South Africa Blog

Vacation Part 1, Kruger Park

2008-01-03T09:34:00.000-08:00

After an enthusiastic, but tearful, good-bye in Tweeling, Andy and Kate took themselves on a three-week vacation to Kruger Park, Mozambique, and Swaziland before heading back to the U.S.

Part one of the vacation brought us to Kruger Park in far Northeastern South Africa, a park that is much bigger than most U.S. states and some small countries. The park is unbelievable, stretching through Northern South Africa, Zimbabwe, Western Mozambique, into Zambia and Tanzania. The park itself is gorgeous, including desert, savannah, jungle, and forest landscapes that provide home to countless animals that would eat or stomp you if you got out of your car.

Knowing that Kruger was likely their last game-viewing opportunity for a long time, Andy and Kate drove around the park for an average of 10 hours per day, collecting game-spotting points. Andy came up with a point system that assigned a value to each animal spotted and determined the points total for each day. The points were as follows:

Lions: 20 points each
Total spotted (in 4 days): 5

Hippos: 2 points each
Total spotted: 83 (and they were making a racket!)
More people are killed by hippos in Africa than by any other animal.

Giraffes: 2 points each
Total spotted: 118 (including a giraffe that was scratching himself on a tree)

Nice birds (such as this Yellow Hornbill): 1 point each
Other birds that we could identify: Ground Hornbills, Fish Eagles, Lilac-Breasted Rollers, and Bee Eaters 14

Elephants: 3 points each
Total spotted: 121!

We saw a group of over 20 elephants two different times, including several baby elephants (too cute for words)

African Wild Dogs (highly endangered): 4 points each
Total spotted: 2

Herds of African Buffalo: 6 points per herd
Total herds spotted: 11

Antelope herd: 1 point per herd
Total spotted: 25
Impalas are everywhere, so they didn’t count for points, but Kate thought that they should be included if they were doing funny things, like these two.

Troops of baboons: 2 points per troop
Total spotted: 11
No extra points for the baby, but it’s pretty cute.

Crocodiles: 2 points each
Total spotted: 7

Rhinos - White Rhino: 3 points each
Black Rhino: 10 points each
Total spotted: 20 (all White Rhinos)

Hyenas: 3 points each
Total spotted: 8 (strangely, every hyena that we saw was with babies, the so-ugly-that-they’re-cute kind)

Zebra herds: 1 point per herd
Total spotted: 26
Zebras and Wildebeest like to hang out together.

Wildebeest herds: 1 point per herd
Total spotted: 8 herds and 18 individuals.
When the leader of the wildebeest herd gets old, the herd throws him out and he has to go live with the zebras or the impalas. It’s sad and funny.

Another funny-and-sad spotting was the dung beetle, who makes big balls of rhino poo and then pushes it along the road.

No points, but lots of giggles.

All in all, we had a great time at the park, which is truly a once-in-a-lifetime experiences. Park administrators are working on opening the borders between the countries that share the park so that wildlife may move over 1000 miles without fences. It’s an incredible conservation effort, and one that brings an impressive amount of well-needed tourist money into the countries that host the park.

Kate and Andy are on Vacation

2007-12-07T02:09:00.000-08:00

Goodbye Party!

2007-12-03T09:01:00.000-08:00

The teachers and students at Refeng-Thabo threw a rockin Goodbye Party for Kate and Andy yesterday and sponsored a very sweet sendoff.

The teachers chose to give the party the theme of a Cultural Day, so everyone dressed in their traditional Basotho gear.

And carried their babies around all day...

The party actually started the night before, when Mrs. Motsitsi (in the center, obviously) came to Kate and Andy's house to give Kate a dress that Granny Motsitsi had made for Kate.

Kate caused quite a stir on the way to school with her traditional Basotho dress. A very old lady started laughing and yelling from across town and gave Kate the double thumbs up in approval.

Andy got dressed up in the Basotho cow-herd style.

The party itself was a cultural festival, with dancing girls...

Traditional drumming and singing...

The gorgeous choir led by one of the teachers...

And a fabulous feast. Mrs. Motsitsi was cooking all morning with her party team.

Kate was actually given two Basotho dresses, this one from the entire staff, a gorgeous Basotho blanket, and the traditional Basotho hat.

Kate took pictures with everyone who attended the party...

And then everyone wanted to take a picture with Andy...

everyone.

We were very thankful for all of the gifts (especially the dresses!) and it was very nice to have such a positive last experience with Kate's colleagues from Refeng-Thabo. All of the teachers made very generous contributions to be able to buy the gifts and we are both very grateful to be able to have such beautiful reminders of Tweeling!

The Last of the Donations

2007-12-01T05:13:00.000-08:00

We just finished spending the last of the donations and we're blown away by how generous our friends and families have been. We're especially blown away because we didn't ask anyone for anything, but an impressive amount of money was collected and very generous donations were made.

This final round of donations started with Kate's mom's collections for Refeng-Thabo. The money that she collected funded two projects. First, the ongoing quest to fill the library. Kate asked Refeng-Thabo's librarian what types of books the school needed most. She said that the library desperately needs reference books so that students will be able to do research.

We were able to order $1000 worth of reference books for the library.

The second project that this money funded was a very nice, and very big, fence for the school's garden.

The school currently has no garden because some naughty sheep broke into the school grounds and ate everything.

The teachers that were running the garden had been asking all year for money from the school to fence in an area of the school's huge grounds to protect the plants from the sheep. The school is currently completely out of money, so there was no chance of the fence being built in the next year.

Since there are almost always either sheep, cows, or goats roaming the school grounds, the teachers didn't want to plant vegetables without a way to protect the plants, so the school has been without a garden since January.

The fence will set aside a 60-meter by 30-meter rectangle, a huge area that will support a very large garden.

It is also taller than the tallest boys, an intentional move to avoid pumpkin-snatching.

We broke ground on the garden last week and students planted pumpkins, onions, and tomatoes.

The teacher who will run the garden is planning to use the food he will grow to start a feeding plan for the students. He plans to cook every day for the students, many of whom are terribly malnourished and eat about one meal per day. Usually that meal consists usually of cornmeal and sausage.

Sherry and Andy Farkas and Betty and Andy Farkas both made donations that were to be spent on things that were needed by the community. We chose to use this money to help the family that lives across the street from us in a few different ways.

First, there are two schools in Tweeling, one in the township, and a vastly better school in town. Ntombi is currently enrolled in the school in town and we are hoping that she will stay at that school, even though the family is moving into the township at the beginning of January. In order to motivate the family to keep her at the town school, we bought her the next size of the town school's uniform.

Fana is starting school next year, so we bought him his first-ever school uniform, which he was incredibly proud of.

Kate asked, "Are you excited for school, Fana?"

"YES!"

His uniform is a little bit big (as you can see!), but his mother, Flora, is going to hem it and take it in for him.

Andy attended Fana's graduation from pre-school, which he says was the cutest thing he has ever seen.

It turned, as things do here, into a rockin' dance party.

And, a massive photo shoot...

We also bought ten chickens for the family, 8 hens and 2 roosters, in the hopes that they will eat the eggs and breed the chickens to eat and sell. The chickens were about to be slaughtered (the same afternoon that we bought them), but now are running around in the Tweeling township, laying eggs.

We have been feeding the kids regularly and we were worried that our leaving would create a hardship on the family when the kids lose the chance to eat at our house.

Both Ntombi and Fana were terrified of the chickens. Ntombi had to be coaxed to get as close to them as she is in this picture.

On Thanksgiving, Kate's grandmother's reflections on how thankful she was led her to send a very generous donation to Tweeling. Andy suggested that the money go to the orphan feeding program in the township so that they will be able to expand their bi-weekly meal program and save some of the grant money that they receive.

There are, very sadly, many orphans in Tweeling, due mostly to AIDS, TB, and other health issues. Many of the orphans are at great risk of the health problems that took thier parents, and are even more so because most people in the township are terribly malnourished.

The orphan feeding program cooks up very good, healthy meals for the 30-50 orphans who come for lunch every Monday and Friday.

The grant that the program receives from the town government is only enough for them to provide full meals twice per week.

Andy took the volunteers grocery shopping on Tuesday and filled the program's freezer with frozen vegetables, chicken, and other meats, and also bought cups, plates, bowls, and pots that the program badly needed and would not have been able to purchase on its weekly grant. Because the freezer is currently full, the program will save the next few weeks of its grant money and will expand the feeding program to three times per week.

We, and the people of Tweeling, are incredibly grateful for the generocity that our family and friends have shown. Very unfortunately, we have not been able to determine a way to continue these donations after we have left Tweeling, since, in addition to currency exchange issues, we have not been able to set up a way to ensure that donated money will reach its intended recipient (email Kate if that euphemism doesn't translate). Also, donated goods, such as clothes and books, carry a huge import tax when they arrive in South Africa, which will be a great burden on the person who collects the donations.

So we must say Thank You to everyone who contributed and end our brief experience as philanthropists here. It has made us very proud to be able to distribute the donated goods and money and to say that they have come from our friends and family in America. Thank you very much.

The Happiest Place on Earth

2007-11-26T05:15:00.000-08:00

Andy and Kate have been some crazy places, but nothing comes close to the craziness of the Orlando Pirates vs. Kaiser Chiefs match that we went to on Saturday.

It’s very difficult to convey the passion that soccer supporters feel both for the sport and for their specific team.

Some of it comes through in the outfits that they choose.

The Orlando Pirates and Kaiser Chiefs are old-school rivals, both being from Soweto and both usually ranking towards the top of the heap in the Premier Soccer League. Most soccer fans in South Africa identify themselves as either Chiefs or Pirates fans. Fanship is hereditary, if your father is a Chief, you are a Chief.

We arrived about two hours early to the stadium, where a rockin’ dance party was already well underway. This soccer match truly is the event of the year (if South Africans are showing up early, you know it’s a big deal). This photo was taken an hour before the match even started.

The match was played at ABSA Stadium in Durban, the site of the earlier car theft (we took a taxi this time), which was full almost to capacity (55,000!). The match organizers didn’t sell 5,000 tickets to avoid too much craziness.

There was plenty of craziness…

But no problems.

The family that we live with, the Motales, are a Pirates family, so we dressed in black as Pirates supporters. The usually-mellow Danny Motale was reduced almost to tears by the Pirates’ first goal.

The Pirate’s have several team names, due to South Africans’ love of nicknames. “Pirates” takes the easy leap to “Buccaneers,” which turns into “The Bucs,” and our favorite “BAKABAKA!”

The team motto is “Happy People.”

There were plenty of happy people in ABSA Stadium all through the match, which was an exciting and well-played game that ended in, of all things, a tie. 2-2.

South Africa Loses!

