A mixed day ....

What a mixed day today was.  We are getting down into the "less than three weeks" timeline. To be specific, I have 18 days before I leave.  To add to that, Jim, Grant, and Alex leave for the Rouge River trip on June 13. And Jim goes to Seattle on a work trip the week prior.  So between today and June 18 when I leave, he and I have ...... .....    ummmm .... counting ..... thirty days tath September, April, June, and November  ... all the rest have 31 .... So May has 31 ....

Well.  Seven.  He and I have seven days to spend together before I leave for two months.

:)  Ouch.

And I feel as if I have ALL OF THIS SOUTH AFRICA stuff to do.  But family life goes on as well.

Alex is off in Washington, DC for a marching band trip.  Grant was off at a friend's house playing Mario Brawl in preparation for a big tournament in June 12 in San Francisco.  So this morning, we slept in, relaxed, Jim got up and fed the cats so that I could sleep longer. Such a good husband (and well trained!!)  Then we found out that Ryan (X Son-in-Law) and Madyson (Granddaugher #1 and Only) were in town, so we went and picked them up. Thinking we would only get a couple of hours with them, only to find out we spent the entire day and they are still here tonight. :)  This is us at the lunch place.

It's been a year since Madyson was here, and Grandpa and Grammie took advantage.  Of course, Mady needed a new Pink Princess bike.  We also bought tassles and a basket and a bell, which Grandpa had to install.  That is Grandpa putting the final touches on air in the tires, with Uncle Grant standing watch to make sure it was done correctly.  Kitty the Dog is ever helpful.


My point with this is, I guess, is that even admist all of the Cape Town planning, as in tomorrow I get shots, and who sponsored a day that emailed me today, there is still the day-to-day activity of family life that goes on during these plans.

This evening, there is Bubble Bath time, and Grandpa is watching a Disney Princess movie with Mady, then tomorrow she leaves with her dad to go on their way.  And at that point, I will be back to getting ready for South Africa.

Vuvuzela

Thanks, Jim :)

Today's Word of the Day is:

Vuvuzela

These airhorn-like things are a great part of any soccer game.  I am hoping to find tickets to one of the World Cup games, and I will most likely have to buy one of these, then find a way to bring it home in my suitcase.  Jim has specifically tasked me with bringing one home.

What do you think, Readers??  Red?  Green?  Blue?

Meanwhile, at home .....

The weather here has been unseasonably cold and rainy.  As in it is May 29 and STILL raining almost every day.  Out in the garden, I have Tiger Lilies that I wait patiently each year for them to bloom.  I was pretty sure that this year, because they need sun and warmth, that I would miss the annual exhibit.  This morning, this beautiful sight greeted me.

Which project??

So far in this adventure, information has been a bit sketchy.  I am having a difficult time making the connections between how the LEAP School and Teach with Africa and Dominican University are all connected.  Further, there are three segments to the Fellows - Education, Psychology, and Business.

Tuesday's meeting cleared some of the mud away, and this is what I think.  I think that the LEAP Schools are at the root of the project.  John Gillmore, headmaster and founder of LEAP, began the schools in 2004.  There are now three schools (in Cape Town, Langa, and Johannesburg.) He has partenered with US-based non-profits, such as Teach with Africa, to bring educators, psychologists, and MBA's to South Africa.  The educators, of course, teach or co-teach in the schools.  The psychologists work with the students and faculty - I can imagine with the high rate of HIV/Aids both in students as well as their parents, that there is an unending amount of work here.  The MBA's go out into the communities and work on projects.  I am not sure where these projects come from or how they get to us. 

Sabine was one of the people at the meeting on Tuesday.  She was a 2009 TWA Fellow, and will be returning this year as well.  She will be our "lead" contact person, sort of our boss, for lack of a better description.  She described these projects as being possible for our time in SA:

(note to readers and self:  I am probaby going to be embarrased when I look back at my spelling of some of these places and townships, but what the heck, eh?)

