Ten days - Ten highlights

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I seriously can’t believe how time is playing tricks on my mind during this trip. Time is zooming by so fast, but I feel like I have been here forever. I feel like I have just blinked since my last post, and it’s already been over 10 days. I am about halfway through my time at Sanccob… When I think about how I have only 3 weeks left, I feel a sense of sadness that everything is coming to an end so soon. But, then I remind myself that I have only been there for 3 weeks – and it feels like soooo much longer than that. I know that leaving will feel bittersweet.







Going “day by day” during this post seems silly, since many of those days have been “work” days at Sanccob. I could surely write about each of those days, but one of the side-effects of volunteering there is that I can talk incessantly (for hours) about penguins with little awareness of how my conversation partner’s eyes are glazing over. Fortunately, all the volunteers and staff all like to talk about penguins just as much as I do. We have penguin inside jokes, penguin puns, penguin innuendos, and penguin sympathy. I’m sure that to a non-sanccob person, we seem out of our minds. To spare anyone out there our obsession, I am going to just do 10 highlights of my last 10 days. Some our events, some are people, some are places, and they are not in any particular order. But, here’s what I have been up to since my last post.







#1: The Penguin Release







After having hundreds of penguins under our care for weeks, we released 14 penguins. Sanccob regularly has releases, and they generously try to make sure that the international volunteers get to go on at least one release. My friend Zak and I put our name on “the list” of people who want to go, and then we had to wait less than an hour before we got invited to go on one the following day. It was amazing. We loaded the penguins up in 6 boxes and we drove to Boulder’s Beach. One of the penguins was particularly excited, and he kept poking his head out of his box. We walked through the tourists, who were very interested in what we were doing, and we climbed over the fence to the beach. We lined up the boxes and then slowly turned them over. Of the 14 penguins, 11 knew exactly what to do. They quickly toddled (as only penguins can do) to the waters edge and took the plunge. One penguin seemed totally confused, and he wandered around before he finally figured out what he was doing. My favorite part, though, came with the last two penguins. They were younger penguins (or “blues”), and they had been raised at Sanccob. So, they had never been out in the wild. And, these particular two penguins has spent their lives together – staff members told us that they were always beside each other. In any case, they were pretty freaked out at first, and they tried to run back into their boxes. After we prevented that by lifting up the boxes, they just stood there huddled together. One of the other staff members and I carried them down closer to the water, hoping that they would be inspired to swim… But, they just didn’t know what to do. Then, two adult penguins from the colony came over to them. One of the adults nudged them into the water, and the other adult showed them how to navigate and dive into the waves. It was absolutely amazing. I am so glad that I got to go on a release, because you really get a sense of the impact of the work that you do everyday. Makes all the bites and flipper beatings worth it, for sure.











#2. The work at Sanccob







Seriously, once I get started with penguin talk, it’s really hard to stop. But, over these past couple of weeks I have loved my work at Sanccob more and more, and so it has to be a highlight. It’s so strange, because it’s seriously hard work. I have been sore in one way or another everyday for 3 weeks, and I get bone tired at the end of a workday. It’s physically demanding and outside my comfort level in multiple domains (including smell). But, I love it so much. And I feel really proud of myself for doing it. There is something so satisfying about things like looking back at the end of a day knowing that you worked hard, mastering a new (and completely foreign) skill, or conquering a fear. Sanccob is also such a solid team, where it feels like people have your back and you have theirs. Everyone has a good attitude, a good work ethic, and a good sense of humor. It’s inspiring. I can feel myself growing in really tangible ways (like mastering tubing or feeding) and in some ways that are harder to articulate. I have also gotten to do some really cool things… Like I have been working a lot with the oiled birds, who are stressed and needy. I have also worked with an oiled gannet (which is trickier and more dangerous to work with than the penguin). It’s silly, maybe, but I am, like, so proud that I can handle working with a gannet now. I have also sweet-talked some of the staff members into letting me see some of the brand-new baby chicks. They are SO cute. So, I continue to love my volunteer project. I have had a few days off this week, and I have actually been a little disappointed that I am not working. Even though it’s really hard. And, my hands really hurt.







#3. Camps Bay







We had a really beautiful, summery day last week. Zak, who is my partner in crime here in Cape Town, asked me what I wanted to do. I was exhausted after several days of working, so I told him that I didn’t want to do anything except lay by the pool or go to the beach (thinking our local beach in Table View). He is a “do-er”. He always wants to “do stuff”, so he talked me into taking a bus, a walk, and a cab ride to Camps Bay, which was SO worth it. It was a stunning beach and a beautiful day. My friend Miriam also came with us, and we had a blast. We even rode a few waves, despite the frigid water temperature. I hadn’t gone swimming in the ocean yet in 2011. So, this was a major highlight.











#4. Betty







A general highlight of this trip will be the people that I have met along the way, both South Africans and other international travelers. But, one of my favorites is my new friend, Betty, who is an 82-year-old woman. She is from Missouri, and she is totally a world traveler. She took a bike-riding trip around Europe when she was just out of college, and she never looked back. She has been everywhere, and she has lived in several different countries working as a teacher. This trip to South Africa is her 7^th trip to the continent of Africa. She came here to watch her friend, Nick, graduate with his Ph.D. Nick is from a slum in Kenya, and they met somewhere along her travels. They stayed in touch over the years. Because he came from very little, she helped him finance his education by selling African art back in the States. She has been helping him put himself through school for over a decade, and when he invited her here to see all his hard work come to fruition she knew she had to do it. She has a sparkling, sassy personality, and a million stories to tell. She is staying in the Aviva house, and we have all kind of adopted her as a surrogate grandmother. Last night, she made us fried cinnamon apples while we all sat around the kitchen island telling stories and laughing. As I try to figure out what kind of life I want to have, it’s encouraging to interact with someone with a life so well lived.







#5. The “Cultural” tour







I finished the last of my 3 standard tours with the Cultural Tour, or the “township” tour. In South Africa, the term township refers to an, often underdeveloped, area where during the apartheid era were reserved for “non-whites”. There is a lot of variety in and among the townships, but there are definitely areas of extreme poverty. There are also areas of relative wealth, as there are people who did well for themselves after growing up in the townships. They can afford to live elsewhere, but they choose to stay in the place where they grew up. The Cultural Tour was meant to expose us to and educate us about the townships. It was interesting, but it was also very weird. I was with a local, which is the only way to do it. We walked around in one of the townships, visiting several the homes of several people. We briefly met with a traditional healer, and we went to a local watering hole for some traditional African beer. We also went to the “district 6” museum. Often times, tourists have a hard time on the township tour, because they feel intrusive… People feel as they are going into a “living zoo” to look at people less fortunate than themselves. Our tour guide assured us that the people whose homes we are visiting welcome us as visitors, encouraged that we “want to learn”. I took that to heart, because I really do want to learn. So, my problem wasn’t that I felt intrusive. The reason that I didn’t like it more was because I wanted to learn more. They didn’t really put the township experience into the context of the history of South Africa, which was a bummer for me. But, I’ve been working hard to learn as much as I can about the cultural history of South Africa, so I may have had unrealistic expectations. The best part of the day for me, actually, was after the official tour was over. My friends Jaki, Brandon, and I asked to be dropped off downtown so that we could grab a bite to eat and walk around. After lunch, we stumbled upon a group of young Black Africans singing and celebrating the upcoming South African Heritage day. It was beautiful and energizing and moving. I’m trying to attach a video that I took that day to this post (hopefully it will work… nope it didn’t. I’m trying to post it in facebook… nope that didn’t work either. I miss unlimited, fast internet. I’m trying youtube