**** the internet is being lame and not letting us post pictures, so we are going to post the text today and try again with the pics tomorrow....
Where do we start?!?!?!?! Spring break 2010… one month late (South African style). .While we could write for years on all of the interesting/fun/adventurous/random things that we did/saw/learned/experienced, we wont bore you with the details. Or maybe we will… we will have to see how this blog goes…
On our break we went to Swaziland, Durban and the Drakensburg Mountains via the Baz Bus- a transportation for backpackers that takes you around the country and drops you off in front of your hostel.
Chapter I: Swaziland. Or should we say, the Kingdom of Swaziland. Oh yes, that’s right. As in, there is a king. And here is our picture with him:
Swaziland looks like a lush, tropical paradise. And it is amazingly clean, no litter anywhere, and all of the public bathrooms were spotless (and if you know us, you know we know bathrooms). And the people- super nice and friendly and helpful. We did a safari on horseback, singly-handedly supported their economy for the next 5 months (damn you African crafts markets- especially the jewelry made out of elephant hair), walked a lot, and took a walking tour of a village. On the tour, we met a man who quite his job and is now dedicating his life to uplifting and empowering youth and women through the arts and music. In these villages the arts are not recognized as important, and the kids know nothing about it. This man is trying to inspire the kids to think outside of the box, open and expand their views, because he views the biggest problem in the country to be the intellectual poverty, far worse than economic poverty.
Chapter II: Durban. On the way to Durban, we heard the most disturbing radio commercial ever. The jingly went: Soloooomon, the self-sacrificing salmon!” It was for canned tuna/salmon. Unfortunately for us, the jingle was damn catchy, and a week later we are still singing it. Durban, as a city, is in shambles as the government is trying to fix every road for the world cup. Do you know it is 54 days away? Also of interest, the government is changing the name of all the roads, away from their English names and back to traditional African names, which are kind of long and hard to pronounce, and our taxi driver was less than excited about this decision. We thought it was cool, though. And after coming from clean, clean, pristine Swaziland, Durban was a landfill. There were mountains of trash building along the curbs in the streets. In Durban we went to the art museum and natural science museum. And we learned that honey bees navigate using the sun, and only female mosquitos bite you. We wandered across a strike by municipality workers demanding better wages. We met a lot of really nice people in Durban, including: the “opposition politician” who explained the strike to us, the greek man with a deli that gave us free dessert and continuously called his niece ugly to her face, and the nice Indian man who worked in the sporting goods store that filled our water bottles. Yay. We spent some time on the beach, and then ate at a cool restaurant where they paint your face in traditional Zulu style.
The next day we took a 7 hour tour that covered almost everything there is to do in the city. We saw the coast, the harbor, a market, complete with crafts next to the meat market with sheep’s head and innards, saw the Cato township, the Indian township of Chatsworth, the Hare Krishna temple of understanding, the Indian market where we had lunch at our guide’s wife’s restaurant- spicy and delicious-, drove by the largest mosque in the southern hemisphere, went to the botanical gardens, and lastly to a museum about the history of the Cato township.
Chapter III: Drakensburg mountains. They say that the mountains look like the landscape in lord of the rings. We would probably agree if it hadn’t of been the beginning of winter and the greenery was now brownish. But hey, we can use our imaginations. We saw 800 year old bushman cave paintings. Awesome. Except for the stupid tourists in the past that poured water and coke on the paintings to make them look better in pictures, and thus washed the paintings away. The history of the paintings dates back 5,000 years. The next day, Ilene took a personal day, and Ayla almost fell off a mountain. Multiple times. Ayla went on a tour to the top of a mountain that has the world’s second longest waterfall. The ledge we walked on was sometimes non-existant, there was no railing, and I am pretty sure that if I tripped I would have bounced down the mountain-side. I took comfort in thinking that it would be a quick death. I was really not prepared for the 3 and a half mile hike up, and then scaling a rock wall (without safety/security ropes) for a ¼ of a mile vertically. I know this excitement has put you on the edge of your seat, but fear not, Ayla is alive and typing this blog (with Ilene’s imput who is sitting next to her).
Chapter IV: two nice jewish boys in Jo-burg. We had to stay one night in Jo-burg because we got in too late for the orphanage to pick us up, and lucky for us, our friends have the hookup with two nice jewish boys who live there. They took us out to dinner and drinks, and then we got to stay at one of their houses. Stand-up shower and free internet. Need I say more?