Something else I am missing.  I am big on Google maps (thanks, Jim :)) and every time someone mentions a place or township, I write it down and Google it.  But what I see on Google is nice homes (homes with swimming pools in the back yards) and nice-looking neighborhoods.  I am not seeing the level of poverty that people talk about.  Are those sections just not showing up?  Are those sections the big, what looks like grassy areas on the maps??

Oh, hang on.  Not Kraaifontein, but Kalfontein.

Oh, even more.  I Googled that.  There are no swimming pools in this neighborhood. What I can see are small "houses" crowded into every available inch.  I also couldn't get zoomed in enough to get a street view, but that could be my software.

This photo is one I found of Kalfontein at night.

This is a street scene that I found.  MUCH more what I was thinking it would look like.

ISO LEZWE HEALTH CLINIC, KALKFONTEIN.  Couldn't find a photo.  This is a project that was started by the 2009 MBA Fellows.  The clinic does not yet have non-profit status.  The paperwork has been filed, but is either imcomplete or lost.  Until the paperwork is complete, the clinic can receive no funding or donations.  According to Sabine, the clinic is located in an area that has an incredibily high rate of people with HIV.  There are few services available to the sick.  Our task would be to get the paperwork in order, then research grants and possible funding.  Also, submitting as many proposals as time allows. Further, there have been no tracking of metrics, so we would need to possibly go through old records to show number of people served, success rates, death rates, who knows what. This is a project that I can get my head around.

This was only one of about 10 different projects that we talked about.  I was so jazzed up about the potential with this that I sort of stopped taking notes on the rest.  What it DOES tell me is that while I was starting to worry about - will there REALLY be tangible work for me to do for two months, that yes, there is.  Real work that I am good at, and know how to do.

The bad case of nerves that was with me earlier this week have (somewhat) subsided.  At least for today.

O-KAY!!!

People have been asking me "So, Deb, what are you going to miss while you are in South Africa?"

Jim and I ran through a list this morning, and most of our ideas had to do with our two teen aged boys.  I will probably come back and edit this list quite a few times, but in no particular order, I will miss:

1.  The way Grant says O-KAY!!  It is his new thing and he has quickly perfected it.  One must say it in a loud voice and then completely disregard whatever it is that he just said O-KAY to. 
2.  Laundry.
3.  Dishes.
4.  Jim.  Jim should be at the top of the list - he is the love of my life.  But I am REALLY going to miss O-KAY!!
5. Cats that have to go outside and come back inside and then go back outside and then come back inside six times each night.
6.  Rain.  Oh, wait.  It will be raining there.  Guess I won't really miss that.
7.  My electric blanket (see the Heat post)
8.  My compost pile.  I am sure it will struggle along without me, nature has a funny way of doing that.  But I am most certainly going to miss turning and checking the temperature.
9.  Dirt under my fingernails. I imagine that I will find a garden nearby that has weeds that need to be pulled and a compost pile that needs to be started.

What do you, Readers, think I will miss most?

Heat? What's heat??

Well.

Today, I attended a meeting with the other MBA's on this project.  Dana, Sabine, and myself.  The content of the meeting is for a different post, but what I walked away with from this meeting was:

South Africa does not have heat in their houses or schools.

!!!!!

Do you, the reader, understand what that means??

Ahem.

Cape Town has a climate very similiar to San Francisco.  During the winter, it is cold and foggy and damp. Daytime temperatures hover around 55 degrees, and nightime temps are in the low 40's. If I compare that to my house here, that means that inside the house, during a regular winter day, it is 63 degrees.

BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Now, I can do snow and I can do rain and I can do sun.  But what I CAN't do (or at least I don't like to do) is have Cold Sheets.  It makes me cringe to think that I will be climbing into bed every night without Jim OR my electric blanket.  And the sheets will be cold and the house will be cold and I will be cold.

Cold.

Cold.

Cold.

At the risk of oversharing, I don't wear much at night (being 50 and all I tend to be "warm" at night), but this idea of not having any heat puts a different perspective on nightgowns.

Should I bring a heating pad? Should I bring a single-sized electric blanket?  Should I use my valuable number of pounds that my suitcase can be (50 pounds) to use for an electric blanket??  I am not looking foward to the idea of cold sheets. Or cold air.  Or being cold for two months.

Catching Up ..