2007-11-19T20:56:00.000-08:00

We drove up to Johannesburg last weekend to watch Team America beat Bafana Bafana, South Africa’s national soccer team. The team name means “boys, boys” in Zulu. You can likely guess the meaning of the women’s team name, Banyana Banyana…

South Africa’s supporters came out in full force, but South Africa was not expected to win. Believe it or not, despite getting bounced out of the World Cup in the first round, the U.S. team is actually pretty good.

The U.S. also had some surprise supporters.

The impressive team spirit couldn’t pull the ball into the net for South Africa, though, and the U.S. won 1-0.

The match was the annual Nelson Mandela Challenge, with all proceeds going to benefit the Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund. Because of the spirit of the match, the organizers arranged for several children’s soccer teams to score free tickets. The kids all came in their soccer uniforms (including cleats!) and were very, very excited.

“Who will you root for?” was the common question from people who knew that we were going to the match. That’s Andy in his Bafana Bafana jersey and Kate in her Red Sox shirt (still claiming bragging rights for their World Series win).

These two split as well, she’s in her Bloemfontein Celtics jersey and he’s waving a U.S. flag.

Watermelon Man

2007-11-14T02:45:00.000-08:00

Anyone older than my students at Booth-Fickett will hopefully catch the Herbie Hancock reference in the title…

As summer is starting in Tweeling and the watermelons ripen, Andy has become Tweeling’s Watermelon Man.

While Andy already had a lot of fans in Tweeling, the kids now follow him around like he’s the Pied Piper since he turned them on to watermelon.

The kids were asking for apples, which we had been giving them whenever they were hungry. Andy instead sliced up the huge watermelon that we had bought for $5.

Due to a slight language confusion, the kids continued to ask for apples when they were hoping for some watermelon.

We have found some of the world’s biggest watermelons at the Fruit and Vegetable shop in Bethlehem, about an hour south of Tweeling.

Ntombi can hold the watermelon herself if we lift in and hand it to her, but Fana needs some help. One of these days, we are sure, there will be a smashed watermelon on our kitchen floor…

Andy continued to draw fans by teaching some of the kids to bake Toll House Cookies. The kids call them “The Cooks” or “The Little Cakes.”

He also taught them about the fun in eating the cookie dough and smearing it all over your face. He was even successful in convincing the kids that, after you eat the Cooks, you have to clean up the fantastic mess that you made.

Keep Lesotho Wierd

2007-11-05T07:22:00.000-08:00

Not that Lesotho (pronounced Le-soo-two) will ever not be weird, but it could very easily adopt Austin's city motto ("Keep Austin Weird") as its national creed.

Lesotho's real motto is "Lesotho: Real Africa." A little jab at its neighbor, South Africa, but meant to imply that it is rough and mountainous, which it is,

that there are far more people walking than there are riding in cars,

that the only recognizable shape is a circle,

that they can think outside the box when making a public phone system,

that it has absolutely gorgeous sunsets,

that whatever you do attracts a crowd,

and that the crowd that you attract will sing and dance for you for free...

Kate and Andy crossed the very-porous border between Lesotho and South Africa to spend a weekend at Malealea Lodge in the tiny village of Malealea. We stayed in our own little rondeval and spent hours sitting outside looking at the scenery.

We were assisted by this boy to saddle up horses for a four hour ride to a nearby waterfall.

Our guide, Thapelo, gave us fabulous African answers to all of our questions. "Has the weather been nice here, Thapelo?" "Yes, it is time now for ploughing..."

Traditional Basotho people wear blankets to honor Moshoeshoe (Mo-shwe-shwe), the first king of Lesotho and the one who escaped King Shaka's massive bullying of anyone not Zulu and who brokered a deal with both the British and the Boers, both of whom wanted control of Lesotho. The story is that Moshoeshoe rounded up the people that were running away from Shaka's violent takeover of Eastern South Africa, marched them up to Lesotho, and founded a kingdom. Lesotho is the coldest place in Africa, getting significant amounts of snow in the winter, so when the British donated wollen blankets to the Basotho people, they decided to wear them all of the time to both thank the British for their donation and to honor the diplomatic skills of their king.

Red Sox Fans are Everywhere!

2007-10-29T07:21:00.000-07:00

Who knew that the Red Sox had so many fans in Tweeling?

It started on Friday morning, when, for a reason noone knew, we skipped the Friday morning assembly. Every Friday the whole school gets together and the students sing gorgeous songs. A teacher leads a prayer, the principal makes announcements, and everyone heads off to class.

This past Friday there was no assembly, so the kids in Kate's first period class hadn't gotten their Friday singing out of their systems. Kate tried to get them to focus by promising that we could all sing for the last five minutes of class.

The students took the deal, but only on the condition that Mrs. Mahady teach them an American song to sing.

Kate, at a loss for any American song that would work, except for "We Will Rock You," wrote the lyrics to "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" on the board. She had to explain the rules of baseball (including trying to convince many kids that it is not cricket), and the importance of peanuts and cracker-jacks, but it caught on fairly well.

As a lifelong fan and a Boston native, Kate never really believed that she'd see the Red Sox win a World Series, so we weren't going to miss it if it was happening again. Kate and Andy had to wake up at 4am to watch games 3 & 4 broadcast from Colorado and sit through hilarious South African explanations of "Home Runs" and "Outs" and "K's" on ESPN World.

It made us proud, surprised, and homesick to see the Red Sox POUND Colorado. Congratulations to the Red Sox and to Red Sox fans, we deserve it after so many years of excitement and disappointments.

Now if we can pass some of that magic on to the Free State Stars...

Hier Kom Die Bokke...

2007-10-22T11:26:00.000-07:00

South Africa dropped a massive rugby bomb at the World Cup Finals in Paris on Saturday. The Springboks won the Rugby World Cup for the second time (the first time was in 1995, the year after Mandela's election) by delivering a solid beating to England.

The win means alot to South Africa for a few reasons. First, sports were very segregated in apartheid South Africa. Rugby was historically the Afrikaans sport, Soccer was the Black sport, and Cricket the English-speaking White sport. Baseball was ignored by all except for American exchange teachers (who watched game 6 at 2:30 AM). At one point in history, all South African had to register by their race, which determined the rights that they were allowed or denied. Which sport you played was used as a factor if your race (mostly Black, White, Coloured - a mix of races, and Asian) was in question.

Sports have remained fairly segregated after the end of apartheid, along the former racial lines. However, whenever there is a huge win to celebrate, like a Rugby World Cup win in 1995, an African Cup of Nations soccer win in 1996, or this recent Rugby win, people of all races pull together to support the team, and to celebrate the win.

Just like they do when the Red Sox are in the World Series...

In fact, when the injuries of apartheid were still very sore, Mandela scored huge points all over South Africa by being photographed in his Springboks shirt during the 1995 Rugby World Cup.

Second, South Africa needs something to be excited about. The crime statistics in South Africa are atrocious, the level of poverty that many people live in is horrifying, and the country has the highest population of HIV/AIDS patients in the world.

Third, South Africa didn't even qualify for the 2006 FIFA World Cup, though they are hosting the 2010 World Cup. Hopes are very high all over the country for 2010, not only for a good soccer performance, but also for the world to see that South Africa is coming along. This rugby win gave alot of people hope that South Africa will be successful in 2010 on many levels.

This guy is not worried about any of that...

Kate and Andy made a "Sports Day" of the Rugby Final and watched the Free State Stars win in Bethlehem. The Free State Stars came back from being relegated (sent down to the minor leagues) to being currently third in the Premier Soccer League.

Free State Stars fans have come out of the woodwork (not unlike Red Sox fans when they are winning) and have donned all of their gear.

Their field is about as big as any high school field in America, and they don't have any sponsors, but they draw the fans.

Jomo Cosmos have a far better slogan, however.

Still on the sports theme, but back in Tweeling, Andy has started an Ultimate Frisbee team with a group of volunteers from the Rainbow Clinic.

They played their first muddy match 2 weeks ago on Refeng-Thabo's field and tied a team from Frankfort. Andy has requests from schools both in Tweeling and Frankfort to come teach about "that thing that you were throwing last weekend."

Wildflowers in Namaqualand

2007-10-16T21:48:00.000-07:00

Onward went Kate and Andy's quest to visit the most bizarre places on Earth. After saying goodbye to the parents from Cape Town, we drove rental car number 7 straight north from the city, into Namaqualand. Namaqualand gets its name from being the ancestral home to the Nama people, one of the last surviving groups of Khoikhoi, the original residents of South Africa.

Namaqualand itself is beautiful, as we thought it looked alot like South-Eastern Arizona, and every spring the whole landscape bursts with wild daisies, making this really tough place very, very pretty.

We based ourselves in a town called Kamieskroon (pronounced in Nama with a click for the first "K"), which is right outside of Namaqua National Park and the Skillpad Flower Reserve. There's absolutely nothing to do in Kamieskroon, except for drive around and look at flowers, which made for a very relaxing weekend.

It's hard to worry about too much when your whole plan for the day is to look at pretty flowers.

We drove the rental car down a "4x4 Only" road out to Hondeklip Bay, a kooky town on the coast.

Hondeklipbay is home to what must be one of the most dramatic shipwrecks in the world. The picture doesn't do it justice, because the ship was really big and it is tipped diagonally-sideways, with its bow jammed into the rocks.

We didn't spot any big game, as Namaqualand is much too dry, but we saw both the "Cute" and "Scary" brands of wild animals on one of our flower-drives.

The cute animal was the endangered "Namaqua Speckled Padloper." Likely endangered because it likes to walk on the road.

The scary animal was the very dangerous Cape Cobra, which was kind enough to show us its hood and give us a good fun scare. We couldn't get close enough to it to take a picture of the hood, but you'll have to trust us that it was very creepy, especially when it slithered off into the bush and camoflauged perfectly with its surroundings.

We finished off our visit to Namaqualand in the wacky town of Springbok, the largest town in the whole of Namaqualand (it's as big as that description makes it sound). Our visit to Springbok was made, just slightly, in honor of the Springboks, South Africa's national rubgy team, which has plowed its way into the Rugby World Cup finals this weekend, where they're going to see how many England players they can send off in stretchers...

Family Vacation, Redux

2007-10-02T08:33:00.001-07:00

After two days in Free State, the family left Tweeling for places more exciting (if you believe that places can be more exciting than Tweeling).

We all left Tweeling on Saturday morning for Tilodi Wilderness Park, a game park in the northern state of Limpopo. The park was gorgeous, and the central lounging area overlooked a water hole where rhinos, wildebeast, warthogs, reedbuck, and impala came to drink.

On our first game drive we encountered seven rhinos and were able to get scarily close to them.

Later, the big bull (the one with the stubby horn from fighting the rhinos at the other park, through the fence) walked right by the viewing deck.

We were guided on a walking tour of the park by James, who taught us all about rhino dung...

