After finishing my first four day week of classes down here in SA, I had my first really exciting three day weekend! Some of my classmates decided to go to Jeffery's Bay for the weekend, but my flat had plans to go up the coast about 20 minutes to Cape Recife on Friday. It was a pretty warm, muggy day and when we arrived there was kinda a haze on the horizon. It looked pretty cool, like we were right in the middle of Pirates of the Caribbean. The cape is extremely rocky and many ship wrecks were known to take place here. Supposedly, there was one we could have seen, go look it up on Google map, although we never figured out where it was. It might have just looked like a rock to us. Anyway, so there's a pretty lighthouse and we just explored on the beach and rocks for a good amount of time. We found some awesome seashells and some pretty huge ones! There were also sea coral that had washed up and snails everywhere! We walked up the beach for a while too and I took a short swim. The water was really cold! I guess the students in the Marine Biology class are learning that one of the capes has really cold water, which makes it possible for there to be South Africa penquins- which I saw at Bay world! Crazy! We stayed there till about 1pm, had a picnic lunch, headed home, and hung out the rest of the day.
Saturday was Valentines Day! There was nine of us who stayed back for Valentines Day, eight of which who were girls. The one boy, Nick, was so kind that he cooked all of us egg bake for breakfast! It was soo good! Later that night, after church, our flat made a nice dinner with steak, baked potatoes, green beans, dessert, and wine and we invited Nick and another girl back over to eat with us. I did miss Zach, but all in all it was a pretty good day.
Sunday was the day I had been waiting for! We were spending the whole day on Safari! We got picked up at 8am and hopped into a coach bus and headed to Addo Elephant Park. It's super nice because this park is only a hour away and doesn't require me to take any Malaria medication. Yay! On our way there our guide talked about our surroundings. We drove up the coast and passed what used to be the non-white beach during the Apartheid. The non-whites could swim up in front of the Whites Only beach, but they weren't allowed to be on it. Yea. We also passed one of the largest systems of moving sand dunes (in the world?). Then we drove through a lot of hilly lands where the San people used to live, whom our tour guide was a descendant of. Here tons of fossils can be found because water didn't come and lay down a layer of sediment on it, so they can all be found on the surface. All of the land is protected pretty well though, so tourists can't come and pick something up and walk off with it. They have found some dinosaur skeletons here! We got to Addo Elephant park which is just huge. I didn't get the actual kilometers of how big it is, but basically it's as far as the eye can see. When we got in right away we spotted our first wildlife! A flightless dung beetle! Actually, these are an endangered species, so the dung beetle has the right of way on the road. We weren't allowed to run over the dung beetle or piles of poop because that is where it lays it's eggs. Yep, that's right. We drove through for about 2 1/2 hours and saw all kinds of animals including five elephants! We also saw warthogs, spring buck, kudus, and a few other things I don't remember. After eating lunch, we headed over to a Schotia, a private game park. Brooke, Laura, Justin, and I decided we would try for an open truck, even though it had been sprinkling all day. We figured it couldn't get too bad. We're always told down here that it never rains and if it does it won't last all day. Boy, were we wrong! It poured the whole time! We got soaking wet pretty much from the beginning and the safari lasted for 4 hours. Oh well, they needed the rain and it was still beautiful. The very first thing we saw was a lion! So cool! We also saw ostrichs, zebra, horses (wild, I know), kudus, spring buck, rhino, crocodiles, giraffes, and hippo. We saw it all. We also got to taste authentic food. Halfway through we stopped for a tea break and had tea and biscuits. Then, at the end of the trip, we had a huge meal prepared for us consisting of kudu stew, rice, carrot, peas, mushrooms, fresh salad, and a special bread pudding for dessert. Our tour guide turned out to be the butcher that had provided all the meat and I got to talking to him about where he got his meat from. He runs a bit more of an organic service, where he gets meat from these games that are over-populated. He butchers a lot of spring buck, kudu, warthogs, and a few others. It was a pretty interesting conversation. It was a pretty exciting day, but I was exhausted, cold, and wet, so I was excited to get home, take a shower and go to bed.
Monday was our first day of volunteering. I decided to go to Pendla School because I thought it would be a bit more organized. Ha, nothing down here is that organized, but I seem to still be learning that. We arrived and a bunch of the students sang songs for us and then a few more came in and danced. It was very, very cool. I got a lot of it on videotape, so I'll try to share it when I can. They also opened the welcoming ceremony with a prayer and a lot of the songs have alleluia in them. Even though it's a public school, God is still a part of it, which surprized me a bit, cuz I'm so used to the schools in America not being that way. We got a quick tour of the school and then divided up into what teachers we would go with. I didn't really care, so I waited to see where others wanted to go. I ended up choosing "Technology" which was kinda what I wanted to do. It's supposed to be a bit more hands on. Our teacher was sick though, so we went with a teacher who taught it here and there. We got a book to use and teach from. Sadly, we really don't have any materials to work with except notebook paper and the chalkboard, so we're gonna have to get creative with supplies. After looking at the books we went around visited all the students. It was really odd because the teacher had left the room and I don't think the students really had any task to do. They would kinda practice writing, but a lot of them were just drawing at their desks. When we were done we met up with our other peers and it seems like this is a common occurance. The teachers will often just leave the room, when we are in there and not leave us with anything to do with the kids. Often even when the teacher is in the room, she isn't teaching. It made me really frusterated because this is valuable time the kids are wasting! I know the schools can't be compared to American schools, but they really are not as advanced as we are and I know they could be, if they were given the proper education. I think I just need to be patient and learn more about their culture. We'll see as I volunteer here more. Amy and I left and decided that when we went back on Tuesday we would tell the teacher we just wanted to be aids and not teach yet because we aren't pursuing an education major and we have yet to figure out what level these kids are at. I'll have to tell you more about how Tuesday went next time.
God Bless and please pray for me as I'm down here. I'm starting to feel a bit homesick! Thanks!
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