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.

Robin Island

For our last day in Cape Town, we went to Robin Island, which was probably the highlight of my whole trip. I had just finished reading Nelson Mandela’s biography right before I left for study abroad, so I was very anxious to see the jail in person. It was $20 total for the whole trip. We took a boat to the island and then we all got on a bus. The tour guide first took us to an old graveyard. In the 1840's and onward, lepers were isolated on the island. Family members would drop them off there, and they were housed in tiny cells. Mentally ill and blind people were also kept there. We then went to the prison area of the island. Our tour was led by an ex political prisoner during the time Nelson Mandela was there. He took us to his old jail cell, and then to Nelson Mandela's cell. It was a lot smaller than what I imagined it to be in the book. We also saw the old lime quarry where he worked all day crushing lime (for no reason at all - the lime served no purpose, it was just to demoralize the prisoners). It was so awesome to see that all after reading the book.




We also went out to eat at a restaurant called "Mama Africa" and Stephanie and I got our faces painted. We caught up on a little sleep, jumped on a plane, and made it back to Pietermaritzburg by 11am the next morning. The break was really wonderful overall, but it's nice to be back in my cozy bed again!

Wine, Baboons, and Penguins

Cape Town is famous for its vineyards. In Stellenbosch, about an hour away from Long Street where we were staying is where the majority of South Africa’s wine is produced. We stopped at a few different wineries to sample cheese, wines, and to see how it was produced. I definitely learned more about wine than I ever cared to in my life – but it was a very fun day overall.
The next day, we went to the Southern most point in Africa. It’s called “The Cape of Good Hope” and is the meeting point of the Atlantic and the Indian Ocean. It was so cool to be able to actually see the junction of the two contrasting water masses.

After our hike to the tip of the cape, there were two baboons in the parking lot. They come up to about your waist, and are very dangerous, so we waited in the car until they ran down into the brush. We thought the coast was clear, so we opened up the car doors, and we hadn't even closed them when one of the baboons came running towards us. It immediately jumped into our car and started rooting around through our stuff. We had a cosmopolitan magazine in there, and it ripped all the pages out, then found my bag of cookies and ate them! It ended up running away with a bag of chips. So nothing too great was lost – and it was actually a pretty funny situation looking back.
After the baboon encounter, we went to “Boulder Bay”. It’s a beautiful little lagoon, and the water is about 20 different shades of turquoise and blue colors. The granite boulders are 540 million years old, and everywhere you looked were penguins sunbathing on top of them. It was so weird having the temperature be 90 degrees out, and then to see penguins swimming around! They were pretty use to people, and had no problem waltzing right up to you to steal your spot in the sun. I wanted to keep one as a pet – but I figured it would be tough taking one back home on the plane.

Cape Town - day two

Our first day in Cape Town, we ventured to the V & A Waterfront. It’s sorta like a mix between the Florida Keys and Mackinaw Island. There are lots of little shopping areas, places to eat, and tons of sailboats. The views here are absolutely breathtaking. Off in the distance are monstrous green mountains and cliffs, and then all around you are water and lovely buildings.
The only thing I didn’t like about Cape Town is seeing the wealth in contrast with the poverty in this area. You’ll see million dollar beachfront properties, and then 5 minutes down the road will be people living in cardboard boxes. When we went out at night, there were so many kids, as young as 5 years old, out on the street begging for money. It’s a tough situation, because you never know if it’s their parents that set them up for begging, or if they need it for themselves. We found the best thing to do was to give the kids food instead of money. It’s very heartbreaking to see such a drastic disparity of wealth – and I feel like a hypocrite for even talking about it, since I’m able to go on a vacation like this when these kids are suffering just to get money for a loaf of bread.

The next day, we decided to climb up Table Mountain. Most people take a cable car up – but I thought of my adventurous sister, and decided to follow in her steps to take the more scenic and less lazy route to the top. So, four other girls and I did the climb up Platteklip Gorge to the top of the mountain. It would have been a great hike, only we ran out of water part way up, and the heat was excruciating. We ended up taking lots of breaks in the shade, and made it up to the top in pretty good time. I attached some pictures, since they do a better job of explaining the beautiful view than I ever could.

Cape Town - the adventure begins!

For Easter Holiday, we MSU students decided to embark on a journey to Cape Town. We rented a car and left Friday evening for a 22 hour journey along the “Garden Route” which stretches along the eastern sea border of South Africa. The drive was gorgeous, but it was mostly spent driving through the dark. I was not quite comfortable with facing insane South African driving, or driving on the left side of the road – so my job was to keep the driver awake throughout the night. Luckily, we faced no problems and arrived at our “Titsikama Backpackers” destination safely the next day.
Titsikama is about 6 hours north of Cape Town. The backpackers we stayed at offers Treetop Canopy Tours, which we all did the next day. We left at about 3pm for safety training and to get harnessed up. The location of the tours is in one of South Africa’s few remaining indigenous rainforests, and the views were absolutely beautiful. We zip lined from tree to tree, attached by pulleys and carabineers.










