Family Vacation!

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!

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

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"

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

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).