Whew!  THAT was a lot of writing. :)  I felt as if everyone needed to know what has gone on before today. But now we are all caught up and up to date and current.

I have quite a bit of assigned reading to do before I go:

>  Steering by the Stars - Being Young in South Africa, by Mamphela Ramphele
> Nine Times Down, Ten Times Up - a small poetry book published by the 2009 Teach with Africa team with poetry written by students of the LEAP School.
> A "Learner's Workbook" published by the Province of the Eastern Cape Department of Education.  This workbook covers "Life Skills and HIV/AIDS Education."  The workbook is for the Grade 9 level. The South Africa school curriculum includes a daily class in what is called "LO" or "Life Orientation."  We here in the States might call this "Family Life", but the focus on HIV/AIDS awareness and prevention is leaps and bounds different from what would be taught here.  Chapter titles include:

>  Session 2.2:  Me and my Sexuality
>  Session 2.5:  Risk Behaviour
> Session 3.4:  Problem Peers or Peer Problems?
>  Unit 4:  Living positively with HIV and respecting people living with AIDS

In reading over these chapter titles, I can't help but think what the reaction to this publication would be in my own school district.  Just the Session 2.2 title would send rivers of parents to the School Board meetings, there would be boycotts, and drama would reign.  I will be spending time during the days when I am at the LEAP School, sitting in on these classes, and will report back my feelings.

Orientation Weekend

Announcing the 2010 Teach with Africa Fellows!

Now that the team was in place, Orientation Weekend was set for the weekend of May 15 - 16.  The days preceeding that were filled with emails flying here and there.  Details as to when to meet and where, parking logistics, and a final call for Team Biographies.

Mid-week, the piece that I have been waiting for was sent out to all of the Fellows.  The roster for the 2010 team, including photos of all of us, so we could finally put a face with the list of names we had been seeing on the email lists. 

I asked Jim which photo I should use - the one of me under my profile here, or the one of me that he seems to like best and always recommends to use. 

This photo was taken last year during our family vacation to Disneyland.  We, as a family, like to try on hats.  So while all of the other Fellows had photos of them looking professional
and educated and young (yes, young!), here I am.  But - when we finally met, people remembered who I was, which I guess makes the photo worthy.

Due to the Dominican Graduation on Friday evening, and our party celebrating that event, I was not able to attend the Saturday session.  I was SURE that everyone was making best friends, and connecting with each other, and that I would be the lone unconnected sole when I arrived on Sunday.  Let the Pity Party begin!!!!!

To compensate myself for that, I had a whale of a time at the graduation party, going to bed LATE, and waking up TIRED.

Arrrgh!!! What a way to meet the people I would be spending the next couple of months living and working with!!

I arrived at the Dominican Campus Sunday morning, tired, worn out from the party and the emotional fact of having just graduated.  The orientation was being held in the Creekside Room and some folks had already arrived when I got there.  I think they must have been just as tired as I was because we were all a little slow with the introductions, but once we got started, the talking began.  I met Steve Le, and Dana (with whom I would be sharing a room and who is one of the other 3 MBA's), and Jennifer (whose sister Jessica went to elementary school with my daughter Jennifer), and Amy.  Margie and Larry (the founders of TWA) introduced themselves over lunch and we decided that my non-profit management experience could be usefull to them, especially Larry who is managing the finances and bookkeeping.

The day was filled with the usual sort of Orientation discussions:  what to bring (warm clothes), what not to bring (drugs or pot), the daily schedule, what sort of projects everyone will be doing.

I do have to say that the orientation was geared heavily towards the education staff.  I would have liked to have had a break-out group with just the MBA's so that we could connect and start to figure out what project we all will be working on - to see where the group strengths are.  But I assume that will come over time.

What turned into a long day ended with the 16 of us all going out to pizza in Mill Valley.  People seemed tired, many had traveled by plane to attend the weekend orientation and a couple were leaving Sunday night so they could be at work on Monday morning. 

As we all got into our respective cars, you could hear "See you at the airport" and "See you in Cape Town."

30 days from then we would be in Cape Town.