Our next stop was in Plettenberg Bay, the home of the worlds highest bungee jump. It is 216 m high off a huge bridge underneath a highway. I was not having it. At first it sounded like a good idea, but after talking to a couple people about how they felt like they almost slipped out of their harnesses and one girl’s foot strap came off, I decided against the idea. Luckily, Stephanie decided not to go either, and the two of us went to curios and took pictures of the other jumpers, which was a lot of fun – and we also saved some money.
The same day, we finished the remaining 6 hours of our drive to Cape Town. Along the way, we stopped at three beaches to relax on the rocks. At one stop, we were able to see dolphins, and they put on a little show for us, doing flips above the water. The backpackers we stayed at in Cape Town, “Deco” was by far my favorite of all the hostels. Every room was painted in a bright, vibrant color – and we had a hammock, a pool, and lots of dogs and cats to play with.

Umbatu Crisis Center

Today was my second time visiting the orphanage. We had a hula-hoop contest, drew with chalk, braided each others hair, and had an intense game of soccer. Two of the older girls are also teaching me Zulu! “Saulbona” means “hello!” and “Sharp Sharp” means “good”, (just in case you ever needed to know) : ).

Most of the girls at the orphanage speak Zulu, and very little English. For some reason though, it’s not difficult to communicate with them. When you’re playing games or drawing with chalk, you use signs so easily to get a point across. It’s also amazing how universal smiles and laughs are. It makes me happy.

Moving on – after we were done playing around, we went on a walk to meet an acquaintance of Magic’s. She lives in a mud and cow dung built home, which was barely standing. The walls were falling down, and the roof was almost all caved-in. The lady (Ungogo) who we met was born in 1913. Her health is failing and she’s unable to repair her home. She has a son who goes to town everyday just to scrounge up enough money to buy the two of them food. He’s in a wheelchair and cannot repair their home either. Ungogo explained to us that she sleeps outside some nights when her son doesn’t make it home. Since she’s almost blind, she’s too scared to walk in by herself at night. Her biggest fear is the roof caving in on her while she sleeps (which it’s JUST about to do). So, Magic asked us for our help in rebuilding the home (and yes, we are going to be using cow dung – not lumber). We walked in the house and discussed how we were going to go about reparations. When we came back outside, the girls from the orphanage were standing around Ungogo singing a prayer. It was absolutely beautiful. After the song, they started praying out loud, crying, yelling, and throwing their arms up to the sky asking for God’s help. Ungogo was very appreciative of this, and thanked us all individually before we left.

Today was such an amazing day. It was one on those things you read about in school – but never actually see. I know people live in those circumstances, but I’ve never experienced it to that extent before. I’m definitely way excited about repairing her home. We start on Friday.

Later that day, Magic pulled me aside for a talk. Earlier, I had told him that I was an Art Education major. He said that for a long time he considered painting the outside of the orphanage. Right now, the walls are just a plain orange color, and he wants me to paint animals or flowers or people on the outside. I am SOOO excited about this! I told him that I’d start ASAP. I’m thinking of having them all make handprints on the outside edges of the house. Let me know if you’re reading this and have any ideas!!!

I’ve also been thinking about fundraising for the orphanage when I go home. Today when we did the chalk art, the kids were SO talented in their drawings. I was thinking about bringing really nice drawing paper to the orphanage next time, and having the kids paint. Then I can take their artwork back home, and sell it. There are art shows at Kresgee ALL the time – and I’m sure that people would be willing to spend $10 or $20 for a really cool picture drawn by a South African kid. Then I could send the money back to Magic to help pay for bunk beds or food. It’s just an idea, but I feel like I really have to do something to help out.

Rowing!

I fully acknowledge that I am NOT a morning person. However, there is something very refreshing and satisfying about being awake when the sun rises. I’ve found that I get more done in my days, and also feel a lot healthier.

Today marks my fourth attempt at rowing. So far, I’ve actually been enjoying it a lot. Practices start at 4:30 am, about 3 days a week. We drive out to the river, pull out our 8 person boat, and begin rowing right when the sun is rising. It’s so peaceful to be on the river at that time. The air is crisp and it’s not yet blistering hot out.

This Saturday is our first big race against Westville campus in Durban. I’m excited about it, but I feel NO WHERE comfortable with my stroke yet to be in a race. I guess we’ll just see how it goes!

All I’m hoping is that it doesn’t start at 4:30am……

Umbatu Crisis Center

As part of my service learning class, I’m required to spend at least 60 hours volunteering around Pietermaritzburg. The site I’m working at now is the Ubantu Crisis Center in Edendale. It’s an orphanage for about 40 girls ages 4 to 17. Almost every girl there is infected with HIV or AIDS. The girls were brought to the center because they’ve been raped, abandoned, abused at home, or have parents in prison. There’s also a group of 4 girls and 3 boys there whose mom was stabbed to death, and had nowhere to go.

