Monday and Tuesday (the 20th and 21st) were quite interesting days at Pendla. Mrs. Kadi did not show up either day! We had complete control of all of our classes for the entire day we were there. Turns out another teacher was missing on Monday also and Pendla was a voting site, so a few other teachers were at school, but were never in the classroom. CSB/SJU students were basically in control of the school. Yikes! It wasn’t so bad though. Amy and I decided to play some semi-educational games with our classes. We played Hangman, but changed the name to Strike for obvious reasons. They absolutely loved that. It is basically impossible to get the kids to be completely silent in order to explain the game to them, so it was a loud day. We played word unscramble too, which they also loved. In general, we did have a really fun day. I also noticed that the kids can be kind of violent. I’ve noticed this before, but never really acknowledged it. They often hit each other when they get mad and in class that day we saw one boy try to kick a girl for calling him a cockroach in Xhosa. It seems like they hit so much because there is never really any discipline when they do hit, so they can get away with it. I also rarely hear any of the kids say I’m sorry. The one day I did hear an apology, it took me by surprise because I think I almost forgot it existed. The second day we did basically the same thing, but we made them write stories that had to have the words tiger, soccer, and plane in them. They actually did really well and made me kind of proud. The two days really put the education system here into perspective for me or rather education at Pendla. Education elsewhere in South Africa I’m sure is of better quality. Substitute teachers don’t seem to exist and if we weren’t volunteering or even after we left, the kids had no teacher for the rest of the day. It kind of seemed like a waste of time to me. We recently learned about education in our Senior Seminar class this week and discussing the education system in class really explained things. When the Apartheid fell in 1994, education was labeled a basic human right. Therefore every child in South Africa cannot be denied the right to education. The quality of black education before Apartheid was really lacking, but instead of improving the quality of education, the new democracy just wanted to make sure they got the 2 million children who were not being educated previously into the schools, therefore they were looking for equality among all rather than quality of education. Since the different races lived separately even after Apartheid fell and some races still continue to do so, the students simply attend the school in their neighborhood. Therefore the black neighborhood schools are generally a poor area. The government does fund all schools equally, but that often is not enough for the school to have a quality education. The government then actually encourages the schools to do their own sort of fundraising, often forming a committee of parents who decide one fee that the parents additionally are asked pay to the school. Therefore, in the areas of the higher-class whites, these students get a better education because they have better funding and the government actually encourages this because they don’t want the whites to break off and start their own private education system. That leaves Pendla stuck with very little funding and poor education. It is quite ironic too because no child can be denied the right to education because they cant pay fees and yet parents can be sued for not paying fees. We personally have seen these fees being collected at Pendla. Just yesterday a little girl came into our 7th grade classrooms asking for her brother and sister because she did not have money to pay the fee. A few other times we saw some students asking other students for money because they didn’t have any. So that is the education down here at Pendla.
Wednesday was election. We kept turning on the TV looking for election results, but they didn’t seem to have any. Silly us, we were once again referring back to the customs of the US. We didn't realize that they all vote with paper ballots that they just sick into a box down here, so the actual counting would not begin until the next day. I did see some voting booths as I came back from school and it there were huge lines. It turns out that they even ran out of ballots at the end of the day and even though their were still long lines at the voting centers at 9 pm they had to close the centers and cut off voting. The next day we found out that a whole voting center virtually disappeared- ballots, the tent, pencils, everything! In the end it looks like the ANC won out and Zuma will be sworn in. The other results beyond that would be too hard to explain unless you understood all of it, so I’ll save myself the work of explaining it. That night we went to our Literature professor’s house on the beach and discussed the book Disgrace. The conversation was extremely interesting and one of my favorites so far. It was actually quite philosophical too, but it had some very interesting points.
