Our Last South African Summer

Our Last South African Summer

 

 

Two months ago we posted a blog entry which was long so this update will be shorter. Since November we have finished off the school year, had two sets of visitors, and now returned to our routine. 

The end of the school year was like what we saw last year.   Teaching ended in early November, exams then took place throughout November with school ending the first week of December.  It continues to amaze us why teaching ends at a month before the end of the term.  During this month students are left idle in the classrooms while the teachers busy themselves preparing exams, marking the exams, and recording the results.  South African education will continue to rank among the worst until teachers focus on teaching, adopt a professional attitude, and stop trying so hard to satisfy the education bureaucracy.  Schools need to be first and foremost about the kids. 

In the two to three week gap between giving final exams and the end of the term, Merideth and I taught human development to Grade 7 learners.  This happened when we asked if parents and guardians ever talked about sex and most of the kids said never.   Our guide was an excellent book we stumbled across in the high school library called Understanding Sexuality, Volume 4 of the World Book’s Managing Your Teenage Life series.  Merideth started with just the girls and Gary started with just the boys.  After a few days, we switched groups and then wound up with everyone together.  Hopefully these classes will give the kids a better understanding of their bodies and sexuality so that when the time comes they can make knowledgeable choices.

Merideth finished up teaching Grade 7 English at Tlhophane Primary School.  Since her students were moving to other schools, she organized a celebration of visiting a nearby water slide park called African Island.  Although the logistics and financing were complicated, the trip was a success. We donated twenty large pizzas for the kid’s lunch and the costs for about a dozen learners who could not afford the trip (80 Rand or $10) because we felt it wasn’t fair to exclude anyone. The school was broke so the entire trip was financed by money from the learners.   The photo above shows some of the kids having fun in one of the pools.  Here in Mmakau there is no place to swim except a large polluted pond containing crocodiles so swimming anywhere is a treat.  While we joined in by going down the slides and giving swimming lessons, the ten teachers who came along stayed off by themselves and had their own braii (barbeque) lunch.  They never bothered check how the kids were doing.  Very few of these teachers could survive as a teacher in the US.

This is some of Merideth's Grade 7 learners on the last day of school.  You can barely see Merideth's face in the middle of the group.  She is addressed "Mme. Mpho" which means "Mrs. Gift."

 

For Thanksgiving we went to Polokwane to have dinner with about thirty other Peace Corps volunteers gathering together at a resort.  We drove there with a former Peace Corps volunteer who is now working nearby at a new private school that focuses on providing a rigorous high school education to good students from under-privileged backgrounds in the townships and villages.  Fourteen of Merideth’s Grade 7 students were selected to attend this school.  When these students finish at this school (matrix), they are almost certain to be given bursaries (scholarships) for an all-paid university education of their choosing.  Being successful at this school can be a ticket to a good education and a decent paying job that lets these lucky ones escape the poverty and unemployment they face if they stayed in the village schools.  In spite of a light rain, Thanksgiving dinner was delicious and we enjoyed seeing many of our fellow volunteers once again.

 

In early December Merideth’s sister Jen shown with Merideth above visited us for ten days.  The prime focus of her visit was to see African wildlife.   Our first trip was to the Madikwe Game Reserve located about four hour’s drive west of our village.  We stayed at a place inside the reserve called the Mosetlha Eco and Bush Camp where we slept in comfortable tented cabins and bathed using water heated over an open fire.  Each morning we got up at five and rode off in the back of an open Land Rover in search of game.  We returned at nine, had breakfast, relaxed until lunch, and then went off again for a night drive.  Mid-day can be hot and the animals tend to be hiding out in the shade to escape the heat.  During our three days at Mosetlha we were able to see everything!  The animals are not afraid of the Land Rovers so you can drive very close to them.  The highlight was sitting in the Land Rover about 50 feet from a lion roaring to gather his pride.

This is a picture of a wild dog which was part of a pack that we came across.  Wild dogs are endangered and known to be one of the most successful predators in Africa.  The next day we came across the site where a pack of six wild dogs had cornered and killed a large antelope called a kudu.   These wild dogs had gorged themselves on the fresh meat and were sprawled about the area unable to move because their stomachs were filled to the maximum.  

Our next animal adventure after the game reserve was a visit to a lion park where efforts are underway to study and promote lion populations.  At one point we were allowed to mingle with and hold the young cubs.

