Damn Africa You Scary

The next morning we actually left kind of early (as in before we were supposed to, not time early) for once and began our journey to The Haven Hotel inside of Dwesa-Cwebe Nature Reserve. We stopped at a really nice gas station on the “border” of the Transkei to pick up some breakfast (cinnamon bun and yogurt, awesome combo) and kept trekkin on. Along the way, the van I was in (we rented two old-school VW buses, no shag carpeting in the back though) got a little taste of the local police force. They have a bunch of random car checks along the major highways for whatever reason, and Neil (program leader) was confronted by a police officer who thought his American license wasn’t valid even though Neil knew his license was okay as long as he was carrying less than ten people or something like that. After he left to talk it over with some other police officers, and after we were creeped on in the van by another officer who helped himself to open the window to start awkward conversation, we moved on, excited to tell the other van what had happened. Little did we know, their car would eventually blow a tire and they had to change it on the side of the road, giving us all a nice opportunity to stretch our legs.

The next two and a half hours or so were spent trying to navigate through one of the crappiest roads I’ve ever seen. For those who know Pennsylvania pretty well, it was like the Turnpike had never been paved, but was also made of dirt and had broken glass, cows, sheep, and African children in it. I tried sticking my camera out the window for a couple seconds to get clearer pictures, and it’d come out with a really dirty screen. I made the mistake of leaning out of the van to get a cool shot, and came back in with a crapton of dirt, dust, and Africa in my mouth. Whenever I put that picture up on Facebook (remember I can’t upload pictures here because they take up too much bandwidth on the modem we’re sharing) you people better appreciate it. Other than the road conditions, though, it was a really nice drive. The scenery is beautiful: seemingly-endless green rolling hills with colorful rondavels spread throughout, the blue-green ocean (that I can hear from my room) that was turned creamy brown by sedimentation where sharks supposedly feed, the friendliest people I’ve ever encountered who are always willing to smile and wave…

We finally made it to the hotel, and after pulling in and walking around, we realized why they call it The Haven. It’s just so pretty, no other way to describe it. The rooms are separate little cottages (used lightly, they’re not that big), most with thatched roofs, but all with half-doors which are just about the coolest things in the world. We got here Friday afternoon, so, knowing we had a rare “rest day” to pretty much do nothing/catch up on readings on Saturday, we pretty much just unpacked and worked into the night Friday, until we all just gave in and went to the bar (hooray for lower drinking age!).\

The next day some of us went for an early run (shocking right? I don’t remember the last time I exercised on purpose) through the woods and on the beach, which was miserably relaxing. After doing some core we washed off in the ocean (soo nice) and headed back. I really wish there weren’t so many sharks around because it looks like a nice ocean to actually go into, but I’m not messin with sharks. Not me no way no how. Later in the afternoon we saw the Queen Mary go by. Not gonna lie, it doesn’t look all that big. People were saying that it’s just because it was so far out that it looked kinda small, but I expected more from one of the largest cruise liners in the world. Someone in the group had the amazing idea of having a bonfire on the beach, so after getting unexpected approval from Neil at dinner, we spent the whole night on the beach. I imagine that’s what people in California do all the time; if so, I’m uber-jealous because it was so much fun. We just hung out, listened to music, drank cheap alcohol, and threw around a light-up Frisbee all night. Some of us were kinda hesitant when the sketchy chef, his assistant, and two equally-sketchy South African dudes asked to join us, but they were all really cool and not creepers. One of the guys actually has his PhD in botany or something like that.

The next day my current roommate, Tom, and I had a funny situation at the front desk. We, like others, have been having trouble getting hot water in our shower. So we went up to the receptionist, this jubilant, plump South African lady that was super nice, and asked if she knew what to do to get hot water. She said a bunch of stuff we didn’t understand, and then ended up giving us the keys to an entire room, just so we could use the shower in it. It was awesome.

Monday/Today (finally writing this up on the same day), we took our first visit to the schools we’ll be working at in about a month. (Half of the group of twelve is going to one school that’s like ten minutes away, the other half (my half) to one like two hours away on poor road conditions.) They were both situated on the top of hills on the side of the main dirt road, essentially consisting of four concrete buildings forming a rectangle: three were the classrooms themselves, the other being an administrative building, with a grassy/concrete area in the middle. I felt awkward saying the kids treated us like celebrities, but they were definitely excited to see us. Each of the classrooms had windows with kids’ faces filling them, and every time we walked by a door (they were all open because it was super hot out, and we just had to wear pants today) they’d all wave to us in the middle of class. I’m really excited to work with them all. Actually, correction, I’m excited to interact and play soccer with them, I have no freakin’ idea what we’re teaching them, hopefully someone in my group does. Other than that, it was pretty odd to see cows, goats, and dogs wandering around the school.

The journey for the next day was kind of a surprise to me, at least before the program started. I was under the impression we were staying at The Haven for the remaining eight weeks after we first arrived. I found out earlier in the trip that we would actually be moving to the other side of the river to camp for the next three weeks after a few days at the Haven. So we left that morning on the crappy roads with a long nasty drive ahead of us. We only had two vehicles to cram fifteen people in, one of which was this weird Mitsubishi SUV with the smallest seating space in the backseat ever. Someone had the genius idea of cramming two bigger guys and one skinny guy in the back seat of that car, and everyone else in the remaining VW van that didn’t blow a tire. And of course I, though not being the skinniest guy on the trip, got stuck in the middle, so I spent like three hours driving on even worse road conditions with my knees clapping together, my bladder full, and my ass hurting from sitting on the place where the cup holders pull out that isn’t technically supposed to be a seat. Some of the roads had amazing views that reminded me of the Mitsubishi (I think, possibly coincidental) commercial where they’re driving on the most dangerous road in the world in like Bolivia or something. Driving on the left of these roads was pretty scary though, especially because the road is wide enough for 1-1.5 cars max and we went by like three different cars zipping by on the side of this cliff.

Once we got to Dwesa we stopped in this grassy area to eat some sandwiches for lunch, and just across the road we saw some vervet monkeys (or just vervets, don’t know don’t care), which freaked me out something fierce. I hate monkeys.

I had more to had, but the Internet is really spotty here (noticing a common trend?), so I’ll just throw this up for now. My next post could potentially involve cockroaches, scorpions, and monkeys and me spraying Raid at all of them.