Advertisement
Published: December 30th 2007
Sunday was a day of rest…I slept in and walked to town to chill out and use the internet and had lunch with Gabi and Bianca…two of the other volunteers…Aussie and Dutch. We had a great time and as it turns out, it really isn’t all that inexpensive here…I think my lunch was like USD17. Came home to read my book and passed out for a few hours…not sure why I was so tired… Then we had a braai…or BBQ in American.
One of the girls in the house…I feel like I’m talking about a real world house, its silly…but anyway, she is the most unsocial person. Eats dinner essentially in silence and then disappears into her room. She’s a little bit older so you would think she would be more in tune to being friendly with others in the same living space…it’s just odd to me. I guess you could refer to her as a soldier and she is determined to do what she came for and that’s it, but I think if you are here for over two months, like she is, you’d want to form some relationships. But that’s just me….
The two project managers got
here, Marlene and Greg. They seem really nice and I will be going for drives with Greg nearly every day, which is fantastic. The unfortunate part is that they are only here for one week.
Monday we went for a drive to Hluhluwe (pronounced shlooo-shlooo-weee), which was AMAZING. We saw like 10 animals and 3 of the big 5 in a matter of like 30 minutes! Elephant, Rhinoceros (which completed me seeing the big 5 from my previous safaris), and Buffalo (the other two of the big 5 are the lion and leopard). We also saw zebra, giraffe, kudu, impala, warthog and wildebeest. Hluhluwe is an amazingly beautiful park…the gentle sloping hills make it the terrain vastly different than the parks in Botswana, which are generally flat, so it just adds to the scenic nature of the drive. It’s so cool to me that a short ride away is all of this. I spoke with my nephew Noah later in the day when I got back from the drive …he was actually at the zoo so we were able to chat about all of the animals each of us saw during the day. Adorable.
I also just
found out that my friend Justin will be in South Africa in a few days for like two weeks. Hopefully it will work out to meet up. Always enjoy seeing the friendly face! And if not I know I will see Lee at the end of January. I am working on us going to some of the vineyards in the Cape Town area. Should be a good time! I am also hoping to go to Kruger or Phinda while I am in St. Lucia...Kruger obviously the top place to go for game viewing and Phinda is supposed to be five star, actually run by CC Africa, the company I used for my Botswana safari so I know I would be in good hands. I should be able to get relatively good deals on either so I’ll just see which works out best…Phinda is 1 hours drive and Kruger is 3 hours.
Tuesday was Christmas Day. I got my first Christmas present! A wildlife keychain and I was super excited about it…seriously, I was…I really needed a new keychain. So, you could really feel the Xmas spirit here in St. Lucia…NOT. Honestly, there is only a little (an exaggeration at
that) decoration in some stores…random people wearing a santa hat…and sunny and 85 degrees. We started out going to the day care, which makeshifts as a church as well. I think I recall hearing Celine Dion, A New Day blaring from the speakers almost as high as me so it was loud. We handed out presents to the kids there and it was wonderful to see their excitement…although I must say, it wasn’t as “moving” as I maybe had envisioned it would be. I don’t know, I would have expected ear to ear grins and screeches of joy and glowing faces, but it was a little less “dramatic” than that. Smiles and general happiness were certainly present but I guess just different than expectations…maybe I shouldn’t have had any…
Later in the day we went to the BEACH!!! Seriously, ridiculous. Cape Vidal is an area along the Indian Ocean we went to and I swear, I cant remember the last time I have seen something so beautiful…especially the ocean…sapphire blue and sea green water with tons of white capped waves… ‘Stunning’… ‘Exquisite’… the water was sooo warm and apparently there was good snorkeling as well. I splashed and frolicked
around a bit in the sea and spent the majority of the time on the beach catching the sun. Obviously no one wanted to compare tans with me. So by the time I made it into the water it was time for lunch…the boys had “braai-ed” for us. Wonderful Christmas lunch and then the decision was made to go back home, which in my opinion was a shitty one. It was a spectacular day, the water was warm and we had only been there two hours. I was pretty bummed out about it. We did do a roundabout way home to try and see some animals…we could do this since Cape Vidal is in the St. Lucia Wetland Park, now known as iSimangaliso. Simple name to pronounce, spell and remember. Oy. The English translation of this Zulu word is Amazing.
