American Tourists Do South Africa

*** the internet is being a beast right now so we are having a hard time loading pics. but we will try to add more tomorro

Holy bajesus. We have been here a month. It feels like way longer than that. So quick update on what’s happened lately:

Our Faculty Liaison from UT (Tammy) came for a week visit (but, unfortunately her flight was cancelled back in the States due to all of the snow…phew, we’re glad it’s summer here!), so her visit was cut short. No matter…we packed in the days with tons of activities! We love Botshabelo, but we’re not going to lie, it felt really good to be a tourist.

First we started off her visit with a trip to the Elephant Sanctuary where we met 4 elephants and learned all about their anatomy, personality, and culture. Then we got to pet them…they were far from soft & fuzzy! The back of their ears did feel like leather, though. But the rest of them were covered in thick, wiry hairs. Ilene even got a big, fat, dirty, elephant kiss on the cheek! MUAH! And we ended off with a hand-in-trunk walk around the area.




Next, we stopped at a cheese factory. Yummy…cheese! Too bad we missed the tour, but we did see the most hideous looking chickens we’ve ever seen. Bare necks and all.

To top off the day, we planned a spur-of-the-moment trip to Sun City for a luxurious overnight stay. Sun City = the Las Vegas of South Africa. All we wanted was a 2 ½ star accommodation, but alas, 4 stars is what we got. Yay for stand-up showers!!! We even played with the idea of showering twice in a 16 hour span, just so we could bask in the glory of the stand-up shower. When you think of Las Vegas, gambling immediately comes to mind, neh? Well, Sun City is just the same. Ayla even gambled for the first time…ostentatiously betting a whapping $3.

4:50 am the next day was wake-up call. And by 6:00 am we were on our first Safari. What a peaceful way to begin the day! The sun was rising, and the animals were just beginning to wake up…and although we were freezing our you-know-what-off, we did get to enjoy seeing some animals in the wild: waterbok, wildebeest, warthog, pride of lions, zebra, giraffe, monkey, impala, rhino, and about a bagillion different types of birds. Some of these we saw up close and personal, and some were specks on the horizon (yay for high powered cameras with their intense zoom-in abilities).

After the stuffing our faces at the Cabana’s breakfast buffet, we started the journey home. We stopped over at the mall to (of course) pee….or “wee” to the locals. And, we made a new friend. A bird. First, he came out of nowhere and landed right on Ayla’s shoulder, then moved to Ilene’s head, before landing lovingly on Tammy’s head and then repeated the process. We haven’t laughed that hard in a while! Having to pee and laughing that hard = not a good combination.

That night we treated the Cloete Family and upper management team with the joys of a TexMex dinner. Tammy brought tortillas and we fixed ‘em up with beef tacos! What a treat! (For us as well). Please, don’t take your delicious TexMex for granted. We were sad to see Tammy (and her rented car AKA freedom for us to come & go whenever we wanted) go, but happy to be back in the routine of life at Botshabelo—if such thing exists. We’ve spent the last two days recovering from her trip and finishing up our group paper for our online class. Thank the lord that’s done!

Now all we have to worry about is the black cobra they found living about 20 feet from our front door.

Boo to the internet that kicks us off every 5 minutes.

Ayla and Ilene

(I heard there were some brasilians reading the blog- hi brasilians! i would speak some of my amazing portuguese, but unfortunately most of the words i learned are from my dad shouting at the ref in the soccer match on tv... so you can guess what kinds of words those are)

Say Cheese!