(Note:  I won't publish it here, but anyone wanting to read the Fellows Biographies can email me for a copy)

Tickets! Dates! Travel plans at last :)

Finally!!!!  I have an itinerary and can start making real plans.

It all came out ok, but not being in charge of making my own reservations has been stressful, to say the least.  We have kids and dogs and cats and a garden, and Jim and the boys will be gone on a Scout trip the same time I am leaving, all to say that people are coming and going (including the house sitter), so not having firm dates was an issue.

But now, real dates and times.

My flight leaves late in the afternoon on the same day that Jim and the boys get off the river. I will miss them by a few hours, alas.  Flying out of my local big international airport, the flight looks like it is 15 hours flight time.  That is enough time to watch an entire season of "Sex and the City", which happens to be loaded on my ipod.  Or I can play Bookworm until my fingers fall off, or I can study an entire section of my CPA study lessons.  What I will probably really do is sleep and chat with the four other Fellows from the program that will be on my flight.

15 hours later we will land in Dubai. Wikipedia says that Dubai International Airport is the largest airport in the world.

Huh.  Guess I will find out because we deboard the plane and spend the night there.  Every plane, from what I understand, makes everyone get off and spend the night.  But this isn't a bad thing because the next morning, we get back on a different plane for the second segment of the flight - Dubai to Cape Town - elapsed time 8 hours.

Note to self to charge up the netbook and the ipod while in the hotel.  Would be a bummer to have my technology go down this early into the trip.

The Paperwork starts to flow .....

I am now officially accepted into the 2010 Fellows Program, and the paperwork has started to flow. Loads of emails from Amy Schoew, the Executive Director for Teach with Africa. Request for passport information, medical forms, and a request for a personal bio.

Within hours the entire 2010 Team is virtually connected and emails are flying.

Questions, such as:

What sort of current does South Africa use?
What shots do I need?
Do I need travel insurance?
Where will we be staying?
Is there a gym nearby?
What sort of food options are there?
Is everyone excited??

I read over every single document sent, getting into the details for what my life will be like once I arrive in SA. A link to our Bed and Breakfast home for the first 30 days looks optimistic. Jim and I, of course, Google the address and have a bird's eye view of the house, the neighborhood, and how many soccer fields surround the area. The house is in a neighborhood of Cape Town that looks somewhat industrial, and the house is about 2 miles from the ocean, as the crow flies.

Now I have to stop and think for a minute - how far down does the Atlantic Ocean go? Out comes the atlas again (because it has been a few years since I studied Geography). Come to remember that the South Atlantic Ocean goes all the way to Antartica, and the Indian Ocean mixes with the Atlantic as the southern most tip of South Africa.

But back to paperwork ..... :)

My immediate feeling is that one of the tasks that may be helpful to TWA (Teach with Africa) is for me to organize the way the information is distributed. Things feel as if they are being duplicated (such as eight different places where the documents talked about the shots one needs to get) and it could be much more streamlined. That is something that I do well, thanks to the many years of Accounting and HR work that I have done. I am sure at some point it would be appropriate for me to offer my services.

In the meantime, I am looking foward to the Group Orientation that will happen in the next few days. People are flying in from around the country, to San Francisco, and we will all get to meet our "New Best Friends and Roommates."

Did I mention we will be sharing rooms??

Can I change from Accountant to Fundraiser??

My acceptance letter same with one small point: that because I would be an already graduated MBA, that I would have to self-fund my trip.

(gasp!!))

But Jim and I knew this before I sent in my application, that it could be a possibility, and we had decided that we would go ahead anyway, even though the cost was a fair amount of $$$.

Now that my going was a reality (with a signed document stating that yes, in fact, I was ready to write a check for $XXX) I decided that I should put my 30+ years of non-profit experience to work. Granted, my position has always been Controller or Director of Finance. Fundraising was a different department, and NOT what I did. My job is to keep track, not to go out and make the asks.

Guess what?? I don't HAVE a fundraising department here at my house. If I am going to fundraise any dollars, it is going to be up to me to do that.

