Deb's Adventure to Cape Town, South Africa

Exit ... Stage right ...

2010-08-23T12:00:00.000-07:00

I keep pondering how I want to close out this adventure, what wise words I might say to you readers, and those that may follow after me on this trip. And, surprisingly, nothing comes to mind. Oh sure, there are some flip quotes I could use, or "inspirational" words, but none of that really seems like the closure that I need to put on this trip.

This morning, I went to my first spin class since I have returned to the States. I was actually hot, I sweated, I felt good. Yesterday, I sat in the hot tub at my local gym and felt warm. The coldness of winter in South Africa is draining away, just like the memories are already becoming faded.

Did I REALLY sit in the dust and dirt of Joyce's front yard, in the informal settlement section of Kalkfontein, and help think through a multi-phase strategy for the Iso'Lezwe Care Givers? That seems like such a distant memory.

Did I REALLY climb 95% of Lion's Head?

Was I REALLY in Dubai, not once but twice, and was I REALLY on one of the longest available commercial flights in the world? That being Dubai to San Francisco ...

Did I really eat Snook and Hake?

Was I REALLY so cold at night, in the first few weeks, that I wore just about all of the clothing that I brought with me to bed?

Did I really miss Jim with every ounce of my being, knowing that whatever happens in the future, that I never want to be that far from him or my family again?

Did I REALLY do two interviews on my little Blackberry phone, from South Africa, for a new Director of Finance position that I am finalizing the details on today, and most likely start working at tomorrow?

In looking back through this blog, did I REALLY do all of those assorted posts?

And there is where I think this adventure gets passed along to someone else. Someone will pick up where I left off and the work will continue. Someone is going to make sure the NPO paperwork for Iso'Lezwe is registered. Someone will help Kirstin at LEAP write more proposals. Someone will help Adisani with the Peace Lovers Football Club.

And while that someone else is doing those things, I will just quietly slip out, behind the curtain, and exit ... stage right ....

Back home again ...

2010-08-21T13:16:00.001-07:00

It's been a week now since I returned home. Many thoughts, feelings, comments are swirling in my head, and I am thinking of the best way to get them all down on paper.

In the meantime, Welcome Home to Myself :)

Running on empty ...

2010-08-11T08:35:00.000-07:00

The Gym that is across the street doesn't have spin classes that fit my schedule, so I have been going over almost every day and bringing my ipod and making up my own spin class. I have some favorites that I play every day, in almost the same order (imagine that!!!! the fact that I like repetition! anyone surprised at THAT?), but even those songs are getting rather old and tiresome. Yesterday, I was flipping through the library, looking for something new, wishing I had brought my glasses so I could actually read the titles, when I came across an old playlist. Clicked through it .... not this one .... not that one ...... Desperado .... yes ... played it twice, heavy hill both times ..... then found it.

Jackson Browne's Running on Empty. Only four songs from the album, but the title is what I wanted, and to hear The Load-Out/Stay.

I feel as if I could stay just a bit longer that I could accomplish sooo much ..... that there is SO much work to be done here. Not that I want to stay, I am pretty excited about seeing everyone on Friday (most especially Jim, who said he would be at the airport waiting for me "with bells on") ....

It's a conundrum, for sure.

The last few days I have felt as if I have zero energy. Getting out of bed feels like a task, walking to school takes effort, even going to the gym - I have been cutting that short. Today, Subina and I went to Kalkfontein to say goodbye to the caregivers and to Joyce. I almost feel asleep in her living room, under those dolphin curtains. It was so warm and stuffy and she was telling a long story, and we had just had a cup of peppermint tea, and somehow my brain seemed to think it would be ok for me to doze off .... until I came to my senses and thought that might be misinterpreted as bad manners.

Which brings me back to my original thought, which is that I am literally Running on Empty. There is no fuel in the tank, the well is dry. Tomorrow, round about 3:00 South African time (which means 3:45 and in a panic), I will put the trip into reverse and head east on the M2 towards Cape Town International Airport. Beyond the power plant towers that are being demolished next Sunday, I will not be here for that. Beyond the Coloured township back wall where the goats and cows graze, right next to the on ramp to the M3. Beyond where the gangs have graffitied their beautiful blue script. We won't take the Stellensbach Arterial Road, which takes us to Kalkfontein, nor will we take the Langa exit. We will check our bags and I hope that Customs doesn't notice the baggies filled with spices that I am bringing back for Jim, or the curry leaves which look strangely like some other sorts of leaves.

And then, before I know it, I will be in Dubai again, and then, I will be .....

home.

Lunchtime at LEAP

2010-08-10T07:56:00.000-07:00

I happened to be out in the yard today at mid day, when the school lunch break is.

Jonah was teaching a group of boys how to skateboard ....

"Hop on it like this .... "

Your turn .....

Same thing tomorrow .... all of these budding young skateboard artists ...

Meanwhile, on the other side of the lunch yard ...

Sammy (who is in charge of the Learning Center and the tutors), Mona, Steven, Jamie, and ..... someone I don't know his name.

I am not sure of this young chap's name either (one would think after two months I would know) is trying one of my Sugar Snap Peas. At the Woolworth's food store (which is about as close to Whole Foods as you can get here, they sell Sugar Snap Peas in the "large, economy" size, which means it is about 8 ounces, or for me, single-serving. I have been passing them around to all of the kids when I am out and about. This student ate half and said it tasted like grass, and that if you have to eat anything green, it should be cooked until soft, not eaten straight from the ground.

Sarah was also out on the yard, chatting it up with some girls ..

Josh, Jamie, and Jen - looking decidedly perplexed over something a student is doing .....

That is a root beer bottle in Josh's hand, by the way.

Adisani (on the right) sharing his root beer with a student. Note the sweatshirt he is wearing - it makes me happy to see him wearing this - Grant out grew it a couple of years ago and I brought it over.

There's a nice group shot - Jamie, the back of Subina's head, Mona, Jen, Josh, Frances - all with students sprinkled in.

About that time, everyone headed off for afternoon classes.

I {{{{{heart}}}} my phone

2010-08-10T06:03:00.000-07:00

My Blackberry, that is.

Meanwhile ........ this is my South Africa cell phone. Subina calls it a calculator. I can't see the face, I can't hear the ring, and when it vibrates, it just sort of, well, tinkles.

Many things I will miss about South Africa, but it won't be this.

What I will miss ...

2010-08-09T22:55:00.000-07:00

With two days remaining in this trip, the Fellows have been talking amongst ourselves as to what we will all miss, once we return to the states. Over the last few days, I have been thinking about this post, and here are my conclusions;

> I am going to miss my fingernails, the ones that have grown long enough to click on this keyboard. At home, because I garden so much, I don't have fingernails of any length and it has been nice to have pretty nails.

> I am going to miss the "Maranga" birds that are outside my bedroom all day. I call them this because a) I don't know what kind of birds they really are and b) because they sing this song: Da-da-dada-da DA!! Da-da-dada-da- DA!! All day long.

> I am NOT going to miss the Shamrock socks I have been wearing for two months. If'n you recall, there was a problem with the socks I brought here (some of them were not mine) giving me a pretty limited supply of socks. I have been rotating through three pairs, allowing for two days out with laundry, meaning these socks have been well loved and well worn and now I am done with them. Let it be said that I certainly could have gone out and bought new socks, but I was determined to make do on this trip with what I brought.

> I am going to miss all of my new friends. Kirstin from LEAP, Sammy from the Learning Center at school, Joyce from Kalkfontein, Lenize and Rebecca from here at the lodge - the list goes on and on. The guards who used to joke about me when I scampered across the parking lot in my workout gear (short bike shorts, tank top, my Disneyland sweatshirt - nobody wears that type of clothing here!) and now say hi and smile.

> Speaking of the gym, I am going to happily leave behind 10 pounds that I lost somewhere here.

> I am going to miss the music of the children at the school and wish that I had been able to upload any one of my numerous videos.

This list could go on for days and days as I continue to think up things.

Type, erase, type, erase. Everything I say seems to sappy or shallow or not quite right, so I will just leave it that I will miss South Africa.

Women's Day - August 9, 2010

2010-08-09T12:53:00.000-07:00

August 9 is a legal holiday here in South Africa. The story goes that in 1954, 20,000 women marched to Pretoria with a petition that they wanted to become law. From that day, Women's Day has developed.

Now, I really should go and research the details, as all of that is rather sketchy, but the Internet being what it is here, well ...... you can look it up if you like. The real point is that today, all of us Fellows got to LEAP early (8:30) and boarded the bus which took us to Langa.

Today is a real legal holiday, as in everything is closed, and there are celebrations everywhere. The one we participated in was at the South African Methodist Church, here in Langa. Do you remember me talking about Langa? This was one of the first Black Townships developed after Apartheid was inacted.

The celebration was to honor women in the Langa community that have given back to the community. Mama from the soup kitchen was honored, as were a number of other women. I am a bit vague as to who was honored and why, as the entire celebration was spoken in Xhosa.

Just about the only thing that was said in English was by the moderator, who said "When you sing, you need to stand up" and from that time on, every time the LEAP Choir started to sing, all of us Fellows stood up.

Here's the LEAP 1 and LEAP 2 choirs (remember, there are two different schools at the same site - one serves the township of Langa and one serves the township of Guguletu.)

As always, the voice of these kids was beautiful. I wish I had the technology to capture that for you to hear.

The seating order in the church was of some pre-determined status. When I originally sat down, in one of the center middle pews, I was asked to get up and move to one of the other areas because the "elders" sat where I was sitting. I got up and moved to one of the side pews, and slowly, ever so slowly, the middle seats filled up with the older women. here you can see five of them, all in their hat bandanas.

Lunch was part of the ceremony. I didn't eat because my stomach was bothered by something or other that I had eaten recently, but enough people at to generate this stack of dishes. I probably don't need to say that the water outside here was cold water only, and the fact that they had a tap, here in the church yard, was a luxury.

(That is Subina, Josh, and Sarah in the back row. I don't know the name of the LEAP student.)

The day was pleasant, and company was good, the cause honorable.

The Old Biscuit Mill Market

2010-08-07T12:08:00.000-07:00

Has it been eight weeks already? Can it be that this is the last weekend that we have here? I have SOOO much that I still want to do and see, but it is clear on my Outlook calendar that the days are short.

Saturday mornings, all of the Educators work at the LEAP School doing Saturday school. This is a day that kids from the local communities, plus LEAP school students, can come to the school for extra tutoring and classes. The line outside the school forms early, well before the 9:00 first bell.

After the teachers got done with their half day of work, some of us women folk decided to go to the Biscuit Mill Market, located .... ummmm .... to the south of us. The map continues to evade me, but at least I knew what direction we were going in. The area we were in would be called a poor white community, but has recently been "gentry-fied", or so said the LEAP teacher that offered to drive all of us.

The Old Biscuit Mill complex has a number of regular permanent businesses, plus a weekend Farmers' Market sort of thing.

I have no idea as to the origins of the Mill, I can only assume that biscuits, or maybe even Rusks, were made here.

Inside one of the buildings is the Farmers' Market ... and for a Saturday afternoon, it wa PACKED!!

Interestingly enough, this Market was not like the markets in Aixe or even in Barcelona, nor even Novato. There was only one stand that had any sort of fresh veggies. Everything else was prepared hot foods, olives, cheese, or pastries of some sort.

I hadn't eaten lunch yet (because all of the Fellows leave this week, food at the Beulah is getting scarce, a cheddar cheese/bacon/egg/cream quice sounded really tasty.

The one I bought for R12 ($1.50US) was the top in the back.

Oh, MY!! That was good.

What I REALLY wanted, though, was the Milk Tart. Some hussie .... I mean woman .... bought the last one, right in front of me! She even took cuts in line, then had the audacity to buy the last one! I LOVE Milk Tarts, after having my first one a couple of weeks ago after having visited Parliment.

To make myself feel better, I also bought (for dinner) a serving of Paella. This describes it better than I ever could .....

And here are the guys cooking it ....

I have had Paella in Barcolena, and then Jim has made it for us as well, and I have to say, this was pretty darned good.

I still had a couple of gifts to purchase before I head home later this week, including something for Kitty the Dog. I thought this African Giraffe Baby would be perfect for her ..

Are you used to seeing Table Mountain in the background of ALL of my photos??

Science brought to Life

2010-08-07T07:29:00.000-07:00

After having had so many days of bright, clear, winter weather, Wednesday dawned gray and foggy. This wasn't a deterrent to Josh's science class though. I found Josh and his class out in the side yard of the LEAP School, getting some real life lessons in measuring distance over time.

Here is Josh explaining to his class how the test is going to go. As he later explained to me, the five groups needed to time themselves hopping for five meters, then running, then skipping.

The idea is to visually learn how to calculate distance over time.

Here's the first group of the kids, hopping away ...

Next up - skippers ... oh, wait ... more hopper.

When I asked him about the exercise later, Josh said he was tired of teaching in the classroom and wanted to get the kids up and moving and have a change of pace.

Looks like this was just the ticket.

NPO paperwork - Complete

2010-08-03T12:46:00.000-07:00

The weekend was fun, the safari was fun, but it really is time to get back to why I am here, and that is to get things done in South Africa Non-Profit Land.

If you think back to my task list, one of the big items I wanted to accomplish was to get the NPO (Non-Profit Organization) paperwork done and filed for Iso'Lezwe Caregivers. If'n you recall, there was some confusion as to whether or not the paperwork had been submitted last year, and umm .... maybe, but yet, on the Department of Social Responsibility website there was no NPO number, so ummmmm .... vagueness ....

Well, I cut to the chase and said let's just do it. I gathered Pumla (my spellchecker keeps wanting to correct it to "Puma") and Zaneze, and we hand wrote the forms.

Then, I had the same problem with the constitution. Whose computer is the original on? Sammy?? Heidi?? Yuma?? Cut all of that. Last week, I spent two hours and sat and just retyped the thing. Changed quite a few typos, fixed the numbering in Word, made the indents look correct, and added in the missing items that were needed from the Checklist in the NPO form paperwork.

Finally .... on Monday .....

Look what she is doing .....

Signing the Iso'Lezwe Aids Awareness/Caregivers Group NPO application paperwork. Pumla is the Director.

Zaneze is the Secretary, and had her turn in front of the camera, signing as well ....

After the big Signing of the Paperwork, we took a walk through Kalkfontein. Pumla and Zaneze wanted to show me the home where the HIV/Aids Support Group meetings take place, plus I hadn't yet been to the "top of the hill" where one can see the entire township.

The skinny dog that lives next door to Joyce ....

This little doggie wouldn't look at me ....

If you walk out of Joyce's front yard and turn to the left, this is the view ....

Unemployment for adult males in this township is at about 75%, which would stand to reason as this photo was taken at 1:30 in the afternoon on a Monday.

The neighborhood water spigot. Homes here do not have water inside of the homes, one must walk down the street to the spigot.

The top of the hill near the bathrooms. And as it happens, the garbage dump ...

The top of the hill, overlooking the township.

I will be back out here on Thursday, meeting with Joyce, finishing up the paperwork.

Safari - Part 3

2010-08-03T06:55:00.000-07:00

Let's see .... where did we leave off?

Does everyone understand that I have to break some of these big posts into many smaller ones, or I can't upload them, or it takes hours and hours??

After the elephants and our "cool and refreshing beverage break", we drove over the hills and through the dells, and into the Lion's Enclosure. The lions aren't in a cage, but they are in a large, multi-acre fenced area, so that they don't eat the other residents. Getting into the enclosure was like something out of Jurassic Park, what with the electric fences and security gates.

Our Ranger Guide, said that the lions get fed on Sundays and Thursdays. Because this was Sunday morning, he thought it would be ok and we would not get eaten.

HAHAHA!!!!

In this enclosure are two adult male lions and seven female cats.

Nothing like getting a little sun on a warm Sunday morning ....

Yawn .... time to find a different warm rock .....

There are five lionesses in this photo ....

Here he is - hiding behind the big stick in the foreground .... as I was shooting off photos today, and how elusive some of these animals can be, how you can't see their faces, how a tail will be just across what you want to photograph, it really is almost funny.

I had to wait for this, and wait, and wait, and keep taking photos so the driver wouldn't leave .... then I took so many photos that my batteries went dead, which was the EXACT moment I have the perfect shot, but he did look back again ....

I guess if I wanted to I could photoshop out the barbed wire, but the wire represents my experience here in South Africa. Everything and everyone is limited by miles of barbed wire.

Looking back at the roaming area of the lions ..

Look at how beautiful that terrain is, like someone took a big hand and just smeared the colors in the hills.

Is it time for the giraffes?

This is a female, very shy ..

more ..... Those are .... ummmm .... I should look up the exact name, but I think they are Eldon's??

Much like the White Rhinos and the Elephants, these friends are all out for a Sunday stroll.

The giraffe stopped to munch ...

Closeup.....

And what is a photo album without some flowers. These little flowers were all over the place, but you had to look really carefully to see them ..

Finally, the last of the Big Five - the leopard. These cats were kept in an enclosure on the other side of the road from the main reserve because of fear of poachers.

It was a lot to take in in one day, and at some point I would like to see big herds of animals, but this, in itself, was the most amazing experience.

Safari - Part 2

2010-08-03T05:16:00.000-07:00

How's that for a start to Safari #2?

After we saw the White Rhinos, then the ostrich, we had to drive quite a while to find these pacaderms. In this photo, Mama is standing at the edge of a ledge, with her baby on the other side. She was somewhat protective of the baby (who is about 2 years old) and fluffed up her ears a lot at us. She was running here ....

Wait!!!! Who is coming to visit the elephants, taking their morning walk?? Is it ....... the White Rhinos?? (there are two of them in the photo) ...

There, all four of them are in the same photo. Our Ranger Guide said that they are not friends, that the elephants just tolerate the Rhinos. Actually, he said that the Rhinos are not very smart and that the elephants tease them and the rhinos don't even know it. Here, the Rhinos are down the slope from the elephants.

check out the big ears. The major difference between African and Indian elephants are the ears. African elephants ears are larger and more banana-leaf like.

One other difference is that the African elephants have a finger-like thing at the end of their tusk, allowing them to pick up small coins or to take a coin out of your pocket.

For most of the trip, we were not allowed to get out of the vehicles, nor come in contact with any of the animals, for health and safety reasons. Mid-way, we stopped and had a refreshing beverage and to stretch our legs a bit ... Who knew what good things were kept in those backend lockers!!

The first thing you would notice here, beside the fact that it is ME :) is that I am only wearing a fleece vest, a heavy sweater, and a thermal shirt under that. Not many clothes on, darned near naked.

:)

One of the other Fellows on the trip, Sarah Diefendorf ..

I spent quite a bit of time, while we were driving around, looking at the terain and trying to figure out how the rocky mountains and sloping hills came to be ...

When people wonder why Africans can't grow more food or raise cattle, one look at the ground tells you. This is the ground under Sarah's feet - pure sand and rock.

Next to post:

Safari Part 3

Safari - Part 1

2010-08-03T03:30:00.000-07:00

The shuttle picked us up early Sunday morning, 6:00. That was after a panic phone call from the driver, who apparently was at the "other" #17 Victory Ave. in Pinelands. Really?? There are two?? Funny, Mr. Delivery, who delivers our meals many nights never gets lost. But neither here nor there, we were in the mini bus and on our way. I don't often use the term "hurtling down the freeway", but I would have to have said that as our driver made up for lost time, from picking us up late.

Aquila Private Game Reserve is one of a small handfulls of Game Reserves in the Western Cape. The Western Cape does not have the large Safari's that Northern Africa has, such as Kenya. Those are the photos that most of you are famaliar with, the huge herds of gizelles and elephants, hundreds of animals at the watering hole. This Game Preserve is not like that. Numbers of animals are carefully monitored and regulated, and one can't have more than a certain number of a certain kind of animal in a certain amount of space, so often, animals get moved (air-lifted) between different preserves. There are no photos of large herds, but we DID see the Big Five of South Africa (Cape Buffalo, Elephant, White Rhino, Giraffe, and Leopard.)

