School Holiday Part 2: The Wild Coast

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!

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

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!

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

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!

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!

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

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

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.