Sorry its been so long since our last blog. We actually have no idea how 5 days have passed right under our noses. True, they haven’t been the most action packed, sometimes we feel like we are on vacation, but at the same time, stuff clearly happens to pass our days. Highlights of this week include: taking a car ride with babies (car seats, what?),


teaching about the holocaust, cranial-sachral treatments, boys’ night (with a total of at least 55 guests),


so botshabelo gets donations of old school uniforms, even tho they dont need them. therefore, the boys enjoy wearing them just for fun, and got all dolled up for our boys' night. yes, they are even wearing the skirts.

a trend we have noticed in the fashion stylings of botshabelo include: cross dressing. who says a boy cant wear a dress. (notice the popcorn massacre on the floor)



frustrating attempt at group work for our class (boooo papers), and seeing how artisitically gifted some of the kids are. below, we have a wire truck made completely by an 11 year old. we dont know if you can see how utterly amazing this truck is, but take our word for it- at first Ayla didnt believe he really made it. (he still needs two more coke bottles for front wheels)

and seriously, what is this

We are off tonight to make a traditional Jewish feast for the family (kugel lives on!), but in the meantime, are considering a nap in the lazy heat of an afternoon.
ayla and ilene

"Shake it... so your skirt don't fall"

Here’s the skinny on the last couple of days:
On Friday we “learned” tswana. And by learned I mean we had someone write 2 sentences down for us, that we then used on every villager we found. We are still working on mapping the village, and the sentences translated to something like: Who’s house is this, what is their first and last name. It was a crazy tongue twister. There was one word that was almost impossible to say in the flow: gago (where the “g” makes the chchchch sound that you hear in Hebrew, the clearing your throat sound when something not so pretty is lodged in it- thank goodness for our jewish backgrounds). After meeting the villagers/making a fool of ourselves we have no idea what we did. But we like to think it was good. And we remember being really hungry after this period of so-called goodness. That night we had a ladies night planned, but unexpectedly a meeting stumbled into the middle of our living room. A family from the village was called for a meeting because the dad was raping his step-daughters. As always, it was amazing to watch the data gathering, assessment, intervention and treatment process unfold within 30 minutes. It was also interesting to note that Gestalt therapy was often used (splitting of personalities, and referring to each one as an independent entity- maybe you should check wickipedia for a better description). Therefore, there was the good dad who loved his family, and the broken dad who turned into a monster. The answer isn’t as easy as removing the father. He is the sole bread winner in the family. Without him they would starve. Also, CPS cannot be called bc the mom would also be arrested for knowledge of the abuse. Finally, if the girls were to testify against their father, they would be killed by their uncles. Taking the entire family unit into consideration, a solution was created: the girls would move into their own house in the village, that they could lock at night, and yet still be close to their mother. We thought it was pretty brilliant, considering all of the restrictions and limitations of the situation. As you can imagine, it was heavy heavy heavier. After everyone left we did a little haiku writing therapy for ourselves.

Ilene being overrun by babies at soccer practice


our living room- where the meeting went down- minus the chairs bc there were about 10 people sitting in a circle


On Saturday, we became Sporty Spice incarnate (you remember the spice girls, neh?). We did karate in the morning, which started with a mile run around the cemetery where a lot of the children’s parents are buried. Then we karate chopped and kicked for a while until we got to “21 moves.” We had about 3 moves down and then we were dizzy, confused, and a little pooped. After karate, Ilene tried out her first yoga class with about 20 students from ages 6-15 (or 6-26 if you are counting us). A HUGE shout-out to all of those people who helped bring yoga to Botshabelo! Your hearts would have melted from the warmth of these kids' smiles. It was only about a 35 minute session, but just enough to give the kids a chance to connect with their breath and bodies. And challenge them a little bit with the Botshabelo favorite: crow pose. Plus, it was good for us to sit and remember to breathe for a while. After yoga it was soccer practice. Which was in a word: frustration. Player Ilene turned into babysitter Ilene very quickly when it became apparent that the babies were running wild through our drills. However, after the babies were corralled, the boys ran wild through the girls’ only practice (and the babies ran wild over Ilene). No matter how hard Ayla tried to shoo them away with the proverbial broom, they would not listen. If soccer is to continue, big changes are needed. We are going straight to the Magogo to deal with the boys (Magogo is the tswana word for a badass granny who takes no prisoners, in this case, Marion). As if that wasn’t enough activity, we ended the day with volleyball. Ayla is not sure if her arms are still red from the sunburn a week ago, or if she has permanent volleyball bruises.
After volleyball, the couple from Holland generously made dinner for the family and us: beef stewy-ness, mashed potatoes, and boiled carrots. Dutch food, yum? As if we weren’t totally falling apart by the end of all that sportiness, we had to have a ladies night (bc it had already been postponed from the day before). The first half of ladies night was a dance party. After comparing modern moves, we had the girls teach us some traditional African dances. Forget the “21 Karate Moves,” these dances are intricate and our new goal. One of the dances was easy enough, and it came with a beautiful song. We asked the girls for a translation, which came to: shake it, so your skirt don’t fall. It seemed like such a sweet dance… Then we watched the Hannah Montana concert movie. The kids here are mad for that Miley Cyrus. Ayla, not so much… she only made it half way through before she needed to excuse herself before dying of boredom.