When we got home, Katrina was waiting for us. Katrina is our cook and I thought she was given the whole day off. I was sort of sad to see her there working on Christmas and she didn’t even join us at the table for dinner. I asked if she was going to and they said no. I feel
like I should have told her to sit with us at the very least. I dunno. And she walks to and from the house to her home every day. It’s pretty dark out when the sun goes and there are no street lamps. We give her a floodlight flashlight type thing…anyway, I guess this is the way of life here.
Wednesday is still a holiday in South Africa…the Day of Good Will. So when we showed up at the day care and there were no kids I guess we weren’t surprised. But word spread fast throughout town that we had arrived so they children started to trickle/ run in. We ended up with about 15 or so and just played games all day. Duck, Duck, Goose and Fruit Salad and Relay Races and Limbo…all different types of games. They always seem to have a grand time.
In the afternoon, Annabel, Greg, Marleen and myself went to Hluhluwe…can you pronounce it this time? Yea, didn’t think so. And I saw a CHEETAH!!! It was like 10 seconds and in the bush but I saw her. I got two shots …one is ok…and by ok I mean average. Seriously, wildlife
is virtually impossible to shoot. I mean it’s easy but its really difficult to be creative with it and a lot of it is sheer luck and with the help of very expensive equipment…i.e. Greg’s Nikon D200 with a Sigma 70-500mm lens.
So I am still enjoying the other girls in the house although one has rubbed me the absolute wrong way and I am trying to not think about her or let her get to me…she doesn’t really speak, although German is her native tongue…so ill let her continue on that way and smoke her cigarettes. There is another woman who I don’t think is going to stay the full time she has planned to. I empathize with her…she has a lot going on in her life and much to sort out on her own and this may not be the right venue for her. It’s really a shame…I talked with her the other night and tried to give her sound advice although it’s tough when I don’t know what’s going on…I don’t think she has really opened up to anyone (not just here but even at home)…I think she is rather private. There appears to be a
lot to deal with and I hope she is OK…she seems very very sad all the time.
We had dinner the other night and were given some toast as well on the side. I asked for the butter and what I got in return was this tub called FAT SPREAD. Seriously, ok, fine its butter but why on earth would you ever name your product fat spread, and if you do why would you as the consumer pick it up off the grocery shelf. I reluctantly used it for my toast.
Thursday morning I was back at the day care center and we sang a few songs with the kids and then had them write about how they spent their Christmas. The younger ones were just drawing or trying to draw is better like it, but they were definitely enjoying themselves. We then read them out loud, with Theo translating the ones written in Zulu. We also had them play the matching game with animals to connect the animal with what they eat and where they live. They really seemed to enjoy that and especially running over to me afterwards to check off if they got them correct.
And we ended with a few games similar to Quack-Diddly-Oso, Do-As-I-Say-Not-As-I-Do, and Stuck in the Mud. They just love to be silly and have fun…it’s incredibly heart-warming. We also had showed up a bit later than usually and when we drove up all of the kids were gathered together and when they saw the car, they stood up and started screaming and jumping. Just makes you smile.
For the afternoon Greg and I drove about 90 minutes to the Umkhuzi game reserve. There they have these things called hides…little huts in the middle of the jungle to make people discreet to the animals so you can seem them and photograph them in their natural habitat even closer than on a drive. I was extremely excited about it and had heard you can see quite a few animals there. Well, we saw pretty much nothing! Impala of course, but other than that it was a big disappointment. Our conclusion was that the people of Phinda…the nice CC Africa private reserve on the other side of the hill coerced all the animals over to them! We really didn’t understand why there were no animals…it was a perfect day and lighting was
just so nice! Oh well, you win some and you lose some.
Another thing that got me pretty excited was my conversation with Greg. In the car on the way home the day before we were chatting about a whole bunch of things and one of the being cancer and as it turns out each of us in the car…Greg, Marleen, Annabel and myself each have someone close to us who has battled and survived cancer. So while today was just Greg and I, I decided to mention it again since my initial thought for volunteer work in South Africa was to educate underprivileged women about the importance of breast self exams and general awareness about the disease. And when I found that it was much more difficult to organize than I would have thought I realized that there is definitely a niche market to do this and I think African Impact would be a wonderful organization to get involved. We started brainstorming and coming up with a few ideas and I think he seemed pretty keen on potentially pursuing this. I said to him that if after African Impact gives it some thought and wants to pursue further
that I most definitely want to be contacted. Especially after reading that October TIME article and the statement that says (in bold no less) “In South Africa only 5% of breast cancers are caught in their earliest stage. In the U.S. it’s 50%.” That is just insane and scary. So we’ll see where this goes… Could be quite a good project for me and I’d love to see if I could get Pfizer Oncology involved as well…
And hey, the BEST news. I won my fantasy football league, You Play Ball Like A Girl (and yes, its an all girls league)! I am really impressed with myself, thank you very much…how effin sweet is that. I guess I now know my strategy for next year… very tempting.