He also showed us exactly what is in impala poo...

On the walk, Kate scored a huge amount of game-spotting points by finding this tiny endangered turtle.

On the last morning, Andy was carrying his luggage to the car when he was greeted by three of the park's biggest rhinos, standing about 15 feet from our cabin. He won the "Closest to a Very Dangerous Animal award."

We couldn't find the giraffes at Tilodi, so we made a detour through Pilanesburg National Park on the way back to Johannesburg. Brian Mahady scored long-distance game spotting points by picking out this giraffe from almost a kilometer away.

Jazzed by our sighting of the family of five giraffes, we drove straight to Johannesburg and flew to the always-lovely Cape Town.

Our first day in town we drove to the Cape of Good Hope, a gorgeous drive down the coast to where the Indian and Atlantic oceans meet.

We posed for the obligatory group photo at Cape Point.

We were able to spot whales from the shore along the route. It’s the season for the Southern Right Whales to come in very close to the beach.

We all agreed that we saw more whales from that beach than we had on all of our collective whale watches. The Dads were able to study them with their binoculars…

While the Dads were watching the whales, both Moms did some shopping. See if you can spot your Christmas present…

From Cape Town, the Farkases headed out to wine country to visit some of Kate and Andy’s favorite wineries.

This photo shows Andy and Sherry at Fairview Winery, the vineyard that makes Kate’s favorite Goats Do Roam wine and delicious goat cheese.

Meanwhile, the Mahadys took the always-fun cable car up to the top of Table Mountain.

We’re told that it is always windy at the top of Table Mountain, but it was incredibly calm and gorgeous for our visit.

The Mahadys later found themselves out in Table Bay on a catamaran cruise towards Robben Island.

We had to say goodbye to the parents from Cape Town, where they braved a Cape Town – Johannesburg – Dakar – Washington D.C. – Boston plane marathon. They are still catching up on their sleep and we are wondering if there will be any other visitors before we leave in December. The Skipskop always has room available...

More Americans in Tweeling!

2007-10-02T08:04:00.000-07:00

Last week Tweeling saw its third influx of Americans, making 2007 most definitely the year that the most tourists (or any tourists at all!) came to visit the tiny dorp.

Connie and Brian Mahady arrived in Johannesburg with Sherry and Andy Farkas on Thursday afternoon after almost 20 hours of traveling. We all arrived in Tweeling about 2 hours later, where an expectant group of kids were waiting patiently for the visitors' arrival.

Once we arrived in Tweeling, Sherry Farkas broke the gifts that she had brought for the neighborhood kids (an entire suitcase filled by the Farkas family). Every kid received a coloring book, sidewalk chalk, reading books, crayons, bubbles, and other gifts from America.

Reatlehile and Ntombi beat each other with the punching baloons all evening.

After another "big dinner" with the Motale family, the Farkas and Mahady team retired to the Skipskop, the only guest house in Tweeling, where they were champs about sharing a room, sleeping on rock-hard beds, and taking cold baths.

The next day the family went on a full tour of Tweeling, starting with the Creche, the local pre-school. The kids at the Creche were waiting outside for their visitors and greeted them with a very-well-practiced song and dance routine.

The Creche hosted their visitors for biscuits and juice.

Andy and Kate printed a photo from their last visit to the Creche, which they brought as a gift for the kids. The preschool teachers helped each kid find himself or herself in the photo.

The family moved on to visit Refeng-Thabo, where the students had "knocked off" already (at 10 am!), but a few had waited around to meet the visitors.

Kate's 8th grade class had practiced a song to perform for the Americans. The students very sweetly honored Kate's request to sing her favorite South African song, "My Home is Far Away," for the parents.

Every student wanted his or her picture taken alone with their new American friends.

After about 20 minutes of photos with the family and questions about whether or not any of them know Beyonce, we were able to visit Refeng-Thabo's library. Connie Mahady raised over $1200 in donations to purchase books for this library, which will go a very long way here. Kate will be finalizing the order later this week (once the dollar goes back up a little bit) and will be sure to share the photos of the new libraray once the books arrive.

We left Refeng-Thabo to continue on a tour of the township where Andy and Kate both work.

Everyone that we passed either wanted to pose with, or to pose for, the visitors.

We returned back home to celebrate the visitors with cake and ice cream.

At home, the Mahadys and Farkases brought out the clothes that had been donated by family and friends.

Three of the girls from the township fit into most of the clothes donated by Cleo, Shawn Mahady's girlfriend, and were excited to wear their new clothes to church.

All of the baby and toddler clothes donated by the Mateos and the Whiteds were snapped up for baby brothers and sisters.

Kate was able to save the Mets shirt for little Tshegofatso.

After 2 days in Tweeling, it was time to move on to another family vacation adventure, which earned its own blog posting...

Stealing Chickens and Eating Pigeons…

2007-09-18T08:58:00.000-07:00

Springtime brings all kinds of funny events to Tweeling.

The other day one of the teachers came to one of Kate’s classes and pulled out two of my normally-well-behaved boys. The boys came back to class giggling, but with sore hands.

They had been “caned” by the head of Refeng-Thabo’s discipline committee (the student puts his/her hand out and the teacher hits it with a stick) for stealing a chicken in the township. It’s really hard to keep a straight face while telling the students that it’s not right to steal other people’s chickens…

It was even harder to keep from laughing when Moketsi said “Well, he was the one who slaughtered it…”

The Motales didn’t steal these pigeons, but caught them in the garage. Kagiso kept two as pets, and before long there was a baby pigeon, and there are currently two little eggs.

Danny caught two more, who were not taking well to the cage. Yesterday there were no kids anywhere, so we knew that something had to be up.

Kagiso came to Kate and asked for chicken spice, which he brought into the garage.

Intrigued, Kate followed him and found Kagiso and Simphiwe grilling up two decapitated pigeons…

The better weather has drawn kids from all over town to the ongoing 7th Street soccer game.

Yesterday, Andy had a record number of boys looking for him to play soccer with them.

There were so many, in fact, that they were finally asked not to play in the street and had to move the daily 7th St. soccer match to the town school’s soccer field.

While the boys played street-soccer, Kate had a few volunteers to help with her porch-garden. The girls are going to take care of Kate’s zucchini, pumpkin, and basil plants while she and Andy are away with their parents, who are coming to visit this week. The girls each have their own pumpkin plants (which they gendered and named) that Kate has promised them a big pumpkin from and will leave them with when she and Andy leave in December.

Arbor Day at Refeng-Thabo

2007-09-08T09:48:00.000-07:00

Spring has finally come to Tweeling, with sunny weather that reminds us both of Tucson. Kate has planted zucchini, pumpkins, and chilies in pots on the porch and is already developing a sunburn.

Spring must be the time to move your cows, because there were 100’s of cows walking down the highway that passes by Tweeling.

I have no idea where they came from, but all of a sudden there were 20 tiny saplings parked in pots outside of Refeng-Thabo.

There are just under 20 different classes of students at Refeng-Thabo, so we decided that each class would have its own tree, a sapling that the class would be in charge of planting, watering, and singing to…

Friday just happened to be the end of Arbor Week in South Africa, and it was a gorgeous day that was perfect for planting. A few boys that were found outside of class were conscripted to dig 20 holes around the school grounds. Kate taught them the song from the movie “Holes” (“Dig, diggin’ up holes, diggin’), which became an instant classic at Refeng-Thabo.

A very sweet celebration was made for the new trees, with a ceremonious presentation of a tree to each class. As everything does in South Africa, the celebration included the students’ beautiful singing and dancing.

Much to-do was also made about the actual planting of the trees, with the students singing to the tree, saying prayers for the tree, and dancing in a ring around the tree.

The classes waited to plant their tree until Kate came to take their picture. The school has promised to pay for a large photograph of each class with their tree to decorate the classrooms.

The extra tree left over after each class had planted theirs was dedicated to the boys’ under-15 soccer team (this being Africa, the school has over 10 soccer teams). This team won the Mafube Municipality (it’s like a county) and is representing the municipality in the provincial tournament this Saturday. The team attributes their good luck during matches to the great team t-shirts donated by Deanna Harris. Notice Moeketsi, wearing his shirt in the center of the photo.

Spring is also the time to replace the 7th St. community soccer ball. This is the third and final ball that came to Tweeling all the way from Tucson and is kicked all day after school up and down 7th St.

Photo Updtae from Tweeling

2007-08-31T09:04:00.000-07:00

We’ve been Tweeling-bound for most of August, while we were driving a very undependable rental car. We’ve now bought Darren and Karen Peterson’s car, the other American Fulbright teachers who left for home last week, so have big plans for September, but wanted to use this opportunity to share a few photos from the last few weeks in Tweeling.

The undependable rental car (1996 Volkswagen Fox) had to be washed before we returned it, after living in the driveway for 4 weeks (rather than test our luck again with a rental car company). Car washing in Tweeling is a big event and almost always draws spectators and assistants. In fact, the neighborhood kids offer to wash the car just for something to do (they asked if they could wash the new car the day that we drove it home, when it was still shiny from the kids who had washed it for Darren and Karen) and are surprised when we buy them Cokes for doing it.

This car was clean long before it was finished being washed.

Kate thought that Andy would get a lot of attention for carrying Tshegofatso around African-style, but he said that noone said a thing. Apparently he’s fitting in very well... Tshegofatso is making an impressive go at talking, learning Sesotho, Zulu, and English all at the same time (“Hi,” “Bye,” “Katie,” and “Andy” are some of his favorites).

Ever since our American visitors, there is always someone wearing either an I Love New York shirt or a Cleveland (they call it “Cleverland”) t-shirt.

Kids playing on their favorite “jungle gym” in their Cleveland shirts.

About once a month, Refeng-Thabo hosts “Own Clothes Day,” where the students can pay 1 Rand (about 20 cents) to wear their own clothes instead of their uniforms. It’s a big money-maker, but gets kind of wild.

Everyone wants their picture taken on “Own Clothes Day.”

It’s tough to get much teaching done on “Own Clothes Day” because kids run around school to see what the other kids are wearing. This is what my class looked like, with 15 kids missing and 2 kids visiting from a different class.

I decided to have a go at teaching my 11th grade history class “Hangman,” not actually thinking that they would go for it. Fortunately, I was very wrong and they went bananas over it and even kept playing after the class was over.

My class of 55 9th graders loved it too.

A 10th grade class didn’t have a teacher, so two of the (usually trouble-making) boys decided to entertain themselves by sweeping the school. They came by with an offer to sweep my office, which I accepted, and they did an impressively-thorough job of it.

Kate went ahead and made “Own Clothes Day” even crazier by locking her keys in her office (it was better than when she was almost locked inside her office herself earlier in the year, but still a pain).

