Getting down to Business

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.

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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.