I have exactly three days left in Pietermaritzburg. On Tuesday, my friend Kelly and I are leaving for Mozambique, and staying there until the 12th. I’m really excited about traveling to another country in Africa besides SA. After our exams Monday we’re driving to Durban to apply for our visas, and then staying in Swaziland or Zululand before crossing the border. I’m SOOOO EXCITED!!!
So a lot has happened here that I’ve never blogged about, so I figured id just post some pictures and give a little explanation about the ones that might be interesting… so here they are:

1.) The Mahatma Gandhi Statue in Pietermaritzburg, about 5 minutes away from where I live. Gandhi actually traveled to South Africa and spent about 20 years here, preaching about non-violence and acceptance. He became very involved in South African politics after being a victim of racial prejudice, when he was forcibly removed from a whites-only carriage in Pietermaritzburg (The statue is the location where he was kicked off). He also founded the Natal Indian Congress to fight for the freedom of indentured Indian laborers on sugar plantations, worked for the Indian Opinion newspaper, and also helped to pass the Indian Relief Bill of 1914. Gandhi lived in a farm outside of Durban with his family and followers.
2.) The start of the Comrades Marathon. Laurin, Michelle, and I got up at 4:30am last week, walked downtown and watched the start-off. The race goes from Pietermaritzbug alllll the way to Durban, which is 52 miles. Laurin ran part of the race, and Michelle and I watched it on TV!
3.) Downtown Durban….
4.) A couple houses and a liquor store in Imbali
5.) The pretty Old Clock Tower on campus
6.) Here are some of my best friends from Malherbe. We have big group dinners in our community kitchen Wednesday nights, and then go out for karaoke
7.) Laurin and Michelle! Laurin goes to MSU and Michelle is from California – they’re both on the rowing team as well, and they’re two of my closest friends here
8.) At one of our rowing ragatta’s… we had a costume party, and the guys dressed up as smurfs and the girls went as nurses.
9-10.) Early morning rowing races

Last Day at Ubuntu :(

I’ve spent the past couple weeks working on the mural at Ubuntu, and I finally finished last Saturday! I’d say my favourite part was designing the tree. I put tape along the outside border, and my friend Laurin filled it in with brown paint. After it was dry, we had the girls put their hand print on the wall to make leaves. We devised a little assembly line where we had everyone line up, Laurin would paint one of their hands, then she’d pick her up and hand her to me (I was standing on a chair) and I’d place her hand on the wall. Then I’d pass the girl over to my friend Michelle who brought her to ‘the hand washing station’, wash the paint off, and send her to end of the line to start the process all over again.
Tuesday marked my last day of working at the centre. I didn’t do any painting, but just played with the girls instead. It was a tough day, and my eyes were swelled up with tears the whole time because I’ve grown so attached to them. There were two girls in particular that I’ve grown particularly attached to; Lungi, and Nglongi. I think everyone in our group fell in love with those two. They were the smallest girls at Ubuntu, and were always dancing and laughing. Especially Lungi, when she hugged you, she squeezed her whole little self tightly into your arms. She only spoke Zulu, but would blabbed on and on to you like you knew exactly what she was talking about.

I feel like it’s sorta unfair picking favorites and only talking about two- but, then again, they are a really good representation of all the children I’ve spent time with. And, in my mind, they are a good reminder that it’s impossible to change the lives of every orphan in the world, but you can help a few. Or at least impact one.

It’s one of those things were it’s better to show than tell. Here’s a couple pictures of the girls who I’ve spend the past few months with. They’ve taught me so much, and I will never forget them.

