Blogs from East London, Eastern Cape, South Africa, Africa

Friday evening we got to know each other a bit and Saturday morning we took off on the way to Grootbrak. We took the coastal road to Port Elizabeth and the rest was on the N2. When we reached the Keiskamma cuttings I pushed as hard as I could. Johan and Chris had to calmly stay behind me for 650 km's and I had to at least give them some opportunity to have fun in the turns. They confirmed that the speed was o.k. through the turns because they are used to the roads at Bloemfontein. (You have to drive far to find winding roads:-) We had coffee at Bira and again at Nanaga. I was lucky to be riding with coffee lovers like my self. We did however realise that time was running fast at ... read more

Hi All, we have finaly moved on from Klein brak, we spent 2 days in a park outside Addo and did a trip into the park, it was realy nice, we saw plenty ellies and lots of buck but no lions. I broke a window on the van at the entrance of the park, the gates are very narrow, that is my story and i am sticking to it, Wanda says i should use those mirrors on the side of the car, but what has the mirrors got to do with a narrow entrance, the problem is now to get hold of a new one, no carevan shops here, but will sort it out. After Addo we moved up to East london and are now at Yellow sand park, a nice park with buetifull beach, will ... read more

After lunch Friday, everyone left the Manderson Hotel. A number of people told me that though it was their winter break, they would be prepping for school and practicing what they learned. We were headed out to visit a school near by. We to the primary school in King William's Town. A teacher from the school was with us all week. We were told that the Eastern Province is the poorest province in South Africa. Alex had asked if we could visit a school, since we would be in schools while working in the Western Cape province. It was an interesting comparison. When we arrived, Noble remarked that the school (from the outside) looked like every other school in the country. The buildings are one or two stories and motel style. Most schools seemed to ... read more

Though we had spent our first weekend planning (and it was busy), Monday morning felt like the real beginning of my volunteer work with Education Beyond Borders - (http://www.educationbeyondborders.org/). With our borrowed car, we headed to the Manderson Hotel in Stutterheim (http://www.manderson.co.za/) early Monday morning for five days of workshops with teachers from all over the Eastern Cape province. Though some people were there when we arrived, we didn’t really start until mid-morning. (Some people had to travel many hours to get there.) We arrived with time to get organized and rearrange the conference room, find power strips and figure out the projector, which would be uncooperative later in the week whenever we changed computers. Lots of patience was required! I was forewarned about this. Africa is a very laid back place, the people are ... read more

And thus, the next adventure begins! From the beginning. I made it to the airport with plenty of time to spare and met up with Sarah, the other volunteer on the programme with me. We chatted a bit, until the plane started boarding and it was time to face the 16 hour longest. flight. ever. Realistically, I’m sure there are longer flights, but this one was pretty darn long. I watched 2 movies, until my ears started hurting from the headset provided by the airlines, read some of my book, slept as much as I could, and fought off my leg cramps as discretely as possible so as not to continually kick the seat in front of me, nor wake up my seat partner and I deftly hopped over her to wander the aisles. My flight ... read more