change of plans. rather than kicking around zambia - which turns out, id on't like nearly as much as i thought i would - i'm in namibia. i've been hitch hiking from north to south, which turns out, is not easy. botswana hitching was way easier than we thought, and it probably built up too much confidence in our ability to get around. however, thanks to pickup trucks and tour busses, we're alive and out of one of the 'most remote places in africa'.
what i love about hitching is the giant highs and lows you get... and they probably best sum up what we've been up to.
high: you can drive close to the kalahari if you beg someone to let you sit on the top of their truck for 2 hours while he drives to the gate.
low: without your own car, and the money to back it up, you can't actually get into the kalahari.
high: a kenyan that lives in botswana who drives to the DRC via zambia every 2 weeks and picks us up from (another) gas station and not only doesn't want money for petrol but buys us lunch!
low: 15 hour minibus rides (overnight) through northern namibia that stop at every gas station en route and play the same 5 songs over and over again.
high: being picked up at 530 am from a gas station in a northern namibian town that nobody ever goes to, and being driven exactly where you want to go.
low: finding out that the guy who picks you up is a bad singer who loves singing and honking at small birds on the road that are kilometers away.
high: the kaokoveld. one of the most remote places in africa...
low: realizing 100 km into the kaokoveld that nobody drives there, that you have no water, and that your cracker diet really dries up your waterless mouth.
bigger low: realizing that you're not 2km away from the nearest town, but 50km. and that there is no water for the next 50 km and you have 3 gulps each.
bigger low: thinking that while you're sleeping on a bed of rocks on the side of a road, that the car that drove by has stopped and is planning to rob you blind.
high: realizing, after you burried your valuables under rocks away from your tent, that the car drove away and never came back.
low: waking up with the sorest body in the world and a gigantic hill to hike up in front of you... and with no water. and food that only dries your mouth further. and flipflops on your feet that make sure you feel every rock you step on.
bigger high: having a german tour bus pass you and give you 6 bottles of water.
biggest high of my week: hearing the reverse sounds of the german bus as it decides that it will rescue you from the kaokoveld afterall and drive you really far... saving your life.
low: saying goodbye to the german tour bus and being left in a very unforgiving desert.
low: making horrible instant coffee in a water bottle on the side of the road to lift spirits and curb hunger, while realizing that you hate the game 20 questions.
high: being picked up by a colorado school trip from the middle of the desert after every other tourist drives by pretending they can't see you.
bigger high: hurtling down desert roads on the top of a 4x4 as some of hte most incredible landscapes pass you by.
even bigger high: after selling your sister for a horse to luckyboy in uis, namibia (sorry poops-), the school group invites you to tag along with them to camp at some really cool mountain, and feeds you a meal that isn't pb on strange bread,
low: getting really fucking lost at night in those mountains as you try to navigate home from the town's local bar.
low: the smell of probably millions of seals that are not very cute.
low: a weird desert town that is supposed to be more german than germany but feels more like a ghost town with funny architecture and a permanent seal smell.
high: making spaghetti in the ghost town and having a full stomach after a week and a half of really terrible food and being hungry.
its been a really strange week. it gets stranger as i sit in this german town trying to mesh this hitch hiking life with my actual life and put this all together. feels a bit confusing, and just plain weird. tonight we get back on the move across botswana to finally get to zimbabwe (the original point of this whole trip). then south africa. then GHAANNNAA!!!!
"had it been another day, i might have looked the other way, and i´d have never been aware..."
Thursday, June 3, 2010
Sunday, May 23, 2010
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.
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.
Monday, May 3, 2010
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.
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.
Monday, April 19, 2010
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!
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!
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
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.
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.
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
2 weeks deep
i've been lame about blogging mainly because i'm not sure what to write about. life in johannesburg is a lot like any other major city and i'm not sure people want to hear about trips to the movies, malls or bars.
that being said, there are differences. here are a few.
1. south africa has a really cool mix of social projects and corporate investment. this probably all exists at home and i've just been happily/stupidly unaware of it.
i've spent the past few weeks alternating between seeing these social projects (orphanage, feeding project, marimba youth league) and then reading about corporate investments and other markers of sustainability.
companies are roped into social investment through various binding and non-binding agreements here. quota system is enforced pretty heavily, and the GRI research i've been helping with tries to hold companies accountable to principles of sustainability and transparency.
i can't figure out where the line gets drawn between ticking boxes to satisfy requirements and actually taking an interest in the projects but it probably doesn't really matter at the end of the day. corporate funding drives the projects i've interacted with so far. who really cares if the big man in charge gives a crap about a feeding program.
