Blogs from Africa - page 2697

HI First i would like to thank all of you for all the nice messages. It is so good to hear from Home. So many things have happened since i wrote last , i hardly know where to begin! First: It is official: i had my first breakdown! It was Thursday night, and were having supper with members from the organization. For the first few days, i had been trying to eat everything people offer me, not to insult their customs. However, the food here is extreamely spicy and for those of you who know me well, know that spicy food and i are worst enemies. So there i was: eating spicy rice, sweating, stomach grumbling, shaking. I decided to take my time.. but that might have made it worse. One of the members of the ... read more

by Mrs Plod Woke up at 7:00ish, and started our day with tea (getting to be a habit!). Had a very nice breakfast at the establishment serving "the freshest coffee in Sedgefield"--Fijnbosch Coffee House. I read Die Burger (Afrikaans newspaper) to Ross and Owen. :) We decided to skip the Tjoe Choo, and explore Sedgefield instead (since we were staying there, it made sense!) After about 15 minutes, we decided that Sedgefield (no offence to any Sedgefielders out there!) is a long strip mall with pockets of houses, resorts and little marshy lakes. Very pretty, but not much to explore--so we decided to head to Knysna, instead. Just 20 minutes or so down the coast from Sedgefield, Knysna is a pretty resort town on a beautiful lagoon which empties into the Indian Ocean through the infamous ... read more

Zululand! Waved goodbye to dippy Debbie the Dog Lover at St. Lucia to drive to Eshowe, our stop over on route to the battlefields. We decided to visit Shakaland, a rather touristy but fun Zulu themed resort! Shakaland was originally part of a film set for a TV show back in the Eighties. Someone had the bright idea of preserving the homestead as a tourist attraction when filming finished. We had a tour of the "living museum" to learn about the infamous King Shaka, who usurped his older brothers to become King. He is credited with expanding the Zulu people from a relatively small tribe, by dominating all neighbouring tribes with his clever military strategy of attacking the enemy with a Bull & Horn formation of Zulu warriors, and also by modifying the spear design to ... read more

You all knew it was going to happen. There was nothing you could do to stop it, and Cape Town obviously wants me too... its in the stars, written in the depths of the earth and ocean down here... the rhythm of Cape Town is calling me and saying.... "Tessa, its time to.... PARTY! So that is what I did as I enjoyed the beautiful joys Cape Town has to offer, and they are many and they come in a variety of forms, like men for example, and fresh fish and yummy cocktails and sunsets and beaches. Anyways, the stories are in the photos mostly and the photos are stuck on a computer in Cape Town and I am waiting for copies on CD in Australia....... read more

Hellooooooooooo! How are we all? Just a quick blog on what I've been up to since I've finished with SPW. Didn't think we'd done enough volunteering so a group of 8 of us went up to Kitgum in Northern Uganda to help out a crazy Japanese lady (who was awesome - very animated!!) who has been collecting books from schools in Canada to give to schools in the IDP camps (Internally Displaced Persons). So we spent a couple of days in her offices which are stacked floor to ceiling with boxes of books sorting and stamping. Then we used her contacts in the camps to arrange to go into a couple of the schools to do sessions on hygiene and sanitation and build one of our legendary tip-taps! We also had a couple of the HEP ... read more