After a champagne breakfast (we passed on the champagne because it was so darned cold, plus, champagne before coffee??? Nope, not for me. But we did the buffett which was pretty decent. Then climbed into our Outback Safari vehicles to find our game.

First up, hippos. There are seven in this photo, two of them are babies.

This baby is about two years old.

A gizelle. Our Ranger Guide said that the trees you see in this photo can go nine years with no water and without dying, which makes sense considering how dry this terain is.

Next up - White Rhinos. From left to right, we have Mama, Daughter, and Dad. You can tell the difference in the sex of a rhino by the size of the tusk. The photo doesn't show it well, but the Mama tusk is much bigger than Dad's.

A closer look at the girls. Just about the time I took this photo, they started pawing the ground, and our driver decided it was time to move on.

It took some driving around, but we found Ostrich. This is the male. You can tell because the feathers are black.Here is his friend - and it must be a female. Ostrichs are the second fastest animal on the African Continent, the fastest being the leopard.

That wraps up Part 1. Not wanting to complain or anything, but uploading those few photos took over four!!! hours. Part 2 will include:

elephants

giraffe

Eldon

the surrounding area

and a Hedgehog. If the internet stays up that long ....

Entreprenurial and Leadership workshops

2010-08-03T02:21:00.000-07:00

High on the task list for this year for the MBA's was presenting a series of Entrepreneurial and Leadership workshops for the Refugees that are connected to the LEAP School. Workshops of this nature are few and far between here in South Africa, and almost never apply to the Foreign Nationals, or refugees as they are usually called. As you may recall back in the early days of my time here, Subina and I went to visit quite a few NPO's to research what it means to be a refugee, what paperwork is needed, how one goes about getting status, and how one goes about getting a legal job with that paperwork and refugee status. What we found as a recurring theme was that Refugees want to start their own businesses and need training in how to do that.

Anyone that knows me knows that I don't enjoy doing presentations, let alone trainings, so the entire idea of Subina and I getting up and doing a number of four-hour workshops, well, it had me worried and stressed. Fortunately, Sarah Diefendorf, who has been doing international trainings of this sort, returned to Cape Town to help us.

On Friday, July 30, we kicked off the first of three workshops - this first workshop would be nine hours in length, spanning two afternoons. The workshop was held in a cold (well, of COURSE it was cold, no buildings here have heat!) hall at the LEAP School. As it turned out, all of the participants were women, coming from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Zimbabwe, Burundi, and Zambia.

Day 1 of the training focused on how one would start their own business. Subina (here, making some last minute notes) began the process with a lesson on Mission/Vision, and set the women to begin to write their own mission and vision statements, but without a clear idea as to what they would want their business to be, most of the women struggled with the concept.

As an aside - let it be said that even people dealing on a regular basis often struggle with the difference between Mission and Vision, until I offered the way I had learned it:

My Mission today is .......

My Vision for tomorrow is .......

That seemed to make it a little easier for the women, but even so, the lack of a business idea and limited English speaking skills made it difficult.

After we discussed what a Marketing plan might be, we moved into my part - Finances and Budgeting. Thinking that, perhaps, many of the women had not dealt with business bookkeeping, I had devised a very basic worksheet that listed these sorts of questions:

What is my business idea?
How much money do I need for my family each month?
Can I operate my business out of my home?
How much money do I have to start my business?

From there, my idea was to walk through Gross Income, Net Income, Fixed Costs, Variable Costs, and sort of back into how much each of the women needed to earn every month from their new business. But that idea got side-tracked at Question #4: how much money do I have to start my business??

One woman spoke up as I was going through the worksheet. I have no money, she said. None. How do I start a business with no money??

!!! ummmmm ......

And from there, my section of the workshop was totally off the PowerPoint slides and I was on my own.

I asked what here idea was, she was thinking that she wanted to start a computer training center. Of all of the ideas circulating around the room, this was a easy one for me to run with. I asked for ideas from other women, and no one had any ideas, so I suggested that this woman find a friend with a computer and trade services. She can babysit the children in exchange for using the computer. Or she could find a computer center (such as a library) where she could use the equipment, or even, to use the computer lab at the LEAP School. All of these ideas seemed to difficult for her, and for many of the women (can you tell how negative this was getting?) until I stopped and said that yes, this IS difficult. It is HARD! This is NOT easy. That owning your own business is HARD work. A few women who had owned their own businesses back in their home countries (mostly DRC) joined in to agree.

Thankfully, we ran out of time for the afternoon. It felt brutal, it felt awkward, it felt like I hadn't explained things very well. I offered that anyone who wanted to come for individual tutoring could come an hour early to the Saturday afternoon session, and quite a few women nodded their heads.

The next day, true to my word, Subina, Sarah, and I arrived an hour early. Probably five - seven women were waiting for us, having arrived at 9:00 am for the 1:30 training session. These were the women that had a good business plan, and many of them had worked through the worksheet the evening before. It felt good that they were able to follow the logic, and I had a great chat about Indirect and Direct costs with one former accountant.

Day 2 was focused on Leadership, what are the qualities of a Leader, what makes someone a good leader. The goal for the day was for the women to organize themselves into a Community Based Organization (CBO) to provide each other support for the issues that they deal with inside of their communities. During a brief exercise, the women offered different problems that they face, including high unemployment, lack of job skills, language barriers, and xenophobia. They eventually settled on the barriers they all face with employment as their top priority.

Mid-afternoon brought a needed break, and the women had tea and buttered bread sandwiches. I am not sure who donated the bread and butter, yet another undercurrent of South African life, that food shows up here and there. Watching the women eat, it was clear that that might have been all they had to eat during the day until they got back to their respective homes.

Once the group came back together, the idea of a Community Group quickly took shape. One particular woman emerged as the Leader, raising her had to say she would organize the group, taking names and phone number of 14 other women who offered to help her. From there, the new Leader (whose name I did not get) separated the large group into small working groups, hoping to get ideas for a name for this new group. By the close of the training, they had two meetings scheduled for each of the following Saturday afternoons.

When we, the Americans, left, there was a feeling of empowerment, a feeling of momentum, a feeling that someone was doing something. I venture to say that the group will change drastically over the next 6 - 8 weeks, and that a new leader will probably emerge, but that's OK. The fact is, we took these women from not knowing each other, not really speaking to each other, to sitting in groups and organizing themselves into a new CBO. It could have gone the other way and have been a waste of time, but for whatever reason, it did not, and I consider that a success.

Peace Lovers Football Club

2010-08-01T12:42:00.000-07:00

Andisani Tsengiwe is a man with a mission. Ansidsani is one of the LEAPse/student teachers. Having graduated from LEAP last year? two years ago He is now attending UCT (University of Cape Town), and working at the LEAP School as a student teacher. He also is a promising upcoming leader in his community, which is Langa. Here he is, standing on the soccer field, watching his team play last Thursday afternoon. Look at that intensity.

Rememeber all of that soccer gear that many of you donated for me to bring here? It is Andisani's team that benefited. Last week, I loaned Andisani my (new) camera and asked him to take some photos of the gear that had been donated, being worn by the team here in Cape Town. He took a few photos, including these socks and cleats. The kids were thrilled beyond belief with the donations, and daily, I am seeing Novato Youth Soccer League gear on different LEAP students.

Andisani's story is a compelling one. He lives in Langa, one of the townships that I choose not to photograph because of the poverty that I felt there. I felt that photos just couldn't do it justice. But what Andisani has decided to do is start a blog.

http://footballandleadership.blogspot.com/2010/07/football-and-leadership.html

Working with Katie, who is one of the 2010 Teach With Africa Fellows, he felt empowered enough with his writing to start this blog. The photos that he will post there are ones taken with my camera.

The team practices at the elementary school in Langa.

This is a field with pot holes, and some grass, but mostly bare dirt. They do so much with so little, it really is amazing. How many pairs of Novato Youth Soccer green socks can you see in this photo??

It may not come through as clearly as I would like, but I really commend this young man. His Peace Lovers Football Club is coming together. He now has a blog, and photos to post on it. He has a mission and a vision. In other words, he is an NPO in the making.

And I can tell you this - he was EXTATIC when I clicked "be a follower" on his website. I would love to rustle some followers for him. Take a look, see what this young community leader is doing. I think you will find him as interesting as I do.

Hanging out at the "Farm"

2010-08-01T09:18:00.000-07:00

Actually an "Equestrian Estate", or so the sign on the front gate says. I think I already posted that the Fellows all spent a relaxing weekend at the farm, but I just now have enough internet to be able to post some of the photos.

This is what the main lodge looks like -

the stables for the horsies ....

Jen, Josh, and Jamie getting prepared for the ATV course .. Jen DOES look just the tinyest bit worried ....

The Brie (pronounced Br and a long I), which is a traditional South African BBQ. The idea is that the wood (on the right side in the little container) burns down into embers, then gets whisked over unter the meat. I think the cook said he was using Manzinita, but I could be wrong. Those are lamb chops on the grill, and a piece of chicken in the tongs.

I was sort of choosy about what I had for dinner, and apparently, there was good reason for that because of how many people got sick, but here is what I had (starting at the top, going clockwise): Sump and Beans, BBQ chickin in the middle, The orange thing is roasted butternut squash, under that is creamed spinach, roasted potatoes with rosemary, saffron rice, and lamb curry. The wife of the owner (all of the horses are her') does all of the cooking, and when I asked about how things were made, she kept pointing out that they are Muslim. I am not entirely sure what that means.

I thought dinner was pretty tasty, especially the Sump and Beans, which is a staple on the table whenever you eat out.

Am I running out of words??

2010-07-28T13:32:00.000-07:00

It has occurred to me over the last few days that I have been struggling with coming up with things to post here. Over the last six weeks, I have covered the tourist-y things (Lion's Head, the Aquarium), and my projects (Iso'Lezwe, LEAP), and life in South Africa, all in some amount of detail. Some days, it felt as if I needed to post three to four postings a day just to keep you all current on what was happening with me.

Then, over the last week or so, that energy has disappeared. Is it because I am experiencing less "new and different"? Is it because I am spending so much time grant writing, which is a different form of writing, but still writing?

Or could it be that I am finally running of of words?

When I completed my Masters' Thesis, I experienced this same phenomenon. I just plain ran out of words, couldn't for the life of me think which word I was trying to use, and became horribly (in my opinion) inarticulate. They eventually came back, the words did.

I hope this isn't the problem because I still have two weeks, fourteen days, left in South Africa. I have big plans for both this weekend and next, and stories to tell.

But I do realize that at some point, this blog will end and we (me and all of you readers) will put this trip to bed. We may look back and reflect, but the drama and romance of spending a summer in South Africa will come to a close.

In the meantime, I guess I will just keep plugging away.

Straddling two Worlds

2010-07-28T09:10:00.000-07:00

I have mentioned how, on the surface, Pinelands could be anywhere in the Bay Area. The large Old Mutual office building that I can see while I sit on my bed here in the Beulah Lodge (over the treetops and razor sharp fence tops) could easily be in Terra Linda or Walnut Creek.

The large building that houses the new Whole Foods in Novato could just as easily be here (the building, not Whole Foods. There is not much in the way of organics here, and almost nothing in produce.)

Over the last few days, I have been straddling these two worlds more and more and I start to wrap things up here and begin to get back into life in Novato.

Jim and I needed to figure out some banking issues and at the same time, I was working on getting a NPO (Non-Profit Organization) number for the Iso'Lezwe Clinic.

I got the proofs of Grant's senior pictures emailed to me and at the same time, I gave Adisani my camera so he could take photos of his new soccer team and all of the gear that you all donated to him. I haven't mentioned Adisani yet. He is one of the LEAPsa's, studying to be a teacher, and working as a student teacher at LEAP.

I found a trainer at the gym here that would play ball with me (it is really doing stomach crunches) so that when I get back to Ramon, my abs aren't quite so sore after our first session.

Kitty the Dog seems to have put on some weight while I have been gone, and the dog that lives at the house near Joyce's in Kalkfontein seems to look ever skinnier.

During the day, I see people here that I am sure are from home. For example, today at lunch I saw my good friend Bob, coming down the stairs in the Old Mutual building. I was instantly excited to see him, but wait. What is he doing here?? In South Africa?? Well, of COURSE it wasn't him, silly me, and the man looked a little perplexed when I gave him a big HI!! :) I am continually seeing people that I think I know.

Most of this is probably because I feel as if I am straddling both worlds right now, and truth be known, I am probably starting to lean towards the US side, as I get ready to return, 14 days from today.

Stomach Flu hits the Beluah Lodge

2010-07-27T00:21:00.000-07:00

Or food poisoning. No one is sure. But whatever it is, half of the Fellows are down for the count.

Over the weekend, we all piled into the Quantum and went to an Equestrian Estate. Someone knows someone that got us in for a good rate. The family that owns and operates the Estate also owns and operates a number of bars and clubs, they really know how to put a spread on. The husband runs the show, the wife is the cook. As is common here in South Africa, there are MANY people sweeping.

Can I just digress for a moment? For a country that has as many people sweeping as they do here, trash is EVERYWHERE!! Piles of it in the townships, orange peels everywhere at the LEAP Schools, trash, trash, trash, yet there are also people sweeping everywhere. The two tasks do not compute in my head. If so many people are sweeping .... then how can there be so much trash around?
Anyway, back to the Estate. We ate, we drank, we sat in the sun, we came home.

Mona was the first to be hit with major stomach distress. Jamie, Josh, Jen, Subina, Heather, all fell in pretty quick order, then Steve and finally Sara. All within hours of each other.

Is that food poisoning or just a bad bug? Who knows, but I am giving all of them a wide berth because I don't want it. I am thinking that because I got the H1N1 shot before I came here that I am being protected from whatever violent bug they all picked up.

Until this bug is gone, I am hanging out in the conference room, thinking good healthy thoughts.

Things I have learned in South Africa

2010-07-26T11:32:00.000-07:00

A not completely comprehensive list, and similiar to "What I did on my Summer Vacation" sort of report.

I learned, just today, that in the townships, in the food stands that sell sheep's heads (I have mentioned the sheep's heads, haven't I??)(well, ok, they cut off the sheeps or goats heads from the neck up and roast them, so that when you walk past the food stand, there are often 5 - 6 heads looking at you from the top of the BBQ), the heads are called Smileys because when they roast, the corners of the mouths pull up into a smile.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Is anyone still with me? Or did that visual lose you all??

I learned that traffic lights are called robots. So one might be told, turn left at the robot.

I learned to look right, left, right, left, right, left, right, left, BOLT, right, left ....

I learned to ignore how closely our car driver follows the car in front of us. We would call it tailgating, they call it good driving.

I learned to go up and down stairs with my feet turned to the side because my shoes don't fit on the stairs.

I learned that 7.5 mg weights are FAR heavier than 10 pound weights and that there just isn't a good non-metric conversion for weights. I either have to use weights heavier than I am use to or lighter, and neither one really works.

I learned that no one really brews coffee here and that I am quite tired of Nescafe.

I learned (the hard way) that South African wine has a far higher alcohol content that California wines, and while one may not feel it in the moment, one most definately feels it the next day.

I learned that it takes an entire stack of the little tiny gold coins to equal one of the silver smaller coins.

I learned that I don't much care for "Macon" which is the Muslim variation of bacon.

I learned that it costs over $90.00 to phone America for a job interview, for 45 minutes worth of talk.

I learned that no one here wears socks, which baffles me because it is so darned cold. What the heck!! No socks??? Is this how I can make my milions is to come to South Africa and sell socks??

I have learned to be patient, that the meeting will eventually start, that the bus will eventually arrive, that the person will eventually call.

I learned what the odd smell is, which I only smell a few days a week when I am walking between the Bealuh Lodge and the LEAP School. The odd smell is the crematorium creamating human remains and the plastic coffins that they use here. LEAP asked public officials to test whether there were chemicals in the air that were harmful and the tests came out negative as to pollutants outside of the legal range, but my gosh. That is one harsh smell, especially when you learn what it really is.

And finally, I learned that, much like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, there is no place like home.

What I haven't talked about ...

2010-07-25T13:18:00.000-07:00

I haven't talked about racism here.

I haven't talked about living with 16 other people, just thrown together on Day 1, and suddenly they are your family.

I have talked about the fact my blow dryer went ka-put on Day 1, and I haven't bought a new one, and now, because my hair is always wet or damp, my barrettes are rusting on the inside.

I haven't talked about apartheid, or what remains of that.

I haven't talked about South African men and their wandering eyes.

I haven't talked about the music, which seems to creep into my ears, then down into my heart, then into my soul.

I haven't talked at all about mushroom cream sauce.

I haven't talked (much) about being a white woman in a black community.

I haven't talked about being in a room or a grocery store or somewhere and looking around and realizing that I am the only white person there.

I haven't talked much about how much I miss my family, most especially Jim.

I haven't talked much about the guard dogs, two doors down from this house, that often bark in the night, and how scared I get because it sounds as if someone is trying to break into this room at night. It is mostly the wind, but how does one know??

I haven't talked about how some of the simple pleasures I take for granted at home, like having my own care at my disposal, I don't have that here. I have to rely on the LEAP School to take us here or there, or pay for a taxi, or go on the train, which is supposed to be dangerous.

I haven't talked about the starving dogs in Kalkfontein.

I have talked little about the incredible amount of trash there is here.

Any I probably won't. I have no idea how to even start a post on racism or apartheid. Each issue is in my face every, single, day. Even though apartheid ended 15 years ago, the legacies are in my face every day. The energy to do that post is, most days, just too much for me.

So for now, I will just continue to not talk about this things.

Stats

2010-07-24T00:02:00.000-07:00

Often, it takes some stark statistics in order for me to put things into perspective. I have been here five weeks now, sorting life in South Africa out in my brain. I have spent time in the Yuppie side of town (the beaches), and spent considerable time in the black townships (Kalkfontein.) I have seen the wealth and the poverty.

Yesterday, the Fellows and I met with John Gilmour, Executive Director and Founder of the LEAP Science and Maths Schools. We didn't meet for long, John is a busy man, but he wanted to put a focus around our stay here, and in doing so, listed out a number of statistics. I was writing fast and furious, I hope I got them all correct.

2/3 of all South African children drop out of school before they graduate from Grade 12
5% of South African babies die before their first birthday
1 in 4 men here is a rapist.
75% of South African households have Domestic Violence as a "regular feature" of daily life

In 2004, there were 80,000 total students in the greater Cape Town area. Of those graduating Grade 12 (which I would estimate to be 20,000), 242 blacks passed the exit exam in science and maths.

Of those 242 blacks, 19 of those came from the LEAP Schools. This was the first year that LEAP students took the test.

In the last five years since then, 188 LEAP students have sat for the math and sciences exams, of which 172 passed (91%), and of these, 84 passed with a University exemption (which means you enter at the University level, no remedial classes needed.)

It isn't much, John would be the first to tell you that, but it is progress.

Tick, tick, tick .....

2010-07-23T01:03:00.000-07:00

The clock is ticking on my time here.

My good friend Betsy, in reading over the task list of things I am trying to accomplish while I am here, was right in pointing out that with only three weeks left, that I need to be careful about picking out which projects I can actually complete while I am here, that I need to go home with some successes under my belt.

This was good advice and I spent quite a bit of time yesterday thinking about just that.

And I came to the decision that I probably am not going to get to grant writing for Realistic, as much as I would like to. I probably won't get to the "elevator pitch" paper for LEAP. I probably am not going to get to the tutoring of LEAPsa students, and I am not going to get to other things on that list.