SA Lingo

People in South Africa have a completely different vocabulary than we do back home. There are lots of commonly used words that I say, that people have never heard of here. For instance, the word ‘traffic light’ are called ‘robots’ here, and if you ever mention ‘traffic lights’ to somebody, they will have no idea what you’re talking about. So the first time I asked for directions, somebody told me, “Go to the corner, and turn left at the robot”. So I went walking – fully believing that I’d eventually run into a little metal man that would tell me where to go. Needless to say, I got very lost. Here’s some other South African words that I’ve picked up while living here:

1.)Cozzie or Costume – a swimming suit
2.)Yebo – yes
3.)Slops – sandals, flip flops
4.)Takies – tennis shoes
5.)Chips – French fries
6.)Crisps – potato chips
7.)Mealies – corn on the cob
8.)Chunder – throw up, vomit
9.)Jersey – any type of jacket, sweatshirt
10.) Chow face – kiss, make out
11.) Lou – bathroom
12.) Bunny Chow – bread with curry (a very popular Zulu dish)
13.) Braii – barbeque
14.) Biltong – dried meat, jerky
15.) Sangoma – a doctor
16.) Salbona – hello
17.) Howzit – how are you?
18.) Sharp Sharp – cool, good
19.) Dawnie – an early morning class

Some other interesting things: All fruit juice here is 100% fruit. They don’t have any nasty preservatives, corn syrup, artificial flavoring or even sugar in them. So if you buy mango, guava or orange juice – it’s just squeezed fruit. The bad thing about it though is that there are no preservatives in anything, so food goes bad VERY fast. Also, the cost of living is a lot cheaper than back home. A loaf of bread is 40 cents. A pack of 10 Lithium batteries are $4. Haircuts are $5. A movie ticket at the theatre is $1 (although movies come to theatres about 2 months later than in the US... Benjamin Button JUST got here). Lets see…. A lot of people here listen to “house music” which is a lot like techno. On Sundays, everyone blasts Gospel music from their rooms in the res(people here are a lot more religious than back home). There’s a ton more things I wanted to write, but that’s all I could think of right now. I’ll post some more later :)

Weekend in Imbali

Realization of the weekend: Trying to paint a decent mural when surrounded by 40 little girls, who are all covered in paint and hyped up on sugar, is NOT a good idea. That being said, I went to the Orphanage this past weekend with full intentions to finish painting the building. About 10 other international students and I left Saturday afternoon for our weekend long escapade / sleepover in Imbali. When we got there, Stephanie and I started painting the cement block in front of the building. The orphanage had originally been a hospital, and the words “Edendale drop-in center” were still written on the sign, and Magic asked us to paint over it. We painted it yellow, stenciled out “Welcome to Ubuntu Crisis Center”, and then had the kids make hand prints on the sign. (I attached a pic, so you can see how it turned out!)

Afterwards, I began work on the front of the building. The whole time I was working, I had an audience of about 20 kids, all wanting their turn to paint. Making matters worse, their hands were still wet from the last mural, so paint ended up being everywhere it shouldn’t have been. I finally decided to put if off for the night, and got up early the next morning to finish.

While all this was happening, the others were out back having a braii (barbeque). We wanted to treat Magic and the kids to dinner, so we got meat from the butcher, as well as s’more stuff (it was such a hit at rowing; we decided to try it here). The kids were SO excited about having the braii. Magic told us that this was their first braii since they opened the orphanage 4 years ago. Meat and coal are just too expensive. The kids usually just have 4 pieces of bread and a cup of tea for dinner. Last week, we mapped out a vegetable garden in the backyard – so hopefully come spring they’ll have veggies to eat as well.

It wasn’t until we sat down to eat that we realized exactly WHAT we were eating. The agreement for dinner was that we’d cook the kid’s dinner, and Magic and his wife were going to cook us international students a traditional Zulu dish. It turned out to be “pop” (kinda like a mix of mashed potatoes and grits), sheep intestine, and cow stomach – all mixed together. Our dinner ended up being more of an episode from fear factor than anything else. But we stomached it, to be nice.

After dinner, we made mother’s day cards (for Magic’s wife), danced, ate popcorn and watched movies. We watched Mr. Bones, (a South African cartoon classic) and Toy Story. We then all piled into beds – and went to sleep. Those kids usually sleep 4 to a single bed. Two sleep on the top end, and two at the bottom with their feet touching.