On Sunday, Ilene’s boyfriend’s family took us out to lunch. And it was delicious. We hadn’t seen that much good food in one place in a month. We ate at a restaurant in the Cradle of Human Kind Museum (it is supposed that the garden of eden was in south Africa, and that this is where human life began). Unfortunately, we didn’t have time to see the museum this go-round, but it is on our list of to-dos. After lunch we fell into a serious food coma (why o why did we go back for the second round of desserts at the buffet). Ilene was knocked out for 2 hours. That never happens. Ayla went outside to play with the kids, and found them happily snacking on a toothpaste treat. Yum, toothpaste... a la carte. That night we met with our friends (and the babies they were looking after), the highlight being when baby Tabise threw up on Ilene’s knee. And when baby Tabise could not hold back her very unfortunate and stinky gas. All in all, a success of a weekend.

Us standing in front of the Cradle of Mankind Museum (that hill behind us is the front of the museum-see the doors?)

-Ayla and Ilene

"In just a little bit....."

self explanatory (shout out to fabio humor)


the physical manifestation of the hand headache (i got a real shiner on my palm just below my thumb)


kids in the village have a tea party! note the bugs bunny stuffed animal guest in the background and the flowers in vases


the table we are sitting at now, but in the dark. during the process of writing this blog the power has gone on and off 3 times. as a novice mistake we blew out the candles after it came back on the first time. (btw is this a poker table we are eating at? insert joke here)

So it is already Thursday night, and we have no idea where the week has gone. Nor really what have we done/accomplished during it. The problem is that we need translators for our project in the village, but our translators are at school until five, and then have chores to do. So right now it is a no-go on the village project (although if you read the blog below you will see that we did put in ample time mapping the village, and got ridiculously sun burned which has now turned into a tan, and we don’t feel sooo white).
So today… what did we do all day long? Let us tell you: we walked around the mall of course! Before it was even open! We wanted to get the ball rolling on the yoga so we went to buy mats, as well as get some cones for soccer practice. But the way things work here is that if you are going out, you go oooouuuuuttt. The bajillion errands must all be run. So this morning, we woke up at the crack of dawn, aka 6am, which we cant even complain about bc everyone here wakes up at 5:30 and we have been sleeping until 9. We woke up so early bc we had to take someone from the village to the hospital to get his ARVs (AIDS meds), and the hospital has a sign that says “free HIV testing and treatment,” so we can understand that there would probably be a crazy line (Ilene’s estimation, since we arrived so early and all, 3 hours). So we dropped off village dude and then got dropped off ourselves at the mall at 7:30am. But the mall doesn’t open til 9. We brought a book just for the occasion (we had a feeling that going to the mall and leaving at 6:30am didn’t match up). We asked our driver about how long did he think we would have and he said “in just a little bit.” Cultural competency lesson #1: in just a little bit in South Africa actually translates to 7 hours.
So prior to our knowledge of this South Africanism, and going with our 3 hour assumption, and taking into account that we were there for an hour and a half before it opened, hence we had an hour and a half to get everything done, we bought groceries. Meat. Yogurt. The goods. The we got the yoga mats and such, and lugged all of it around in a oversized shopping cart. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting. So you already know the end of this story. 7 hours later, our meat was excreting a mysterious liquid and had turned an unfortunate shade of brown-grey. But we learned an important lesson about buying meat at the mall: don’t.
Other South Africanisms:
Hoot = Honk
Naughty = every child
I reckon = not just for hillbillies
Is it? = really?
Neh? = yes? Or maybe no? we are not sure
Hows it? = How are you?
Sharp (pronounced without the “r”) = Got it? Excellent! Sounds good
See you now = Ill be back in a few minutes (but now that we know more about south African time, this could mean hours from now)

