IT'S BEEN A QUIET WEEK...

in my little corner of the world.  At work, I am making good progress on the NGO Management Basics workshop and getting ideas of who we could partner with to present to those that would benefit.

I went to Pretoria during the week for a meeting, and had a chance to visit with the interim (4 days) country director, who is the acting country director in Swaziland.  A very impressive man.  Our new CD will be arriving in about 3 weeks but there needs to be at least one American management person on the post at all times, so he came to fill in briefly. I also had a chance to lunch and visit with my friend Jonelle who I met the first week here.  Sure wished we lived closer so we could see each other more often.  It's lonely in this big city.

Sad news...my friend Vicky is leaving a month earlier than expected due to an accident at the refinery.  She is okay and will be flying out tomorrow.  I am sad to see her go; it was fun to have her visit and travel with a bit.

Exciting news!  I will be leading a Habitat for Humanity Global Village build in Guatemala March 21-29, 2015. I will be able to interview the needed 12-16 team members by Skype on evenings/weekends.  I am tentatively planning to go two weeks early to do a Spanish immersion course, and to hike a volcano.  

For now, I am putting together a travel schedule and plans for 9 friends who are coming in October for two weeks.  Good thing I have internet in my house!

MUSICAL WEEKEND

Saturday night, we enjoyed the music of acoustical guitar in a little venue directly across the street from me, this time a trio with the main attraction being Dan Patlansky, who opened for Bruce Springsteen here a few months ago.  It was quite good~



Sunday afternoon this group was performing at the weekly African Market on the roof of Rosebank Mall.  This is a great place to buy authentic hand-made goods, as well as some foods.  It was a treat to see these kids perform and to be able to help them out.

UNIFORMS AND NAMES

One day at the bus stop the two young girls (ages 14 and 15) were not wearing their usual school uniforms. (Nearly all South African students wear uniforms.) I asked them if they liked being able to wear whatever they wanted, and the both immediately responded that no, they did not!  It was too stressful to decide what to wear to make sure they would fit in and be wearing the "right" thing.  Interesting, yes?

Many black South Africans keep the name of their home language, most (all?) have some meaning.  For example, when Linda and I did a safari three years ago, our guide's name was Peace.  Angie's mother's name is Beauty.  (I wonder if she gave her daughter an American name to be more contemporary.) The NGO director I worked with in KwaZuluNatal went by the name of Knowledge.  My colleague's name at Operation Hope is Tshidi, which is a fairly common Zulu name.  I have seen and met Khanye, but was surprised yesterday at the grocery store to hear someone call "Connie" and one of the workers had a name tag with that spelling.  Quite unusual.

YOUTH DAY

June 16th is Youth Day in South Africa to commemorate the tragic deaths resulting from the 1976 uprising of youth against apartheid.

There is a lovely 15-year old girl that waits for the bus with me in the mornings. She indicated she had never been to the famous Apartheid Museum here in Johannesburg, so I thought it would be appropriate to enable her to learn more about her heritage.  I made a point to meet her mother the day before, to assure her that this public holiday outing was with good intentions.

Her mother works as a domestic in my neighborhood.  Her grandmother lives in a township about an hour away, as does her 22-year old sister with her 5-year old daughter.  Her sister also works as a domestic, since she did not graduate from high school, according to Angie.  The grandmother chose a private school located in the heart of Jobug for Angie to attend, and her mother's employer pays the fees for her to attend. The grandmother and Angie both seem to be keenly aware of the importance of education. She likes science and wants to be a doctor.  I hope she will be able to fulfill her dream.

Angie has not been to numerous places in Joburg, such as the nearby Botanical Gardens, or the Zoo.  She had never ridden on the Gautrain, which is a high-speed train running north-south from Joburg to Pretoria, but had often seen the red tour busses when walking from the bus stop to her school.

So!  We left at 8:30 and walked the 30 minutes to  Rosebank Mall, got on the Gautrain, which was a special thing for her.  We traveled to where the Hop On Hop Off  bus departs. She was excited and insisted we sit on top in the back where it is open (and brrrr, a bit windy and chilly!).  She was able to show me her school, and acted as a guide when we went past  places she saw regularly.  She had fun seeing them from this new perspective, as well as viewing many new places along the way.

