a pre-test on HIV awareness prior to a soccer game activity that weaves in the information they need to know, then a post-test is done to see if they've learned.  The woman in the jean skirt (Lucia) works for a local clinic and I'll be interviewing her next to learn of her household income and expenses.

Gilbert, tall guy in black on the right, explaining the survey to 10th graders

Gilbert will be going to Pretoria for PC work Fri-Mon so I'll be going it alone, but it will be fine. Internet here is very sketchy but I discovered better reception at the office so am able to post some photos .