2. johannesburg has all the markings of any other city. i live in gay town. there are a lot of huge malls with all the usual brand name stores. the orphanage i'm working at part time is in a borderline white trash area... constantly relocating people based on race made for funny dynamics there. there are a lot of bars with a lot of different feels and...
3. segregation lives on at night clubs like nothing else. we seem to keep ending up in "black bars" (as one person put it). apparently no white south african would actually go to the places we stumble in on. they also wouldn't pull out the chumpy white guy dance moves that we seem to abuse to no end.
thats all i've got for now-
that being said, there are differences. here are a few.
1. south africa has a really cool mix of social projects and corporate investment. this probably all exists at home and i've just been happily/stupidly unaware of it.
i've spent the past few weeks alternating between seeing these social projects (orphanage, feeding project, marimba youth league) and then reading about corporate investments and other markers of sustainability.
companies are roped into social investment through various binding and non-binding agreements here. quota system is enforced pretty heavily, and the GRI research i've been helping with tries to hold companies accountable to principles of sustainability and transparency.
i can't figure out where the line gets drawn between ticking boxes to satisfy requirements and actually taking an interest in the projects but it probably doesn't really matter at the end of the day. corporate funding drives the projects i've interacted with so far. who really cares if the big man in charge gives a crap about a feeding program.
2. johannesburg has all the markings of any other city. i live in gay town. there are a lot of huge malls with all the usual brand name stores. the orphanage i'm working at part time is in a borderline white trash area... constantly relocating people based on race made for funny dynamics there. there are a lot of bars with a lot of different feels and...
3. segregation lives on at night clubs like nothing else. we seem to keep ending up in "black bars" (as one person put it). apparently no white south african would actually go to the places we stumble in on. they also wouldn't pull out the chumpy white guy dance moves that we seem to abuse to no end.
thats all i've got for now-
Thursday, March 11, 2010
johannesburg
moved to johannesburg yesterday... officially, i'd been planning this trip for about 2 weeks. i'd been thinking about it for much longer. originally i was going to come down last november but veered off to the camp instead. a few weeks back though, all my ducks got in a row and, here i am.
its been a bizarre 24 hours. beyond different accents, it doesn't feel much like ive left north america. kitchener, sure.. johannesburg is a lot bigger. but we're in a pretty quiet area that at night could easily be mistaken for claremont ave.
go figure.
it feels right though.
before i left, a friend mentioned that i wouldn't be going to africa. i got all annoyed. of course johannesburg is africa. the continent is a place, not an idea, and certainly not a stagnant image of rural lives built around mudhuts and large animals. sure enough though, my first thought when i got off the plane was that i most certainly was not in africa anymore. we touched down in dakar, senegal. that seemed right. this was way off.
what i can tell from the get go is that this is about to challenge every idea and understanding i've come to normalize about the continent. i certainly haven't been visiting this continent for long but my role as an international volunteer in slightly rural settings with a history of IVs coming through certainly paints a certain picture of "the continent". despite all my DEVS teaching against homogenization, i seem to have done just that.
live and learn?
its been a bizarre 24 hours. beyond different accents, it doesn't feel much like ive left north america. kitchener, sure.. johannesburg is a lot bigger. but we're in a pretty quiet area that at night could easily be mistaken for claremont ave.
go figure.
it feels right though.
before i left, a friend mentioned that i wouldn't be going to africa. i got all annoyed. of course johannesburg is africa. the continent is a place, not an idea, and certainly not a stagnant image of rural lives built around mudhuts and large animals. sure enough though, my first thought when i got off the plane was that i most certainly was not in africa anymore. we touched down in dakar, senegal. that seemed right. this was way off.
what i can tell from the get go is that this is about to challenge every idea and understanding i've come to normalize about the continent. i certainly haven't been visiting this continent for long but my role as an international volunteer in slightly rural settings with a history of IVs coming through certainly paints a certain picture of "the continent". despite all my DEVS teaching against homogenization, i seem to have done just that.
live and learn?
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