The same boys made a broom-handle-tool with a wire-hook end that they spent break throwing through the gated door of the office until they came up, victoriously, with the keys.

What's Cooking in Tweeling

2007-08-19T08:26:00.001-07:00

We get together with the Motales for a “Big Dinner,” which is exactly what it sounds like, at least once a week. It started out as a part of Wednesday night soccer night, when the Orlando Pirates, the Motales’ favorite soccer team, plays. In the soccer off season, though, the event has taken place whenever we declare it time for a “Big Dinner.” Someone in the family will suggest a Big Dinner for the upcoming week, the motion is immediately seconded, and plans are made. When it’s time for a Really Big Dinner, a representative will be sent to buy a chicken at the farm.

In this picture, Kagiso and Ntefeling ham it up while working on side dishes.

There were several Big Dinners when we had our American visitors. We recently told Kagiso that our parents were coming to visit in September. His response: “Oooh, there will be LOTS of Big Dinners!”

All members of the family help out when it’s time to prepare a Big Dinner.

The strike left Kate with loads of free time and dependable internet access, so she started getting creative with the online recipe websites. The results were impressive, attracting attention from all over the neighborhood. The neighborhood kids are big fans of my banana bread (they call it banana cake) and the first time that I tried out the new banana bread recipe it was so good that it was stolen right out of our kitchen.

The desserts have, of course, been big hits. There have been requests for Toll House Cookies (people here call them “Cooks”) and the Arizona Daily Star’s brownies (people here call them “Browns).

One thing that we really can't get here in South Africa is Latin American food and I’ve been missing it very much. The second recipe that I tried out was spicy spinach empanadas, which developed serious fans. On Kagiso’s birthday, I asked him what he would like me to make him for dessert, thinking Cooks or Browns. His answer? Empanadas.

Kate taught Kagiso to make empanadas and he started brainstorming on how much he could sell empanadas for.

We hosted “Pizza Night” at 19 7th Street last week, where Kate taught Kagiso and Lerato to make pizza from scratch, including the dough and sauce (despite being Irish, Kate has become very good at making pasta/pizza sauce). The boys spent the rest of the evening trying to keep the rest of the family from devouring their pizzas.

It was a battle that they lost.

Two of Kate’s students, Mapaseka and Malehlohonolo, caught wind of her recent endeavors and wanted to come to the house to try out their skills. The first time that they came to the house we made Cooks, but we happened to have some leftover samosas that they saw in the kitchen. I promised them that next time they came to cook we would make samosas, which we did last week. I gave the girls a samosa for each member of their household and asked the next day if their moms had liked the samosas. Their response: “YEBO!”

Women's Day in the Drakensberg Mountains

2007-08-14T05:37:00.000-07:00

South Africa very politely awards a public holiday on August 9th for Women's Day. It's officially a day for remembering the women who struggled against apartheid, but is also celebrated as a day to recognize the contributions of women to the new South Africa.

This year August 9th fell on a Thursday, so the Department of Education celebrated women (at least this one) by giving us Friday the 10th as a school holiday, making the last long weekend of the entire school year.

We made the drive in our second month-long-rental-car (for those of you following the car drama, we are buying Karen and Darren Peterson's car when they return to America on Monday the 20th) to the absolutely beautiful, but very chilly, town of Underberg.

We spent the first day unwinding on a gorgeous hike in Drakensberg National Park, where we saw just a little bit of snow.

The second day we took on an all-day horseback ride through the mountains. The scenery was beautiful, but the day left us very sore.

Our guide taught us how to make the horses run, which was great fun.

On the third day we took the drive up the Sani Pass, the highest road in Africa, into Lesotho. The road is only 20 kilometers long, but took almost 3 hours to get up because it is in impressively-bad condition.

South Africa had to pass a law that only 4-by-4 vehicles may make the trip because so many people had tried it in their Hondas and had to be rescued.

The top of the Sani Pass is the border between South Africa and Lesotho (and home to the highest pub in Africa). On the Lesotho side, we were invited into Alina's rondeval and offered bread that she had just baked.

Most people in very chilly Lesotho live in these round houses (rondevals), which have no electricity or heat. All of the rondevals in Alina's village face North so that they will be warmed by the sun during the day.

More Donations from Generous Americans!

2007-07-21T05:58:00.000-07:00

The nicest part of American culture that gets exported overseas is our tradition of charity and our recognition that most of us are fortunate as Americans and live in a world where there are many who are far less fortunate. Most of the residents of Tweeling, and definitely the students at Refeng-Thabo, are far less fortunate than all of us who are reading this, and I've been blown away by how much Americans have wanted to do to help the school and the community.

One of the most impressive demonstrations of the American tradition of charity came from Maria Ade, a close family friend who works in Allendale Schools in New Jersey. Maria learned about the conditions at Refeng-Thabo and started collecting donations from teachers in her school. Maria collected $375, which goes VERY far when I buy supplies here.

Maria did this as a completely altruistic, unsolicited gesture because she wanted to help.

Most students here honestly cannot afford to buy a new pen or a box of pencils. Students "repair" their broken pens by stuffing paper into the broken end and sharpen their pencils by rubbing them fast against the brick wall of their classroom. With some of Allendale Schools' donations, I bought a new pen and pencil for all of my students, which I distributed to them in April. Some of them are still using the same pen.

Refeng-Thabo supplies each student with a subject book (like a blank workbook) for each class, but ran out this year and could not give books to the 8th grade. I give my 8th grade students PILES of work to keep them under control, so they finished their small workbooks, that were meant to last all year, in 4 months. With both Allendale's donated money and the last of Booth-Fickett's collected funds, I bought a brand new workbook for each of my grade 8 and 9 students.

The smiles are for real, they were extremely thankful and relieved that they did not need to find a way to get enough money to buy a new workbook. (A new workbook costs the equivalent of 50 U.S. cents)

I spent the last of Allendale Schools and Booth-Fickett's collected money on equipment for the Drum Majorettes (it's like a dance squad or a drill team). I was nervous to spend donated money on pom-poms and batons, and when the director asked I initially said no, but these girls practice every day after school for HOURS. This team is also one of a very few ways that Refeng-Thabo's kids get to leave Tweeling and brings alot of joy into the girls' lives.

The teachers and students at Booth-Fickett have gone the extra kilometers and, as a team, have made a huge impact at Refeng-Thabo. As soon as I showed Booth-Fickett's faculty the conditions at Refeng-Thabo, several teachers offered to make large donations to get computers installed (the strike held them up, but they are coming this month), to collect books for the empty library, and to collect money for anything that I think the school might need.

Booth-Fickett's librarians have collected and shipped hundreds of books to help fill Refeng-Thabo's empty library. I asked these 8th grade students to help me unpack the books when they arrived last week (they were shipped in April!) and they were so excited that we were starting a "real" library.

None of these students have books in thier homes and they asked if they could each choose a book that could be "theirs." I started to try to explain that, if the books are in the library, they could check them out anytime, when I realized what they were asking. These kids wanted to have a book at home that they could read, so I helped them each choose a book that would be right for their reading level (and gender). I've seen these kids walk around with their books all week.

Fulbright had asked Refeng-Thabo what Booth-Fickett could do to help and one of the things that I didn't think we'd be able to do anything about was Refeng-Thabo's request for uniforms for the sports team.

I was COMPLETELY wrong. Deanna Harris came through HUGE and is now every Refeng-Thabo soccer player and netball (it's like basketball) player's hero.

Deanna and her brother purchased, printed, and shipped t-shirts for the boys' and girls' soccer teams and the girls' netball team. The shirts are the school colors of powder blue and white.

On the sleeve (being modeled by Nani, one of my 9th grade students) is printed both the Arizona flag and the South African flag and the words "Arizona and South Africa, working together to achieve success."

The students were allowed to wear home the t-shirts on the day that I turned them over to the coaches so that they could show their parents. Students were told that they needed to turn them back in so that they could be kept nice for the matches. Every single t-shirt came back.

Mr. Radebe, Refeng-Thabo's principal, called the shirts "an incredible blessing."

When Amy and Todd Whited were planning their trip to visit us, they asked if it would be OK to bring some of their children's (Drew and Aidan) old clothes to give out to the neighborhood kids. We said that it would be wonderful and they brought an entire HUGE suitcase full of clothes, shoes, crayons, bubbles, candy, stickers, clay, and colored pencils.

And, of course, Cleveland Cavaliers t-shirts. The Cavs have never had so many international fans.

Fana and Mandla both dug the "light-up shoes" out of the giant bag of shoes that Amy and Todd brought. They stomped around our house to light up the shoes until their little minds exploded.

Andy took some of the art supplies to the township's preschool. He was treated to an art show and a sticker party as a thank-you.

The kids had never played with bubbles before, and had an absolute blast.

We've re-filled the bubble containers with soapy water several times.

All of these donations have had a great impact on the community and the kids that received the clothes, uniforms, books, or school supplies were genuinely grateful. Very few of them have a real idea of where the donations have come from (America is VERY far away from Tweeling), but they do understand that they are gifts from people who want them to succeed, and that means alot to them and to Andy and me.

Family Vacation!

2007-07-21T05:18:00.000-07:00

The Farkas/Riener, Whited, Mahady/Farkas team went 0-for-3 on returning undamaged rental cars on our South Africa family tour. Avis and National Rental Car Companies have no idea how much fun we had in their cars (unless their reps are reading this) and will likely have to raise their rates to cover our good times.

The first car suffered the most extensive damage of the trip when we drove it all over Hluhluwe-Umfolozi National Park. Hluhluwe-Umfolozi is a huge and beautiful park, but it was not meant for Todd’s Nissan rental, and by the time we left the park, parts of the undercarriage were hanging off of it.

Amy was the big game spotting winner at the park, catching all of the big five (rhinos, lions, buffalo, elephants, and a leopard) and loads of giraffe, impala, warthogs, wildebeest, and even 2 cheetahs.

The team also scored huge points by spotting the elusive black rhino on a night drive. (This photo is of the more common white rhino.)

We left Hluhluwe-Umfolozi and flew to Cape Town, where Kate damaged the second rental car. Kate brutally scratched the brand-new rims trying to get onto our on-the-sidewalk parking spot.

Kate and Mark delivered Emmy-worthy performances pretending that they had no idea how the damage had been done and that it couldn’t possibly have been done by us…

All members of the team agree that Cape Town just might be the coolest city in the world. It is gorgeous and funky, diverse, and right on the ocean. We rode the cable car up Table Mountain, visited Robben Island (where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned for 18 years) and drove to the Cape of Good Hope.

We also drove into Boulders to see a goofy group of African Penguins.

After two short days in Cape Town, the team descended on South Africa’s tranquil Winelands.