We finally arrived back at Botshabelo today, and while it was nice to travel and experience something new, we are glad to be back home. The End.
ps- if you are wondering about the title of this blog... the only mode of public transportation in South Africa is "taxis," which are little mini vans that cram the people in and follow a route. In Durban we discovered that they had tricked out their taxis, and given them wild names such as "dont bump if you cant grind," X-convict, Seducer, sexy attitude, souljah, g-thing, etc. And some of the taxis are like traveling dance clubs... you can hear their music blaring a mile away, or should we say kilometer away.
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
Easter Extravaganza
Our first ever easter baskets!!
It all began on 5:30 Friday morning. We were going up to the cemetery to participate in the annual cleaning/clearing of the graves. Technically you are supposed to go to the cemetery, clean the graves, and return home, all before sunrise… but we have all learned about “Botshabelo time” this semester. So at 5:30 in the morning, turns out we were the only ones awake. Around 6:45 we finally started our trek to the cemetery, which is about a mile away from botshabelo, on the other side of the village. We made it about five steps out of botshabelo before someone from the village came running to Marion with a problem. Crisis Intervention Case #421. A young man in the village got drunk last night and severely beat his wife because she took money out of his bank account without telling him. Ayla and Ilene got into social worker mode quickly when Marion assigned Ayla to watch the husband so he didn’t run away from the cops, and Ilene to the wife to console and provide safety and security for the time being. The atmosphere in Ayla’s corner versus Ilene’s corner was miles apart. Ilene and the wife were solemn and the wife was in a lot of physical and emotional pain. Ayla was fending off ridiculous and inappropriate comments from the husband and his friends, which was actually really funny and her corner inappropriately laughed the whole time. About an hour later the cops showed up, took a statement, and took the husband away.
Finally the trek to the cemetery could begin. At the graves, we encountered Marion with an entourage of little ones. She was leading each child to the grave of their family members, and we would all sit down together and support the child in talking to their deceased love one. Then we would all give blessings to the deceased person and blow them kisses. A sample of the conversation the children were having with their dead parents looked like this: “Mom/dad, I am not ready to die yet because I have my life to live, but don’t forget to fetch me when I am ready to die.” Needless to say, it was really touching and really sad. It was hard to watch a child walk from their mother’s grave to their father’s grave, and then to their sibling’s grave. While we were up there, the weather turned, and it got cooold and rainy. No one was wearing appropriate attire, and we got soaked down to our skivvies (which were somehow muddy by the end of the trek). A lot of the kids didn’t even have shoes on or a jacket.
A few graves at the cemetery:
After that kind of morning, there is only one thing a person can do. Watch a movie. Luckily Shanna has a half couch, it is kind of disgusting, but we sit on it anyways. We watched a bad movie and ate popcorn. It was good times. Then Ilene took a pair of siblings and had a counseling session with them while Ayla read a book on the nasty couch. That evening was spent like most evenings these days, our friends Thami (pronounced tommy) and David came over to visit. It seems that the main motivation for these visits is the serious condition of puppy love David, who is 15, has for Ayla.
Saturday. In the morning Ayla took her client and had a really productive session with him. Our sessions consist a lot of art therapy, and we are both anxiously awaiting Marion for our promised lecture on interpreting art. Then we went to help with the ENORMOUS amount of preparations for easter. There was the bajillion bars of chocolate to melt down and spoon onto tin foil and then individually wrap. Then there was the easter egg painting station, which turned into color wars by the end of the night. And there was the ever-popular basket making.