Words cannot do justice for the experience of visiting a place like this. It fills you with about 50 different emotions of sadness, love, frustration, happiness – just everything all at once. When we first arrived, all the girls came running out of the house to our khombi. As soon as we stepped out, we were swarmed with hugs, kisses, and I had one tiny girl trying to climb on my back for a piggyback ride. It was the most amazing and warmest welcoming I’ve ever received in my life.

We then went inside the orphanage for some refreshments, and to meet “Magic”, the guy who runs the center. He’s basically the coolest person I’ve ever met in my life. He explained to us that he was horribly abused when he was a child, and he didn’t want any other child to ever experience what he went through. So he takes in these girls, and gives them proper education, healthcare, and love. Magic spends hours every night doing homework with the girls, plays soccer with them, and sees that every cent of his and his wife’s paychecks goes to them. Even spending 5 hours there today was overwhelming for me - I have no idea how he does it.

Magic split us all up into groups of 10, so we could get to know the girls individually. We played a name game; duck duck goose, and did a Zulu dance. We also got a tour of the orphanage. There are 2 big bedrooms with old ripped up mattresses on the ground. Each single sized mattress sleeps 2 to 3 girls. I definitely need to do some fundraising when I get home to help Magic out and maybe buy him bunk beds. He can barely afford food for the girls. They get bread for lunch and rice for dinner. Everyday, he spends only $1 per girl to feed her 3 meals a day.

After the tour, we went on a walk up a small mountain. The walk up really wouldn’t have been so bad, but I had one girl who insisted that I carry her almost all the way up, so I was huffing and puffing by the time we reached the top. On the top of the mountain was a large cement platform. Every Sunday the girls have church service there.

When we finished our walk, we played a few more games, and then it was time for us to leave. It was so difficult and heartbreaking to go. One little girl, Mbali (which means “flower” in Zulu), who I had been giving a piggyback ride to for most of the day, did NOT want me to go and clung onto my waste until Magic had to pull her off. I am looking foreword to going again next week, and I’m thinking I’ll bring some toys, and DEFINITELY art supplies. I asked the girls if they’ve ever drawn or painted before, and none of them ever had. So crayons, hula-hoops, markers, and paper are for sure on my shopping list for the week.

San Rock Paintings

The next morning, after debating on whether or not the rain was going to hold off, we decided to risk it and go on the Bushman Rock Painting tour. Our guide was this 70 year old man, who was in better shape than any of us. He also knew just about anything on animals, insects, and the Drakensburg Mountains. However, before departing, he warned us that he was deathly afraid of thunderstorms and lightening. The weather looked clear though (it was about 80 degrees and sunny), so we decided to venture out anyways. During our hike, we were able to see Baboons, a snake (which I almost stepped on), and three Bohor Reedbuck (they look like Alpacas, except with large horns). It took us about three hours to reach our first cave. Our tour guide told us in great detail about the history of the San Rock Art. The paintings tend to be quite recent and are probably only 200 to 300 years old, but the tradition of them is very interesting. The earliest cave paintings in Southern Africa date from 28,000 years ago. Hearing about this was very interesting for me because of all the courses I’ve taken at MSU about theories on why people did rock art. The most prevalent theory for San rock art in the Drakensburg Mountains on the human figures is that they are dancing with bleeding noses. The people dance around in a circle, taking part in a shamanic ritual, and then go into a state of trance. Whatever is drawn on the walls is what they see in their hallucinations.

We had lunch underneath a rocky ledge where we could see some heavily weathered images on the walls. Just when we were finishing up our lunches, the rain began to fall. The sky suddenly got pitch black, and we heard thunder and lightening in the distance. Then a look of shear panic came across our tour guides face, and I found out he definitely wasn’t kidding when he said he was afraid of storms. All he said was “run!” and he went bolting down the side of the mountain. We were all sprinting to keep up with him, but it was very hard going. We were not on any sort of a trail (he yelled back and told us it was a new shortcut), and there were many big and slippery rock faces that we had to scale down. I personally was scared of stepping on another snake, because there are lots of pythons and black mambas that live in that area. Our guide was way ahead of us at this point, and he was tripping and falling over everything in sight. Once we were finally done scaling down the mountain, we reached a large waterfall and a river, about 10 feet across. Our guide had already crossed the river, and had left us in the dust, so it was up to us to figure it out. By this point, the storm was pretty much right over top of us and there were huge streaks of lightening all around, with monsoon like conditions. We ended up forming a human chain and crossing the icy cold river without taking our tennis shoes off. I would have been much happier crossing via bridge like we had on the way there, but I understood that the storm was pretty bad and we needed to find shelter as soon as possible. In the end, the shortcut only cut off about 2km. It was a fun day, looking back at it. I don’t think I’ve ever been in a storm that bad in my life…. but this is Africa, after all. I never know what I should expect.