We tasted and bought lots of wine and avoided certain massive damage to the rental car by booking a wine tour. The tour actually brought us to the winery that makes one of Kate’s favorite wines in America, Goats Do Roam (a play on Cotes du Rhone) wine. Kate bought the t-shirt, but was disappointed that they didn’t have any job openings…

We said goodbye to Amy and Todd from Stellenbosch, as they bravely boarded a plane for Hong Kong the day after the wine tour.

The most minor, but also the most obvious, damage was done to the third car, which fell victim to rocks flying off of trucks on the highway as we started off down the Garden Route. The first rock hit was we were leaving from our SHARK CAGE DIVE in Gansbaii.

The Shark Cage was completely terrifying and freezing cold. We were loaned sticky wetsuits that had holes in the hienies and dropped into the freezing Atlantic winter water in a cage that had HUGE spaces (we were warned not to stick out any body parts that we wanted to bring home with us). The “Chum-Master” dumped fish blood and rotten fish parts to attract the sharks, who smashed into the cage TWICE when Ashley and Kate were in, getting a huge reaction from those in the cage and those watching from the boat.

The sharks were huge and, even though they were very scary, were beautiful.

The “chum” was in the water all around you, so everyone agreed that they got some in their mouths. The waves were also wild out on the ocean and, even though she had taken two Dramamine, the combination of chum-taste and Perfect-Storm-sized waves were too much for Kate, who was the only member of the team to heave over the side of the boat.

We drove straight from Gansbaii to Knysna, a quiet and sweet town on a lagoon that is known for its oysters. We had no car trouble ourselves, but learned about Ernie Els’ driver, who crashed the famous South African golfer's car into the lagoon, and then swam straight to the waterside bar for help and a drink. The owner of the bar, who told us the story, swears that Ernie doesn’t know about it and that he has seen the driver since, with Ernie, and that the driver is always nervous that the bar owner will drop the dime on him.

We narrowly avoided being stomped by an elephant at Addo Elephant Park (car damage that we definitely would have been charged for) when we came upon a group of elephants in the road.

We visited Addo’s reptile and Raptor Center, where Kate and Andy are shown being squeezed by anacondas…

And Mark is holding the VERY poisonous tree snake.

All members of the team donned the glove to have owls and falcons land on their arms.

We got our second, and bigger, windshield chip on our way from Addo to Grahamstown. Grahamstown is home to the National Arts Festival, which was described to us more than once (by more than one person) as “just a big party.” The small town of Grahamstown takes on a Tucson-Gem-Show feel, with people selling all kinds of what-nots all over the place. It is also the time that new plays and shows are premiered and we were able to get tickets to Blood Orange, a one-man-show about growing up as a British South African during apartheid. It likely won’t be showing anywhere outside of South Africa, but we enjoyed it very much.

We had to say goodbye to Ashley and Mark after Grahamstown and Kate and Andy continued on alone to Plettenberg Bay, where we visited Monkeyland and watched surfers.

We left the coast for the Karoo, the vast inland desert that reminded us very much of Arizona. People were surprised that we could appreciate the dry and rough landscape, but were touched when we told them that it reminded us of our home.

We stayed in a town that had a population of thirty (at the most) and drove along beautiful mountain passes.

Andy and Kate made one last stop in the Winelands, where they bought a case of Simonsig wine that is on its way to Tweeling via the ultra-reliable South African Postal Service.

We also visited a winery that paired wines with chocolate. It was as good as it sounds...

All of this driving was done without incident, and we were very surprised that the car was not stolen when we had no choice but to park it overnight on one of Cape Town’s busiest streets.

Even though both windshield chips were at exactly eye level on the driver’s side, making them impossible to miss during the inspection, we got the “double thumbs up” from National Car Rental’s motivated car inspector, who told us that everything looks great and to have a nice flight back to Johannesburg. We were very pleased with our vacation, and with ourselves, and headed back to Tweeling to start the third term at Refeng-Thabo.

Americans in Tweeling!

2007-07-18T13:10:00.000-07:00

We had been looking forward to Tweeling’s first American visitors, Amy, Ashley, Todd, and Mark since they made their reservations in February. Everyone, and most of their luggage, arrived on June 23, the day after Refeng-Thabo officially closed for its scheduled break. (For those of you following the Teacher Strike Drama, the strike was officially resolved during the first week of the scheduled vacation, with the unions accepting a 7.5% salary increase.)

We believe that Tweeling hit it’s highest-ever tourist influx when we pulled into town on the night of the 23rd. The Motales had prepared a feast for our visitors and all of the neighborhood kids had waited up late to dig into the “Welcome to South Africa” cake that our neighbor baked for the occasion.

The next day we spent the whole day in Tweeling, starting with a street soccer game and make-up session.

We took the Americans on a tour of Mafahlaneng Township, where we visited with Mr. Mosia, the Sesotho teacher at Refeng Thabo, and he served us up a chicken feast at his home in the township. We also visited Yvonne, the woman who works as a cleaner for the Motales, and her family. Residents of Mafahlaneng were very surprised to see 6 Americans walking around the township, but were incredibly gracious, posing for pictures and inviting us into their homes.

One of the highlights of the day was Ashley and Mark’s distribution of the “I Love New York” t-shirts that they brought as gifts. Amy and Todd’s Cleveland Cavaliers t-shirts were in the luggage that didn’t arrive with the passengers, but we were able to give them to the Motales the morning before they left. Someone in the Motale family has been wearing a New York or Cleveland shirt ever since.

We left Tweeling for an amazing vacation with the family on June 25th, which we’ll post pictures from on the next posting.

Township Tour

2007-06-13T02:16:00.000-07:00

The view of Tweeling's township from the balcony at Refeng-Thabo.

South Africa has a very unique dynamic in the way that towns are set up. During apartheid, the towns themselves were reserved for white South Africans, black South Africans were restricted to what are called “townships” or “locations.” Mixed-race towns, like Sophiatown in Johannesburg, were cleared of black residents, who were relocated to the townships or to independent “Bantustans,” and bulldozed.

The idea was to keep black South Africans close enough to town to provide cheap labor, but far enough away that white South Africans could avoid black South Africans in any social situation in town.

As an added insult, the apartheid government enacted several different pass laws, requiring black South Africans to have a pass to be in an urban area or in the town. The only allowable reasons for being in town or in the city were for work or, for women, for the husband’s work. Black South Africans needed a pass to leave their township and to travel out of the established “homeland.”

Even tiny towns like Tweeling have a sizeable township. The town used to be completely white, with black South Africans not allowed to live in town. The town now is about half black and half white, with many black families owning and renting homes in town.
The township, on the other hand, is completely black and, for the most part, very poor. All of the students at Refeng-Thabo come from the township and these are photos of some of their homes.

These students of Kate's happened to be out in the township while we were taking pictures.

Refeng-Thabo's teachers are still on strike, so they have been out of school now for two weeks.

Tweeling’s township is now in the middle of the installation of a huge plumbing project that will provide sewer services to every house in the township. Currently, almost no houses in the township have indoor plumbing and none have sewer hook-ups. Most people get their water from a spigot in the yard, which they use for washing and cooking. Almost every home has an outdoor toilet that is either a pit or a bucket toilet. Washing is done, for the most part, with a bucket and a washcloth. Laundry is done in a basin and hung in the yard.

Kagiso Motale and Simphiwe Mohapi helped me to take these pictures of the houses in the Tweeling township. They explained to people why we were taking pictures, and most people were very glad that people in America would see their homes.

There are several nicer homes, like these, in the township. They are, however, very rare.

Difficult to see, but these are three of Kate's grade 10 and 11 history students.

The Rainbow clinic, where Andy works, is located at the edge of the township and serves mostly township residents. Nurses are included in the public servants' strike, but the clinic has remained open throughout the strike. Pressure from the nurses' union forced Lucy Mokoena, who runs the clinic, to close on Tuesday and Wednesday of this week, but she is determined to keep the clinic open for as long as she is able, as it is the only free medical care in Tweeling and the only medical care that most of Tweeling's residents have access to.

"The Teachers are Toyi Toyi-ing Miss"

2007-06-06T07:41:00.001-07:00

The first week that I was at Refeng-Thabo, the school’s union organizer told me that there will most likely be a teacher strike this year. There are several teacher unions in South Africa, but everyone at Refeng-Thabo is a member of SADTU (South Africa’s Democratic Teacher Union), which has been calling for a 12% raise. The government offered 6%, which the unions were obviously not pleased with, and started threatening a strike.

Two weeks ago Friday (May 25th) all union members walked out of Refeng-Thabo at 10am to attend a union rally. On Monday the 28th, most union members did not attend school to go to Bloemfontein for a union march. All that week, the unions members were on a “slow down,” which meant that they came to work, but they did their work very slowly, and would not agree to do any extra work that is not in their contracts.

On Tuesday, the first day of the “slow down,” the teachers were doing the toyi-toyi (which means “protest”) dance in the staff room and these girls (who were supposed to be in my 10th grade history class) saw them and started doing their own dances…

Friday, June 1, the real strike started, and when I showed up to school, there was noone there and the gates and the school were locked. I called the district and they told me to go home, so Andy and I drove the rental car to the beach.

Part of my contract with Fulbright is that I am not allowed to strike and that I will come to school every day during the strike. On Monday, June 4, two other teachers and our school’s librarian showed up. It has been the four of us, the principal, and the office staff all week. The unions are not backing down from their 12% demands and the government is not budging from its second offer of 6.5%, which (surprisingly?) the unions didn’t accept. I polled the teachers before the strike started and most thought that it would last 3 days, some thought it would be only one. Now, most are saying that they would be very surprised if the strike ends before the June vacation, with school only resuming in July.

The first few days I brought my computer and worked all day to get a lot done for 3rd quarter. I got bored the third day and Principal Radebe suggested that I teach the other teachers about the two brand new computers that we received from the district. When I offered to help set up and show them how to use the machines, they jumped out of their seats. (Booth-Fickett's donations bought the power strip, which was the only way that we could use both computers at the same time. The first day, we had to take turns, as there are 2 computers with brand-new printers, but only one plug to connect them to.)

We worked all day on computer basics and everyone wanted to stay late to finish what they were working on. Today Mme Mngomezulu, our new English teacher, has brought an exam that she is working on typing and is very proud of her achievement.

Our cleaner, Mme Nhlapo, is using a computer for the first time and cannot believe it. I printed these photos for them so that they could show their families, who were awestruck.

ABSA Cup Championship in Durban

2007-06-06T07:29:00.000-07:00

Before the car was stolen, we were having an absolute blast at the ABSA Cup Championships in Durban. We left for Durban at 5am on Saturday and drove straight to the beach. All over Durban people were wearing their team’s colors, bright yellow for the Sundowns and Red for CapeTown’s Ajax.