This is a snapshot of us holding a young lion cub.  Although they were about two months old and had been weaned from their mothers, they were still a little bit aggressive and would bite. 

In the following days the local cheetah recovery park was visited and we tried to take in an elephant riding activity but were turned back when lighting cancelled the experience.  However Merideth and Jenny were both “kissed” by an elephant and I got drenched when one elephant doused me with water sprayed from his trunk.  All in all it was a good visit.  Jenny went home having satisfied her desire to see African wildlife and was talking about another trip to East Africa to see the big migrating herds and such. In South Africa all the wildlife is contained in large fenced game reserves and there are no massive migrating herds like in Kenya.

A few days after Jenny left, we rented a car and drove to Cape Town (600 miles) where we met Devon, Rowan, and Rowan’s girlfriend Miranda.  We spent a week in Cape Town where we got to explore the city, took a trip out to Robben Island where Nelson Mandela and others were held during Apartheid, went surfing (the 20 year olds), hiked and visited Cape Peninsula Park, toured the wine country, and hiked up and down a windy Table Mountain.  Cape Town is known as the Mother City in South Africa and deserves its reputation as a very unique place with the crashing oceanfront and Table Mountain backdrop.

Here are (left to right) Miranda, Rowan, Devon, Gary, and Merideth during one of our hiking days in Cape Town.  And below are Miranda, Rowan, and Devon going surfing in Muisenberg near Cape Town.

 

 

The five of us left Cape Town and drove east along the southern coast of South Africa stopping overnight in the towns of Knysna and Chintsa and eventually ending up at Port St. Johns where we started out on a five day Wild Coast hike.  Unfortunately, the weather had turned very hot which made the hiking grueling because it involved a lot of jungle and upland trails.  At the end of the second day, we decided to stop. Rowan was experiencing symptoms of heat exhaustion and was wiped out.  We were too far from any medical help to safely continue.  We were also struggling to get food for lunches. Our guide was unable to provide us with an ample supply of safe drinking water – he wanted us to drink rainwater collected in barrels.  So due to the heat exhaustion, extreme heat, lack of water, and the disappointing route, we quit.  If it had been cooler and the guide better prepared, this might have been enjoyable but for us the conditions and problems ended the hike three days early.  Here's a picture of the coastal scenery along the Wild Coast.

A short hiking trip meant we could spend four days at our next stop which was the Drakensburg Mountains, South Africa’s most famous mountain range.  We stayed at a really nice lodge run by a former attorney from Durban who built the lodge specifically for backpackers.  Although the weather was cloudy and wet obscuring views of the mountains and Rowan was still recovering from the heat exhaustion, we managed to take some very nice walks up into the mountains.  As during the rest of this trip, we managed to eat well which always adds to the enjoyment of travelling.  On our last day the skies cleared and we had an unobstructed view of this part of the Drakensburgs as we drove off on our way home.

The rest of the visit consisted of a few easy days here in the village.  It was sad to see these three leave.  We hadn’t seen Rowan in 18 months, got to spend some good time with Miranda, and were glad Devon got to come and see parts of South Africa he missed last summer. 

Since they left we have returned to the routine.  Merideth is showing Foundation Level (Grades R-3) teachers at two schools how to introduce English to their learners, doing a library class at a third school, and trying to get home language books for the crèche (pre-school).  We both worked on a library project that placed about 1000 books at one of the schools that had no books.  Gary has started a bike repair project with the kids and is working on projects at two schools (composting, clean burning incinerator, installing a new portable classroom, soccer goals, and water/sewer stuff).  Although we still get frustrated with the way things are done here and are sometimes tempted to chuck it all, we are resolved to relax and take it easy for our remaining six months.  It helps that we have five weeks off during these six months during which we are planning trips to see more of Africa.

Tragedy struck our village last November when a 12-year old boy was brutally murdered.  And then two weeks ago another young girl was abducted, raped, and killed by a neighbor man who was caught and has now confessed to also killing the boy in November.  Although we did not recall either of these kids, we had them in class in 2011 in Grade 4.  We attended the girl’s funeral last weekend.  Throughout South Africa the cry is going out that something needs to be done about violence, theft, corruption, and crimes against women and children.  It is a very big problem.

And that’s the way it was.