(the kids were so anxious to make their easter baskets, that they were searching high and low for anything they could use. we found ourselves donating everything and anything we possibly could... including this matzah box-turned easter basket. it made us happy)
Sunday. Still more easter preparation. But lucky for us we skipped out and went to a local church service with our old roommate Pauline, who is head of the kitchen here. Apparently the church shares between two congregations: the white Afrikaners and the blacks. When we arrived the Afrikaner service had just ended, and they swooped upon us like vultures to rotting meat in hopes of recruiting us to their congregation. It was uncomfortable to say the least, and when asked for our emails Ayla gave a fake and Ilene gave an account she doesn’t check. The service begins. The building is one small room with 50 fold out chairs. The service started with harmonious singing and then went into a lecture by the pastor. Everyone had their heads bowed and eyes closed, but Ayla was sneaking peaks and saw that the pastor was crying throughout his first sermon. For the following sermons, we got vip treatment, and congregation members stood up next to the pastor to translate for us. The topic of the sermon seemed to center upon the two lives that we have: our human life and our spiritual life. There was much talk of rebirth, and having a choice of which kind of life you want to live. At one point, they even seemed to be telling the Passover story, but the accents of our interpreters were thick, and it was hard to know exactly what was being said. The service concluded with everyone taking communion. And when I say everyone, I mean everyone. Interestingly enough, the host was matzah! As everyone lined up to receive it, we sheepishly stood back, but everyone’s intense staring at us and gentle nudging made it clear that we weren’t about to skip out on this one. For the first time ever, and the last time ever, Ayla and Ilene took communion. Amen.
After church we returned home to help with the continuing easter shenanigang/extravaganza. We were there aaaaall night tying little strings to the easter eggs and then to the trees. It kind of looked like Christmas with all the egg ornaments hanging from the trees.
Monday. Rainy mushiness. This was the day of the great easter egg hunt, but the terrible weather postponed it until late in the afternoon. The day was spent in eager anticipation. Then around 4, it began. First was the ceremony of dumping the tons and tons of candy into big bins, so that all the kids could see the booty that was soon to be theirs.
Then we carried the heavy-ass bins all the way up half way to the cemetery. Good thing we got biceps of steel. I cannot impress on you how heavy this candy was. Then we walked along the field of high grass and threw the candy. The candy field was the size of 2 soccer fields. Then the hunt began. On your mark, get set, go!
The kids went crazy hunting for the candy. There was also 100 rand that everyone was especially hunting for. Two hours later the sun was setting, the dogs had eaten half of the chocolate, and the field was covered in candy wrappers. The kids went home, and we went with the family to the “wishing pile”- a sacred space to make blessings and wishes for the world. All in all, a successful easter.
It all began on 5:30 Friday morning. We were going up to the cemetery to participate in the annual cleaning/clearing of the graves. Technically you are supposed to go to the cemetery, clean the graves, and return home, all before sunrise… but we have all learned about “Botshabelo time” this semester. So at 5:30 in the morning, turns out we were the only ones awake. Around 6:45 we finally started our trek to the cemetery, which is about a mile away from botshabelo, on the other side of the village. We made it about five steps out of botshabelo before someone from the village came running to Marion with a problem. Crisis Intervention Case #421. A young man in the village got drunk last night and severely beat his wife because she took money out of his bank account without telling him. Ayla and Ilene got into social worker mode quickly when Marion assigned Ayla to watch the husband so he didn’t run away from the cops, and Ilene to the wife to console and provide safety and security for the time being. The atmosphere in Ayla’s corner versus Ilene’s corner was miles apart. Ilene and the wife were solemn and the wife was in a lot of physical and emotional pain. Ayla was fending off ridiculous and inappropriate comments from the husband and his friends, which was actually really funny and her corner inappropriately laughed the whole time. About an hour later the cops showed up, took a statement, and took the husband away.
Finally the trek to the cemetery could begin. At the graves, we encountered Marion with an entourage of little ones. She was leading each child to the grave of their family members, and we would all sit down together and support the child in talking to their deceased love one. Then we would all give blessings to the deceased person and blow them kisses. A sample of the conversation the children were having with their dead parents looked like this: “Mom/dad, I am not ready to die yet because I have my life to live, but don’t forget to fetch me when I am ready to die.” Needless to say, it was really touching and really sad. It was hard to watch a child walk from their mother’s grave to their father’s grave, and then to their sibling’s grave. While we were up there, the weather turned, and it got cooold and rainy. No one was wearing appropriate attire, and we got soaked down to our skivvies (which were somehow muddy by the end of the trek). A lot of the kids didn’t even have shoes on or a jacket.
A few graves at the cemetery:
After that kind of morning, there is only one thing a person can do. Watch a movie. Luckily Shanna has a half couch, it is kind of disgusting, but we sit on it anyways. We watched a bad movie and ate popcorn. It was good times. Then Ilene took a pair of siblings and had a counseling session with them while Ayla read a book on the nasty couch. That evening was spent like most evenings these days, our friends Thami (pronounced tommy) and David came over to visit. It seems that the main motivation for these visits is the serious condition of puppy love David, who is 15, has for Ayla.