The Sundowns are a very wealthy team and can buy the good players (SA’s Yankees). They were the heavy favorites to win, having already won the South African Professional Soccer League. Sundowns’ fans also outnumbered CapeTown’s fans 2 to 1. Being true Red Sox fans, we rooted for the underdog.

Danny and Thokozile Motale joined us for the drive and the match. They wore their own team colors, black and gray for the Orlando Pirates.

The crowd filled ABSA Stadium, one of the stadiums that will be used for the World Cup in 2010, and made an impressive racket. Soccer fans here like to show their support by blasting away at any kind of noisemaker.

This fan broke out some kind of car part for the match that he could wind up and make a “zoom zoom” sound.

More common is the “Vuvuzela,” kind of like a giant kudzu that makes a sound exactly like its name.

The match was an upset, with CapeTown winning 2 – 0. There was a different kind of “upset” outside the stadium, but all is going well on that front. The insurance company has been wonderful and everything is being taken care of.

AND the Red Sox are 9 games up (AND the Yankees are losing the AL East).

This is definitely where we parked the car...

2007-05-28T10:28:00.000-07:00

Last weekend we attended the ABSA Cup Championship soccer match, which is like the Superbowl in South Africa, in Durban. We had a great time at the game, but when we came out after Capetown’s win over Pretoria, our car was gone. No broken glass and no trace of the man who had promised to watch it for us (people offer to do this for you in South Africa, and many people believe them to be completely reliable. Not us) for $2. “What about the man who was watching your car?” is everyone’s first question.

Kate now has the dubious honor of having more cars stolen than anyone else that she knows! The Tucson Police couldn’t track down the red Civic which was parked 5 miles from where it was stolen (long enough to be captured on Google Earth). While the Durban Police were great, we don’t have much higher hopes for them finding the Corolla. Surprisingly, the insurance company here has been much more efficient and professional than my insurance company in the U.S.

The family that we bought it from, the McHugh’s, wrote to let us know that they had taken the car to Botswana, Zambia, and Lesotho, as well as all over South Africa. We like to wonder where it is now. It could be anywhere, or it could be lots of places, having been stolen and sold for parts…

We thought that we’d share a few pictures of the adventures that the Corolla took us on as a little tribute…

The Corolla on what we like to call "Corolla Safari" in Mkhuze Park.

The car parked on the street in Sharpeville (where it did not get stolen) when we paid a visit to Danny Motale's parents and extended family.

Reatlehile, Pontso, and Ntombi playing on the car. (Notice Reatlehile's hat)

Zambo playing "car."

Another entry in Andy's "Stuff on the Road" series.

More Photos from Tweeling!

2007-05-25T10:22:00.000-07:00

Winter has definitely started in Tweeling and we have been FREEZING. Our house is so cold that we don't need to put the milk in the refrigerator. Wednesday morning the thermometer outside hit -8 degrees Celsius (17F!) and we remembered when it hit 29F in Tucson and everyone talked about it for days. We went out and bought several space heaters that have warmed up our house and have made it possible to climb out of bed for Kate to make it to Refeng-Thabo before school starts at 7:15.

We thought that we'd share some photos from warmer days.

First, our landlord and friend, Danny Motale, with his kids in the wheelbarrow.

It doesn't take long around here for a group of kids to assemble, especially if the camera is out. This photo is of the 7th St. Soccer Team / Dance Squad.

The roads in South Africa are very good, but we are glad to be reminded very often that it is still Africa. We've started taking pictures of people and animals that we have come upon in the road while we are driving. These women had spent all morning collecting the grass bundles that they are carrying back home for roof repairs.

While we have seen many incredible animals in South Africa, we've seen more cows than we can believe.

Andy and the girls had a balancing contest on a sunny afternoon. Ntombi, which means "daughter" in Zulu, is just holding on and Reatlele and Vanessa are climbing up for a challenge.

Kate and Mandla in the backyard. Mandla calls both Andy and Kate "Katie" and we are wondering what he thinks that "Katie" means (White people who like to throw me in the air?).

Andy, Zambo, Mandla, and Ntombi at halftime in a backyard soccer match. If you can get the soccer ball in the middle of the old tire, you get a point. If you can do it from across the yard, you get two points.

Andy, Mandla, and Ntombi.

Ntombi, Kate, and Mandla.

Mandla loves to be picked up, spun, and held upside down. When he sees Kate or Andy, he'll come running with both arms up.

A Visit to the Lion Farm and Some Photos from Tweeling

2007-05-12T23:45:00.000-07:00

This weekend we went to visit Darren and Karen Petersen, the other Fulbright teachers who live in Clocolan, about 2 hours south of Tweeling. They live in a lovely town and Darren gave us a tour of the school where he is teaching. His school is a former Model C school, which means that it was originally set up only for white students, but now the entire student body is black. The differences in the facilities from Refeng-Thabo, which was set up for Black students, were striking, and another reminder at the opportunities that were set aside for some in South Africa and denied to others.

On a much lighter note, Clocolan is located very close to a lion breeding farm, where lions are bred to be sold to private game reserves.

Darren and Karen took us to visit the lions and we were able to pat and hold the baby lions. The babies were very wary of us at first, but once they became comfortable with us being in their pen, they would follow us around and claw at us to pet them.

We happened to be visiting on the day that the lions are fed and we were able to watch their weekly feeding. The lions are fed chickens that are donated to the lion breeding farm from one of the egg farms.

Each lion was fed over 20 chickens and one growled at Kate when she walked too close to him when he was eating.

Back in Tweeling, Thokozile Motale, the mother of the family that we live with, graduated from University with an Honors B.A. degree in education and guidance. We celbrated her graduation the traditional South African way, by eating loads of meat.

It is starting to get very chilly here in Tweeling, so Kate has been knitting caps for all of the neighborhood kids. They get to pick their colors and she works on them during breaks at school and during long car rides. Vanessa chose her favorite shirt for her photo.

Daniel "Shakes" Motaung chose red and blue to match his school uniform at the town's primary school.

Little Mandla doesn't have a school uniform because he's too little.

Pontso wanted a hat like Kate's, but in green. For a while all of the girls wanted green hats and the boys wanted red.

Zambo was one of the first boys to get a hat, when it was still really too warm for knit caps. He wore his hat every day, to school, to play soccer, to watch T.V., all while it was still in the 70's outside.

A Long Weekend at St. Lucia Wetlands Park and Mkhuze Game Reserve

2007-05-01T11:00:00.000-07:00

This weekend we did one of our favorite trips that we have made during our time here. Friday, April 27th, is South Africa's Freedom Day, the anniversary of the election of Nelson Mandela. All of the schools in South Africa had April 30th as a school holiday and May 1st is Workers' Day. We had a five-day weekend from school, so we decided to take a trip a little bit farther than we usually would on a weekend. We left Thursday for the Greater St. Lucia Wetlands Park, South Africa's first UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The Park is home to thousands of hippos and crocodiles and includes a part that contains the “Big Five” game animals, elephants, lions, leopards, rhinos, and buffalo. We went on a horseback game ride, where we rode in a group to spot animals in the game park. We were able to get very close to zebras and blue wildebeests.

We spotted a gorgeous Kudu, the biggest that we’ve seen, in the Eastern Shores section of St. Lucia.

We also took a kayak trip to watch hippos and crocodiles. We were able to get fairly close to both hippos and crocodiles, which was scary and fun.

Our last night in St. Lucia the woman who runs the guesthouse where we were staying came out and told us that there were hippos outside. Believe it or not, the huge hippos eat only grass and come out of the water every night to eat over 40kg (about 90lbs) of grass. More people are killed by hippos than by any other game animal in Africa. They look very slow, because they are so fat and goofy, but they can run 52K per hour (about 30MPH) and stomp you very easily.

St. Lucia has a creepy, but very cool, crocodile center, where they have over 100 crocodiles and tons of information about crocodiles (and a ridiculous caution sign). They will let you watch the trainers feed the crocodiles dead, rotting chickens.

We also went to a snake demonstration at the crocodile center, where they let Kate hold a python.

For the second part of the long weekend we visited Mkhuze Game Reserve, 2 hours north of St. Lucia. Mkhuze is home to 4 of the “Big Five” animals, missing only lions. The park has constructed “hides,” little houses where you can watch animals without being seen. We went on a night game drive, where we saw a white-tailed mongoose and several tiny African Nightjaws (an adorable owl).

We also went on a bush walk at 6am with a guide armed with a rifle. We followed Sinyane, our guide through the trees and he pointed out the different birds and animals that we saw. We had been out for about an hour and a half when we saw a gorgeous giraffe, which Sinyane says was darker because it is very old.

Sinyane also spotted a white rhino lying down in the bush, which looked like a huge rock. He made some noise to get it to stand up for us, and we were able to take pictures of him walking around.

The second and third rhinos that we saw were a mama and baby. We walked up along side the two of them and took them by surprise. The mama rhino started running straight at us and Sinyane told us to climb up the closest tree. We were able to hide behind a bush while he scared the angry mama off by shouting and waving his rifle. Though Andy says that he wasn’t scared, I was, but in a fun, ridiculous way.

There were two more white rhinos by our cars, another mama and baby that we stayed a good distance from. In all, we saw 5 rhinos, 1 giraffe, about 50 blue wildebeests, about 10 zebras, and countless impala on our game walk.

We spent the next two days driving through the park, looking for animals. You’re not allowed to do any hiking in the park, for obvious reasons…

School Holiday Part 2: The Wild Coast

2007-04-21T06:05:00.000-07:00

One of the best parts about teaching in South Africa is the school calendar, which wisely sets up 3-week breaks every 11 weeks. While we go to school year-round, we are almost always “coming up on a vacation.”

That is why we were able to take 2 vacations during this school holiday, first to Botswana and then to South Africa’s Wild Coast, a beautiful stretch of coastline that is left as exactly that. No highways, no high-rise hotels, no jet-skis.

In two days we drove from Pandamatenga, Botswana to Pretoria, South Africa, to Port Edward, on the southern coast of South Africa, a total of 22 hours of driving. The next day we left on a 6-day tour of the Wild Coast, which took us to the most beautiful and empty beaches that we have ever seen.

To get to the place that we were staying we had to hike 27 kilometers, much of it on the beach, with several stops for jumping off of cliffs into the water. Our guide, Albert, loved to find good jumping spots as much as we do and treated us to some very special jumps, including one into a waterfall that flowed into the ocean. The hike took us to several shipwreck sites, where the mangled boats have been washed onto the beach from areas that are called the “Shipwreck Coast.”

We spent 6 days at the different camps on the Wild Coast, hiking, canoeing, and swimming. The main camp that we stayed at was situated at the mouth of a river, so we could float down the river into the ocean. For a few of the nights we were the only ones at the camp, so we taught Albert to play “Down to One,” the Mahady family’s favorite card game.