Friday morning we were back in Khulu at the day care center…pretty much up to the same things…today we had them coloring in the coloring book we had photocopied of the safari animals. They had a great time with it. We also played some more fun running around games. There are only four volunteers left…Leslie from Canada who is leaving Sunday, Gabi from Australia who is leaving Tuesday, and then Silvia
from Austria, aka Ice Queen...the one who doesn’t really speak or too friendly. Bianca from Holland left today to hopefully take care of herself. I truly hope she can figure things out. Thus it will be just me and Silvia left. Neat.
In the afternoon, I went to Hluhluwe with Greg, Gabi and Theo. The game was much better than yesterday but still nothing to write home about, I think I am quite spoiled after my Botswana safari. We did see some Rhino which were tucked behind some bush so Theo decided to get out of the car to get a better photo. You aren’t really supposed to leave the car but he didn’t go too far. Anyway, later on, one of the Afrikaans drive guides pulled up alongside our vehicle and told Theo he saw him out of the car from across the river and that he can’t do that unless he had a license like this fellow on a power trip had. This guy must have been waiting for us to stop to observe an animal so he could say something to establish his authority. Anyway, Theo wasn’t fazed and then proceeded to ask the guide if
he had seen any good game on his drive…the guide didn’t respond. Worth a chuckle anyway.
When we got back Ms. Silvia, appropriately told that she the female version of Terminator (apropos as Arnold comes from Austria as well), came up to me and told me that she needed to talk to me and asked me to step outside. I was ghastly frightened. She’s pretty militant and cold so I was SHOCKED when she said that she owed me an apology and that she had probably come off rude to me all week since she was pretty pissed I came into the day care center with my safari animal projects for the kids. She told Annabel that she had a problem with me and Annabel was like what kind of problem could you possibly have with BETH?! She then went on to tell Silvia that it’s part of my project to teach the kids, and hence her apology, which was very much appreciated. I think a few things come into play and that is a) she was wrong, b) it will be just the two of us in a few days, and c) her generally disappointment in what she
had wanted for her two months of volunteer work and focusing on children. We had a nice chat and I think the air is clear…obviously making things more comfortable. She’s actually started participating in conversations and seems to be trying to make an effort. I’m happy to give her a second chance for the remaining two weeks. We actually joked that she may have gotten lucky with a guy that is staying in an extra room on the grounds of the property (he’s not part of the project) and that’s what “loosened” her up. Can I say that? Well at least I’m laughing.
Saturday I was up early to go on a nature walk with Gabi, Theo and Hippo. It was a two-hour walk in iSimangaliso and we essentially were walking in the wild…which is kind of cool and a tad scary. Theo is a trained guide as well as working for African Impact so it was great to have him along. Came back and went to yoga with Annabel, Marleen and Leslie. Very relaxing and then it was off to our hippo and croc sunset boat ride. Pretty uneventful but nice to do and spend time with them.
Both Annabel and Marleen expressed their interest in potentially living in NYC at some point in their lives…I think they would be great additions and would be totally excited if they did while I am still there!
I did get an email the other day about the Cape Town project that I am heading to after St. Lucia. They have completely and utterly changed the project and that means there is no project for a women’s shelter and I’m really rather disappointed. I was looking forward to working with these girls. I think it is a much more intense experience than working with children…not that I don’t love children and feel that it will be impactful but I’ve been helping out here in St. Lucia much more than I anticipated and my expectations for Cape Town was that my focus and time would be spent at the women’s shelter. I will most likely go to the project but I am a bit hesitant especially given that it’s only two weeks notice. Also, this project here in St. Lucia is only a few months off the ground and I can see that there is still a bit of work to
get it completely organized especially with the photo project and thus I’m a tad nervous to start a project on its first day, especially when it’s not what I wanted. I’m a bit confused with my feelings and will weigh my options before I make a final decision. I hope it doesn’t sound awful that I’m not too keen to work in a school again but I’ve invested quite a bit to volunteer my time and to have it not be what I was hoping for, well….maybe it will be even better. I always say things happen for a reason.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.076s; Tpl: 0.017s; cc: 10; qc: 29; dbt: 0.0402s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
itjrjr
non-member comment
treyhreh
rurururu