What I AM going to get to, though, is the NPO paperwork for Iso'Lezwe. That stack of papers is going out on Monday. I AM going to write two more grants for them, both of those are going out next week. I also am going to help Subina and Sarah with the Entrepreneurial/Leadership workshops - there are three or four of those scheduled now. I also feel good that yesterday, Subina and I sat with Joyce and a couple of the caregivers, and two of the volunteer medical doctors, and we formed a sort of Five Year plan. It was complicated and slow and (from my American point of view), tedious, (I hope that word doesn't offend anyone, it was my perspective in the moment), but we were able to put a form around the three stages of the clinic. Phase 1 is getting basic supplies for the caregivers and running the clinic out of Joyce's house. Phase 2 is having the shipping container in Kalkfontein, open and ready for patients. Phase 3 (which in reality may never occur, but we planned for it), is a medical clinic is built by the government.

One other thing I am going to do is to document more thoroughly our work here. There is tremendous redundancy here from year to year with new MBA's coming in, and only a bit written down for the new people to learn from. When I arrived here, it literally took four weeks for me to figure out Iso'Lezwe, and that was about three weeks of wasted time. There HAS to be a better way to transfer the information from year to year. Maybe this blog will help those that follow after me on this journey, maybe not. I don't know if anyone reading this can really envision, from my words and my photos, what it is like to sit on a plastic milk crate, in the sand and dirt in the front yard of a house in an informal settlement, and form a business plan, while half the group is speaking Xhosa, half the group speaks the language of Congo, some are speaking Afrikaans, and half the group speaks a heavily accented English. (yes, I know there are too many halves, there. Welcome to Africa :) )

And with that, it is off to work I go.

The Talfalah Institute

2010-07-21T21:28:00.000-07:00

Early yesterday morning, Steve called my cell phone. Of course, I didn't know it was Steve because my phone doesn't save names and contacts too well, nor could I answer my cell phone because when I do, I can't hear the other person, but I have memorized Steve's number so knew he was trying to get ahold of me. We had a meeting scheduled at 11:00 to go see a new library that was being built - much like the one at Lavendar Hill, except this one was at a primary school.

I got to the LEAP School a little early, to have a chance to chat with Papa Chris and tell him about our trip to Lavendar Hill. Instead, I found the parking lot filled (three cars) with people filling their cars with boxes and stacks of books. Steve said he had called me because he was sure that I would have wanted to watch the action - a new shipment of books had arrived, and teachers, principals, and librarians had arrived to stake claim. Steve compared the sight to a flock of vultures swooping in.

As is happens pretty much daily, there was some form of communication between Papa Chris and the lady in the red Prius, and Papa said that was our ride, have fun. We piled into the car, admidst the books.

Today or destination was Sherwood Park, and to get there we would need to drive through Menenberg. Menenberg is a higly volitale area, a black township, with one of the highest crime rates in the area. Gangs are active, even in the broad daylight, and the driver of our car refused to drive down the main road of the township because she didn't want to be dead. Instead, we took the long way around eventually arriving at the Talfalah Institute.

Talfalah Institute first opened their doors in 1912, at a location not too far from this one. They have been here for 35 years. This is a view of the main quad of the school - there are three more just like this. The school has an enrollment of 1,036 students and 26 teachers (you can do the math.) While the school is housed in a government building, the school is a private Muslim school. There is not one child to be seen while classes are in session.

We met Eb Shridian. Eb is studying at the University of Cape Town to get her librarian certificate as she has been designated to be the new librarian. She attended University years ago to get her Teaching Certificate. She told us that it is a lot of work to go to school two nights per week from 6 - 9, and that her husband needs to be compassionate about it because she is tired at the end of the day.

We asked how Eb had become aware of Papa Chris and The Bookery, and there was a complicated tale about Randall and the programs he offers in schools, and his connection with Chris. Before they knew it, Eb and the other teachers were sorting through books in the containers, well on their way to filling their library.

Unlike the Lavander Hill library, there is no real system to how the books are put on the shelves. A John Grisham novel was placed right next to the Max Mayer book "There is a Nightmare in the Attic" (a family favorite to be sure.) But there is good intent. As i have already mentioned, the South Africa Department of Education will not provide one dime towards libraries. As was the case in Lavandar Hill, this will be the only library in the township.

As honored American guests, we were served snacks and tea. That is milk-based tea, served steaming hot. The snacks on the left, I didn't get the name of them, but Subina called them "Laying Sisters." On the right are Dolchi, or Pakooras, made in the school kitchen.

Of course, that meant that we needed to go and look at the school kitchen, expecting a regular, full-sized kitchen to serve 1,036 students. Instead, we found ..... a couple of hot plates and some really LARGE pots.

Soup or Sump Beans are made every day, along with the snacks you see above.

You know, School Lunch Ladies look pretty much the same the world over. The Head Cook is in the orange.

We visited many of the classrooms. Note the differences between this school and Crossroads, where Steve and I went to visit back a couple of weeks ago.

And of course, the ever-present concertina wire ....

I am not entirely sure what our function in viewing the school was, except for curiousity about the full circle of The Bookery. I have a new appreciation for Rotary International who is at the base of the entire book/library project here in South Africa. And as someone that grew up almost living in the Martinez Public Library, I can certainly understand what the principal and Eb are trying to do in getting the library open. But as for me and my tasks through Teach with Africa, I don't know what they were expecting of us.

I also worry that with three weeks left, that time is short on the projects that I do need to complete, or at least make progress on. I have reconciled myself to the fact that work here will NEVER be done, and I need to be selective in my top priorities.

Three weeks and counting.

Lavender Hill - the follow up

2010-07-21T12:46:00.000-07:00

As you may recall, when we all went out to the Lavender Hill High School last week, we were unable to stay to see the opening of the new library. Yesterday, Randall volunteered to drive Subina and I out there again. It seems as if I have mentioned how difficult getting around in Cape Town is. Teach with Africa does not rent vehicles for us to use, plus they do not allow us to take the trains, nor use the mini-van taxis for transport. It puts us in the ackward position of having to find rides from the LEAP bus drivers, or from nice people like Randall. I suppose that we could rent our own car, but there is the money side of that and I just don't want to spend my available funds that way.

But I digress. :)

Lavendar Hill is about a 35 minute drive from the LEAP campus. It is a black township, not one of the worst and not one of the best. Housing is in the multi-story apartments that you see in this photo instead of the informal housing structures that you saw in the Kalkfontein photos.

For some reason, palm trees are common here.

We met with the School Librarian, her name was Jane and I did not catch her sir name. Jane was very animated about the library. She told us the story about how it has taken a year under the Equal Education program to get the library in place. The High School houses 1,200 students with an average class size of 40. In the early 1990's there was a library, but that was closed down long ago. The South Africa Department of Education will not fund libraries. Not one dime. If a school wants a library (and most of them do and most of them do not have them), then they need to find the space and the resources to do that.

That is Randall, Subina, and Librarian Jane in the new Lavendar Hill library. All of the books came from Papa Chris' shipping container The Bookery. The bookshelves were donated by Rotary International.

And a special surprise while we were there - do you see the black chairs? The plastic patio chairs?

While we were standing there, the plastic chairs were taken out of the room and brand new conference-type padded chairs were brought in.

It is such a warm and inviting space, I just wanted to sit down and spend the day reading.

As I was looking at the book titles (because I could hardly resist), this one jumped out at me ....

-------------------------------------------------->>>>>>>>>

2010-07-21T09:44:00.000-07:00

Did you see the mid-temperature today???

Of course not, all of you were asleep!!

----------------------------------------------------------------->>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

In case you missed it, it said the Cape Town temperature was .

.
.
.
.
.
.
.
81 degrees!

As in warm!
As in I have shorts on!
As in when I walked to the gym I didn't have to wear my sweatshirt.
As in aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.......................................

(just to keep things in perspective, rain is coming in this weekend and we will be back to the cold, damp, weather, but for today )

:)
:)
:)

Akukho Nzwana Ingenasiphako

2010-07-20T23:54:00.000-07:00

No one is perfect.

That is the phrase repeated frequently at the Realistic Training Centre where I visited yesterday. The Centre is located in NY6 (Native Yard is what the NY stands for, a phrase that the SA government is trying to abolish, but no one can decide on what the new names should be) is deep in the heart of Guguletu, one of the black townships. I have been trying for a couple of weeks to connect with Solomon, the Founder and Executive Director, to come and see the programs, meet the staff, and get a feeling of what the place is all about, but Solomon is a busy man. That's Solomon, I got the feeling he doesn't sit much, he is a man with a mission.

He told me his story - growing up in Guguletu, being given a scholarship to Pinelands High School (the white school), working in the banking industry, then landing a government job with the Department of Corrections, working as a prison guard. Watching how services for inmates don't work, seeing men return time and time again to prison, and knowing there must be a better way to keep people out of, and from returning to prison, Solomon founded Realistic.

The program works on a Peer Educator model, similiar to Centerforce (my organization back in the States), except that all work is done outside of the prison. Clients are referred to the organization through social workers and the court system.

They call themselves "Realists". Look at how they are looking at me. I was probably the only white woman within blocks of this room. They weren't about to give me the time of day, until Patrick Thulo (Master Facilitator) introduced me. (I took three photos of Patrick, this is the one he choose for me to use, lol.) Patrick also told me his story. A number of years ago, he was attending UCT (University, Cape Town) majoring in Sociology. he was unable to pay his tuition, and decided to open up someone's safe in their house and take out the contents and that person didn't like it and he ended up in a maximum security prison. HA!! Of course, there is a bit more to the story than that, but during his period of incarcaration, he was identified as a person with good facilitator skills. He moved from Robbins Island (sort of like Alcatraz), to Porterville (an honor farm), and is now out on parole, with one year left to serve. He is doing that time working at Realistic.

Patrick led the introductions, the Realists asked me questions. Why am I here? What drugs do they have in the US? Who are you? Do you do drugs? Apparently, I answered their questions and I passed whatever acceptance test was being given, because next we did an "Ice Breaker" where one person danced in the middle of the room, and you had to go stand in front of someone else, then they danced. It goes without saying that there was the ever-present singing :)

Solomon later told us about the programs. Realistic has four "intakes" per year. Each "intake" is four months in length and has 25 people. This intake just started four weeks ago. The first three weeks the group is sent to a substance abuse de-tox center. In this photo, almost everyone had been addicted to cocaine, weed, or meth. This is their first week back in the real world.

During our time there yesterday, the group was planning a weekend excursion to go hiking. Using the Boy Scout model of patrols, they broke into groups and figured out how much food they need, what sort of transport, and what clothes everyone should bring. No one in this group has ever been hiking before.

I grilled Solomon on his statistics, and he confirmed his facts. Since Realistic opened, he has served 500 clients. Of those, 5 have returned to prison.

5.

So a 1% recidivism rate.

Solomon is quick to say that his small numbers allow him this success rate. The Peer Educator model keeps in contact with people and the clients are able to have continuing support.

Yesterday, he got word that the Open Society Foundation renewed his grant for another year. If that funding had not come through, he would have had to close his doors. Now, with R300,000 ($70,000US), he will be able to stay open another year, to serve another 100 clients.

My job here in South Africa is to look for further funding for Realistic. Now that I have have sat in the group and sang (and danced) with them, it gives me the passion to do just that.

http://realisticcbo.org/

Weaver Birds

2010-07-20T12:03:00.000-07:00

Outside of the LEAP School in Pinelands, there is a large tree, and in that tree, a-way up high are nests, and inside of those nests are Weaver birds. When I first asked what kinds of birds those were up high in that tree, I thought the LEAP student was saying something to me in Xhosa (pronounced Coe-Sa, the local African language), then when I sorted out the accent and looked at the nests, I realized that he was really saying "Weaver Birds."

This is what the next looks like - a true "weaved" thing.

Here is the actual bird - aren't they beautiful?

Black, white, and colored

2010-07-20T08:02:00.000-07:00

People, that is.

The other evening, we were watching a South African comedian on TV. He made the comment that South Africa is the only country in the world where you can call someone "colored" and have it be ok. I know that it is even making me uneasy to write the word.

I have been having a difficult time sorting out who is who here. Black townships? White areas? Colored areas? What the heck?

Today, during a long drive, Randall (who was kind enough to drive Subina and I) gave me a pretty clear description.

Blacks are that - black. Pure black down through the generations.
White are that - white. Same thing - pure.
Coloreds are mixed race people, or people of Hispanic, Asian, Indian descent. Randall is a Colored Person (oh, I am sorry, sorry, it just pains me to write this).

Maybe it was a clear explanation, or maybe my brain just choose to accept these terms today, or maybe we have driven around Cape Town enough times that I am getting a sense of the different parts of town. Langa, Guguletu, Kalkfontein, Kialetche, Muzinberg - those are all Black Townships. White people live in Pinelands, Bishops. Colored people live in the Observatory area. ****

(*** I know it is more complicated than that, but this is something my brain can grasp)

I don't think I will feel any more comfortable using the term, and I actually haven't said it outloud yet, but at least I understand what people are talking about.

Monday morning

2010-07-19T09:20:00.000-07:00

Just like in the States, Monday mornings roll around and we start yet another work week. I feel as if I have been playing quite a bit (dancing until all hours of the night, going to Botanical Gardens, sitting in the warm sun) and it is time to knuckle down and get some work done.

I have many points of focus on this trip. Because there are only two of us MBA's, the list of things that need to be done, things that need to get done, and things that would be nice to be done is long. Most of these projects stem from the LEAP Science and Maths Schools Headmaster, John Gillmor. The school has an increasingly large Social Development Programme (with an e, please note) and Community Support programme.   Most of the MBA projects come from the CBO's (community based organizations) that are attached to the LEAP School.

For example, the Iso'Lezwe project is connected to LEAP through Joyce. The Realistic program (program that serves people formerly incarcerated) is attached through Solomon. The Soup Kitchen, and Mama Soup is connected because the Soup Kitchen (do you remember when we went there? The first day I was in Langa, way, WAY back during the first week of this trip, seems like an eternity ago) is housed in the same shipping container as the Langa/LEAP after-school study center. And so on.

My projects are as follows:

> Help Kirstin, External Relations Manager at LEAP, research and find new grant opportunities.
> Help Kirstin develop an "elevator speech" of the fundraising needs of LEAP
> Do the same thing in a 2 - 3 page Letter of Interest sort of report for possible funders
> Research and write proposals for Community Partners that are of interest. In my case, this is:
                    > Iso'Lezwe (Joyce)
                    > Realistic (Solomon)
                   > The Book Store (Papa Chris and Randall)
                   > The Langa Soccer Club (did any of you donate soccer gear? Adisani took all of the gear and he started the Club. About 15 pairs of cleats, a set of cones, a rule book, some shorts, jerseys, shin guards, and a bright green sports bag that says NYSA (Novato Youth Soccer Association) on it. You can see it from across the field, lol.)

Then .......

> Help Iso'Lezwe get their Non-Profit Organization paperwork filed
> Work on getting the shipping container moved from Pinelands to Kalkfontein
> Help Ross (a teacher at LEAP 2) get the earthworm farm purchased, installed, and operating
> Help Subina research and organize a series of Entrepreneurial/Leadership workshops

WHEW!!! It makes me tired just listing it all out. There are some other things, but I can't recall what they are right now.

All of that to say that is time to get off of my duff and get to work.

A night on the Town

2010-07-18T01:22:00.000-07:00

What does one do after a lazy day sitting around the house and pool?

One goes out on the town, of course :)

Saturday was one of our Fellows' birthday (Jen.) It was a bit complicated, but the rest of us were all able to get dressed up (as dressed up as one can get after having lived out of your suitcase for a month), pile into a cab, go across town, sit in the restaurant, and shout "Surprise" when she walked in the door.

The restaurant is called The Wild Fig.

http://www.thewildfig.co.za/

There are no photos, but I had the Slow Roasted lamb in Phyllo pastry. It was tasty, but lacking in salt/pepper/spices of any sort. Lots of dough and not a lot of lamb. But it filled my tummy and that is something that has been lacking lately.

After dinner, we all piled into cars and cabs and went in search of a fun club. Now, anyone that really knows me is probably ROTFL at this point, because the idea of me!! going out clubbing, well, I can't tell you the last time I was out late like that. But before I left home, I had promised Jim that if the younger people went out in the evenings, that I would go with them.

We stopped at a couple of places, they were either closed (as in no longer in business) because the World Cup was gone, or they weren't open on a Saturday night, or something. We ended up at a club on the beach in Camps Bay, which is where we have been a couple of times before.

I have to say - I had forgotten how much I enjoy dancing. I wish I had had a dress or skirt on, instead of blue jeans, and the place was awfully warm (now, THAT was a nice change from being cold all the time), but all in all, I had a GREAT time. We got back to the lodge around 2:30 am. I was thinking that I would sleep in this morning, but no, my eyes popped open at 7:30 am. Thankfully, Steve already had coffee made.

Today is the big day when most of the Fellows move into their Home Stay situations. It is a bright and sunny day, so I should try and gather people to go and do something. Don't know what, but I venture to say there is a nap planned later today.

Yawn!!

Kickin' back

2010-07-17T08:32:00.000-07:00

It had to come, we have all been SO busy. Today has been a pretty laid back day.

As usual, the alarm on my Blackberry went off at 7:00, which really irritated me because I had no where to go this morning, and I was having a wonderful dream about something or other, and I was warm. Warm. I was warm :) But ring the alarm did say, and up I did get. Stumbled across the patio, missing stepping into the pool (one of my worries is that I will forget the pool is there and stumble into the cold water), into the backdoor of the house, found a coffee mug, and poured a cup. Each evening before I go to bed I make a pot of coffee and the first person up in the morning (which is usually me or Steve) turns it on. Today, Steve was up first, so coffee was already made when I got there.

Now, if I could only teach someone to bring me my coffee in bed like Jim does ..... ahhhh .... probably won't happen.

All of the Educators (which is everyone except Subina and me) had Saturday school, where they tutor LEAP students, so the house got quite quickly. I headed over to the conference room for a couple of hours of good, solid, quiet, grant research work. I was pleased to find a couple of places that I can send in proposals for the Iso'Lezwe Med Clinic, plus the Realistic organization, whom I met with on Friday. A couple of other good hits as well.

Spent the rest of the afternoon sitting in the sun, alternating between being warm and having goosebumps.

Tonight is the last evening here at the lodge before most of the Fellows go off on their respective homestays. Monica and I are staying here at the lodge, some people are staying in Langa, and a couple are staying at the Safe House for Leapsa students. Since it is our last evening together, I think we are planning on going out for dinner. I am sure the younger group will stay out most of the night (they generally roll in around 4:00 am, FAR to late for me), so I will head home early with a couple of the others who don't do all-nighters.

It's been nice just sitting around today and not doing much.

Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens

2010-07-16T11:43:00.000-07:00

Finally, I got through all of those other posts and can now post the really GOOD stuff :)

Last Sunday, Vernon, Katie, Sara, and I hopped into Leon's car and went a couple of places. First, was the Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens. This is me, Katie, Sara (my new roommate), and Vernon.

Nena, this fern grotto is for you ~

Something in the conservatory ...

Avenue of the Camphors ...

A spectacular view of Table Mountain in the morning sun.

Different view ..

Bird of Paradise

A different kind of bird - Guinea Fowl (that is what Dickie the LEAP School van driver told me)

This tree was in the section called "The Enchanted Forest"

Look at those seed pods. They made a clicking sound if you were to shake them.

More flowers ..

Me, with the resident Ape.

(As a complete aside, that is a sweater I bought a couple of weeks ago when shopping with Monica, and is the single warmest thing I own. Under that sweater is a thermal shirt, plus a long-sleeved shirt, two pairs of socks, and my new Eastland (from Maine) winter shoes. I was still cold.)