The Internet is a wonderful place. I Googled South Africa and Education and Grants and came up with 38 different funding sources :) The next week was spent hunting and clicking and working my way through websites for major foundations, such as Ford, HP, Carnegie, Gates .... you name it - I sent them a letter. Carnegie wrote back within a day saying that "while your project is interesting and we would like to support you ....." sooooo .... no. Gates doesn't fund individuals. Ford wanted more information, which I sent, and they thanked me, and I haven't yet heard from them again.

38 letters of interest. Hours and hours sorting through websites that had missing links or I would get 2 hours into it and find the funding year ended in March. Hours to find out that unless you were asked to apply, you couldn't get in.

So I went to Plan B.

I thought back to my friend, Tom Courtney, who once told me that "people help people." Then, my friend Julie said she wanted to help fund me. This inspired the idea of " Sponsor a Day in Deb's South Africa Trip" fundraising plan. The letter took me about 10 minutes to write because, I have found, that when one has a compelling issue that the words fall into place.

My point of talking about fundraising isn't to hit anyone reading this up for funding (although, should you feel so inspired, I would be honored), but to let people following me on this trek know what it takes to fundraise dollars.

Not surprisingly, family and friends want to donate. They want to help. The idea of sponsoring me for a day seems to have hit a mark for many people - it is tangible and real and I have received a few checks already.

Beyond that, I have approached the big foundation in my town. Coinky-a-dinkly, the keynote speaker at my MBA graduation last week was the CEO of the foundation. I asked for, and got, a copy of his keynote speech and integrated that into my letter to him asking for funding. We will see what response I get.

Where, exactly IS Cape Town, South Africa?

Without wanting to state the obvious .... :)

South Africa is just about as far from Novato, California, USofA as one can get. Located in the Southern Hemisphere, at the south/western tip of the continent of Africa, Cape Town, SA is literally night and day with our home here.

There is an eleven hour time difference, making noon here midnight there.

Summer here is winter there, so no summer for me this year. Instead of packing up my winter sweaters and warm, woolie socks, and heavy raincoat, those all will be going into my suitcase. Whatever tan I might get will have to occur before I leave, because weather is said to be very similiar to San Francisco - damp, foggy, gray, and around 49 degrees.

Both Jim and I love to travel, so it made sense for us to pull out the big atlas, the one that almost covers the kitchen table. We tried to decide which flight I would be taking, which stops along the way. That led us to Expedia where we learned that it takes almost 40 hours to get from Novato to Cape Town. United flies through London or Frankfurt, one of the other air lines goes through Paris. Because the World Cup is being held in SA this year, tickets are running at about $2500 each, and that is for economy!!

The tickets were going to be booked through the sponsoring agency - Teach with Africa - so at this point, I had quite a bit of anxiety about when exactly I would be leaving, when I would be returning, and what flight I would be on. Most important thought during those days? Can I get Frequent Flyer Miles for this trip. (and the answer eventually ended up being yes.)

Meanwhile, I spent hours on the Internet researching Cape Town and the surrounding area, along with the LEAP Schools, which is where my program will be based.

How this all started

Way back in February, I received an email from Dominican University of California, where I was enrolled in my last class in my MBA program. The email was a flyer about a summer live-abroad trip to South Africa. At the time, both Jim and I laughed about it, how silly it might be for me to leave Novato and our family for two months, hahaha!!

Besides, I was job-hunting and there was my summer garden, and, well .... the flyer got put into the paper recycling, and that was about it.

Fast forward to April. The flyer came out again, and I talked with my professor, who encouraged me to apply.She knew my background in non-profit management, and said the project could use my skills.

The next evening, Jim and I talked it through and he encouraged me to apply, that he and the kids would be fine for two months (thoughts of sixty days of Video Game Wars were already forming in all of their heads). The only problem was - it was Friday afternoon, and the complete application was due Monday MORNING!!

I spent the weekend pulling together letters of references from professors and former work supervisors, finding transcripts, and writing a compelling letter as to why I wanted to participate in a program that I didn't yet know an awfully lot about.

To make a very long story shorter, in a highly competitive application process, I was accepted, and received notification late on Tuesday afternoon that I was in fact, for the Summer of 2010, going to Cape Town, South Africa.

:)