On TV they crow with the dawn. You know the typical scene: the sun is rising in the countryside and the rooster crows and everyone wakes up. This is pretty accurate. Roosters do crow at sunrise.
What the television leaves out is that the roosters don't STOP crowing all day. They just keep going on and on and on.
This wasn't terribly noticable at the school, but I learned it well because I spent this day home sick.
I mentioned at the end of the Sunday entry that I'd been battling a fever all day, and despite knocking myself out with hardcore Tylenol at 5:30 the night before, I was still sick the next morning. I knew that I had two options: stay home and rest, miss the first day where there was no heavy lecturing, and hopefully recover OR I could force myself to go, be miserable, and stay sick for the rest of the week, including the days that I have some pretty heavy lectures.
People may call me wimpy, but I stayed home, and I don't regret it for a second. The goal was to rest all day and I did somewhat succeed in this, but in their worry about me my teammates warned some of the people at IOC that I was home sick. They wanted people just to check in on me to make sure I didn't worse, and I'm sure they didn't intend on making me the local sideshow, but that was the end result. The cook that we'd befriended, Ska, checked on me about five times, sometimes bringing new people with her. Zenzele came in, woke me from a nap, asked why I was still in bed and looked through pictures on my camera. He knows Alex and Rebecca and knew the group last year and was a pretty nice guy, but like many of the people in Ingwavuma he doesn't seem to get subtle hints to go away.
Finally around 2 I was feeling well enough to get dressed and go outside for a time. I talked with some of the kids who were hanging around IOC, mainly Ska's niece and son. Her niece was a very sweet girl who's probably 11 or 12 and spoke pretty decent English. She seemed really eager to talk to a native English speaker and improve her own English. I was only too happy to oblige; I love talking. Ska's son was almost 5 years old and reminded me a bit of my own brother in that he was very much about bugging the people around him.
The rest of the team came back around 4 or so and were happy to see me up and about and feeling much better. We did a little planning for the next day and I heard stories about the kids at camp. There were apparently about 39 of them and they were much older and more attentive, so I set to work making my HIV and Immune System lectures a bit more advanced. This took me until “late” (probably only 8:30), and I crashed as soon as I was finished.
Ngiyabonga kakhulu! Ngisebenza kusuka ku-9 kuya ku-5. Lina kusuka ngoJuni kuze kube ngoJulayi. Ngimuesasa wenazwa ngcono. Captain's log, stardate 07212009, a postcard arrived from South Africa which likened me to a giraffe. With all due respect to the giraffe, such a wonderful creature is by far more pleasing to the eye than I. Regardless, I can see the genetic permutations and resemblance in the long eyelashes... the stilleto legs... the elongated neck... and even the character uniqueness; however, I will someday dispute the rounded horns... mine are more like triangular stumps at this point in time...FYI. Despite this egregious affront on my giraffeness, I still believe wholeheartedly that Crayola is making a tremendous difference in the lives of the kids she's touching and they will remember the teachings she is sharing and hopefully carry on her mission throughout their natural lives.
ReplyDeleteMegan,
ReplyDeleteI just read your blogs and couldn't believe how you put me right there. I love the wild african dogs too. And the lion park - what a great time, right? And Hlulluwe as well. And it sounds like you did a fabulous job with the camps. What a fantastic time you had. You had the good fortune to get to know Eugen, Vusi, Thembi, Hlengiwe, Vee, Zenzele (thanks for delivering the gift to him - he let me know on facebook) and , I assume Ann and Paul as well. Did you love the Spar employees too? I hope you are going to write some more about the end of your trip. Congratulations on all of it! Cheri (who went last year and we met just before you left)