Thursday was pretty uneventful except for the power outage. I was sitting in the computer lab and all of a sudden all the computers went off. I’m just thankful I wasn’t writing an important paper. The power stayed off for a good couple of hours, which led to us being let out early from Political Science because the teacher couldn't use her power point. We actually had a good class. It’s funny how technology sometimes is a hindrance to learning because how fast it makes each lesson and how little time we have to take notes, understand them, and absorb the meaning.
Friday was the day I had been waiting for! This weekend three of my roommates and I were heading to Tsitsikamma to go bungee jumping!! Early Friday morning I went to the airport to pick up our rental car. Luckily I had another girl come with me who also needed to pick up a car and I followed her home. Driving on the left side was a little scary in the beginning, but then it got really fun! The part that was probably the hardest was the blinker, shifter, and windshield wipers. Since the driver is on the opposite side of the car, they also switch what side the blinker, shifter, and windshield wipers are on, so often all I wanted to do was turn left and all of a sudden the windshield wipers would be going. No worries though, I mastered it pretty fast. It was great to be driving and we headed out on the N2 with the windows down and the music blasting. Our first stop was Seaview a lion and game park. We drove through the park with the windows down and saw a bunch of deer. We have no idea the real name of them would be. Then at the end we saw buffalo, zebra, and giraffes. The giraffes were just sitting on the side of the road. If we wanted to we probably could have petted them. It was fun to see them so close. Then we walked through the lion and tiger area where they’re fenced in. They have white lions, which I didn’t really know existed. I’m guessing they get fed in the morning because a lot of them were munching on legs and stuff. We even saw a lion and lioness kind of fight over some food and some baby lions in another cage were playing and sharing their food too. Then we drove to the cub petting area. As we were waiting one of the staff was sitting outside and had a Meer cat just chilling on the table. I went and talked to her and they had just gotten him. He was just a baby and was probably a pet of some people, so he was tame. I got to pet him and pick him up and stuff. They took us down to the baby lions then. We went in the cage of two girls- Shannon and Umani. They were so calm! I was able to pet them on their heads and hold their paws and they barely even moved. I probably could have cuddled with them like I cuddle with my cat and they wouldn’t have even minded. We had lunch there and then headed off to Tsitsikamma to be on time for our bungee jumping appointment. Sadly, as we came within 30 minutes of the bridge it was started raining and then pouring! We continued on hoping to make it, but when we got there they had closed for the day. They said to come back tomorrow, so we headed back to our hostel for the night. The hostel was great, there were hammocks and bonfires all over the place, but sadly, everything was wet. We were all really tired, so we took a nap before dinner. After dinner we played some pool, played Pass the Pigs, and talked awhile before heading off to bed.
Saturday we started off early because we wanted get our bungee jumping in before we headed home that evening. At 7:30am we were scheduled to do canopy tours. The tours were pretty awesome. We had ten different zip lines between platforms on trees and we learned a bit about the forest. We were also taking a tour with four adults on holiday from England and Ireland. Amina provided most of our entertainment as she wouldn’t break on the zip line and came speeding into the platform multiple times. At the end of our tour, a meal was also included in the price, so I had a lunch of a burger and chips at 10:30 in the morning. It seemed like a really good tourist company. They were really working on being environmental and they provided jobs for locals. The place we had lunch was a restaurant operated by ten local women. I was happy to see such a positive business. After our lunch we headed over to the bungee bridge right away! It’s called Face Adrenaline and is off the Bloukrans Bridge. It is the highest continuously operation bungee jump in the world. Apparently there is a higher jump in China that opened two years ago in China, but they are only open every other day, where Face Adrenaline is open every day. We wanted to make sure we got our bungee in. Luckily when we got there we didn’t have to weight long. We paid and then they put on our harnesses right away. We went with a group of about 25 people. We had an official guide, but we never really caught his name, it was something like Jason or Jaclyn? We opted to zip line out to the bungee jumping point in the bridge so we did that first. That was awesome! It was such a good view and was pretty thrilling to see how high we were