Iso'Lezwe

2010-07-16T02:48:00.000-07:00

Some of you must be wondering why we are going to all of these places, such as Kalkfontein? I haven't spoken much about my projects here in South Africa, and I suddenly seem to have many, but mostly, I am here to offer my skills as a Non-Profit CFO/Controller and sort of a grantwriter. Mostly, I am working on grants, both researching possibilities and actually writing grants. Yesterday was my first ever grant submission.

(Judy - are you reading this?? I hit send!))(and MY how stressful that was!)

Last week, Subina discovered a funding source that would work for the tiny little Iso'Lezwe Medical Clinic. This clinic used to be located in Kalkfontein, in a donated building. Since the Fellows were here last year, the building was lost and there is now no medical facility or services of any kind in the community. Keep in mind the high rate of HIV/Aids patients, along with an increasing number of cancer victims, the small children, and no medical clinic, no doctor, nothing.

What the community does have, though, are a few Caregivers, and it was this group of young women that I was writing the grant for.

These are the three cargivers that are currently working here in Kalkfontein. They provide in-home care services to five HIV/Aids patients. They do this with no supplies at all. No thermometer. No BP kit. No latex gloves, no tongue depressors, nothing.

That is what I wrote the grant for.

In a perfect world, the grant I wrote would have been stronger, I would have been more persuasive. The fact that I had not been out to Kalkfontein and heard the stories of these young women before I wrote the grant - that was a shame. When I came back to Beluah last evening, I only had an hour before the grant had to be submitted, not enough time to completely revamp the writing. But I was able to put more of a face on it, I was able too add in supplies and equipment.

The hope is that a large shipping container (which have become, here in South Africa, a regular means of housing or place for your retail store) which has already been donated to the LEAP School, and in turn to the Iso'Lezwe Clinic - that we can raise enough money to move it from Pineland to that empty land space in the farm photo of Kalkfontein.

In a perfect world (well, in a perfect world we wouldn't even be talking about having these sorts of issues), the grant will be funded and this container will be moved (coming in under budget, of course :) ), and the retrofitting will take place (windows and electric added), and in a flash, this shipping container will be come the new Iso'Lezwe Medical Clinic, giving the community of Kalkfontein a place to meet, hold support group meetings, and have educational seminars on health-related issues.

In the meantime, the caregivers will continue to work with no supplies, and the owner of this shack house will continue to host the HIV/Aids support group meetings in her home. I wasn't sure, but I think the owner is wearing the pink hat.

As a side note, before we Fellows left, the pink hatted lady said that she wanted to say something. She gathered her thoughts and said this ~

"I am hungry. We are hungry. We have no food. My doctor won't sign the form that says I can't work, so I can't get the budget. (disability checks) My childs are hungry. The doctor says I can work, but I can't. I have HIV. That is all I have to say."

That might be all I have to say as well.

Good Hope Farms

2010-07-16T02:19:00.000-07:00

On our drive to Kalkfontein last week, I asked Dickie (our driver of the LEAP van - he takes us here and there), what "fontein" means, as I keep seeing it in parts of town and street names. It took some discussion between he and the other driver, but they finally decided it means "farms" in Africanese. The literal translation of Kalkfontein is Good Hope Farms.

Let that sit in the front of your thoughts as you view these photos -

What is left of the original farm ..

The exterior of Joyce's house. Have I talked about Joyce yet? Joyce is a community activist, choosing to live in this "informal settlement" which is what the shack houses are called. More on her later ... This is the street where she lives, and the open doorway is the entrance to her home.

The front window of her home. When I first saw this window, I had to throw out all of my preconceived notions about shack housing. Real glass, windows that open and close, and check out the curtains she has. Dolphins.

A close up is below ..

Of course, I instantly made a connection with Joyce about her love of oceans and water (after all, I AM Wavesmom) ....

This is Jamie (our tall White Fellow), and Joyce inside of her house. Joyce is a breast cancer survivor. She is still undergoing chemotherapy treatments (thus the hat because she has no hair).

This is the main room of the house. As you can see, there is electricity (which I had said at one point that there was not in these sorts of houses, my error.) The wiring is pretty sketchy, but there is enough power to run the TV (which you see behind Jamie), and a couple of lamps. The house is heated with a propane?? keroscene?? heater. It is small, could fit in the circle that your legs make when you sit on the ground, but warms the room nicely. Funny, that I had to go to a shack house in an informal settlement in order to become warm. There is tremendous irony there ....

The street corner ....

The light may be wrong to show how white these white shirts are.

Every house has an address. Most houses have at least one dog.

The side yard of a house near where Joyce stays..

While the houses do have electricity, they do not have running water. The water spigot that serves the street Joyce lives on, plus maybe six other streets is to the left of the porta-potties (the blue buildings that we all recognize.) The government maintains these bathrooms, they are the only ones here. None of the shacks has a bathroom.

From Joyce's house, this is a 3 - 4 minute walk. Bring your own supplies.

Our Staff here

2010-07-16T01:37:00.000-07:00

The Beluah Lodge has the most wonderful staff that takes care of all of us Fellows:

Leni'ze - Lodge Manager. Leni'ze runs the place, and does it quite well. Plus, she has a car that she lets people borrow, so we aren't quite so stuck.

Ayola - one of the housekeepers. Here she is outside of my room. Her name is pronounced I-ola.

Hazel - the other housekeeper, and Ayola's mother. Hazel wanted to wait until a different day to take her picture, but I convinced her otherwise :) Lol. I had to take 3 - 4 photos, then she choose the one I could share with all of you.

And finally, here is Princess. Those sheets get ironed and folded everyday. Whew!! What a job!

Princess is standing in the conference room/ironing room where I spend most of my time here at Beluah.

Princess is the head housekeeper, I think, it is hard to understand some of the politics.

But anyway, she is wonderful. On the day that I took these photos, she thought she didn't look very good, so I told her that this was going to be the photo that was going on the internet. It was pretty funny at the time, but in the telling of it, it seems less so.

Kalkfontein - a start

2010-07-15T13:48:00.000-07:00

I really debate posting these photos. Kalkfontein is a left-over community township. It may take a few days for me to post the photos, because the photos are not about the poverty. They are not about the trash and what you see.

The photos are about what you may not look at first thing. They are about how clean those white baby clothes are on the line. They are about how happy those babies are. They are about community.

But before you get to that, you must sort through the trash and the poverty.

Look right, look left, look right again, look right even more again ...

2010-07-15T13:28:00.000-07:00

South Africa is one of those countries that drive on the "wrong" side of the road.

Today, I was crossing the street on the way to the school (this is the road I take), when I forgot and looked left, then right, then left,

And before I knew it, the Security Guard was yelling and someone blew by me in their car. Contrary to the United States, people here do NOT stop for pedestrians. Once you enter the street, you are on your own.

I suppose I need to slow down and think about where I am and remember that, at least in this country, that pedestrians do not have the right away. And that if I am to return to the States in one piece, I need to be careful.

The Gym at old Mutual

2010-07-15T13:17:00.000-07:00

This post is directed mostly at people who follow me on this trail, or those of you that are just really into my gym experience.

As my family knows, I was pretty worried before I arrived here, about the gym thing. I work out at the gym almost every day, and in Novato, I belong to two different gyms. So the idea of going two months with no working out, well, ok, that was a bad plan. So I was thrilled to find out there was a gym nearby.

Actually, the gym is four minutes from my bed, if you subtract the time it takes to play with the key and bolt lock on the front gate, which is three minutes all in itself. But yet again, I digress.

Prior to my arrival, I had no idea as to what this gym was. I was thinking some sort of little Hotel Gym, where there is, maybe, one old treadmill and a couple of free weights, plus a machine that the Hotel Manager happens to like.

Nope. This is a full-on, fully staffed, fully functional working gym.

Here is the lap pool. Jamie tells me that the pool is cold. He told me the temperature, but I don't remember what that was, other than, as a person who has swam on competition teams, Jamie thought his pool was cold.

For what it's worth.

I, of course, am more interested in the spin classes.

Lookie at that!! A REAL spin studio. The bikes have clips and everthing, so the fact that I hauled my spin shoes 17,000 miles, well, it certainly makes it worthwhile.

What was interesting about taking these photos ... I asked at the front desk if it was ok for me to take a couple of photos for the folks back home. The front desk trainer had to check, then the manager came down to the front desk, and he walked me around. He said I couldn't take any photos of the corporate sponsor (whose name is on the front of the building in 12 foot lettering), nor could I take any photos of people. Nor could I take any photos of the Sports Institute that he works for and who actually owns the gym.

Ok, that's fine. So he stood behind me and looked into my "preview" of all of the photos, then before I left, asked if he could hold my camera and look at what I took.

I have no idea as to why the high security .... I tried asking that but he wanted to talk more about what sort of weights I was lifting these days, and did I like the spin classes, and maybe I wanted to extend my (cash!!) membership beyond the 60 days that I had bought.

I can't figure out the entire photo thing. That's something that, I found, Randall can explain to me. Or Leon.

Perplexing.

Lavender Hill

2010-07-15T13:01:00.000-07:00

Let's see. These are busy days and I am having a difficult time remember what I did when.

Yesterday, Papa Chris (remember him from a few days ago, the Book Store Manager?), well, he called me on my South African phone which I can neither read the text part of nor can I hear the thing ring, but I digress. Chris called me to say that there was an opening of a library at a local High School. The books that were filling the library were from his bookstore, and he was pleased and proud to be able to share this with me.

As happens with anything here in South Africa, I walked over to the school from the Beluah Lodge (it is about 1/2 mile, so 10 minute walk) to meet Chris at 2:00. Come to find out the school was not in Filipe it was in Lavender Hill, and it wasn't a primary school but a High School, and Chris wasn't taking us, but Randall (remember him also from a couple of days ago?) was.

So different time to leave, different place to go, different person driving us, but what the hey??

:)

Randall was there on time, with a very nice BMW to drive us in. Do you know what?? It had HEAT!!!! Seat warmers. !!! I don't think the people sitting in the backseat knew this, but I felt that first burst of warmth, and sort of settled in, and thought I had struck the gold bonanza. A warm tushie .....

But I digress.

Ahem. Ok, so we were on our way to Lavendar Hill. I had no idea where we were going. It seemed like Muzinberg (we went there for .... ummmmm ... something or other), a nasty place that has gangs and lots of violence. Randall kept up a good commentary during the trip. Native born Cape Town-ian he is, he could tell us all of the politics and gossip and reasons for this and that. We arrived at the High School after turning only a few wrong turns ...

This is the main building on the campus. The size of the school is 1,200 students on a day when everyone is there, and 800 on a regular day. The principal smiled when he said that.

As you can see, it was raining ...

We got to the ceremony late, the students and local dignataries were giving speeches ..

Somewhere on that banner is "Equal Education", which is a popular theme here in South Africa. When I was at the LEAP School this morning, staff asked me if the ceremony was an "Equal Education" event. I said yes, but really had no idea as to what that meant.

I need to go back and connect with Randall and ask him. He is the sort of person that I can ask blunt questions of and get honest answers.

Unfortunately, we needed to leave the event before the library Red Ribbon was cut and we got to see the space. I was really looking forward to that and reasonably disappointed that it didn't work out. As we got back into Randall's car to drive back to Pinelands, this was the view out of the front window of the car. Even though we were talking about something as simple and nice as a library, there is the Ever-Present concertina wire surrounding the perimeter of whereever it is you are. There were also armed security guards.

As we drove back to Pinelands (a 35 minute drive), I just had to give in to the tiredness I was feeling. I kept trying to have a reasonably intelligent conversation with Randall about his new foundation and health-focused non-profit, then I would stop talking, and before I knew it, my eyes were closed and my brain was saying GIVE IN. GIVE IN. DOZE. And I did.

I woke up about the time we turned into the LEAP School parking lot. I felt awful and when I got out of the car, apologized profusely to our host that I had dozed off. He smiled and said it looked as if I needed a good nap.

In talking with Papa Chris today, he said Randall could take us out to see the library one day next week. I would like that. It would give me a chance to see the results of the work Chris does, plus make my self look a bit more professional with a possible partner in the non-profit world (Randall and his ventures.)

Meanwhile .... I should get some sleep.

Bonne Esperance

2010-07-14T13:37:00.000-07:00

We drove through Musenberg, on the way to Philipe. Our driver, Dickey, told us that Musenberg is one of the worst black townships, when it comes to gangs and violence. The time was 3:00 in the afternoon. There were so many people out on the streets. Children walking home from the township school, adults just out walking, people, people, people. At all of the street corners, where the "robots" are (we call them traffic lights), were fruit and vegetable vendors. These vendors run out into the streets between the cars to sell large bags of oranges and avocados, mostly.

When we got to Philipe, we had been told to look for the Police Station, and the Women's Center was directly across the street from that. But we didn't need to look far. As we turned on the street where we thought the center was, we saw the biggest electrical tower that I have ever seen. It was enormous. Directly underneath, as in one of the feet was next to the swing set, was Bonne Esperance Women's Center.

In preparation for the Entreprenerial (oh, that spelling doesn't look correct ....) and Leadership Workshops that Subina and I are giving later this month .... errr ... week, we have been meeting with different agencies that deal with Foreign Nationals (ie, refugees), to get an idea as to the process behind the paperwork to becoming a national. Today's meeting was with Jane, the Program Director at Bonne Esperance Women's Center.

Under the auspices of the Catholic Welfare and Development agency, BE opened its doors in 1995. The idea of the agency is to serve women and families that have just arrived in South Africa. The statistics show that the majority of women come from Congo, then Zimbabwe, Brumda, Uganda, with other African countries following.

In order to get a bed in the facility, you must be a political refugee, seeking aslyum, having no paperwork as of yet. You can stay a maximum of six months.

This is not my photo, this photo is from the website. When I asked if I could take photographs, I was told no because women are worried that they will be identified and returned to their countries of origins. But this little family is indicitive of the families that I saw there.

As is ever present in Cape Town, and maybe South Africa in general, trash was everywhere. Sand was everywhere. Because it was raining, mud was everywhere. Yet, look at how clean and white those clothes are on the woman and the baby. While this photo was not taken yesterday, the clothes would be the same.

We talked with Jane who explained how difficult it is for the Foreign Nationals to get jobs here. Xenophobia is rising again, now that the World Cup tourists have gone home and the jobs have ended. Violence is already starting to break out. There was a tension amongst the women of the shelter about leaving the shelter and going out into the world, and perhaps not coming home.

We toured the "facilities", which included 47 beds (often holding one mom and a variety of children). Current capacity was 53 adults and 27 children.

Keep in mind that the 1/4 of an acre that holds the center, there were five buildings, all staggered under the large electric tower. The four feet of that thing were everywhere, plus the buzzing those things make .... add in the concertina wire around the perimiter .... not exactly a safe and warm environment in which to live.

As I looked at the women of the shelter, I had to keep reminding myself that these were medical doctors, psychologists, accountants. These had been highly-educated professional women until they had to pick up their children and flee whatever country they had been living in, and head to South Africa, who has a liberal refugee acceptance policy. These women, who were sitting in tattered yet clean clothing, were very much like me.

While I don't really believe in a "God" of sorts, I couldn't help but think of the phrase:

"There but for the grace of God go I"

A new camera

2010-07-13T02:12:00.000-07:00

Did you all notice? I am back in business, taking photos left and right.

I took my broken, stuck camera into the camera store on Saturday, and the kind technician sympathized with me, then said he would ship it off and it would be back in, oh, maybe 6 weeks.

6 weeks???? nope. I will be gone by then, but it is good to know that the camera should be covered by the warranty.

I bought a new camera (a less expensive version of the one I had), and I am Back in Business.

Here's a bit of a tease ..... (Nena - I have some Fern Grotto photos just for you)

Just in time for our trip last Sunday to the Kirstenbisch Botanical Gardens. Get ready, I can't believe how many photos I took.

Books for Africa

2010-07-13T02:04:00.000-07:00

The Leap School has a number of different ventures attached to it, people doing volunteer work in a variety of capacities. One of these is Books for Africa.

Chris is in charge of this venture. You really need to meet Chris. I met him yesterday when he gave us a brief tour of the "book store." Just in the few minutes that I spent with him, his enthusiasm is infectious, and he never stops smiling. This man is SOOO excited about his books.

From what I have learned here in South Africa, people, especially children, do not read much. Either there are not books available or it is a cultural aspect, but books just do not make it into the hands of children. Chris has his heart set on changing that.

I am not sure how this project got started, but from what I gather, Rotary International ships boxes of donated books to Chris. Hundreds of boxes of books. Chris receives these books, sorts them out, catorgizes them, then separates them between the three shipping containers that constitute his "Book Store."

This is Katie, Chris, and Subina in one of the shipping containers, filled with old donated books.

Once Chris has sorted the books, he contacts local primary schools and people come and take the books to fill up school libraries. He keeps track of which schools take how many boxes of books, who has "completed" libraries, and who is struggling to get things going. He told us the story of one school libarian that is filling their container library by hauling boxes of books in his little Chico car (in the States, this is a tiny VW Golf model), trip after trip after trip. Really, how many boxes of books can one cram into a Chico? (lol)

Tomorrow, one of the schools is celebrating the opening of their new library and he and Subina are going to attend. I might go along, just to get photos.

Chris wanted me to mention that they have plenty of adult books, but what they REALLY need is picture books for the smaller children, or for people trying to learn English. Many tutors use these Easy Reader books to teach English, but these sorts of books rarely make it to his store.

These are two of the shipping containers that have been converted to the Book Store. One of the containers has been designated to be moved to Kaklkfontein as soon as someone can figure out costs and where to put the container. Chris has books in all three of the containers, but it should be quick work to empty one of them out (using all 16 of us Fellows) should we get it arranged to be moved.

In the meantime, I will look for funding to help with shipping costs to bring more books here, especially those all important ones for the younger children.

The dogs that want to eat my face

2010-07-13T01:27:00.000-07:00

Don't they look like nice doggies?

Each morning I walk by them on my way to school. Some mornings, they are just laying there, quietly, like this. Other mornings, they are more like this ....

I am sure, given the chance, they would eat my face off.

BRRRRRRRRRRRRrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

2010-07-10T13:49:00.000-07:00

I am
so.
Frigging.
Cold.

(where are the smiley icons with the sad face?)

I knew there was limited heat here. I thought I packed appropriately.

Perhaps not.

When I go to bed at home, I don't wear much.
When I go to be here in South Africa, I wear a long sleeved fleece shirt, skiing leggings, wool socks, and sometimes a wool hat. We have the heat on here in our room, but right now, my fingers are so cold I have a difficult time typing. My feet are frozen. When I get up in the morning, I have to debate about using the bathroom because it is sort of warm here in bed and the bathroom is cold. The house is cold. The town is cold. The mall was cold. I am getting weary of things being cold.

Crossroads

2010-07-10T13:31:00.000-07:00

Last week, Steve Le and I had a meeting at the Amy Biehl Foundation. Amy was in South Africa a number of years ago, in Crossroads (a small township near Cape Town) and was murdered during an uprising. I don't know the entire story, but her family (maybe just her mother?) started a foundation in her memory to carry on the work she had been doing. We really were expecting to meet with the Executive Director, Kevin, talk about non-profits in South Africa, make connections between the foundation and the LEAP Schools, but instead, Kevin sent us out on a tour of the programs that the trust funds.

The trust funds 13 different after-school programs at elementary schools in the townships. These programs are designed to help tutor students, but to also give them a place to stay where they won't get into township trouble (drugs, gangs, the usual trouble spots.) My notes don't say how many children participate in the programs, but let's say many.

The Trust also subidizes Holiday programs (we are currently at the end of Winter Holiday, which was made longer because of the World Cup), and our tour included observing three of the "workshops" offered by tutors at the Crossroads Elementary School. Tutors is a realitive word because they only receive a minuscal token payment for their work, essentially volunteer work.

