hlabisa... finally

feeding on the familiarity of malawi, ive left joburg and am living - for a short while - im hlabisa, south africa. it is north east from durban in kwa-zulu natal... really hilly, really green, really far from parkhurst.

parkhurst was, and continues to be, a learning experience. i think ive said this a million times but it was out of my element and showed maybe the future of where i need to take ETFL... its a slightly grey looking future of annual reports, corporate relationships and other things less exciting than field work but its an inevitable part, i suppose.

hlabisa has been more field work which is loads more fun. im only here for a week right now but have gathered a host of ideas that i'll bring back to ghana.

i spend a lot of time kicking around the KZN branch of cotland's orphanage (where i was in joburg for a bit). the area has a good amount of child-headed househoulds and the approach to this is different. there are a series of caregivers who visit the houses regularly, making sure that the children have the supplies they need. the cotlands feeding program goes to these kids specifically, dropping off lunches for them at school (not taking on entire schools). they are lucky enough to have an exit strategy for feeding programs as well... the SA government will absorb schools bit by bit. 2 entire high schools were absorbed this week and now every child there gets a hot meal each day. i will hopefully come back to learn more how the government monitors the schools' progress etc.

the pace out here is slower and faster than joburg. i feel like i spend a lot of time not doing much more than talking... nice thing is that i am removed enough from the program that you get relatively candid descriptions of the positives and negatives of feeding, management and life... that role was one i used to have in the camp but i feel like i have lost it over the past almost two years for good and bad reasons.

ive spent a bit of time learning about the more "manly" projects that they guys have been working on. building roofs, installing water collection things etc. i'm not particularly helpful here beyond weaving grass bracelets for them... but i am hoping to carry back some of these projects to the camp so that i can stop buying water. more on that to come later though..

outside of work ive been hanging around with a few friends who have been fantastic about showing me the ropes. driving around and having mini tailgate parties are huge here, especially on wednesdays. bit uneasy being the only girl that does this but, it wears off. 2 friends also took us to a zulu wedding on the weekend which was pretty cool to watch. driving to it included a quick trip through a game reserve in the back of a pickup full of whisky - a combo that i think could make anyone pretty pleased.

heading up to mozambique tomorrow for a few days before two of the guys go home, then mumsy is coming over to south africa to see what all the hype is about!

lake malawi

just got back from a quick long weekend at lake malawi. how very madonna of me (no, i didn't see her and no, i didn't bring home a baby).

we spent 5 days driving up the coast of the lake, swimming around little beach towns. i forgot how long it had been since i really spent time at a lake- got all nostalgic about canoeing, camping and not showering. i happily got right back into the swing of not washing my hair. i think the guys i travelled with were thrilled.

malawi felt familiar. while i'm sure if i spent a bit of time in one spot i'd see how many differences there are between malawi, ghana and uganda, on the surface it felt like one of my homes. little kids were thrilled to see white people walk by and threw around the thumbs up like it was nobody's business. there were hundreds of vendors selling soap, coke, biscuits and small packets of gin. i followed a pretty strict diet of PB, fresh avocado and fish. i spent most of my time dreaming up more places to visit and thinking about how badly i wish i could scoot over to ghana just for a bit.

after a what seemed like ages of flipping through annual reports (and my time doing that was nothing compared to the months of it the others put up with) it was nice to get back to all of that. there is a bit more to get done before the project is officially finished but it is certainly in the home stretch. this probably stems from how superficial my work has been on the project, but it feels like this report is a stab in the dark. ill be interested to see/hear about the effects of it in the long run.

i'll be in jobuurg for the next week and then am making a move east to a small town called hlabisa. don't know much about it but i hear good things. limited internet access though... not that the blog will notice since i continue to be terrible at updating it.

quick update about ETFL... school in ghana runs year round in 3 terms (sept-dec, jan-apr, may-aug). term 2 is wrapping up next week and i'll bee shooting out a newsletter at the end of april to sum up what has gone on (email lindsay@eattofeedliberians.com if you're not already on the mailing list). i desperately need more people to sign up for the 1+1=7 campaign. its been painfully slow and i'm running out of ideas on how to get people to do it. visit www.eattofeedliberians.com/oneplusone.html to sign up. or email me if you'd rather do one yearly payment. its $60 yearly and without people doing this the third term is going to be a tough one to fund.

other news... the camp was hit with a whopper of a storm the other week and it has really butchered the roof of our pre-primary campus. we're working out repair details and there will be more news there shortly. i'll need hands to help with that as well.

okay! thats all for now. pictures of all the different things mentioned in the newsletter will be up on facebook shortly.