before jumping. There wasn’t really any sort of brake though because to stop me I just plowed into the guy standing there. I’m surprised I didn’t knock him over; I was going pretty fast. From there we stood in the middle of the bridge in the canyon and watched the people before us jump off. It was so great. I was pumped. We’re not sure exactly how they choose who goes when, but we think it has something to do with weights and the ropes they use, so the first in our group to go was supposed to be Amina. Amina got all the way up there, but then kind of freaked out. I’m mean really; you’re jumping off a bridge. I ended up being the one going next. I sat on this bench while they put the cushiony things around my ankles then Jason came over and tied the rope around my ankles. I had two knots and that was the only thing that I would be tied to while I was flying in the air. Don’t worry we did have a second safety hook up. Then they brought me up to the edge, counted down from five, and I just kind of leaned over and fell off. We had about four seconds of complete free fall and then we bounced from there. Personally though, I just felt like I was falling the whole time. On the way down I could see the ocean through the gorge, then on the way up I’d twist around to see the mountains. As I started to slow down I realized my head hurt super bad. I have bad sinus colds a lot and apparently I had one right then because the pressure in my head was really intense. I had some tears around my eyes too. I think the pressure just popped them right out. It wasn’t long after that I stopped bouncing that the guy came down, hooked me up to a sitting position, and took me back up to the bridge. Wow, what a thriller! It was such an awesome experience! I would say it wasn’t as cool as skydiving or as long, but I was definitely more nervous. Not long after I came back in they were looking for me. They said the pictures they took of me doing the zip line didn’t work, so I had to go do it again for free. At first I didn’t hear that I was doing the zip line again and I was like “Wait, what do I have to do again?” I think I would definitely bungee jump again, but with the pressure in my head at that moment, I didn’t want to do it again right then. It was only the zip line though. I walked back on this little bridge, which is a bit freaky. You can totally see through the metal underneath your feet. Scary! The zip line for the second time was fun. This time instead of plowing right into the man as a break, one guy grabbed my legs to slow me down. After I got back on the bridge we watched both Laura and Katie jump, took a group picture, and headed back on the bridge. The guys who work up there were so awesome. They are all just so pumped up and they’re really fun to talk to. They would have to pull up the ropes every time and they kind of have this rhythm/dance thing going. Laura says they have a good sense of beat because their mothers carry them around on their backs when they’re little. The sad thing I learned this weekend is just how little we get back and really how well off us Americans have it. Unemployment and poverty are huge down here. When I was talking to the guy who led us on the canopy tour we were telling him where we traveled down here in SA and he said, “Wow, you must have a lot of money.” Then when I asked him if he traveled much or if has been to Cape Town, he said no, that they don’t get much money to travel and if they want to travel they have to save up for a long time. I was also talking to the workers at the bungee jumping place and commenting on their apparel. They all have Face Adrenaline clothing (the name of the place). I asked if his whole wardrobe was filled with that clothing and I was telling him they’re pretty awesome uniforms just because they looked cool. I was telling him the uniform I have to wear for the catering business and he said, “Well, you get paid a lot more than us. I’ll wear any uniform as long as I have enough money for living.” These are actual workers in South Africa that have a semi-decent job and they probably still get paid very poorly. They have such good attitudes too. They are so fun and so upbeat, but here they are catering day in and day out to tourists who spend their money so freely and travel around their own country that they might not ever get the chance to see themselves. Anyway, side note. After jumping we went and watched our videos, bought our pictures and apparel, and headed out to Monkeyland to finish up our day. Monkeyland is a monkey sanctuary, where monkeys from zoos that closed down come, or monkey that were previous pets, or even found hurt somewhere. We got a guided tour, which was so awesome. I learned more about monkeys than I ever thought I could know and it was really fascinating. Our guide was pretty amazing too. We saw the Capuchin monkeys, also known as Hollywood monkeys because they are the monkeys seen in Pirates, National treasure, Ace Ventura, and on Friends. We also saw a bunch of lemurs. Then there was this special kind of monkey, I don’t know what it