The first workshop we saw was in dance. This group had been practicing all week (we came on a Thursday).

Look at the details. No one wears socks. Few of these kids wear long sleeves or sweaters. I was freezing. Yet, they were full of music and dance. This particular dance went on for a good five minutes.

After this workshop, we moved into the next classroom for the art workshop. That is Steve working with the kids. Steve is a teacher at a High School in Costa Mesa, Ca. The kids sort of glommed on to him. They were drawing pictures of a cup - copying a drawing in a book of a coffee cup.

Look at the details of this classroom. Peeling paint, desks from whatever year, cracked linoleum flooring.

Toto, we aren't in Kansas any more.

The final workshop we observed was Beading. Beading is a popular form of revenue here in Cape Town. so far, I have bought a bead Penquin, a bead elephant, and someone gave me a South Africa flag keychain of beads. Women can do this from home and make good money from tourists.

This young student was showing me the strings of beads that she had been working on all week. I don't know if you can tell from the photo, but most of the glass in the windows is broken out. The room was easily 50 degrees. I might be smiling, but my feet were numb they were so cold. It would be a regular day at the elementary school.

You should have seen these kids work. First, they sorted all of the beads out by color, then started stringing them into the long skeins of beads. The finished product is sold in the school store.

We didn't stay at the school long enough to sit with the kids for lunch, but here is what everyone gets. Most likely, a few slices of white bread.

This is a photo of the exterior of the classrooms that the workshops were being held in. This is the good side of the building. I did not photograph the bad side. I also did not photograph the bathrooms. I once said that I could take just about any bathroom in the world, after having used the pit-style bathrooms at the castle we stopped at on the way to Spain. (Ca ....... something ....)(oh, now that is going to make me nuts that I can't recall the name of that place). Anywho ... those bathrooms were crude and awful, and didn't even hold a candle to the bathrooms here. I couldn't do it, I had to wait. I don't consider myself a prissy that way, but, ummm, no way.

We were here on Thursday, on Monday morning, regular elementary school classes started back here.

Did you notice the tops of Table Mountain in the background?

From the school, we took a brief tour of Crossroads. This is one of the nicest houses in the area. It has glass windows and a front door. Notice how many houses the electric pole serves.

Also, you really can't see it, but notice the streets. There is nice pavement, there are no pot-holes. Sure, there is sand, there is sand Everywhere here, but the pavement is nice. How do you reconcile the level of poverty that is apparent with nice pavement??

A working corner of Crossroads. You see about eight different businesses here. Each of those shacks is a fully functioning business that has open and closed hours. The kids on the corner are their own business, then the horse/carriage that just missed being in the photo is another business.

Crossroads is actually one of the more "affluent" townships. Look again at the pavement. That is better than the street that I live on. The kids are clean. People are happy. Commerce is taking place.

What am I missing??

Cold, wet, and rainy

2010-07-10T03:03:00.000-07:00

That about sums up today. We were scheduled to do the Robbins Island tour this morning, but the rain cancelled the tour boat.

This is actually a welcome change. While I was looking forward to playing tourist, I am also now looking forward to just hanging out for a day, and not have any real plans. To get the day started, I headed off to the gym, where I weighed in and discovered I am down 4, almost 5 pounds.

:)
:)
:)

Rode 10 miles in the bike, did weights, even took the time to stretch out, now feel fit and good. Came back to the lodge to run through the flurry of emails that all of you send me while I am asleep, not an cruising the job posting boards to see if there is anything I should apply for. I REALLY need to get a job when I get home. Not so much for the financial part, but my brain needs me to get a job.

Later today, Monica and I are heading over to the Canal Walk Mall (the same place we went last time) - the biggest enclosed mall on the continent. I need a new camera and AAA batteries. Maybe some new socks (although no one here wears socks, let alone knee-high ones), and I am getting awfully tired of the same two sweaters that I have been wearing for three weeks now.

Who knows. We might so see a movie ... get some dinner while we are out .... a free day to just hang out.

What a nice change!

Flora of Cape Town

2010-07-09T00:49:00.000-07:00

I know what will make me feel better .....

Nothing has been identified yet ... this is me at the Company Gardens, posing in front of some winter roses.

Still at the Company Gardens, with Table Mountain in the background.

More .....

Wildflowers at the base of Lion's Head

Looks at those rocks!!! And the flowers :)

These were teeny, tiny little flowers ...

Close up of the photo above ...

Flowers growing out of the rocks ....

It is truly amazing the number of flowers that are in bloom, here in the middle of winter. Everywhere you look, there are flowers of some sort. Here at Beluah Lodge, there is a Hibiscus blooming right outside of the living room window.

See, I KNEW that would make me happy. :)

Day 21 out of 57

2010-07-09T00:11:00.000-07:00

Almost at the half way point.

I would be lying to say I am not homesick today. As I was thinking about today's post, I was clicking my fingernails on the keyboard. Huh?? Fingernails? When is the last time I had fingernails, long enough to click on something?

Because I garden so much, my nails never get very long, and they always, ALWAYS have a bit of dirt under them. The dirt I found in the Company Gardens two weeks ago has long washed away in the scalding hot showers we have here (unless you live in the main house and then you often don't have any hot water at all.)

Some days, small things don't bother me, other days the fact that my mattress is rather "firm" makes my hips hurt and makes me want to cry.

What a Pity Party, eh?? :)

Which tells me it is time to throw myself into the work I have today - grant writing for the Kalkfontein Clinic.

Changes ...

2010-07-08T01:29:00.000-07:00

.... they are a happenin'.

Yesterday, Roommate Dana returned to the States.

As I mentioned in one of my earlier posts, everyone has their own, personal story as to why they are here, why they applied to this program. I couldn't begin to guess or understand Dana's reasons (nor could anyone understand mine), but once here, things just didn't seem to be working well for her.

On the surface, Cape Town is a mirror-image of San Francisco. It looks quite a bit the same, the temperatures are about the same, English is spoken, the sunlight is about the same, and all of those things combined can make one think they are still at home. But we are not. Cape Town is a complicated place to understand, and once you get under the surface, it is clear that you are not "home.'

I think it is also difficult having such a big time difference when you are trying to connect to people at home, or you need to resolve issues. I have found that I can send off a flurry of e-mails during my "day", then have to wait until the next morning for responses because most of you are asleep while I am working. In our day and age in the US, where communication is almost instantaneous can be frustrating to not be able to communicate in the manner that you are used to.

Sometime in the next few days, I will be getting a new roommate, Sara. Sara and I have joked that we are the Fellows "bookends" (I am the most senior age-wise, and she is the least senior age-wise) for this year.

I look forward to this new chapter in my Summer of 2010.

BAH!! Technology

2010-07-07T09:19:00.000-07:00

Let it be said, I am irratated. Since the day I left the States, each day one piece of technology (if not all of them) have been on strike.

First, on Day 1, my hair blow dryer shorted out. Even though I used the heavy electrical current transformer that Jim bought for me and I hauled all the way here, the dryer started to smoke minutes after turning it on, and fizzling out seconds later. From this, I have had wet hair for the last 18 days. In the winter. No wonder I am cold.

Then, we had difficulty with the converters - I didn't bring enough of them (I brought two and could have used four), except that we only have two outlets in our room.

Once that obstacle was overcome (buy more converters), my camera battery wouldn't charge, my beloved Blackberry went dead, my first wireless mouse went dead, the South African cell phone wouldn't charge and went dead, then the BB came back to life, and the ipod went dead, and so on.

Every. Single. Day. something.

And I bet you all are wondering what it is today???
.
.
.
.
.
.

My camera. We drove out to the Kalkfontein Township and was visiting a woman who runs a tiny medical clinic from her shack house (more on that trip later, no tangents today.) When our meeting was done, I went outside to the sand "street" to take some quick photos. The children playing in the dust outside of her front door, the dogs lounging in the sun, the community that she lives in, all were screaming for me to photograph. A couple of kids ran up to me wanting their pictures taken (which I have found these kids LOVE that) then wanted to see the photo. It is my guess that when they were playing with the camera that some sand got into the lens, which now will not retract, nor will it take photos.

BUMMER!!!!!

I can buy a new camera, this one is insured, but the bother of doing that is almost beyond me today. And at least I didn't lose my photos (which I have also been downloading to my netbook), so that is good news. But I SO enjoy sharing photos with all of you.

Sigh .....

Dear Person who Folds our Socks:

2010-07-06T08:49:00.000-07:00

Dear Person who Folds our Household Socks:

We have had many a discussion about what constitutes a "matched" pair of socks, whose socks belong to whom, and just because the sock is in your drawer does not make it yours.

With that being said, I would like to know, how a pair of Alex's black band dress uniform socks made it from the laundry room, into our bedroom, into my dresser drawer, into my suitcase and are now here in Cape Town, South Africa with me.

Meaning that I have one less pair of socks to wear, and one of the kids at the school now has one pair of socks to wear.

Respectfully -

Mom

Cape of Good Hope

2010-07-04T13:04:00.000-07:00

I don't know about you, but just saying the name "Cape of Good Hope" gives me inspiration. It seems like I was in the 6th grade or something, when we were studying Africa (the Dark Continent) in our Weekly Readers, and I first heard the name Cape of Good Hope and decided that somehow, sometime, I would go and stand there. And today I did.

That's me, standing there, looking somewhat windblown.

(Disclaimer: for the purists in the group, I am actually standing on Cape Point, which is about 1/2 mile from Cape of Good Hope, COGH was a turn off from the road we were on, and entailed a 90 minute (each way) hike, and we didn't have enough time to hike out there, BUT. Can we say "Close Enough?")

But let me back up. The 2010 Teach with Africa Fellows only have two empty weekends. The weekend just ended and the weekend upcoming. These are our only chances to get out an see the countryside, beyond the LEAP School, Beluah Lodge, and the townships. Yesterday, a group of us did Lion's Head, then the beach, including stopping at a nice restaurant and having a nice dinner (and wine!) and watching for the green dot when the sun went over the horizon (which I missed.) :( THAT was a great day.

Today, we got up early, and Leon the Tour Guide .... wait - have I talked about Leon yet? Leon has his back to the camera, in the pale green jacket, in the middle.

Leon can, and often does, talk non-stop for 20 minutes at a time. That man is so FULL of information, it is unbelievable. I don't know how previous Fellows found him, but he is a gold-mine. He shuttles us from here to there (for a price, of course), giving us the background, history, and adding his own commentary along the way.

You perhaps can't see them all but left to right: Subina, Mona's bottom, Josh, Leon, Kevin, Monica, and Vernon.

But back to our day. We got up early (it is 9:00 am here) because Monica had set up a kayaking trip for us. We got into our kayaking gear (for me that was my ski tights, favorite Mountain Gear fushia colored shirt, and sunglasses) and headed for the beach. This town is Simon ....... something or other .....

We were reminded that it is perfectly fine to go barefoot, so we all took off our shoes (in the middle of winter), and clomped down the ladder to the boats ... mind you, it is the "dead" of winter here in South Africa, which means that it is a rather balmy day.

Off we go for a couple of hours of kayaking .... because I had to leave my camera in the car (I didn't have a waterproof container), I don't have photos of the Fellows kayaking around the marina, or out into False Bay, or even of seeing the penquins.

Once we got back to the marina, most everyone went back to the lodge to prepare for Monday's workshops which they were teaching. Because I am an MBA person, I don't have a workshop, so was able to play more :)

We ate lunch at a waterfront restaurant, had an outSTANDing burger with cheese and a salad, then Monica, her husband John, and I proceeded to the Cape of Good Hope. (cue starting music)

We DID see some baboons ... But we couldn't stop the car. There were people, maybe they were Friends of the Baboons sorts of folks who shouted at us to keep our windows rolled up and the doors locked. Really, we wanted to stop the car and be irresponsible people and feed the baboons apples and candy.

But we didn't. I only got a photo of the sign...

Getting closer to the point, though. Here's the entrance to the park -

(I am almost here ... anyone else excited????!!?)

We are here!!!!

That's Monica and me. Monica is the other Mom on this trip. Note the clothes I am wearing are sort of damp from the kayaking. I forgot to bring dry underwear and socks, so everything I have on is somewhat soggy.

But LOOK WHERE I AM!!

:)

On to the point -

Here it is! The snub nose of the end of the continent. Next available land mass - Antartica. So in the space of 14 days, I have flown over the north pole, stopped in the Middle East, and walked to the tip of the African continent.

(disclaimer: ok, I didn't actually walk out there, but is a photo good enough??)

It was a busy day to be sure. Tomorrow brings a new week and a renewed focus on the projects that we MBA's have been assigned. I feel the time slipping away, only five weeks left until we go home and there is SOOOO much work to do.

Onward.

Lion's Head

2010-07-03T12:34:00.000-07:00

For the last two weeks, we all have been looking at the predominate feature in Cape Town - Table Mountain and Lion's Head. This mountain range has shown up in many of my photos to date. With today being our first real day off, many of the Fellows wanted to get out and about. One group headed up country towards the wine country for an overnight. One group set out to hike Table Mountain. Our group (Kevin, Vernon, Subina, Katie and I) headed towards Lion's Head, with our Tour Guide - Leon - at the helm.

The trail head ...

Where we are heading to. The tippy top. As Leon, the tour guide calls it, the tip of the pimple.

And THAT is a higly flattering photo of me climbing up the first set of ladders. There were two more, and a set of cable to climb. Now, most of you know I am a pretty good hiker, but what you can't see is the sheer dropoff from this point.

I actually got to about 95% of the way to the top when the height got to me and I decided to let the group go ahead and just sit and wait for them.

This is the view down into the valley, taken form the place I waitied for my group to come back down.

The peak of Lion's Head is 2,195 meters about sealevel, which is .... well .... my metric conversion calculator says that is 7,057 feet about sea level, and since we started not at sealevel but up a bit, let's round and say the elevation gain was about 5,000 feet. In two hours. Which for all practical purposes, is just about straight up.

Beluah Lodge

2010-07-03T11:35:00.000-07:00

Beluah is where I live.

That is what a thached roof looks like, up close and personal. When I was in The UK in 2004, I tried to get a close up loot at a thached roof, with no luck. Now, here I am living under one.

This is the kitchen where 17 of us make dinner almost every evening, and do breakfast. You can imagine that any more than 3 - 4 makes for a confusing kitchen ....

And the "living room" where we all hang out in the evenings ....

Then there are those nasty guard dogs two doors down who want to eat my face. The last couple of mornings, they sit quietly and cutely inside of their gate, but they dont' bluff me. I KNOW if i venture too closely or offer them a Kitty the Dog treat they will eat my hands off without a second thought.

The other thing I need to photograph is the key to the exterior gate. The gate has a clicker, that a couple of Fellows have (I don't know how they got them and why we don't ALL have them) that opens it up so cars and come and go. Then there is a small gate next to that for foot traffic. One almost has to stand on their head to get the key into the lock then turn the key, then open the gate. Quite the gymnastics required.

Yellow lab dogs - photo needed
Gate lock - photo needed

Duly noted.

The Mall

2010-07-03T11:10:00.000-07:00

I am going to break my own self-inflicted rule about only having one post per day. There feels as if there are a number of things I want to talk or post about, perhaps small, and they have been stacking up. So bear with me, Dear Readers, there may be a number of new posts.

This post is short. When Monica and I were at the mall last Sunday, I came across two stores, side by side. The irony of the names of the stores was, I thought, worthy of sharing with all of you.

Store #1 - doesn't it look cute?

Store #2. Side by side. Blades and Triggers is just as the name suggests. It is a small photo, but can you see all of the guns in the gun rack?? Can you see the cute purple one, about third from the right in the gun case? Can you see all of the camo gear?

I was thinking how the people of Marin County would react if this store was to open in the Northgate Shopping Mall .....

Random Thoughts #2

2010-07-02T03:05:00.000-07:00

Or is it #3??

> Stairs in South Africa are more narrow than ones in the States. So, if you put your foot in the stair, in the States my foot fits, but here, I kick the board of the next step every time. Coming down the stairs, I need to be particularly careful and sort of tilt my foot to the side so that I don't over-step the step and fall completely on my face.

> South Africa wine has a higher alcohol content (generally speaking) than American wine. Also, Pinelands (where I live) is a dry community, so if you want to purchase wine, you either have to order it (once a week) or drive outside of the area to buy it. So now I have my little stash of wine bottles tucked away on my bedroom shelves.

> What is this thing called "winter"??? Winter in Cape Town means beautifully sunny days and mild temps. Temps are in the mid 60's during the day, enough that one can sit outside (in the sun) and be wearing shorts, but as soon as the sun goes down, it gets cold.

> I have taken up residence in the conference room at the Lodge we are living at. The nature of the work I am doing (have I yet posted about my projects?? That is a topic for a different day) means that I am doing quite a bit of Internet research, and having a quiet place to think and spread out is good. Plus there is a heater in here. :) To be sure, I need to have a physical presence at the school, but it sure is easier to work from over here.

>The Spin Instructor is some sort of She-Devil. I, me, personally, loves a good hard class, but really. 8 minute seated climbs??? And when I turned down my tension (so that the pedals go around easier), she called out to the class that "Anyone can sit here and make the pedals go around, but we are here to WORK, and this is a steep climb. Crank up that tension!!" And I did and now my quads are screaming at me, even though I am just sitting here. And she uses techno-mixed music. bleach!! I may look for a different time and instructor.

> I haven't gotten used to all of the barbed wire or security gates yet. One cannot gain access to ANY place, just to walk in, except maybe the grocery store. Everything requires being buzzed in, and most of the buzzers don't work, or are that sketchy sort that the Fast Food places used to have. The ones where you would say "A double cheese burger and a coke" and the person would mumble something back, and your order actually turned out to be a taco and a chocolate milkshake. Those sorts of buzzer things.

> Which leads me to keys. In the space of 14 days, I have amassed a Key Ring. Surely, that almost makes me permanent here, having a key ring?? I have the key to my room, the key to the front gate, the key to the back door (since I am usually the first one up and my room is outside of the main house, I got a key to the kitchen), and a key to the office in the school that I am using. They are all those big, old-fashioned keys.

> I keep forgetting to check, but I need to find out if, in the sink, does the water swirl down the drain clock-wise or counter-clock-wise??

Inquiring minds, you know.

I have a lot to say ...

2010-06-30T02:58:00.000-07:00

:)

I wish this blog sight had more smiley face icons.

This morning, I was looking back at some of my blog postings over the last six weeks. When I initially set up this blog, I made the commitment to post something each day, and to try to convey my thoughts, feelings, emotions, and logistical tips in a way that would keep you all engaged. I like to think that I have been somewhat successful in that venture. I also realize how far I have come from the first day, back in mid-February, when Jim and I first (laughingly) discussed the idea of me coming here for two months.

Today, really for the first day since I have been here, I feel as if I have hit my stride. Stopping at the office supply store yesterday helped. I bought a new wireless mouse (to replace the one I had dropped one too many times), a ream of blank paper (I really don't like taking notes on lined paper, something I learned from Tom), a replacement stick eraser, and a portable three-hole punch. I found, here at the lodge, an old binder they let me have, so I am now organized.

My only regret is that I didn't make room in my suitcase for the portable printer that Jim gave me. In hindsight, THAT would have been a good thing to have here, but I just couldn't fit it into my suitcase.

But back to my original point, before I get off too far on a tangent, and that is that I seem to have quite a bit to say. Each day, I have to decide, from a wide range of ideas, what to write about. I limit myself to one post. And it occurs to me how much I have missed writing. Since August 2003 (17 days after Allan died) when I first started back to school at Dominican, I have been writing, writing, writing. Cranking out reams of papers and reports and homework. Writing Employee Handbooks at work, writing Accounting Policy and Procedure manuals, writing, writing, writing. At least until April, when I finished my last MBA paper, and my writing stopped.