As I mentioned before, I woke up at 6am to finish painting. Although it was VERY cold outside, I was able to finish up, and it was dry before the kids woke up (I attached a picture of how it turned out). On Tuesday, I’m painting a tree on the building, and I’m going to have the girls make green hand prints for the leaves. I’m also going to paint “Ubuntu Crisis Center”, a giraffe, and some flowers. So I’m basically going to be living in Imbali for the remainder of my time here. I’ll keep on posting pictures to show the progress. I know I ranted in my last blog about being anti-photography at the orphanage - but I wanted to document the paintings in some way.

Magic had told us the day before that he wanted to take us to church. So on Sunday, we all got dressed up and began our 2 mile hike to “ACC”. It’s a Christian church, with services held in an elementary school. It was a very interesting experience, and quite different from home… to say the least. I must say - I felt a bit out of place being there. As we walked in, just about every head turned to see us nervous, wide eyed looking tourists awkwardly try to blend in. The service consisted of lots of singing, dancing, yelling, clapping, and throwing your arms up in the air. The sermon was spoken in a mix of Zulu, Xhosa, and English so it was difficult to know what was being said. There was no pastor at the church - whenever someone wanted to speak, they'd just get up and talk. At one point, they had all the mothers get up (it was Mothers Day) to sing for them. Since most of the girls at church didn't have mothers, they instead talked about caregivers, and gave thanks to them. The little girls from the orphanage had also prepared a song in English that they sang to us. Despite the language barrier, was really fun going to church here. Everyone puts so much soul and energy into the service – it’s really a moving experience. The singing is beautiful too.

If anything came from this weekend, it’s made me realize that I’ve chose the right major, and I want to work with underprivileged kids after I graduate. Although it got a little frustrating at times, this weekend was TONS of fun, and I’m so glad I got to paint and leave my little touch behind at the orphanage. My happiest times in South Africa have been at the orphanage, and I’m going to miss them all so much when I leave. Those kids are so smart and resilliant. They all take care of each other, and never complain about anything - even though they have next to nothing.

2009 Presidential Elections

As part of my service learning class, I was required to volunteer for the 2009 Presidential elections. My job was to be an international observer, making sure everything went smoothly at the polls. Our group arrived at the Christian Council at 5:30 in the morning for violence briefing and training. We then got into groups, and headed to Imbali Township to oversee the polling station. Along the way were TONS of people out in the middle of the road, celebrating and cheering for their parties. There was even a whole ANC Float that went by, with people dancing in the back of the truck! The polling station was at a preschool, pretty much out in the middle of nowhere. Everywhere you looked were police men with bullet proof jackets and machine guns guarding the entrances…. Not real comforting.
My job was to sit and take notes about anything that went wrong inside the polling station…. And I pretty much went through a whole notebook. It’s very unorganized, compared to the United States. For example, there is only suppose to be one person behind the booth at a time – but almost every time I looked over, there were groups of people hanging out and chatting. Not good.
I was also able to help people fill out the ballots. The first lady I helped was blind, and she told me which box to check. It was really cool to get to see the ballots. They’re a lot different than back home. There’s a coloured photo of the candidate, the party symbol, the party name, and a check box. It’s VERY simple.
Another funny thing about voting here is that before you vote, someone has to paint your thumb nail with ink so that you can't vote in more than one location. That was also one of my jobs for the day – and it turned out to be really fun. I actually got to chat with people instead of just sitting sadly in the corner with my little notebook.
After voting was done, the coordinators asked us if we wanted to stay around to count the ballots. We’d have to be locked in the room until about 4am, or until everything was counted. I decided against it – partly because I had a dawnie the next morning, and I also thought it was strange they asked me to do that. They didn’t do any background checks, and I really could have been anyone trying to mess up the elections. So I just ended up going back to varsity early.
On our way back, our driver from KZNCC took us to the site where Nelson Mandela gave his last speech before being sent to Robbin Island. It was SO cool to see that in person! It was a fun day overall, and it was cool to be part of South Africa's fourth democratic elections since the apartheid. It's a whole lot different than how things go in the US, that's for sure!