We were also guided through Xhosa (pronounced “Click”-osa) Pondo villages, where people live in white rondavals, the round houses in the photos. One of the rondavals had been outfitted with a small solar panel, the only electricity for many miles. As we walked through the villages people would wave to us and tell Albert about upcoming events.

It was this way that we were invited to a Coming-of-Age Ceremony for the nearby Pondo girls. We hiked 7 kilometers from the camp to a small village where the ceremony was being held. The ceremony was for all of the girls from the community who had recently started menstruating from ages 11-14. After the ceremony they are now considered eligible for marriage. There was lots of singing, dancing, and meat; 2 cows and 4 sheep had been slaughtered for the ceremony. The ceremony included the community’s men chasing the girls with sticks and giving each one a good-natured rap on the backside.

School Holiday Part 1: Botswana!

2007-04-21T04:44:00.000-07:00

When we first came to South Africa, Dieter and Lucy Hoffman told us about their friend Wimpy Voss who has a farm in Botswana. We planned a trip to visit for the March school holiday, and were looking forward to a vacation and what Dieter described as “stopping for the first 100 elephants, after that you’ll get bored with elephants.”

Dieter and Lucy set up a very comfortable makeshift bed in the back of Dieter’s truck, with their futon and lots of pillows. The whole trip, from their home in Pretoria to Pandamatanga, on the border of Zimbabwe, took just over 12 hours, on good highways in South Africa and then on incredibly potholed roads in Botswana, where Dieter had to dodge donkeys, cows, and spitting cobras.

Botswana was one of very few countries in Africa that was spared a civil war as it transitioned to majority rule. The result is that it is a very peaceful and safe country, in sharp contrast to its close neighbor, Zimbabwe, in which a civil war is beginning (again). Lucy, Andy, Dieter, and I were all surprised to find ourselves surprised that we didn’t see one white person from the time we crossed the border into Botswana until we arrived at the Voss house. Botswana felt and looked much more like “Africa” to us (more, we all agreed, than did South Africa) in a very nice way, with flat land and friendly people and the occasional elephant or giraffe on the highway.

Wimpy runs a huge farm far north in Botswana, in the area where nearly all of Botswana’s produce is grown, near the borders of Zambia, Zimbabwe, and Namibia. His farm is gorgeous, full of sunflowers and sorghum, and his land hosts 1000-year-old baobab trees. He’s currently planning to build a new home in the area where Andy and I are standing (if you can spot us – we’re tiny and the tree is huge).

Lucy and Andy tested their climbing skills on the ancient trees.

One of the days we drove an hour north of Pandamatanga to the Chobe National Park for a game drive in the park and a boat cruise on the Chobe River. Andy and I hadn’t seen any of Southern Africa’s famous animals in our 3 months here and were blown away by the different species of antelope (the one in the photo is an impala) and the number of elephants and giraffes that we saw.

Our guide would stop the jeep or the boat for us to take pictures and to watch the animals, which is great fun. We saw two elephants fighting in the river and a massive rumble between rival baboon gangs. The baby elephants were priceless.

We were very sad to leave Botswana and the Voss family, who were incredibly welcoming to us and made our stay in Botswana a wonderful experience. While Lucy and Dieter had to go back to work, we were very lucky to have another week of vacation ahead of us at the beach.

Tshegofatso's Birthday

2007-04-21T04:04:00.000-07:00

Just following the closing of Refeng-Thabo for the end of first quarter, we were lucky to share in the celebration of Tshegofatso (Say-ho-fat-so) Motale’s first birthday party. The family that lives in the main house (we’re in the guest house) has four kids, Lerato (17), Kagiso (12), Reatlhele (4), and Tshegofatso (1). It worked out perfectly that the party was set for the day before we were to leave for vacation.

In Sotho and Zulu culture a child’s first birthday is the biggest birthday celebration of his or her life. It is also the first time that the child eats meat, which is fed to him or her by his or her grandparents. The meat itself is that of a sheep that is slaughtered the day before the party (in this case it was slaughtered in our backyard) and every part of the sheep is used. The night before the party the men (including Andy) gathered to eat the tripe (I call it “insides”) and the head of the sheep was to be cooked the Monday after the party (we missed that because we were on vacation).

We happened to be out when the sheep was actually slaughtered, which was a big disappointment to the family (the word “vegetarian” doesn’t translate into Sesotho or Zulu). It was made up to us by leaving the sheep’s head in our house throughout the party. If you look closely, you can see that the women are working on the sheep’s head in one of the pictures.

The kids were at the party by 1pm and mostly cleared out after dark, when the jumping castle was finally deflated. The adults, especially Tshegofatso’s grandparents, kept the party going long after the guest of honor was put to bed (see the photo of Andy with Grandpa Motale…)

Little Tshegofatso wore his birthday hat (knitted by Kate) straight through the party.

The blog is on Vacation!

2007-03-30T12:41:00.000-07:00

And so are Kate and Andy. We're in Botswana for a week and then will be on the beach for another week. We promise some excellent photos when we return in Mid-April!

A Day Trip to Lesotho, the Highest Country in the World

2007-03-12T06:22:00.000-07:00

We returned to the beautiful Drakensburg Mountains, which are about 2 hours from us, this weekend. We were lucky to be able to jump on a tour of a tiny town in Eastern Lesotho (pronounced Luh - SOO - two). The tour took us 4-Wheel-Driving down some wild mountain roads and through huge potholes

Lesotho is the highest country in the world, in that it has the highest low point of any country. We happened to be visiting on Moshoeshoe (MO - shwe-shwe) Day, a celebration of the day that King Moshoeshoe brokered a deal with the British to save the Basotho people from the murderous King Shaka Zulu.

When we arrived at the village that the tour usually visits, every school for miles around had all of their students dressed up to perform traditional songs. The kids were adorable and, just like the kids in South Africa, are not shy at all in front of the camera and are blown away by seeing themselves on the digital camera. The songs that they sang were beautiful and the kids were completely adorable.

Lesotho is a very traditional place, at least the area that we visited is, and people live almost exclusively in rondevals, the round houses that you see in the photos. Our guide explained that the people believe that the ancestors are only able to visit them in these shaped houses and that they won't kill any animal that enters the house because an ancestor can take any form and they would be mortified if they offended their ancestor by killing the animal they came to visit as.

We were able to visit a traditional healer, a sangoma, and listen to a talk on how she examines and treats patients. We also spotted 3 Peace Corps teachers and it made me think of Catherine, Aly, and Stephen. Lesotho has a large Peace Corps volunteer base as well as many more Fulbrighters than South Africa.

We spent the next day mountain biking in the hills near the Drakensbergs, which we are very thankful to be so close to. It's a beautiful area and we plan to return many more times while we are here.

Lots of photos from Tweeling!

2007-02-25T04:42:00.000-08:00

We're spending Sunday in Johannesburg, where we can see movies and use high-speed internet, so I wanted to post some of my favorite photos that we have taken so far. The first is of our neighbor, Thokozile, and her mother. I printed this photo for
them and they were so excited to have copies.

The second picture is of our neighbor Zambo (on the bike) and two of the other neighborhood boys cooperating on a bike ride.

The kids at Refeng-Thabo love when I

bring the camera to school, so I have about 200 to choose from. All day, when I bring the camera to school, students come up to me and say "Miss, shoot me..." When I show them the image on the digital camera, they burst out laughing. Every time.

Andy taught Zambo and Debeho how to play baseball and now they want to play all day every day. Kagiso (the one diving for the catch) got very good. There are always a group of kids looking to play here, and they LOVE to pose for the camera.

Andy visited The Crech, Tweeling's township preschool, a few weeks ago. The kids

performed all of their traditional songs and dances for him and now 3-5 year-old kids come running up to him to say hello whenever he is in the township.

The family that lives in front of us is the Motales, and Lerato Motale celebrated his 16th birthday on Friday. Lerato and George are taking part in a very popular South African tradition, grilling a gigantic sausage for Lerato's birthday. The braii (grill) is a big deal here and South Africans love their meat. This sausage is just part of the mixed grill, many different types of meat that the boys braiied for everyone.

Lastly, more pictures of the kids, some at Tweeling township's Valentines Day dance-a-thon/beauty paegent, and some making scary faces for the camera in our backyard. It's hard to take a bad picture of these kids, because they are just so adorable, and you will never want for subjects.

Thanks for the Donations Booth-Fickett!

2007-02-22T06:24:00.000-08:00

That's what most people here are saying these days. Not only did the librarians at Booth-Fickett help to stock the library at Refeng-Thabo through a book drive, but several members of the staff took on the collections of donations for Refeng-Thabo. The donations were deposited into the school's account yesterday and we have planned to use the money to install an alarm system at the school, which the province of Free State has required before they will install the 25 computers that have been donated by the state. It's hard to explain how huge an opportunity it is for Refeng-Thabo's students to be able to learn computer skills, and that in a community which has 90% unemployment the advantage that learning computer skills provides for these students when they are looking for a job. It is such a touching show of the American culture of charity that it has provided the students, teachers, and community members of Tweeling with a very positive experience of American culture.

The boxes of donated books, pens, pencils, and maps arrived 2 weeks ago and every learner has received a Booth-Fickett pen, which they love. You can see them using the Booth-Fickett pens in the photos, as well as reading donated National Geographics. An earlier post showed students using Jonathan Senn's donated atlases, which students come to my office to borrow as references every day.

It is our hope that the computers will be installed by the end of March, and I will post photos of our students and teachers learning how to use them (most of them from scratch!). The school is planning a more formal thank you, but I am very thankful for the generosity, the compassion, and the initiative that you have shown in gathering books, money, and other donations for this school, where they are definitely needed and appreciated!

A Visit to Johannesburg and the Apartheid Museum

2007-02-15T05:18:00.000-08:00

Last weekend we visited Johannesburg and the amazing Apartheid museum. The museum follows the history of South Africa up to the instituting of Apartheid and the ways that Apartheid separated and disadvantaged anyone who wasn't white. You are given a tag when you enter that defines your race. Kate was "non-white," Andy was "white." We had to go in through separate entries and were not allowed to meet back up until we had walked through an exhibit on how people were racially defined, which was very much arbitrary. For example, people who played rugby were white, but people who played soccer were colored (of mixed races, it's actually a legitimate term here) or black.

The museum finishes with a celebration of 1994, when Nelson Mandela was elected, and an honest look at the violence that existed in the transition to democracy. Given the comparison with nearby Zimbabwe (where there was terrible violence and white farmers were ordered off of thier land for the last 20 years. There was another final deadline just 2 weeks ago and the country looks as though chaos will break out), South Africa has alot to be proud of.

We also had time to explore Johannesburg a little bit. Despite the movies that show it as dangerous and terrifying, it is a very cool city. There are very dangerous parts of the city, but we will be staying away from them and trying to enjoy the cooler parts (good restaurants, shopping, and museums). There is a ton to do there and we were glad to learn the reality of Johannesburg vs. what we saw in Tsotsi.