On a more serious note, we would like to recognize and give accolades to the amazing staff here at Botshabelo. They are over-worked, underpaid, over-stressed, under-staffed, and never get a break. Weekends, ha! Holidays, what’s that? After being here for 2 weeks, we are awed by their total and utter dedication and commitment to their vision, and to their unwillingness to let the intense trauma they see everyday, the struggle for funds to feed all of the children, and the sheer exhaustion of being on 24/7 bring them down or stand in their way. And when we say they are struggling to feed the kids everyday, we are not exaggerating. It is a daily fight. Partly because they are mindful of where the money comes from, and the energy it brings. Hence no big name endorsements (which have been offered), and no religious zealots that have strings attached to their very hefty “donations.” So that makes what they do here all the more honest, compassionate and with pure intentions. Awe-inspiring, yet scary the intensity of the commitment they have made for themselves, and their spouses and children.

Sun-filled=Fun-filled?

sheep roaming the streets of the village


chickens escape during volleyball!


some houses in the village (do you see how sunny it is???) (and yes that is the most random billboard in the world by the water pump)


we like to call this our dirt tan

So today we spent in the sun. all day. With hats and water bottles and gnarly red sunburns (we tried to protect ourselves, but the sun was just too strong for us). We spent all this morning and early afternoon trying to map the village. The family here keeps trying to tell us it is n the shape of 2 circles, on each side of the water pump. Lemme tell you people, circle my bum! It was a funky ass square that sometimes had roads that created a grid and othertimes the roads wiggled seemingly without purpose. Needless to say, it was not an easy task. We finally got it mapped (we think), and tomorrow we are going to go find out who lives in each plot. Then we will continue the survey started by the interns last year, to create family trees for each family.
After our intense sun-filled first half of the day, the girls were ready to start learning soccer. Ayla was the coach, with Ilene and 6 of the older girls as the players. These girls have such natural talent. It was their first day and they were dribbling, passing and trapping (Fabio- help- I need more exercises to do with them). During practice I did notice a lot of boys dawdling around us, checking out their new competition!
Around 5 or 6, the family likes to play volleyball to unwind. We are always invited and its lots of fun. However, the combination of them pumping up the ball with air and being sunburned on our arms equals ooooow. It was fun and agonizing at the same time. Finally we made it home for dinner (I made a rockin garlicky, spicy chickpea, pea, mushroom noodle goodness), and now I am writing you this blog, hoping that my dodgy internet stays connected long enough for me to post this.
Good night everyone!
-Ayla

It's like a headache...but in your hand

We are NEON white... luminescent if you will



Ayla and Ilene sooo excited to eat fries and a shake at Wimpy Burger.... little did they know how disgusting it would be



The Tree Ayla loves (in this pic you cant really see its amazingness)



Our friend Lebo attempting to eat icecream at our outting to the mall


Other tidbits from the last couple of days:

1) Ayla fell in-love with a tree.

2) Ayla may or may not have broken a bone in her hand playing volleyball (as evidenced by her swollen palm, and also how we came to the title of this blog- when Ilene asked her if it hurt).

3) Ayla wins the world championship of "best volleyball coach EVER" (Fabio, you'd be so proud of your daughter) because Ilene actually got the volleyball over the net...more than once!