This blog is an effort to give myself a reason for writing again. And I think it is working :)

Wave the Flag

2010-06-29T08:05:00.000-07:00

Everywhere you go, you hear this song. At every commercial on TV, in the grocery store, at the mall, from car radios. I have even started to dream this song:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ms2jeF0hViQ&feature=related

A shot of the vuvuzelas at the Fan Park last week.

But behind this energy, there is an entire nation waiting for the games to be over to see what will happen. Yesterday, I had the opportunity to talk to a small business owner, a man who paints beautiful prints (I bought one I like them so much and I RARELY purchase art.) We negotiated the price of the print,, then I told him that I would pay a bit more if he would sit with me and talk about his business. That I had some really "tacky" questions to ask of him, and did he have the time to sit with me.

He laughed, and said that yes, he did have time and would ALWAYS have time to talk shop, especially with an American.

I didn't have my notebook with me so I don't remember his name, but we will call him Asgio. Asgio's "shop" is in the basement of an Arts and Crafts center, where many merchants have tiny stalls to sell their wares. His location is near the front of the basement, a spot he has moved up to over the years, he used to be near the back "where the air is bad." He hand-paints all of his prints, using the townships as inspiration. I asked what his average daily sales was, and he said on average, R500 per day (about $71 US - gross). We talked about the difference between gross sales and net sales (ooooo .... baby!!), he actually nets about R250 ($30 US) per day. That comes out to $900 US per month, if he works seven days a week (which he said he often does.)

I asked about the World Cup and what sort of revenue increase he had seen from that. He looked at me sadly and said that his store is not on the "tour" route (where the tour busses stop) so he has had almost no increase in sales due to the Cup. He said that he had been to a number of meetings sponsored by the Cape Town Chamber of Commerce (that isn't their name, but the local tourism board) telling him that he could expect wild increases in his sales and to prepare stock to have on hand.

I asked if he had done this, and he smiled sheepishly and said no, he hadn't. He hedged around, then quietly told me that he really nevetr believes what the government tells him, that he is a business man who knows his own business. I then asked where the World Cup money is going, that there is tourism coming into the country, that the planes are full and the hotels are full, and those people are spending money, and he again looked sad and said "They are spending it on food, alcohol, and World Cup FIFA jerseys, not on local arts."

He said people are worried about the economy when everyone goes home in a couple of weeks. I asked him if HE was worried, and he got a big toothy grin on his face and said no, not him. That he is a good business man and knows how to plan his expenses.

That made me smile. Then he hit me up for another print.

That made me smile even more.

Catch up

2010-06-28T10:09:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, Sunday, was a down day, and we were left to our own devices.

A group of Fellows went to church in the morning, with one of the Leapsa's. Methodist, perhaps. Maybe in Langa. To be honest, I didn't pay close attention. After that, a few more joined the Church Goers and went to Mozoni's (I did a post on that restaurant back in May, the Meat Place.)

Me?? I was at the end of my group rope (anyone from the Fellows that is reading this, no offense, we just have had a LOT of group time.) Monica and I decided to head over to the Canal Walk Mall, listed as the biggest mall in South Africa. We called a cab, only R170, which is about $8 US. I spent an entire 5!!!! hours in the mall. My family will be shocked and amazed because 5 hours is more mall time than I have spent, combined, in the last year or so.

I haven't talked much about being in a large group yet. People that know me know that I am a loner of sorts. My mother once made the comment that when I was very young, I was most happy just laying in my crib, looking around. That is still the case - I am most happy just observing people from the outside of the group. I like to watch the interactions between people, watch facial movements, body language, see what is really happening besides the verbal communications that one hears. One can pick up an incredible amount of information if one just keeps their eyes and ears open.

But we have been in a group, really since I left San Francisco. Very little alone time, which if any Teach with Africa management are reading this, it is worth thinking about - that some of us need a break in this first week of orientation. We need to get away, to have time to reflect on our own.

So Monica and I headed to the mall. I had a short list of things I needed to buy:

> A clock for our room. There isn't one, which means that during the night, you either need to go into the bathroom and turn on the light and check your wrist watch, or you need to turn on your cell phone to see the time. Neither is an easy answer, and I needed to fix that.

> A notebook. For some reason, there is NO paper here. Yesterday, I had to steal paper out of the printer in the office of the house we are living in (yes, really steal it) so I could make some notes. I have found that I can't keep track of the names of the LEAP school staff or the LEAPSA kids. I need to have them write down their names, then at some future time, maybe connect a photo with that name.

> A new wireless mini mouse. Mine won't work and my hands are starting to hurt (carpal tunnel) from just using the netbook keyboard.

> Chocolate. I can't imagine that there is any question as to why this is on my list???

Fortunately, I was successful in all avenues of the day - my goal to be not Group Orientated, to get everything on my shopping list (which I did with the exception of the mouse).

And the best part of the day?? I got to spend exactly 18 minutes and 32 seconds on the phone with Jim.

Tomorrow (Monday) is my first real day of "work." I have meetings planned all day to get my different projects going. I am very excited about that.

Deb or Debbie

2010-06-26T12:01:00.000-07:00

Being in a new place requires that I introduce myself numerous times a day. The conversation usually goes like this:

(new person and me)

Me: Hi, I am Deb, what's your name?
Them: Xiochel
Me: What a nice name, can you spell that for me?
Them: Yes, xxxxx io xxxx l
Me: thanks, can you write that in my notebook, please?
Them: Ok (write, write, write) And what is YOUR name?
Me: Deb.
Them: huh??
Me: Deb.
Them: huh????
Me: or some people call me Debbie
Them: Oh, Debbie. What a nice name. I am so pleased to meet you. This is nice. I will remember that forever. (and so on)

This conversation has happened enough times that I am just introducing myself as Debbie now, and I cut out all of that middle stuff. And it made me wonder what the heck this is about? Is the word "Deb" some sort of obscene word in the Xitsonga language?

Frances, who is one of the 2010 Fellows, hails from Zimbabwe, and is my big resource for South Africa information. It was Frances that told me that sunglasses are not politically correct to be worn because it doesn't allow people to see your eyes (as in the police.)

So I asked Frances what was up. He wasn't sure, but he thinks that the name "Deb" is just considered too short to be a real name. Most African names are long and complicated, and the idea that "deb" is a name is silly. They can catch on to Debbie because it is more melodic and longer.

I am trying to think of who calls me Debbie anymore ..... Jimmy sometimes .... Tom used to until the wedding ... maybe my mother?? Beyond that, not so much any more.

But here I am on a different continent going back to the name I grew up with.

Gugeleta

2010-06-25T13:55:00.000-07:00

Off in a different direction today visiting the Township of Gugeleta. I don't have a geographic areas down yet, and on the freeway I haven't seen any signs that say north, south, east or west, so I can't tell you which way Gugeleta was from Pinelands. Maybe South/East?

But that is neither Here nor There.

First stop was the Etafeni Day Care Center and associated Income Generation (that is what they call revenue.) The site is nice, with a couple of the buildings just being completed in the last two years. This building houses the Sewing Center (one of the Income Generation functions of the site.

The site has some pretty specific criteria for being accepted into the program.

Every single one of the 72 children that are enrolled in the Day Care are HIV/Aids positive. This photo was taken from the website, I didn't feel like photographing any of the babies that I was playing with.

Unless someone told you that these children were stricken with a terminal disease, you would probably never know. They are happy and active and act like regular 3 year olds. I sat and played Stack the Blocks with a little girl very much like this one.

From the Day Care, we moved on to look at the Sewing Center. The center produces clothing and bead work made by the women who attend the centers. The same criteria of acceptance hold true for them to be in this program - they must be HIV/Aids positive. There are currently about 35 women that are active workers.

And here is the best part!!!

They have a community garden! Can you tell those vegetables are cabbages (a big staple here), onions, and there are almost ripe red tomatoes on the vines. Keep in mind that this is the dead of winter, and they have ripe tomatoes! Wish I could say that for my own garden ....

I talked at length to the Director of Marketing for the site, and he gave me a printed copy of their 2008/9 Annual Report (can this day get any better?? A garden AND financial reports??)

What we talked about, though, was how difficult it has been to get the gardens going. The dirt that was here was toxic from decades of misuse. The dirt was finally dug out and new dirt brought in, but it is almost completely sand. I picked up some and amazed that they can get anything to grow in it, it is that sandy.

I asked about composting and being organic, and he said that yes, the entire site is organic, meaning no chemicals. Then he grabbed my arm and said he wanted to show me something.

Just a couple of weeks ago, one of the volunteers decided that it was time to start a compost pile.

:)

This is what it looks like after two weeks. I wasn't going to offer any advice, even though in looking at that pile I can say it is going to be pretty stinkty after a couple of weeks, but the Director did ask me, so I volunteered that maybe they want some browns on top of all of those greens.

Like so much of what I have seen in South Africa, it is a tiny little start. But from tiny little starts come great things. Let's hope that happens here.

Brown rice, green salad, and a spin class

2010-06-25T00:11:00.000-07:00

Yesterday in Langa - it was difficult. I am a fighter for the underdog .... and wanted to pack up each and every person I saw and bring them home with me, especially the babies. But I can't fit all of them into my checked baggage.

So I need to go to Plan B.

And that is, I need to take care of myself, which I really haven't been doing. For dinner last night, I had leftover brown rice and a leafy green salad. I joined the gym across the street and did an ab/core class. This morning, I did the 6:45 am spin class.

Now, I feel MUCH more like myself and have re-established a routine of sorts. From here, I can do the work I came to do.

Langa

2010-06-24T12:17:00.000-07:00

You can goole Langa, but from the satellite view, you won't see what I saw.

Random thoughts ......

there is only one road into Langa. This is so that if the police need to "contain" the area, they only have to contain one road to prevent anyone from coming in our out.

There are 13 different barriers to exit Langa and get into the other Townships where Langa people work. This means that if you live in Langa, and you work in Pinelands (where I am living), that you might have to navigate a major highway crossing, a double barbed wire fence, a ditch, an empty space where the power lines go, or 9 other obstacles to get in and out of Langa.

Random images of Langa:

Trash in the gutter
Trash behind shanty-town shacks
The smell of feces
A pair of purple boots on a 2 year old - boots that I would have paid top dollar to own
Sheeps heads cooking on an open grate by the street
Cows heads cooking on a different open grate across the street
Trash
One room hovels - no electric, no plumbing
People, sitting, standing, milling around .... people just having nothing to do. Not today. Not yesterday. Not tomorrow. People just sanding around.

Kevin (one of the fellows) was talking about the sense of community that he saw, beyond the poverty. People joking around, being happy with where they are, a sense of family.

Many of the students that attend LEAP Schools live in Langa. Each morning, the bus drives through Langa and picks up children. Each evening, the bus returns them to Langa. During the day, those children often get one meal at the school. Many days, that is their only meal of the day.

And yet, everyone I saw had on clean clothes. Women wash the clothes in a big plastic bucket outside of their homes. Maybe kids in Langa are more careful with their clothes and don't get them dirty, or don't spill chocolate or ketchup on them, because I think I would be hard pressed to keep my kids clothes that clean and unstained.

And, everyone had cell phones. Not cheap cell phones, such as the South African one I bought the other day for $70 Rand ($10 US). No, these kids have iphones and Blackberries.

Why?? Because it is a status symbol, and their key to the world. Through these smart phones, these kids can get the internet. They have access to the world. They don't know what to do with it, but they do have access.

I took no photos of Langa, it just didn't feel right. The poverty felt sooo huge .... it would have been flaunting that I was there to have photographed it. The White Woman goes to Langa ... sort of thing.

I am thinking now that, as the sun drops, that many of those people are going into their tin shacks. They are sitting on the dirt floor, or the broken plastic chair they bartered for. They are eating the part of the sheeps head that they did not sell. Or more likely, they are not eating at all. Students from the LEAP Schools have been dropped off by the bus, earlier in the day, and maybe they were able to do homework. But how much homework can be done in a one room shanty town shack that doens't have electricity??

Of all of the days I have been here, today was by far the most difficult.

And tomorrow is Guguleta. Which, according to others, is even worse. And my big Med Clinic project is in Krafontaine. Krafontaine makes Langa look like the luxury suites at the Marriott Hotel.

I know I can do this, I have been through worse emotional situations.

I can do this.

Where are we????

2010-06-24T11:55:00.000-07:00

This week has been a complete sensory overload. I don't know what day it is, I don't know what we will be doing on any given day, whatever plans were made a couple of hours ago have now changed, it is totally disconcerting. The only given is that the sun will rise and set.

Let's see .... we did the Fan Fest ... we did the lunch at the resturant .... I can't upload videos of the kids singing ..... even the fact that I have posted three posts this evening .... that is a rare occurence and the inter net has only gone down a few times, meaning that two of these posts have been done at least twice if not three times.

:(

But here we are.

Back to the LEAP School. Here are some random photos of the school to give you a visual image of where I am spending my time - this is the courtyard outside of the main building ...

A shot of the main building ...

Leap 1 is on the first floor. Leap 2 is on the second floor. These are two completely different schools, both in the same building. I asked why this was so, wouldn't it be much more effecient to combine the two schools into one, and the answer made sense.

Leap 1 students are from Langa. The class size is 20 or so. All of the students know each other and they are friends. The LEAP buss picks them up together and they go home together.

Leap 2 students are from Gutela (I think, and the spelling is wrong.) Same theory of friends being together. If they were to mix Leap 1 and Leap 2, students would miss out on the strength of having their friends in their classes, so it makes sense.

The school looks big and nice. It is old. It needs paint. Things are falling apart. That is the nature of Cape Town.

The Fan Fest

2010-06-24T11:38:00.000-07:00

South Africa, or FIFA, I don't know, has made it so that everyone has the option of seeing games, in real time. In downtown Cape Town, there is a Fan Fest site, with a mega-tron screen in the big plaza. On Tuesday, we took the train (3rd class if you please) (there were no chickens on the train but it wasn't far from that) downtown to the plaza ....

getting ready to go downtown .....

on the way to the Fan Fest ....

the plaza where the Fan Fest was held ...

It ended up that South Africa beat France 3 - 1, not a bad score. After the game, we all walked from the plaza to the Victoria Wharf and had dinner. Dinner out of the Food Court of a tourist attraction would NEVER be my choice for food, being both expensive and usually not too good, and this held true. I had a lamb falafal with tanziki sauce (sauce which I could have easily made better), and grilled onions. The dinner came with chips (french fries) which I gave to the LeapSa kids that were with us on the adventure.

We returned back to Bealuah Lodge late in the evening, and while many of the Fellows stayed up late, I took the opportyunity to go to bed relatively early.

A Mixed Bag

2010-06-24T11:22:00.000-07:00

This evening, most of the Fellows are either at the game (who is playing again??) or went downtown to buy tickets for a game later this week, leaving the internet wide open :) Until it crashes, then I will reboot and continue on.

So much has happened in the last couple of days, so this is going to be a random group of photos from my camera.

Quite a bit different than our entry into Dubai -

The room we are living in - it actually is quite nicer than it looks.

Can you see those jagged barbs?? Every house here is surrounded by a fence - most places have guard dogs. Our house has the barbs, plus some sort of alarm system. The house next door has dogs that want to take my face off. They scare the crap out of me each time I walk by.

On Monday, we had lunch at a tiny place in Langa. This is a Container Project that trains cooks and wait staff. They cooked us a meal that you might find in any home in Langa.

Here is a photo of the Something and Beans that you see on the menu. It was served cool, not cold, but cool.

What I had to eat - the spinich and carrots were REALLY tasty .... As plates go, this was a LOT to eat ....

That is enough for this post ....

Songs of Africa

2010-06-23T14:09:00.000-07:00

The other day, I wrote about the LEAPsa's - the graduates of the LEAP schools. These kids have been doing the orientation for us this week, and going along with us to events and the game yesterday. They are a great group of kids, mostly 18 - 21, that have overcome adversity and gotten themselves into University.

I have also mentioned that the LEAP students frequently, for reasons that I don't understand, break into song. Someone tones a note, then before you know it, they all are singing. And we are talking beautiful voices. Francis is one of the 2010 Fellows, and originates from Zimbabwe. I asked Francis about the singing - are the group of kids that we see some sort of special "Show Choir" or something. He said that no, that you could pick 20 random kids out of the school and have them sing and it would sound this good.

Now, I am not a video-grapher, nor a recording artist, nor any of those professions that does nice video work. But I AM someone that can hold the "record" button on the camera, and record what I think is beautiful music.

These three videos sound awful on my netbook, but when you play them, I hope they sound as good as they did to me this morning.

AACK!!!! I can't upload the videos ... sorry folks .... bad internet tonight ......

EDITED TO ADD: here is the link to my photobucket upload .... This is a VERY short clip, not at all what I want to post, but I can't upload a 100 meg file ....

Rusks - The South African Breakfast of Champions

2010-06-22T12:42:00.001-07:00

Looks like Biscotti.

Comes in a big plastic bag – there are probably 36 of them in each bag. One just about breaks their teeth eating one. Somewhat sweet. People say they are great to dip into coffee, but that would make them soggy (blech!!!! Gag!!!! The idea of soggy anything makes me want to barf!) so I just sort of gnawed on mine. Crunchy enough that you can’t carry on a conversation with someone while you are chewing.

I should probably bring home a bag – Grant (who LOVES crunchy things) would go to town on these.

The Winter Solstice - in June

2010-06-22T12:41:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was the Winter Solstice here. On a day on the calendar where I usually observe the longest day of the year, I instead celebrated the shortest day of the year. Being so far south, sunrise is late. This morning, it is 7:03 and still pitch dark outside, even though I can hear the commuter traffic outside on the big road a block away, so the world is starting its daily routine, even though it is still dark out.

I spotted a beautiful bougenvillia yesterday, thinking how odd that it is in full bloom in June, then remembered we are in the dead of winter.

It is also strange to not be preparing for Christmas, or just cleaning up from Christmas as we roll past the Winter Solstice, although I don’t think they celebrate Christmas here. Makes me think how many of our holiday traditions would translate here. Certainly not the wearing of big winter sweaters decked out with Snowmen and Santa scenes. The idea of bringing in a holiday tree into the house in June? Hot toddies in June?

When I get a chance (and the internet is working, HAHAHA!!!!!) I should research Kwanza as a summer holiday.

Getting down to Business

2010-06-22T12:38:00.000-07:00

The day had to come when we, and the 2010 Teach with Africa Fellows, actually got down to doing what it is we will be doing, and that day was today.
I woke up early, having gone to bed early, what with jet lag and all. My eyes popped open at 4:17 am. Of course, it could have been that our room was sooo cold because we couldn’t get the heater to work, but it was most likely because I am still on San Francisco time. Took a shower, got ready for the day, found my Starbucks Viva Instant coffee, and found the coordinating microwave that makes the instant coffee “come to life.” (that is what it says on the label, so it has to be true.) Reminisced about my old routine of Jim getting up and feeding the cats, then bringing me, in bed, a hot cup of brewed coffee. But Toto, we aren’t in Kansas anymore, are we??

Because the San Francisco contingent arrived late on Sunday, we missed the South Africa Cell Phone purchase outing with all of the other fellows. Our team headed over to the cell phone store early to get our phones, the reason being that in previous years, some people don’t have phones, or have US phones, and communications is difficult, so this year, everyone bought a SA phone. I have to say, it has been a number of years since I had a Non-Qwerty phone, the kind where you have to hit the key three times to get a “C” – remember those?? I have no idea what my phone number is, but if you want to call and talk to me, email me and I can look on the piece of paper and tell you what it is.