We brought our lunches and ate in a nice outside area at the Museum, then toured.  She really enjoyed reading/learning more about the history of apartheid. It ended five years before she was born, so there was much she didn't know, and was happy to be able to take her new knowledge back to her teacher and class.   As you'd expect, there was a great deal of information on Mandela.  She was aware of the famous rugby match and the movie "Invictus."  Since I have it on my computer, I invited her and her mother to come to my place sometime to watch it; she readily accepted.
We then hopped on and went to the Origins Centre at Wits University, which focused primarily on Rock Art as history of human origins. There is more in-depth information at a museum called the Cradle of Humankind about an hour from the city, which I will be visiting some other weekend.

We arrived back at Rosebank a bit later than anticipated, and it was nearly dark by the time we walked home.

I do wish these photos would show her charming smile.  It was delightful to spend a day with someone so interested and appreciative of this little adventure.

PROBLEMS AND SOLUTIONS

South Africa is on the edge of a recession; the rand is weaker once again. When I arrived in January, it was very weak, but improved for a few months; now it appears to be working its way back up again.  Good for American tourists; not good for the people of this country.  One of the current major problems is a strike by the platinum miners that started about the time I came here in January...indications are that an agreement is in the near future.

The only electrical provider is in disarray, and are warning once more of brown outs and black outs this winter as usage increases.  So far, we've not had any, but they will likely be between 5-9 p.m., the peak periods. Another situation that compounds the problem year-round and has for several years is cable theft.  Eskom states that 40% of their power outages are due to cable theft.  A solution is to bury the cable deeper, but they don't have sufficient manpower to replace existing lines. Because of the value of the materials, the thieves will cut and steal cable from anywhere and everywhere...even where elderly live in low income neighborhoods.

The problems here are many and makes me once more realize and appreciate how fortunate we are by comparison. While living here and trying to help one must adopt the "how to eat an elephant" philosophy...it's easy to be overwhelmed, unless you focus on just one bite at a time.

 Peace Corps Volunteers, here and worldwide, are doing just that, bless them all.

PILANSBERG NATIONAL PARK

 Vicky and I arrived at Sun City early enough to browse around before checking in for our 4-7 p.m. game drive.  It is a resort type of place, sort of like a bad Las Vegas, with time shares, water park, casinos, etc.   There are many private lodges with entrances to the park at other locations, but this is where National Park game drives originate, and also is the nearest at just two hours from my place.  Game viewing was, unfortunately, pretty slim pickins.  The Park does have the Big Five, but we did not see any of them.

Giraffes in the distance, a few zebra fairly near the road, lots of antelope, as always...but they have many different types here.  One is the Kudu, which makes good biltong (jerky) I am told, so plan to try that soon.  This lovely impala was entranced by something towards the lake.


The warthog also had a stare-down contest with us before he trotted away.

The best was this group of wildebeest very near the road.  Totally unperturbed by our presence.


This is the way of larger open game reserves; sometimes you'll get lucky and see a lot of animals, and other times, not.  At smaller private reserves there is less area for them to roam so more likely to see everything, as I experienced a few years ago.  It got very cold the last hour of our drive when the sun went down.

We had to drive about 30 minutes in the dark to our lodging for the night...a hotels.com redemption of mine, and I was a bit apprehensive about what we'd get, although it sounded good on the website, and it was!  A great country lodge atmosphere but with very modern rooms (including a big bathtub which I greatly enjoyed!), great buffet breakfast!  Another nice outing.

PROJECT UPDATE

It's about time I documented the status of my Peace Corps Response project...the reason for my being here!  I have completed the draft of the Facilitator's Guide and the Participant's Notebook for the Operation HOPE South Africa adult literacy education program, and it has been sent to the U. S. office for approval.  I anticipate more editing to be done before we pilot test it, which will hopefully occur in July.

In the meantime, I am working on a Power Point Presentation to be done at a PC in-service training in July, as well as a NGO management training manual.

Luckily, we are able to stay in our current office location due to recent funding, and moved to one large office with an outside window instead of two small inner offices.  The reason this makes me happy is that I think it would have been too cold to work all day in my house.  Winter is to arrive later this week, with highs in the 60's during the day and hovering around freezing at night.  I have yet to know what this means regarding the temperature in my place...but will be sure to let you know.  Hopefully my good long underwear and fleece will see me through the next two months!