4) We are SOOOOO white that the kids here could use us as flashlights (AKA "torches") at night.

5) We did our laundry on Saturday and the clothes are still not dry.

6) We discovered that the ketchup and mustard here is more like fingerpaint than condiments (in color AND taste).

7) Although Ilene was craving ice cream, Milky Lane's attempt at it was a disappointment (although watching our friends eating it was HILARIOUS!).

8) We have perfected the two ingredient tomato & cucumber salad.

9) We have been promised some authentic South African eats- chicken heads, intestines and feet- basically every part of the chicken in America that we aim to avoid.

10) Ilene received mail that was sent only 10 days ago!! (people, where are Ayla's letters of encouragement and adoration???)

-Ayla and Ilene

A fun-filled weekend!

Wedding pic



Fred, our friend the Springbok



Amazing views!


After an exhausting and draining (both physically and emotionally) week, I feel so thankful for the recharge of our weekend. It all kicked-off with our Ladies' Night activity of a movie & popcorn with the 9-15 year olds. Ayla’s view on the movie “Fame”: DON’T. Last year the UT interns started Ladies' Night as a way to give the older girls some special time and attention (as they usually spend non-school hours caring for the babies and completing chores)...and a chance to just be girls. So Ayla & I have continued on and are alternating between the older older girls (16-23 year olds) and the younger older girls (9-15 year olds).

So far the younger older girls win my vote as my favorite!! Get this: during the entire movie (the new "Fame") there was at least one (and sometimes two) girls playing with my hair! Between braiding it, putting it in a ponytail, brushing it...or just rubbing my head, I nearly feel asleep about a million times! Wow...now that's the life! They also promised to plait my hair (you know, the tiny little braids). Can't wait to rock that style!! But, other than their amazing hairstyling skills, these girls are just the sweetest, most genuine, beautiful, and caring people you've ever met. Plus, they said that they're going to teach Ayla & I some South African dance moves!!! Whoop whoop! We're planning a Talent Show for Valentine's Day (which, apparently, is SUPER big here at Botshabelo)...and the girls have already promised to choreograph and teach us a dance that we can all perform together! Watch out South Africa's Got Talent: Here come the ladies of Botshabelo!!

We spent the day yesterday on a drive with Sue. Sue runs most of the errands and does a lot of the driving for the Botshabelo community...and was nice enough to take us along. We took the long and scenic way to get to a bakery in Krugersdorp (a city about 45 minutes-1 hour away from Botshabelo) that donates all of their day old bread to the kids for teatime on the weekends. We stopped all along the way to get pictures of the AMAZING views from the top of the mountains (AKA Highveld). When the baker found out we were visiting from America, he threw in some extra special pastry treats, which were incredibly delicious!! (Poor Ayla, she's gluten-free!). Also on our trek, we met a Springbok-like animal. We named him Fred.

Today we treated ourselves as well as Shanna (the youngest Cloete daughter) and two of the older girls to a movie in the theater at a mall in Krugersdorp. If you haven't seen "The Princess at the Frog" I HIGHLY recommend it! So at the mall we encountered lots of fun/funny adventures: the best is that, at the movie theaters in South Africa, you can sprinkle different flavor powders onto your popcorn, like salt & vinegar, sour cream, or cheddar...obviously, we doused our popcorn with TONS of that stuff! And then, after the movie, we walked around the mall while we were waiting for our ride back to Botshabelo...and...ran into a wedding of course! What?!?! A wedding at the mall?!?! Oh yes. A wedding at the mall. So there is this really pretty lake that is right behind the mall, and that is where the actual ceremony took place, but the whole wedding party and guests had to walk right through the mall parking lot first. There was joyous singing and clapping alongside your Sunday afternoon shopper. It was hilarious!

I'm telling you, everyday is an adventure here...and I'm looking forward to what tomorrow will bring.

-Ilene