From there, we walked to the Cape Town Leap School. I haven’t talked much about the schools, and am not going to do that here, you can read the website if you like. Basically, there are four schools across the Western Cape. (sound like a native, almost, don’t I?? Calling it the Western Cape )

We had a brief introductory meeting with all of the fellows and John Gillmore (founder of the LEAP Schools) about the days agenda. From there, we walked through the school to an open space, sort of a very small auditorium. Two of the school alumni (called Leap-SA’s)(not sure what that stands for, maybe LEAP Student Alumni), led the session. After the typical introductory speeches (short and sweet, thank you very much), a group of male students performed. The four young men were wearing tall muckrakers – those heavy, tall, plastic rubber boots. One played the conga (?) drum and they danced to the sound, clapping on their shoes. I wish I had had the presence of mind to record it. The performance was outstanding. Following that was more groups of 3 – 4 students, then the audience would spontaneously break into song. A few more speeches, and one student got up and recited a, probably self-authored, poem, first in his native African tongue, then in English. We ended up in small groups introducing ourselves to students, then a closing song.

My gosh how those kids can sing. It made me think of that new show on TV – Glee. Two part, four part harmony, just beautifully blending voices.

After a student-led tour of the school, we all climbed into the mini-bus to drive to Langa, a nearby township, for lunch.

Mind you, none of these places have heat of any sort. Maybe the bus did, but if they did it didn’t make it back to my seat. I hadn’t planned ahead well and had only brought my rain slicker, not my Pacific Northwest Columbia rain jacket. So I was cold.

The town of Langa is home to The Container Project – Restaurant and Training Center.

The center hires locals to work in the restaurant and trains them to cook and wait tables. The food was amazing, and somewhere I have a photo of the menu. The food was completely made from local foods in traditional ways. There was cooked carrots, some sort of spinach in a coucous thing, chicken, lamb, (when I find my camera I can post the photo with the complete menu), and tripe.

I don’t think I have ever seen Tripe served, and thought, oh what the heck it isn’t going to kill me to eat it and I should try new things, then I saw the honeycombed parts, and the tube parts, and thought oh, yes. If I eat that I will SURELY die. So I passed on that.

Dessert was a lemon cake surrounding by hot orange pudding and some sort of thick custard. I could have easily eaten three.

Once lunch was over (and an hour of chatting with our new friends) we wandered to the Craft Studio next door. Crafts, such as earrings, wooden bowls, African masks, and a couple of hand-carved walking stick (who was is that wanted me to bring back one of those??). I ended up buying a small jade elephant for my Non-Collection of Elephants.

Langa is a very small community, high on the poverty scale. Houses are tiny with a large number of people living in each one. We didn’t spend much time in Langa, walking around, because it was pouring rain, but Dana and I will be going back there frequently because a number of our Business Projects are headquartered there.

Pizza for dinner, some paperwork and connecting with family, and it’s time to call it a day.

2010-06-22T12:36:00.000-07:00

A couple of notes:

1. It is cold here. My fingers are cold. My toes are cold. I guess I thought it was a big joke or something that there is almost no heat here.

There isn’t.

2. The Internet connection sucks. I rarely use that word to describe anything, so you know it is bad. There are two parts to this house, with a different internet router in each. They alternate going in and going out, more out than in. Almost never in. When it is on, we all jump on.

3. I can't send emails. I can receive them and read them and write a response, but they are all stuck in my outbox.

So there will be places where I might post three or four blog entries at once.

And I almost cannot do photos.

Random thoughts on the Middle East

2010-06-20T12:12:00.001-07:00

Random images of the Middle East

Shrouded women

Robed men

Hard to keep my eyes open one minute more

Being in a muslim country

Arabic writing on street signs, billboards

How clean Dubai is – no graffiti, no trash

The men in the airport – their (surely they aren’t called hats, but I don’t know the term) hats - the long flowing Arabian head pieces – are held on to their heads with a lacy net piece.

Men wearing sandals under their long white robes

Some sort of bean (like pintos) dish for breakfast. People were putting chopped red onions, parsley, some chopped white thing on it, all in a bowl.

Women with only slits of eyes showing

The name Emirates EVERYWHERE.

No internet.

No free Wifi.

Not being able to get a text sent out from my Blackberry.

The incredibily long walk from the front of the airport (where the shuttle dropped us off) to Gate 206, then taking a shuttle to an entirely different part of the airport where we climbed up the old-fashioned stair ramp into the plane and thinking two thoughts:

1. That the handrail on the ramp was hot enough to burn my hands

2. That the Dubai Tourism Board doesn’t care what our opinion of the airport is on departure. There was such a dramatic difference between our entry gate (with the marble and Grecian columns) and the tacky shuttle where we stood like cattle) that it cannot possible have been unplanned.

The plane is FILLED with soccer fans. The man sitting in front of us said “Why would ANYONE want to go to Cape Town unless they were going to the World Cup?”



A grandpa and his 10 year old grandson, off on a big adventure to the game.

Hearing just about every imaginable language on the shuttle, the blending of people and smells.

All of the little pieces I wanted to remember to write here but are now gone from my tired brain.

Another 9 hour flight.

But, we are almost there.

Las Vegas on Steriods

2010-06-20T12:10:00.001-07:00

Las Vegas on Steriods

Who was it that called Dubai this?

Descending into Dubai, we passed over dune upon dunes. Tan block houses built amid the shifting sands, driveways of sand, backyards of sand, sand, sand. While I knew it was desert, I thought, somehow, there would be some green, but no, tan and brown as far as you can see.

The landing was rough. Planes have, these days, cameras both showing you where you are going (I guess on the nose cone) and a camera below the plane, showing you the ground. As we landed, we could not only feel the plane rolling from side to side but you could see the ground moving as we made a rocky landing. Sometimes, too much information is not a good thing.

We debarked feeling fuzzy and worn. Walking up the jet ramp, my hips and knees were aching.

Now, I have already posted some photos of the Dubai airport, but nothing I have posted would do it justice. We are talking Full On, Non-Stop, Gaudiness. The airport is enormous. When we arrived, it felt as if we were the only ones there, in a place built to accommodate thousands. The floors are covered in marble, giving the place a feel of a mausoleum. Grecian columns parade (yes, parade) across the expanses. As in, I counted 30 columns in a row until I couldn’t see any farther. At one point I thought that surely, there must be big mirrors because why would the breezeways be that expansive?? To get to Customs, we walked and walked and walked. Past the Wall of Water, down the massive elevators, again, past hundreds of columns more. Some columns were plain stainless steel. In other parts of the airport, the columns were a white glitter, yet somewhere else, they were a mix of shiny stainless and brushed stainless.

Everything I saw dripped $$$$.

But this was nothing compared to the actual city of Dubai. Because we had a 12 hour layover, Emirates Airline put us up at their own hotel for the night. Included was a nice buffet dinner and breakfast. Monica suggested that we do a City Tour, which was a great idea. For $30 US, or $110 dyham, we could take the 2 hour Night Time tour.

A quick pitstop in our room and we were on our way.

My first impression of Dubai is this: all of the building cranes in the world must be having a convention here. Either that or it is building code to have a crane on top of your building. There is SOOOO much major construction going on here, it’s difficult to describe. And here is where the Las Vegas on Steriods description comes in. The people of Dubai LOVE twinkle lights. They LOVE neon. They LOVE colored outdoor lighting. Every palm tree in the area is wrapped in white twinkle lights. Most of the skyscraper buildings are edged in some sort of neon (red, green, blue), just outlined. Every hotel is garish and grand and imperial and gaudy.

And sandy.

The tour drove us past a number of the big hotels, such as where you can ski inside. We didn’t stop to go in, but the place was immense. We stopped to take photos of the building that is now designated as the tallest building in the world. It, of course, has a crane on top.

Our tour guide talked about life in Dubai. Unemployment is practically non-existent. As he put it “there is too much to do here for people to not be working, plus if everyone is working, there is no time for crime or drugs or other bad habits.” He spoke at length about who can and who cannot get married here. I wasn’t listening too closely (being already married myself) but I think that a non-local woman cannot marry a local man. Homosexuality is illegal as is pre-marital sex. 20% of the residents are natives and 80% are non-natives.

We drove through the new Palms man-made island area. Classed as the “Eighth Wonder of the World” (I don’t know who came up with that - the Tourism Department of Dubai??) but one does have to agree it is pretty impressive. Hundreds of man-made islands representing the fronds of different types of palm trees.

But what I saw was this.

Block after block of new condos. In the states, we would call this track housing. Hundreds of condos and houses looking exactly the same – same color, same front door, same, same, same.

Everything is under construction. Freeways have orange cones for construction, surface streets are blocked off for construction, and the monorail system is being completed. Here is a photo of the detail of the under side of the monorail system. Pretty elaborate.

One other note: many, if not most, of the buildings were dark. So many condos and houses – all dark and empty. Who is this huge city being built for? Is there really THAT much excess oil money that it is being poured into Dubai?

And what are going to be my feelings as tomorrow, we get into the poverty of Cape Town?

For now, off to a well deserved night’s sleep.

11 hours to go ....

2010-06-20T12:07:00.000-07:00

11 hours down …. 4 to go ….

Dana has been joking about “Trucker’s Butt”, but the reality is that this is a hecka long flight. We are flying Emirates which is a relatively new airline. Seats are small but comfortable. Someone had mentioned to me that since this was such a long flight that there wouldn’t be many families or babies, but almost all of the other passengers are families. There are at least four tiny babies, one who, after 11 hours, has just now settled down.

Flight attendents are a step back in the past. When we came on board, the women wore perky red hats and white scarves, plus long sleeves, covering most of their bodies. Not that the flight attendants are scantily clad in the States, but these girls (and the do look like young girls) were covered. And they were all exactly alike, from the uniform to the slash of pink rouge makeup across their cheeks, sort of Stepford Wife-ish.

Dinner was good, a very tasty Lamb Curry, smoked salmon coucous, and strawberry dessert. Snack was a tuna wrap, and breakfast should be here in an hour or so.

To date, the longest flight I have been on is San Francisco to London, and that flight is about 9 hours. We passed that mark two hours ago. My knees ache. My hips ache. And even though there is a port to charge my ipod, I can’t find the connector in my bag and my ipod went dead two hours ago.

Sigh ……

At last :)

2010-06-18T09:37:00.000-07:00

It's today.

Finally!!

Today is the day Jim gets back into cell range so that I can talk to him. Feels live FOREVER since Sunday.

Oh, wait. hehehe ...... today is also Departure Day :) Almost as exciting ..

Must be nerves because I woke up this morning at 4:12. Thought about going to the 5:30 am spin class, then thought that probably, as nervous as I am, that would be a sports injury for sure, so best not to risk it. Instead, I went on-line and paid for the extra baggage that I am bringing (no comments from any of my therapists on that, please :)) (the soccer gear).

Once the sun came up, did Snail Patrol. Found an amazing number of snails this morning and they all hissed at me as I plucked them off of my plants and threw them into the paper bag where they live before they get tossed out in the trash.

Felt sorry for Jim (sorry, honey) about all of the weeds. I thought sure I had them all pulled yesterday. This year has been particularily wet and the weeds are growing like crazy. Green beans are curling around the lattice I put up for them.

Spent a good number of hours getting the Centerforce budget done. Tidyed up the last loose ends of this and that. Rearranged (yet again) things in my carry on. Made sure my passport was handy.

Airporter should be here soon ....

Final Countdown ..

2010-06-17T17:56:00.000-07:00

Today was surprisingly busy.

Note to those following me on this trek: I had to negotiate with Dominican on the Food Allowance. There was some degree of confusion as to who was paying for this and that, even though Dominican had sent me a letter stating they were paying for this and that, and when Push came to Shove, they paid for that, but not this.

sigh .... oh, well. I am going and That's That.

The point of that was I had to drive down to Dominican this afternoon to pick up a check for That. While down there, I stopped by Centerforce. I am the (contracting) Director of Finance there, and this week we received word that we were awarded a large (to us) contract. Except, it was only 1/2 of what we had submitted. This means that instead of my reading the mandatory readings (see my "on the shelf" list to the right of this post), on the plane I am going to be crunching numbers to significantly cut the FY11 budget. Then to find an Internet connection in Dubai, send that back to the States, so that come Monday, Centerforce can submit a new budget, and know what the agency budget looks like.

I didn't factor in that amount of work AT. All.

Had to run to Target to get another big duffel bag for soccer gear.

Took Kitty the Dog to the Dog Park.

While I was at Dominican, I sat with Dana (the other MBA and my Roomie) and we talked about confusion with the program. We both worry that the start up of our work will be slow, that somehow, things will be confusing and we won't be productive. That is probably our own nervousness talking, but in our minds, it is real. And on the Eve of leaving on a very big trip, a real fact.

Tonight, in my Feed Deb for the Week program, the Guthrie's are feeding me. They are such nice people :)

In my suitcase are two photos of Jim and I at our wedding last year, along with the photo of the entire family (Jim, Deb, Jennifer, Graham, Sarah, Madyson, Grant, and Alex) .... reminds me of what I am leaving behind. I also have two photos of Jim and I on our wedding day last year, in Yosemite, and if I keep thinking about it, I might pack up the first photo taken of he and I, the first time we went to Yosemite. The time we, on the spur of the moment, climbed to the top of Upper Yosemite Falls.

He has only been gone since Sunday (five days.) How am I going to get through an entire 60 days more??

Why are you going??

2010-06-17T12:54:00.000-07:00

Ranking as the #2 question, right behind Are you going to the World Cup?, the question "Why are you going? is asked of me just about every day.

At first, I told a long story about how the Fellowship came to be, starting back when I was born on a dark and stormy November night .... hahaha ... .not really. But I would tell FAR too much detail, and people would, after 20 words or so, sort of drift off into their own heads.

Over the last two months, since I was awarded a spot on the Team, I have been trying to figure out the "Elevator Speech" explaining why I am going. An "Elevator Speech" is again that 20 or less words that you can say to someone before they lose interest. I tried different tactics, talking about my work in non-profits, I tried joking about having two teen-aged boys at home would give cause to ANY mom to want to leave the country (Grant and Alex - you both know I am joking, I love you both), I mentioned my being semi-unemployed for the last nine months. But really? No one (except for three exact people) really understands why I am going.

Then in my spin class this morning, I was listening to people talk about my leaving. Everyone had a slightly different version, all hovering around things I had said, and it struck me like a ton of bricks. Everyone has their own story about why I am going. In their heads, they have thought about why THEY might go, or thought about a trip they wanted to take, or are vicariously living through my going on this trip, for whatever reason.

And it occurred to me that I really don't need to make people understand why. That they, in their own way, get it. It may not be MY reason for going, but people are happy and supportive and understanding.

(gosh, I hope that all made sense)

Last minute details

2010-06-16T16:39:00.000-07:00

48 hours before the plane departs. Nervous energy at every corner, can hardly sit still.

UPS came twice today - once with my long-sleeved work sweaters and shirts, then again with my new shoes with no holes in them. I was worried about the shoes.

Soccer gear continues to flow in. I now have four big duffel bags filled. Cones, line flags, a rule book, were some of the more interesting donations. A few sports bags.

I figured out the 15 pound carry on packing dilemma. The bag weighs less than the 20 pound bag of kitty litter, so I should be good.

Passport, foreign currency, immunization records - all here.

Yard watered and weeds pulled - done.

Large suitcase almost packed. Some of it can't go in until tomorrow, such as my workout bag. I decided to take my spin shoes. The gym that I am going to join there (for two months) has spin classes. I can't imagine that they would not have clips on the pedals, and the thought of doing spin for two months without shoes, well, ick.

I also decided to bring my two favorite gardening tools: the red hand-clippers that Jim gave me for Christmas last year, and the fork-like thing (also red handled) that digs up weeds. Just in case I come across a garden that needs weeding. Or clipping. Or even pruning. I can do some serious pruning with those clippers.

I bought some snacks for the plane.

Marin Community Foundation still has not responded to my request for support. That is disappointing. Not that they are, perhaps, not funding me, but that they haven't even had the manners to write back saying so. It was a long shot, me sending Tom Peters that letter after my graduation. But the very least they could have done was to send a "thanks but no" letter. Too bad ... sort of leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

Tonight, the Pell's across the street are feeding me, helpless as I am when Jim is not here :) Tomorrow night, the Guthrie's are feeding me, then Friday night, Emirates Airlines is feeding me.

48 hours.

Kitty the Dog ....

2010-06-16T07:29:00.000-07:00

.... knows something is going on.

This is the doorway between the laundry room and the house, with the door to the garage behind me. Kitty has been staked out there since Sunday morning then Jim and the boys left. Every day, she waits patiently for 3:00 to come around when Grant and Alex get home from school (she listens for the sound their bike kickstands make when they park their bikes), then she waits for the sound of Jim's motorcycle at 6:00.

This week, she just lays there, looking at the door, her ears pricking up at the slightest sound in the garage.

Waiting. Poor Baby.

Pre-Departure Dinner

2010-06-15T21:39:00.000-07:00

I was wondering who was going to feed me this week, what with Jim being gone and almost all of the leftovers also gone.

Sunday night I had dinner with Jennifer and Graham, and Kitty the Dog came along for the ride.
Monday I had to feed myself!! Imagine that! :)

Tonight, Tuesday, Gene and Barbara (Fellows from 2009, I believe) hosted a lovely dinner at their house in San Francisco. Gene made a Moroccan dinner that Jim will want to know every detail about, and all I heard was stew over eggplant somethings, and Baklava for dessert. Now, even though I don't know the names of the dishes I was eating, the dinner was wonderful!

Coming down from Marin to the city, I picked up Sarah Diefendorf, Executive Director for the Environmental Finance Center at Dominican University. She is listed on the 2010 Fellows list as Faculty-In-Residence. I felt like I was grilling her with questions about the program, how Dominican fits in with Teach with Africa, and about Cape Town in general. Mostly I listened to her talk about her hopes and goals for the program, all which line up with why I am doing this.

We got to Gene and Barbara's house, due to an error on the arrival time, an hour early, but had a chance to chat with Gene and admire their garden. At least I admired the garden. I wish I had photos. It was an absolutely beautiful evening in the Outer Richmond District of SF. All the talking, and I kept thinking that I wanted to be sitting on the warm flagstone pavers outside smelling the lavender and some other purple trailing vine thing that I didn't have a chance to go and smell and feel.

Many of the Fellows from the orientation were there - Jennifer, Heather, Katie, Subina, ummm ...... a couple of others whose names I have already forgotten. Katie and I talked about packing - what is in our suitcases, how many clothes are we bringing. Heather and I worried about what to do when we get to the Cape Town airport - do we need to take a cab? Do we need to rent a car? Do we need directions? In all of the literature, nothing says what to do when we arrive.

Good thing we asked - Amy said that someone would pick us up at the airport. That's a great thing because I have at least 3, if not more, large duffel bags filled with soccer gear, and I can only imagine my hauling those even from the Baggage Claim to any sort of taxi or bus. Not fun. But now, not a problem.

I also placed my wine order. Here it is Tuesday, and I let Jennifer (our Coordinator) know my wine preferences. Priorities, ya know?

Well .... 9:37, Kitty the Dog says it is time for bed. Time to shut down this All Too Quiet House and head to bed. The next couple of days are going to be busy.

Where did my family go?

2010-06-15T21:08:00.000-07:00

Sunday morning, around 6:55 am, the house was in a flurry as the last bits of camping gear got packed into the Explorer, then in a cloud of dust, Jim, Grant, and Alex, left for the Boy Scout 50 Miler Rogue River White Water trip.

This isn't my guys, but will give you an example of what they are doing this week, while Kitty the Dog and I stay home getting ready for Africa.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bIuznJoMKY

I will be gone before they get back. Probably a good thing - there is going to be some N.A.S.T.Y camping laundry to do.

15 pound carryon

2010-06-15T14:22:00.000-07:00

Emirates isn't like other airlines, or so it seems. I guess in order to haul me and all my gear, and 350 other people and their gear to Dubai, they have to put pretty strick weight restrictions on things. I can bring 2 - 50 pound checked bags, and 1 (!!!!), as in one carryon. That has to weigh 15 pounds or less.