Saturday. In the morning Ayla took her client and had a really productive session with him. Our sessions consist a lot of art therapy, and we are both anxiously awaiting Marion for our promised lecture on interpreting art. Then we went to help with the ENORMOUS amount of preparations for easter. There was the bajillion bars of chocolate to melt down and spoon onto tin foil and then individually wrap. Then there was the easter egg painting station, which turned into color wars by the end of the night. And there was the ever-popular basket making.
(the kids were so anxious to make their easter baskets, that they were searching high and low for anything they could use. we found ourselves donating everything and anything we possibly could... including this matzah box-turned easter basket. it made us happy)
Sunday. Still more easter preparation. But lucky for us we skipped out and went to a local church service with our old roommate Pauline, who is head of the kitchen here. Apparently the church shares between two congregations: the white Afrikaners and the blacks. When we arrived the Afrikaner service had just ended, and they swooped upon us like vultures to rotting meat in hopes of recruiting us to their congregation. It was uncomfortable to say the least, and when asked for our emails Ayla gave a fake and Ilene gave an account she doesn’t check. The service begins. The building is one small room with 50 fold out chairs. The service started with harmonious singing and then went into a lecture by the pastor. Everyone had their heads bowed and eyes closed, but Ayla was sneaking peaks and saw that the pastor was crying throughout his first sermon. For the following sermons, we got vip treatment, and congregation members stood up next to the pastor to translate for us. The topic of the sermon seemed to center upon the two lives that we have: our human life and our spiritual life. There was much talk of rebirth, and having a choice of which kind of life you want to live. At one point, they even seemed to be telling the Passover story, but the accents of our interpreters were thick, and it was hard to know exactly what was being said. The service concluded with everyone taking communion. And when I say everyone, I mean everyone. Interestingly enough, the host was matzah! As everyone lined up to receive it, we sheepishly stood back, but everyone’s intense staring at us and gentle nudging made it clear that we weren’t about to skip out on this one. For the first time ever, and the last time ever, Ayla and Ilene took communion. Amen.
After church we returned home to help with the continuing easter shenanigang/extravaganza. We were there aaaaall night tying little strings to the easter eggs and then to the trees. It kind of looked like Christmas with all the egg ornaments hanging from the trees.
Monday. Rainy mushiness. This was the day of the great easter egg hunt, but the terrible weather postponed it until late in the afternoon. The day was spent in eager anticipation. Then around 4, it began. First was the ceremony of dumping the tons and tons of candy into big bins, so that all the kids could see the booty that was soon to be theirs.
Then we carried the heavy-ass bins all the way up half way to the cemetery. Good thing we got biceps of steel. I cannot impress on you how heavy this candy was. Then we walked along the field of high grass and threw the candy. The candy field was the size of 2 soccer fields. Then the hunt began. On your mark, get set, go!
The kids went crazy hunting for the candy. There was also 100 rand that everyone was especially hunting for. Two hours later the sun was setting, the dogs had eaten half of the chocolate, and the field was covered in candy wrappers. The kids went home, and we went with the family to the “wishing pile”- a sacred space to make blessings and wishes for the world. All in all, a successful easter.
Thursday, April 1, 2010
Mmmmmm.... couch
So, important update from last blog: remember how we were bitching and moaning about wanting to eat the funeral meal and not getting to…. Well turns out that everyone who ate it got a gnarly case of diarrhea. Phew! Thanks family for saving us from that mess.
However, there was still one big ugly mess that we did have to clean up: last group project for grad school eeeever! We were planning to head to jo-berg on Sunday for Passover, but on Saturday we were given a 30 minute warning to pack our bags and head to the city. Needless to say, our group was a little disgruntled that we were leaving before the project was finished. However, seeing as they live in Africa too, they totally understand the African way of life.
In jo-berg we stayed with Ilene’s boyfriend’s family- who are amazing for taking care of us, letting us stay with them, chauffeuring us around, and providing a couch (you have no idea how much we miss a couch. You don’t know what you have until its gone). Our first day there, we went to a flea market and African crafts fair. Four hours later, we found ourselves drowning in our own purchases. Don’t worry, they weren’t all for ourselves. But being a consumer felt guiltily amazing. The market had goods from traditional African paintings and baskets and jewelery, clothing, purses, all the way to spices and dried meats. The adjacent flea market had goods from India, Ghana, vintage clothing, and antique collectables.
