swanky things

the past few weeks have been full of life-planning, thanks to my mom's visit over. the two of us had a really nice trip full of leopard cub spotting, waterfall swims, rock art, and the occasional obnoxious tour guide or sunset cruise. it was certainly a different style of traveling, with it being planned and all, but i can see how people are fans of being shipped around without thinking. there were no nightmare bus rides in the middle of the night with friends ready to punch out old women (mozambique was full of that), so thats a perk.

i've decided to cut my time short in SA and head up to ghana for july and august (then, to my mom's excitement, home for the beginning of september). i've got volunteers coming over this summer which i think coudl be a really fantastic opportunity for ETFL, CBW and buduburam so i would like to make sure i can help us take full advantage of that. plus, after having spent a few months watching how other organizations work, i've got a few more ideas for things that we can do in the camp to make the whole thing smoother and more helpful. hopefully that return will make blogs a bit more interesting to read, and less about my travel.

so, with a busy 2 months in ghana on the horizon i'm off to botswana (because its close), zambia (to volunteer, and make myself feel semi-legitimate) and zimbabwe (because its on my bucket list). somehow my time in SA has become really numbered which is too bad but exciting. i think i'm ready to keep moving. months here have really helped me appreciate what we've got going in buduburam and i am excited to go back there with fresh eyes.

the southern africa tour begins (blindly) tomorrow. today though, i'm spending the day in madikwe game reserve at a friend's super swanky lodge getting my act together with wireless internet. going away traveling is a nice break from the project but i get such a huge to-do list in my head that to actually get online and tick things off is arguably more therapeutic than the time away. its also looking like this will be my final taste of luxury travel before getting back to where i belong as a backpacker bouncing around through botswana, hopefully getting to where we want to be.

wish us luck on this last stint (or stunt). we've done a shit packing job cutting all sorts of necessary things. i cut moisturizer for fear of explosion and already i'm annoyed with that call. what will be worse is when we find out that in fact it does rain in africa and the fly of the tent, that we cut since it was too bulky, would really be helpful. we have raincoats though. and a lonely planet. and hopefully, good senses of humour.

being a suck.

i never thought i'd find myself wasting my life away on facebook and whining about winter coming while i was in 'africa'. yet another wonder of johannesburg, i suppose. i'm sorry to anyone that has had to experience me being the biggest suck in the world during the past few days.

got back from mozambique a week ago today. trip was a pretty good time... learned that i certainly don't speak portuguese and should stop telling people i have basic abilities in spanish as well. brushed up on major communist figures while in the capital, maputo, since they name every street after one of them. oddly enough, despite the pride in FRELIMO and the revolution, they have "temporarily" closed the revolution museum... pretty sure they haven't opened it since the 70s. worked out though... instead we got to see some of the mozambican art scene that was actually quite well documented through a few galleries. we lucked out and met a dutch girl working at one and she was good enough to give us an explanation of how art has evolved since the portuguese in the 60s. after checking out maputo's praised bar scene (flashy bars, not great luck with music) and stuffing ourselves with more prawns, mussels, calamari and mystery fish than necessary, we came back to the city.

the idea was to spend 2 days here, saying bye to 2 friends and getting some work done. of course, i have had yet another run in with diplomatic bureaucracy and rather than returning to hlabisa before my mom comes over, i'm stuck waiting for a passport to get fixed up. with the exception of the odd perfect fall day, the weather has been dreary and sucking the life out of me thus all the facebook time. it also keeps sparking quarter-life crises that prompt frantic googling for jobs where i come up short over and over again.

kyle, my buddy in winter (or i guess its only fall) joburg depression, and i will probably make pancakes in the morning as celebration of being total wastes of space. pathetic, i know. then maybe, if its not completely terrible outside, we'll go see the planetarium.

plus side, today SMYLe - the marimba band - had a performance at joburgs fifa stadium. along with watching another knock out performance, i got to wander around the new stadium a bit while they handed out free tickets to all the people who built it. they make it hard in this city not to get excited about the world cup... it forced a temporary break from being a total suck.

this has been a very eeyore entry. suppose i missed the usual winter blahs this year in canada so its only fair that i get stuck with them now.