I just loaded up my computer bag with all of my essential technology, a couple of books, snacks (for the almost 16 hour flight), my wallet, and a change of clothes and toilitries for the night in Dubai. I lifted it up and it can't possibly be less than 20 pounds.

Trying to think it through is difficult because I am leaving from San Francisco (where it is a bit chilly), but I can wear a sweater and socks under my sandals. Then we get to Dubai, where it is a balmy 105. But do I want to wear the same thing I have been flying in for 16 hours? Clothes that cover my elbows and knees, in order to be culturally sensitive? Then we fly to Cape Town, where today, it is 52 degrees. So back go on the socks and fleece vest .....

Maybe it will work. Of course, it HAS to work, no doubt about that.

The GOOD news is that the extra bags I will have - all the donated soccer gear - that gets checked through all the way to Cape Town, so once I get it to SFO, I don't have to deal with it. Three huge duffel bags so far and stuff still arriving.

The Momentum ...

2010-06-14T21:27:00.001-07:00

Can you feel it growing??

Just like those vuvulezas in the stadiums .... the drone and humming sound of South Africa .... the momentum is growing here at home, until I get on the plane on Friday.

I am going there.

2010-06-14T15:23:00.000-07:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHakXmDlVms&feature=related

This Friday. I'm going there.

You know how you all keep saying "So, Deb, are you getting excited??"

The answer is yes. This Friday, I am going there.

Cape Town street scenes

2010-06-14T10:31:00.000-07:00

Enough of me blabbing :)

I was in the gym this morning on the treadmill, and caught a glimpse of this video - be sure to turn your speakers up - the music is great :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WiWQNTWLySM

Santa Baby ...

2010-06-13T15:38:00.000-07:00

Will you be home on Friday? Seems that I will be going right over Santa's House at the North Pole.

Being the Ever Curious person that I am, and also being pretty bored because Jim, Grant, and Alex all left this morning to go on a White Water Rafting trip, leaving me with Kitty the Dog and cherries that are too ripe to eat .....

whew !!!!!

I started wondering about what route the flight from SFO to Dubai will take. From what I found out on Google, the flight leaves SFO, runs up the coast past Seattle, then over the North Pole, and down through Russia, passed India, finally landing in Dubia. Elapsed time: 15 hours 20 minutes.

Which THEN led me to ask the question, what is currently the longest flight on a regularly scheduled route? This was a table which didn't upload very well, and is now edited:

1. Newark to Singapore- Singapore Airlines 18hr 50min
2. Los Angeles to Singapore - Singapore Airlines 17hr 20min
3 Johannesburg to Atlanta - Delta Air Lines 16hr 40min
4. Dubai to Los Angeles - Emirates 16hr 35mi
5. Los Angeles to Bangkok - Thai Airways International 17hr 30min
6. Dubai to Houston -Emirates 16hr 20min
7. Dubai to San Francisco - Emirates 16hr 00min
8. New York to Hong Kong - Cathay Pacific 15hr 20min

16 HOURS!! I already knew that.

That is one BIG plane!

The Summer Garden

2010-06-13T14:45:00.000-07:00

This is all very strange. It is ..... checking the calendar ..... June 13, and I am already pulling out the Calundulas, which under normal circumstances would get yanked around the Fourth of July.

The Cherry Crop of 2010 came and went without us actually getting out there and picking them (an annual Family Event.) Between the rain last week, which cracked most of them making them inedible, then the crows got the ones in the top of the tree, then all of us being just TOO busy with the end of school to go out and pick ... well, that is a lot of excuses for why the cherries are over-ripe and still on the tree. :)

Here is Kitty the Dog sitting under the tree, looking guilty. She has decided, all of a sudden, that she LIKES cherries. She is now spending hours sitting under the tree, waiting for the random cherry to drop.

But what really got to me today, as I worked my way around the yard, clippers in hand, is that I have never been away from my Handy Dandy clippers for more than 30 days. Here at home, they almost live in my hand, and I am NEVER outside without them. Last week, I wrote to the Host of the B&B we will be staying at and mentioned that I am an avid gardener and will be looking for weeds to pull or rocks to move, or seeds to plant. He was excited to hear that, but I am not entirely sure that I can go more than 60 days without getting dirt under my fingernails or clipping something.

Jim, if he was home, would laugh at the very idea of me even HAVING clean fingernails. I rarely do. Just one of those things when I like to play in the dirt as much as I do.

I bet that B&B owner doesn't have any clue. Hehehehe ...... I can't WAIT to get my hands into that Cape Town soil.

Now, here is a thought to ponder::: I wonder if a large plastic bag of my home-grown compost would make it through customs?? Sure would be nice to take some there ....

Reigniting the Passion

2010-06-11T17:06:00.000-07:00

Over the course of the last 30 errrrr .... ish years, I have worked in Non-Profit Land. 1981 to be exact was my first Assistant Bookkeeper position with a non-profit devoted to Skilled Nursing Facility quality standards. During those years, I have worked a variety of places, but mostly at YNI (Yosemite National Institutes, now called NatureBridges.)(No comment on the new name)(and we are going to call it YNI or Headlands Institute because that is where I worked.)

I LOVED working there, and did so for more than 15 years. The people I worked with were passionate about their work. Not just the instructors, but the administrative staff as well. During the peak years of the institutes, it was by far the best work experience of my life, and may remain so.

But people move on and times change. Fast forward seven years. A group of seven of us met for dinner earlier this week. I can't speak for anyone else, but I had more fun than I have had in quite awhile. We laughed, and told stories of the old days, and Remember When stories. After dinner, we walked up the hill to the Mark Hopkins where David Breashears was speaking. The event was the annual award of the Rowell Award for the Art of Adventure. Galen Rowell as a board member for YNI. When he and his wife died in an airplane crash, an Rowell Award was started. You can read more about it here:

http://www.rowellaward.com/index.htm

This award is given to someone that has shown extraordinary passion towards their adventure project. And I mean extraordinary. Prior to David Breashears speaking, the 2009 Award Recipient spoke - Craig Childs.

This man is PASSIONATE.

Look at his eyes in this photo, you can see the passion. Isn't that stare intense?? When he spoke about smelling the salt in the arroyos of Utah, deep in the canyons, and hearing what the earth has to say to you, the man positively DRIPS passion.

And as I was driving back home, across the Golden Gate Bridge, catching the lights of nighttime San Francisco out of the corner of my eye as I went north up Highway 101, it occurred to me that somewhere along the line, I have lost my Non-Profit Passion.

Somewhere between leaving YNI/Headlands, the passion has leaked out. It could be the work I did at Centerforce (my fiscal sponsor and the organization with whom I still do accounting contract work). That work was hard - dealing with the incarcerated population, and meeting payroll twice a month, and laying off 29 people during the three years I was there. Centerforce isn't to blame, by any means, for my loss of passion, I think it just sort of slowly ozzeeeddd out of me during that time. Cutting budgets and the drain of managing an extremely tight cash flow will do that to you. It leaves you tired and drained.

And here is my (perhaps long-winded) point. Sitting and listening to my old co-workers/friends, and listening to Craig Childs, I felt that passion. I know it is still in there. I think it has been "resting", waiting for the right time to come back. It wasn't there when I applied to Canal Alliance back in February, I never could have done, in my heart, the job they wanted me to do as Director of Finance and Administration. But it is there now.

And it's growing. Getting this Soccer Gear Drive going feels like the Passion of Old. The closer I get to getting on the plane next Friday, I can feel the Passion grow inside of me. Like this little ball gaining speed, carrying me towards Africa.

T-8

2010-06-10T19:17:00.000-07:00

Eight days to go.

Mixed emotions to be sure.

I have the suitscases out.
All of my technology is spread across the family room floor.
The Soccer Gear Drive is coming along.
I spent ALL DAY today sorting out a Federal Grant Funding report, only to have it still now balance.
Jim gets back from Seattle tonight.
Grant and Alex had their last day at school.
Kirby the Cat got lost outside (again.)

Wanted: Soccer Gear

2010-06-10T10:18:00.000-07:00

So many of you have asked ..... here's the deal.

The end of last week, I started a VERY informal drive for soccer gear for the kids (see my One Shoe post) at the LEAP school. My idea was that I would bring with me a few pairs of cleats, maybe some socks, etc. I put the idea out to our Boy Scout troop, and word has spread a bit. Then others started reading my One Shoe post, and asked what they could do ....

This is what I am looking for:

In TEEN AGE sizes, please:

Jersey
Shorts
Socks
Shin Guards
Cleats
Soccer bags

Clean please. No smaller child sizes at this time, maybe later if this all pans out.

There will be a plastic container at Marin Fitness, by the front door under my poster, starting Friday June 11. If you are my neighbor, send me an email and Grant can come and pick things up, or drop off on my porch.

If you are not local and want to help, email me about donations. The photo is just in case you missed my One Shoe post about how the kids play soccer in the outlying townships.

Finding Winter clothes in the summer ... good luck!!

2010-06-09T11:43:00.000-07:00

This is something that I did NOT plan ahead on very well. Nope, not well at all.

Some of you know I have been semi-unemployed since last August, and when I do work, it is usually out of my home office. Needless to say, my wardrobe has sort of diminished into gym clothes, shorts, and jeans. At the end of this past winter, I had a number of clothing items that really needed to be replaced, as in ALL my nicer work shirts, ALL of my nicer work pants, and ALL of my work shoes. The shoes have holes in them so big that I can't wear them on rainy days (but I get my $$$'s worth out of everything!) My assumption was that come this fall, when I am back in the regular work force, I would go on a Buying Frenzie and restock the closet.

But somewhere in there, South Africa mixed into the plan. Now, it is/was May or June and I am trying to find winter clothes, and believe it or not, Macy's just doesn't carry long sleeved warm white shirts this time of year. Nor do they carry warm shoes with closed toes and heels so your feet don't get wet.

Even going on the Internet (which is what exactly EVERYONE has suggested to me) hasn't turned up much, even on the Ultra Clearance Rack sales. I have haunted so many websites, that I could just about tell you the complete stock at Coldwater Creek, Macys, Sierra Trading, Dockers, and so on.

I have found, I think, enough heavy weight goods to get by, but I sure am going to be tired of wearing these clothes by the time I get back.

And ~~~~ since I ordered the last of my shoes today, I am praying that they are delivered before I leave.

For those of you following in this journey: PLAN AHEAD!

The rest of the Team - 2010 Teach with Africa Fellows

2010-06-08T14:34:00.000-07:00

I haven't talked much yet about who the other Fellows will be on this project. This morning, in a quick Google search, I found this listing posted, and will link it here.

http://teachwithafrica.org/projectTeamBios.html

The World Cup

2010-06-07T14:55:00.000-07:00

Everyone, and I mean EVERYONE who hears I am going to Cape Town immediately asks me if I am going to the World Cup.

Deb: I am going to South Africa this summer to volunteer my services ...
Other Person: Ahhhhhhhhh ........ are you going to the World Cup??

Never mind that I am not really a soccer fan, unless you count my two boys (16 and 12) and how many seasons they have played soccer.

I couldn't tell you what a Side Out is. Maybe 10 combined seasons and I still don't know what to watch for. Can't say when to play offense, when to play defense. I DO know how to cut up the oranges for snack, though, and to bring wet rags on hot days.

:)

So I don't know if I am going to the World Cup or not. Tickets are running $300 and up. That is out of my budget. People keep saying it is a Once in a Lifetime event, but ya know?

Anyway, this morning I saw this Nike ad - touted to be the "best ad ever", so I had to watch. I have to admit that being in the Cape Town stadium (see the webcam post for a live shot of the stadium) would be exciting. We will see.

http://www.slate.com/id/2256074/?GT1=38001

First stop - Dubai

2010-06-06T19:44:00.000-07:00

I thought I should check out where our first stop is going to be - after 15 hours in the air - Dubai.

I know nothing about this country. When I mention that I will be there overnight, people look at me and say "Oh, yes - they have a hotel with a ski slope" or "you can surf at one of the hotels". But surely - there must be more to this country than some cheesy tourism?

So I went to Wikipedia, which may not be a valid source to quote when writing an MBA paper, but is a wealth of information for the lay person.

Dubai climate is generally warm most of the year. It’s not so bad in the winter months, but summers are extremely hot. And the high humidity levels just make it unbearable.

So I am going to leave our moderate San Francisco climate, which lately has been cool and rainy, to go to someplace that is hot and humid. OK, got it. Need to reorganize the overnight carry on bag I have.

Being in a Middle Eastern country, my advisor suggested that we might, as women, need to cover our heads. You know what?? I don't even own a scarf. Fortunately, thanks to the Internet, Lonely Planet says that covering one's head is no longer necessary. However, we women DO need to dress conservatively. What does that mean? That means in 105 degree weather that we should wear long pants and long shirt sleeves.

It hadn't even occurred to me, at the start of this adventure, that I would be spending the night in a Middle Eastern Country.

Who knew??

I get one shoe, you get one shoe ....

2010-06-06T12:27:00.000-07:00

I have a story stuck in my head. The story was told by Ed Kujawa, the Dean of Education for Dominican, and the person (I think) in charge of those of us on the trip from Dominican.

And for those of you that keep asking me "Deb, why are you going to South Africa??" - it is this heart-breaking story that is at the base of why I am going.

I am going to take some writers' liberties here, so I am not quoting Ed directly, and I may get facts and dates wrong, but none of that will effect the point of the story itself. (Is that enough of a disclaimer??)

A year ago, Ed was in Cape Town, meeting with LEAP staff and putting together the program I am participating in. Someone (maybe a 2009 Fellow?) had donated a pair of soccer shoes to the school. The staff offered the shoes to a male student, who promptly offered to his best friend one of the shoes. That way, both he and his friend would have A soccer shoe.

How can you hear that story and NOT be impacted?

Ed went on to tell us that the kids at the school play soccer in their school uniforms, that there is no gear. I found this photo, and I would imagine it is a pretty good view of how Cape Town kids play soccer - in the sand in their regular clothes.

All week long I have been thinking about this story. We signed up Grant and Alex for the fall season of soccer here in Novato, and there is no question that both of them will have two soccer shoes. And shin guards and new jerseys, and socks, and maybe a bag to put it all in. There will be Gator-ade and snacks at the games, and they will be playing on "groomed" grass, not playing in sand or dirt.

Now, the logical thing for me to do would be to put together a Donate your Soccer Gear drive. See how much I can gather, then ship it all over there. Or even, pay the extra cost and throw a big box on the airplane as checked baggage (even though Jim is worried about how much luggage I will be hauling around).

Less than two weeks before I leave. I am not sure what I am going to do, but I DO know I will do something. At the very least, both Grant and Alex have cleats that are outgrown. Grant thinks he may have four pairs. Alex has a couple of pairs. That is six pairs of cleats, or 12 shoes. In three weeks, will 12 SA kids be wearing one new shoe each?

Baboons on the Prowl

2010-06-04T10:43:00.000-07:00

Who knew??

Seems the big vandalism problem this year is headed up by the notorious Fred the Baboon Ring Leader. Fred has gained quite a reputation for leading his 29 or so followers into a life of theft. These baboons are big into "Breaking and Entering" - cars specifically.

We talked about this at the orientation. Seems that last year, one of the groups went to Cape Hope and forgot to lock up the car, only to return to find their car filled with baboons.

Should that happen to us, it will probably make a great story to tell later, but I can only imagine how much baboons must smell.

Panic attack in Spades

2010-06-03T20:04:00.000-07:00

Can we say "What was I thinking??????"

It just really hit home today that I am leaving for TWO MONTHS!!!

Not sure what is behind it, but feelings have been bubbling up all day.

I know what part of it is - I am the Director of Finance for my organization. June 30 is our year end. At year end, we accountants do this and that and it is a big deal. We pull things together, get it all reconciled, audited, and done. Then, audited statements are produced and .....

Did some of you just go to sleep? :)

The point being - I won't be here on June 30. Closing the books has to wait until I get back. In September! Who the heck, as a competent accountant closes the books in September?

sigh ......

Missing Year End is almost worse than missing picking cherries or my favorite Dahlias.

A day of catching up ....

2010-06-02T20:19:00.000-07:00

There have been so many little bits and pieces over the last few days ... here is what I remember happened. I also have to note that things seem to be gaining speed, that as of this evening, there are 16 days before I hop on the plane.

First - I haven't heard back yet from Marin Community Foundation. If'n you recall, I wrote a letter to Dr. Tom Peters, CEO of MCF. He spoke at my graduation, and I sent him a letter quoting his speech in my "ask" letter. Quite brilliant, if'n you ask me. I take it as good news that I haven't received a "thanks but no" letter.

Checks have been slowly coming in on my Family and Friends Sponsor Deb for a Day appeal. I have over a week now paid for. It is touchy - I don't want to go back to people and say "Remember, you said you would sponsor a day ....." but I would like to follow up with them. So .... I am sending them a link to this blog, as a gentle reminder. The checks are coming from people that I wouldn't have expected. It's nice. :)

Yesterday, I got my shots. Hep A. H1N1. The seasonal Flu Shot isn't out yet, so not that one. Plus, prescriptions. Because I am prone to bronchitis, and had pnemonia for the 4th!!!!!! time earlier this spring, my doctor gave me two courses of anti-biotics to take with me. Plus malaria tablets, a bronchial inhaler, and my standard allergy tabs. It is an entire bag of meds. Ick!!!!! But you know - I don't want to be in the dead of winter, gasping because I can't breathe (all I can do is gurgle) from pnemonia, and wasting time and energy going to the local clinic for meds.

Yesterday, also, we had a meeting at Dominican, with all of the Fellows coming from Dominican. There are Monica, Kevin, Dana (who will be my roommate - Hi Dana :)) and me. Monica and Kevin are on the Education side. Dana and I are the two MBA's. I still!!! can't figure out the structure of this project. I wrote to Ed Kujawa, Dean of Education, to ask him for an individual meeting to help me sort out who is who and chart an Organization Chart of how Teach with Africa intersects with Dominican. What I found out is that I am going as a student, under the reign of Dominican, and have two papers to write. One is a 15 pager (sigh ....) the other is 20 pages. How did THAT happen?? I thought for sure I had graduated!

I also purchased my Travel Insurance this morning. Travelersaid.com was the best place, best prices, with the most coverage. Dominican said it was mandatory that I have this insurance so that in the case of a fatal event, my remains will be extradited out of South Africa. Nobody get any ideas - Jim is the beneficiary :)

I need to find out about auto insurance. Because I am the only MBA that can drive a stick shift car, I am designated driver. But does that make me liable?? If we get in an accident, is my personal insurance covering me?? That is a question for Ed Kujawa for sure, and something that needs to be clear before I hop in the drivers' seat. Plus - there is the issue of driving a stick shift car on the left side of the road. I know I did it in London, and Bathe, and Isle of Wight, but how we didn't all die in that adventure is beyond me.

During the meeting, Monica suggested that while we all are spending the night in Dubai, that we hire a taxi and tour the town. That sounds like a great idea, as I can't imagine any other way we will see the sights.

Meanwhile, here at home, the cherries need to be harvested this week. It is almost the last day of school for Grant and Alex, and Jim and I need to help Grant prepare for going on his first job interview.

16 days to go.

Meanwhile ....

2010-06-02T12:27:00.000-07:00

While I am worrying about how much my arm hurts from my H1N1 shot yesterday, Jim is researching where I will be eating for the next couple of months.

This place was actually talked about at our TWA orientation last month as as "Must See" restaurant. Amy, the Executive Director, said that she has never in her life seen so much raw meat and that it is not for the faint of heart.

http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/africa/03/23/mzolis.barbeque/index.html

Look forward to seeing me and my Fellows sitting at one of those tables.