A Birthday Party and a Beach Weekend

2007-02-09T06:45:00.000-08:00

The computers in Tweeling were down for a bit last week, so I haven't been able to update in a few weeks. As soon as we came to Tweeling, our friends Danny and Thokozile Motale invited us to their nephew's birthday party in Sharpeville, outside
Johannesburg. The party was two weeks ago and we had a wonderful time with the family. In Sotho culture, the first birthday is a very big deal and the family went all out for little Carabello (including the slaughtering of a sheep - done Friday before we arrived - and the erecting of a jumping castle).
We were very welcome guests and it was interesting to see the site of the Sharpeville Massacre, when the police opened fire on protesters who were protesting the Pass Laws, which required Black South Africans to carry a pass to leave their town and to enter white areas.

Kate finally finished peeling from her first sunburn, so last week we felt the beach pull. We visited one of the coolest beaches we have ever been to, Zinkwazi Beach in
KwaZulu Natal. It was a 5 hour drive to get there, but worth it to spend some time at such a gorgeous spot. KwaZulu Natal is the province just east of Free State and, with huge mountains and beautiful beaches, is a great spot to be close to.

On the way back we had our first bit of what will hopefully be rare bad luck. We stopped for gas about 2 hours from home and the car would not start after we filled up. The gas station attendant gave us a lesson in push starting the car, which kept us running for about 15 minutes, when evrything electrical in the car came on and the car stopped completely. Luckily, South Africa has a service very similar to AAA
(called AA) and a membership came with our car insurance. They came to pick us up at 6pm and were able to replace the regulator on the alternator by 8pm. Very unusual since everything closes here at 5pm during the week and 1pm on the weekend, but we were able to be back in Tweeling by 10pm and Kate was able to make it to school the next day.

Goings On at Refeng-Thabo

2007-01-26T05:40:00.000-08:00

I have just concluded my third week at Refeng-Thabo and wanted to post some photos of my students and the school. Last week we had a track meet against the other school in town, which is a school that had formerly been completely white. Refeng-Thabo students did very well and all of the students were excited to have their pictures taken. The facilities at the former white school are drastically different (and better) than Refeng-Thabo's facilities. Though the school population at both schools is almost completely black, it is clear that the schools were set up to keep the opportunities that each group will have separate and unequal.

My students have been so thankful for the donation of atlases by Jonathan Senn, of Booth-Fickett. Whenever they come out, the students pour over them because they are so beautiful. I took several pictures today of students working together (which they do very nicely!) on an atlas project. I plan to print several photos for Mr. Senn as a Thank You card, but in the meantime, Refeng-Thabo students wish to thank him for his very valuable donation.

All is going well at school and everyone has been very helpful. The students are getting used to my accent and I am working on my Sesotho and Zulu, which always gets a laugh from the students. I've mastered "enter class" "You're being noisy" and "sit down" as well as greetings and good-byes.

I've finally been able to upload photos, so I've added quite a few to previous posts. We've taken over 500 photos already and are sure that we'll take thousands before we leave. It's hard to take a bad picture here as the landscape and the people are absolutely beautiful!

Kate and Andy's Weekend Trips

2007-01-25T06:40:00.000-08:00

There is absolutely nothing to do in Tweeling on the weekend, so we've decided to have every weekend be an excursion farther into South Africa. The first weekend that we were here we visited Clarens Golden Gate National Park. The park is an hour and a half from our home and is absolutely beautiful. The town of Clarens offered restaurants and B&B's, both of which were a treat. The town is beautiful and we
were awed by the fields of sunflowers that are in bloom on the ride south from Tweeling. Free State is famous for its sunflowers, which are gorgeous and stretch as far as you can see.

Last weekend we visited the Drakensburg Mountains, southeast of Tweeling and on the border of Lesotho. We watched baboons in the Royal Natal National Park and hiked through the park to a series of beautiful waterfalls. On Sunday we went on a tour/hike from the guest house where we stayed to Sentinel Peak. The misty mountain peaks were absolutely gorgeous and we were blown away by how beautiful the green mountains are after the summer
rains. We were caught in an impressive storm on the mountain, which drenched us and ruined our cell phone. A shopkeeper in Tweeling thinks that he might be able to fix it, but for now we are cell-phone-less. Even with the intense storm, the mountains and the whole area are gorgeous and we plan to return soon.

Programme to Welcome Kate and Andy

2007-01-18T04:45:00.000-08:00

We were already feeling very welcome in Tweeling, where we have been treated like family members by the family that owns the main house for our cottage, when the Tweeling community went above and beyond in welcoming us to the community. Last Thursday, school ended at 12 noon so that the faculty and town could welcome us "South African Style."

There was quite a to-do at a school assembly, which included students' singing, reading poems, and performing, speeches by members of the community and the school, a ceremony by traditional healers (sangomas), and an unbelievable South African feast for the faculties of the secondary and primary schools. Andy and I were so touched that I said to my principal, Mr. Rahdebe, how incredible that the whole program was making us feel and he told me, "That is the South African Way."

Arrival in Tweeling, South Africa and a Warm Welcome

2007-01-14T03:06:00.001-08:00

We arrived in Tweeling, Free State, South Africa on Tuesday afternoon (January 9th). Mosuwenyana's friend, Thabo Mafokeng, had told us to call when we were approaching Tweeling. When we were about 10 minutes from the town, Thabo, Mosuwenyana's wife and daughter Gugu and Bakomoso, Gugu's cousin Khanai, Patrick, and Mishak all came to meet us and guide us into town. Several teachers from Refeng-Thabo came by our cottage to greet us and to welcome us to Tweeling. We were
already feeling very welcomed when we learned that the school had planned a big party for us on Thursday, which included beautiful singing by many of the students, speeches by teachers, students, administrators, and members of the community, and an unbelivable feast with over 60 people. We were incredibly touched by this welcome and told the Principal of the school so. When we told him how welcome and happy this production made us, he told us "That is the South African way."

We love our cottage, which is in the backyard of a wonderful family's house. The house is much bigger than we expected and Mosuwenyana's wife did a great deal of work to get it ready for us and to make it feel like home. Many people have asked for our mailing address here and it is:

Kate Mahady and Andy Farkas
19 7th Street
Tweeling, Free State 9820
SOUTH AFRICA

Kate is able to walk to school very easily, as the cottage is about a 10 minute walk from school. Andy will be volunteering at the town's clinic, which is right up the street from the school. We will likely stay in Tweeling for the whole year (there had been some vague plans to move to Frankfort) as we have already made several friends here and like being in such a nice community.
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We are learning as much Sesotho as possible and everyone has been helping us in our learning. The children learn English when they go to school, so children who have not yet started school speak very little English. Luckily, everyone speaks the international language of Barefoot Soccer, and we have made several friends this way.

We are very safe and happy in this community, so there is no reason to worry about us. We are being very welcomed and cared for by our many new friends!

Kate and Andy Arrive in Pretoria

2007-01-08T07:24:00.000-08:00

Andy and Kate arrived in Johannesburg on separate flights on January 7th, after over 24 hours of travel for Kate and over 17 hours for Andy. Darren and Karen Peterson joined Kate on Fulbright's flight, leaving from New Jersey and meeting up with Kate in Atlanta. Kate spent 5 hours in the Atlanta airport (look below if you have received something unusual in the mail with an Atlanta postmark), making last minute phone calls.

We were met at the Johannesburg Airport by Lucy and Deter Hoffman, whom Kate had met in Washington, D.C. in August. Deter valiantly loaded our over-weight luggage for the drive to Pretoria, South Africa's capital. Lucy had kindly booked us into the gorgeous Rozenhof Guest House, where we are basking in luxury before heading out to our small towns.

Monday was spent meeting with a secruity representative at the U.S. Embassy, who gave us tips on how to avoid becoming victims of crime during our stay. We then had lunch with a Fulbright teacher who had just returned from teaching in Pennsylvania and dealt with cell phones and our needs for fancy coffee. Mary Ellen Koenig, who has been very kindly keeping our car safe, transferred the keys and was an excellent sport while Kate drove our manual car for the first time on the left side of the road. It took a few minutes (and we got passed alot), but I think that I have the hang of it.

Tonight Kate will be driving to Mary Ellen's house for dinner and then tomorrow we will be heading to our new home in Tweeling. It's about 2 1/2 hours south of Pretoria on a good road and Darren and Karen will be following us and then proceeding on to Clocolan, another hour south.

Alphios tells me that the internet doesn't work in Tweeling when it's cloudy or raining, so the next post will likely be a few weeks from now. We are very well taken care of and have been told that Alphios' wife Gugu has done a good bit of grocery shopping for us. Our stay in Pretoria has been lovely and we are looking forward to heading out to the place that we will be spending most of our time this year.

Alphios arrives in Tucson

2007-01-08T07:08:00.000-08:00

Welcome to Tucson!

Mosuwenyana Alphios Mokoena arrived in Tucson on January 4th in the afternoon. We drove to our house, where he will be staying for the year, and Alphios had his first burrito. All agree that, if he likes burritos, he'll do just fine in Tucson.

On Friday Alphios and I were all over town, visiting Booth-Fickett, setting up utility accounts, and getting an Arizona ID. In the evening we had a party with teachers from Booth-Fickett, who were incredibly supportive and promised to take good care of him. I am incredibly thankful for their kindness and their interest in and willingness to help Alphios during his time in Tucson.

Mr. Manny Contreras offered to take Alphios to school on the first day and to bring him on Saturday to buy a cell phone, which Manny has offered to pay for with funds from the Student Council. I leave Alphios feeling confident that he will be well cared for by Booth-Fickett staff!

Getting Ready to Leave

2006-12-25T12:49:00.000-08:00

It is an enormous job to get your selves and your home ready to leave for Africa for a year! Andy left Tucson in his truck on December 20th for the drive back to Pennsylvania. He'll spend the holidays with his family and will be leaving for South Africa on January 6th from Washington, D.C.

Kate will be in Boston and Cape Cod for the holidays and will be back in Tucson to greet Mosuwenyana Mokoena (the farthest right in the photo) when he comes into Tucson on January 4th. Kate will leave for South Africa from Tucson on January 6th and will arrive an hour before Andy.

Kate and Andy will be living in Frankfort, South Africa for the year of 2007. Kate will be teaching at Refeng-Thabo Secondary School and Andy will be volunteering with local organizations. As we were getting ready, we decided to make things even more exciting by getting married over Thanksgiving weekend!

Our internet access will be spotty during our time in Frankfort, (Mosuwenyana tells me that you can't get internet access when it's cloudy out) but we'll be posting information to this site whenever we have a chance.