Ubuntu Fundraiser

Last night, we had a fundraiser for the Ubuntu Orphanage. It was to raise money to buy food, beds, and toys for the kids. We had it downtown at the City Hall. We got there early to help set tables, prepare food and clean up, and then around 8pm, Magic and all the kids arrived. Earlier in the week, we had tried to gather people to come to the event – but the turnout was definitely not what it should have been.
The night consisted of a few singers, a speaker, and lots of dancing. The speaker that Magic got was a priest, so the whole service was a lot like being at church. We had a very good South African meal – which I unfortunately did not get to eat. I had one of the little girl’s from the orphanage curled up and asleep on my lap, so by the time I finally got up to get food, it was pretty much all gone. But it was well worth it :)

I’ve still been going to Ubuntu Crisis Center to play with the kids and help them with homework, about 2 times a week. This coming weekend we’re having a sleepover and on Saturday I’m finally going to finish painting the outside of the house. Last time I was there, the kids put on a Zulu dance for us, everyone took lots of pictures of the event. I’m still having trouble at the end of the day when I leave the orphanage. I haven’t pinpointed exactly why this is, but I just feel extreme turmoil over the photographing of the children living at these places as if they were a sight to see. These kids really enjoy having their picture taken and once they realize what’s going on and they automatically want to use your camera, and to my disagreement, many people hand the cameras right over to the kids and had them take pictures. I have just as big of problem with this, even though I know it probably isn’t that big of a deal. I guess I just have an ethical issue with it, that they only way to get these kids excited and to like you is to flash your $200 digital camera, rather than just playing with them and giving them old-fashioned attention. I understand it’s cute to have photos of them to show all your friends back home, but seriously, take a step back and realize what’s going on here. These kids will never see concentrated wealth like a digital camera represents so is that really the best way to spend an afternoon with them? I brought my camera to the orphanage for the first couple weeks, but I just can’t bring myself to do it anymore. I can’t pinpoint why… I just feel like it's unfair for them to see that division of wealth.
Moving on… Stephanie and I went out and bought paint today for this weekend. I’m hoping we can do more reparations with Ungogo’s house too – we’re nowhere near complete with that. I feel like my time here in running out and there’s still SO much to do.

SA Champs Regatta!

One of the last things I thought I would ever need in South Africa was a pair of mittens. Seems pretty illogical right, needing gloves on the African continent? This type of thinking was proved to be wrong as I went to Pretoria for my last rowing regatta. We drove about 6 hours on Friday to the dam, which is right outside of Johannesburg. By the time we got there, it was dark out, so we set up out tents quickly and went to bed early so we were well rested for the next day’s races. I only got a couple hours of sleep that night because of the coldness – but luckily the sun was shinning bright the next day. Weather here is so crazy.
The next day, we raced in our Girls B 8 boat. Our timing was a little off, but it was still a fun race. My hands were bleeding and covered in blisters by the time it was over. Just as I was walking back to camp to get a bandage, I got called to race again. So I hopped into the boat, and was back in the water in about an hour. This time it was the Girls B 4, and surprisingly enough, we didn’t do that bad. We still came in dead last – but at least we didn’t capsize the boat.
The girls B crew are only allowed to race twice, so that meant I was complete with all my races by Saturday afternoon. So I had all day Sunday and Monday sit around and lay in the sun – which I definitely did not complain about. We ended up hanging around in the grass, cheering on the other races, and cooking lots of food. That night, we made s’mores by the campfire. The South African guys on our team had never had them before! It made me feel like I was home in Leeland again!
On Sunday night we drove to Johannesburg to spend the night because Monday is a public holiday and we didn’t have school. We had an after party at a sports club, and then got up early the next morning to return to pmb. I’ve had so much fun with rowing, and am so sad it’s the last regatta. Besides negative aspects such as getting up early and suffering through the cold, I’m really glad I did rowing. I met SO many cool people and travelled to lots of places I would have never gone before. I didn’t write about them on my blog – but the other weekend trips that we went on included: Albert Falls, Thunderkloof Dam and the Duzi. Maybe I’ll join the rowing team at MSU… it still definitely won’t be the same as it is here though.