was called, but they have a lot of hair on top of their head. I guess each monkey does it’s own hair do, so the guides can tell us each of their names depending on their hair style. Towards the end of our tour we walked across the longest suspension bridge in South Africa. The guy who went first across the bridge had a monkey jump on him. I just he’s a bachelor monkey and so he likes to hang out with his other monkey friend around the bridge area and terrorize other monkeys and people. Silly monkey. From there our weekend trip was over. We had to head back and finish up writing another political science paper. We headed back to PE and had a fun car ride. Laura and I made up this game where we tried to throw our apple cores out the window to hit signs. The people here are really nice drivers too. A lot of the time if you want to pass them, they’ll just move over on to the shoulder and let you pass (it was a two lane road). They’re just really courteous about passing, which I now understand why I’ve heard people say stuff before about the Americans not letting people pass. When we came in that evening we found out that the boys had gone deep sea fishing that day and caught a whole tub of fish, so they had started a braai and they shared all of their fish with us. Yum yum. Sunday and Monday were pretty uneventful. We had a political science paper due on Tuesday, so most people worked on that for those two days. Monday we had off of school because it was Freedom day down here. It’s basically equivalent to our Fourth of July. It’s in memory of the first day in 1994 when they were allowed to vote. It is kind of cool and sad at the same time, that many were living and can remember that day. For us Independence Day was like 200 years ago.
The paper I wrote about for political science was interesting. We had to write about South Africa’s biggest challenges today and how they were going to face them in the future, especially with this recent election of Zuma. The biggest challenges South Africa faces today are poverty and inequality. When the Apartheid government fell, one thing that did remain was that most of the white retained their holds on their businesses. Therefore the whites still remain to be the majority of the professional sector and make the majority of the money in this country. I was talking before about the education system and even though more black are getting educated, a lot of times it’s not a very good education and they aren’t often taught skills to help them get a job. Recently still under president Mbeki, he tried to revive the economy by modernizing it and focusing on private and international investments. This didn't really help the black Africans much at all and unemployment and poverty are still increasing. If you want some statistics- here they are
48 percent of South Africans live in poverty receiving only R462 per month and 23 percent of those South Africans live in poverty receiving only half of that income
Inequality continues to be prominent with the white population earning more than seven times as much as the black population
The poorest 10 percent of the citizens earn R1,032 per capita monthly while the richest 10 percent earn R98,639.
The unemployment rate remains at 21.9 percent at the end of 2008
Writing the paper, I kind of understand why some people voted for Zuma. He is advertised as having a more grass-roots approach to solving the social and economic problems down here. He just doesn’t really have much else going for him. The funny thing that I was thinking about the other day too is that the presidents here really down have much of an education compared to our presidents. Mandela at least had a law degree, but I’m pretty sure Zuma only has a high school education. Our presidents, of course, go to the top Ivy League schools.
Last night, was a lot of fun. We had a surprise potluck for Andrew to celebrate his birthday. Our flat made this amazing chocolate cake with coffee flavored frosting. We had another braai with the Gemsbok, which Zach shot when he went hunting this weekend. Then we went out dancing for a bit to some of the bars near by. The blacks really can dance here- I’m so amazed at their moves! Laura says she’s going to tie her children to her back so they have good rhythm too. Sean met a second year in the computer lab earlier this semester named Ndyebo (I know hard to say) and brought him over to hang out with us. It was fun to talk to him before the braai and here a bit more from his perspective about Africa. He went to Pendla school where we volunteer! He doesn’t like Zuma and was really disappointed with the election results. He said most young student support COPE and mostly older people vote for the ANC out of loyalty. He is actually studying law and wants to go to the U.S. really bad, I think for law school. I might have said this before, but everyone down here can speak at least two languages. Ndyebo can speak four- Afrikaans, English, Xhosa, and Sesotho. I feel so dumb.
Whelp, that's all for now folks.
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