This is Ayla dripping in vintage attire:
That night we had a very special moment where we got to lie on the couch and watch a weird Samuel l. Jackson movie. Aaaaaaaah. So good. Then in the morning, we got another special treat with a stand up shower. Aaaaaah. So good. That night was the first night of Passover, and while we felt right at home, there were many things that were quite different Like eating a hillel sandwhich with lettuce instead of maror. Or sprinkling cinnamon and sugar on your matzah balls. And don’t forget the weird hagaddah book we used that explained how there were actually 200 plagues. Don’t ask. But being surrounded by our (now) extended family, eating til we burst, and celebrating our jewhood, we felt grateful. Then the next day we did it all over again (dai-enu!).
So interesting note about Johannesburg (aka Jo-berg), it is the largest man-made forest in the world! See for yourself… what you are looking at is johannesberg- bet you cant see it!
On Wednesday morning our host graciously drove us back to Botshabelo. Home, sweet home. That night we put on our own seder for some of the older kids to learn about our tradition. It was our first attempt ever at making matzah ball soup- and it wasn’t pretty. Where is a bubby when you need her? April fools is a really big deal here, so in the morning, Marion told us our food made everyone sick. We are still trying to figure out if that is a joke or not. We are investigating everyone who attended and getting different answers. Hmmmmm. Yet as payment, Marion says we must cook them another meal. Hmmmmmm. Now it is a rainy and yucky Thursday afternoon. And all we want is a couch.
(this is not Ilene at Passover being an orthodox jew, it is her the night of the vigil for the funeral)
Ayla and Ilene
However, there was still one big ugly mess that we did have to clean up: last group project for grad school eeeever! We were planning to head to jo-berg on Sunday for Passover, but on Saturday we were given a 30 minute warning to pack our bags and head to the city. Needless to say, our group was a little disgruntled that we were leaving before the project was finished. However, seeing as they live in Africa too, they totally understand the African way of life.
In jo-berg we stayed with Ilene’s boyfriend’s family- who are amazing for taking care of us, letting us stay with them, chauffeuring us around, and providing a couch (you have no idea how much we miss a couch. You don’t know what you have until its gone). Our first day there, we went to a flea market and African crafts fair. Four hours later, we found ourselves drowning in our own purchases. Don’t worry, they weren’t all for ourselves. But being a consumer felt guiltily amazing. The market had goods from traditional African paintings and baskets and jewelery, clothing, purses, all the way to spices and dried meats. The adjacent flea market had goods from India, Ghana, vintage clothing, and antique collectables.
This is Ayla dripping in vintage attire:
That night we had a very special moment where we got to lie on the couch and watch a weird Samuel l. Jackson movie. Aaaaaaaah. So good. Then in the morning, we got another special treat with a stand up shower. Aaaaaah. So good. That night was the first night of Passover, and while we felt right at home, there were many things that were quite different Like eating a hillel sandwhich with lettuce instead of maror. Or sprinkling cinnamon and sugar on your matzah balls. And don’t forget the weird hagaddah book we used that explained how there were actually 200 plagues. Don’t ask. But being surrounded by our (now) extended family, eating til we burst, and celebrating our jewhood, we felt grateful. Then the next day we did it all over again (dai-enu!).
So interesting note about Johannesburg (aka Jo-berg), it is the largest man-made forest in the world! See for yourself… what you are looking at is johannesberg- bet you cant see it!
On Wednesday morning our host graciously drove us back to Botshabelo. Home, sweet home. That night we put on our own seder for some of the older kids to learn about our tradition. It was our first attempt ever at making matzah ball soup- and it wasn’t pretty. Where is a bubby when you need her? April fools is a really big deal here, so in the morning, Marion told us our food made everyone sick. We are still trying to figure out if that is a joke or not. We are investigating everyone who attended and getting different answers. Hmmmmm. Yet as payment, Marion says we must cook them another meal. Hmmmmmm. Now it is a rainy and yucky Thursday afternoon. And all we want is a couch.
(this is not Ilene at Passover being an orthodox jew, it is her the night of the vigil for the funeral)
Ayla and Ilene
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