Day 13 - Monday, July 6 - Camp 2, Day 1

So here's the deal with roosters.

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.

Day 12 - Sunday, June 5th - Hluhluwe

So, Sunday dawned dark and early. We were up around 5:30 to catch our 6:00 game drive, which meant we started out on the drive in full dark. At first this meant a pretty uneventful drive, but we did manage to see two spotted hyenas, so I'm sure not complaining. They're relatively rare.

Once it lightened up and we were able to see by more than headlights we saw a bit more. Lots of herbivores, like the day before. Elephants at a distance, rhinos pretty close (though behind some photo-ruining foliage), giraffes by the dozen. Even a few baby zebras! There were also some of the stranger animals like nyalas that nobody really knows about (basically, larger impala types). The real feature of the drive ended up being birds. We saw a wide variety of bush chickens and hawk type birds and the like. I wish beyond anything else that I'd had binoculars.

After the drive we threw in some laundry and grabbed a quick (but delicious) lunch out on the restaurant's patio, bought some more souvenirs, finished our laundry, and it was time to leave. Laundry sounds pretty boring, but the time it took to do that meant that we were hanging around our huts to see the little reddish deer thing that came up to graze outside them and tons of monkeys! I got some fantastic up-close pictures of monkeys. Vervets, I believe they were.

After this we started driving home, taking the long way through Umfolozi, which is the other half of the park. I think we saw some wildebeest and baboons, but I napped. It ended up getting us a little lost and we took a bit longer than expected to get home, but again, I napped. I was pretty much in and out of consciousness the whole way home.

This was mainly because of the fever that I'd been running all day. Granted, we didn't have thermometers to check if I'm right about that, but I know what a fever feels like. It made the game drive a little uncomfortable, but I was gone by the time we made it back to Ingwavuma. I ducked out of planning for camp 2 in order to take some hard core nighttime Tylenol (courtesy of the very generous Marilee) and pass out in my bed at about 5:30.

So it wasn't the best end to the weekend, but overall it was a fantastic trip and a wonderful location and Jessy and I are already planning on having our weddings at Hluhluwe.

Day 11 - Saturday, July 4 - Hluhluwe!

I'm writing this a few days after the fact, because I haven't really been up to it since then. Hopefully I'll be able to recount enough.

Saturday morning we packed up nice and early and headed out to Hluhluwe. If you're sitting at home and trying to pronounce that word, you can just stop, because I guarantee you won't get it. The “hl” morpheme here is one that we don't have in English. It sounds kind of like “sh”, but it's pronounced out the side of the mouth. I've been corrected on it no less than a million times since I've been here, although I think I'm getting better.

Anyway, we drove to Hluhluwe with a quick stop just outside Mkuze for some gas and food. Let me say, fast food has never been so delicious. I'm not sure what to classify “Wimpy's”... it was kind of like a George Webbs or Perkins? In any case, we ate pretty well and for very cheap and stole all their sugar packets for use back at IOC. The waitress actually caught us at this and asked us later “where's all the sugar?” to which we stuttered and looked around nervously until she smiled with a big “I'm kidding!” Yes, we are continually jokes here.

We got to Hluhluwe a bit after noon, I think. Once through the main gate we were immediately accosted by a water buffalo, the first of the Big Five on this trip (technically, we'd seen lions at the Lion Park in Johannesburg). For those of you who didn't grow up addicted to Kratt's Creatures, the “Big Five” are lion, leopard, elephant, rhinocerous, and water buffalo. They are supposedly the Need-To-See animals in Africa, although if I had to make a list I'd probably put the cheetah somewhere on there. Giraffe also. To be honest, Africa just has too many awesome animals.

Anyway, back to the buffalo. It was probably an old male, since it was on its own. The thing let us get really close to it. We tried to get around it, but it started moving towards us and in the shortest game of chicken ever, despite us being in a 2-ton car, we backed off. It might be just like a big cow, but it was impressive none the less. Eventually it let us move on.

After that there was a bit of time to admire the scnery. A lot of Africa has been absorbed by its version of suburban sprawl; houses or shacks spread far apart over large areas. The Ingwavuma area is like this. Hluhluwe, because it's a preserve, is just a huge area nearly devoid of humans. It is slightly mountainous and incredibly gorgeous and probably more how I imagined Africa looking from all the nature shows on television.

Then we saw a giraffe. I'd seen one closer at the Lion Park, but it was nice to see one in its “natural” habitat. We stopped at a lookout near a watering hole and saw at a distance an entire troop of babboons and some impala and some zebra. Also, I think a nyala. I'll have to check my pictures later.

After this was some more scenery admiring and then HOLY CRAP A ZEBRA. They were right in the middle of the road. We got some fantastic pictures of them, when they'd look up from their grazing. They're such interesting animals, and it's amazing that the black-on-white scheme could work for them, but it really does.

Another lookout point came up and we got out of the car only to see ELEPHANTS! They were across from us, on the next hill/mountain, and there were about fourteen of them total. Since our tour guide later on said that the bull (male) elephants travel alone, these must have been females and their young. Cross off another on our list of the Big Five.

We watched them for a while because they were honestly pretty fascinating. I'm sure my pictures don't do them justice. We could hear them eating in the distance, which by the sound of it meant tearing down some trees.

After this was more edge of your seat driving and then a hairpin turn and we nearly crashed into zebras! Which were pretty much the same as the last time we'd seen them, but hey, it's awesome anyway!

So eventually we made our way to Hilltop Camp for the night. We signed up for a game drive for the next morning, for dinner, and then we headed to our rooms. We actually had reserved two seperate huts called “rondavels”, which are round huts. They were certainly not huts in the traditional sense; they were definitely hotel rooms inside. They had a sink and mini fridge and holy crap the nicest beds we'd slept in in a week. Fantastic.

We went out for another quick drive but really only saw a warthog. You're not supposed to drive around in the park after dark and we had dinner reservations besides, so we headed back. Which meant that when we got back we took SHOWERS.

Dude. Ingwavuma is great, but it is not known for reliable water. We've had our water cut off more than we've had it on, and hot water is just a myth. So for us to take showers with hot water, even if the showers were in a communal bathroom... we were really in heaven. For the first time in a while I felt fully human. I got “dolled up”, which basically meant putting on clean clothes and some eyeliner. Heh. It was wonderful. Heck, they even had mirrors, and I pretty much hadn't seen myself in a week.

Dinner was fantastic. It was buffet style and we all ate until we burst. We also drank some pretty delicious mixed drinks; Jessy and Machiko had “Sex in the Bush” and I had a “Hilltop Sunrise”. We were also right by the windows, so we saw a genet, which is a type of wild cat that's nocturnal and pretty shy. The dessert menu was as fantastic as the rest of the food, and afterwards we enjoyed a can of South African beer. Castle, I think it was.

So by then we were beat and basically just headed back to bed and crashed for the night. For all of those of you in Wisconsin you're probably not to impressed by my stories about comfortable beds and hot showers, but you really don't appreciate this stuff until it's REALLY gone.

Day 10 - Friday, July 3 - Camp 1, Day 4

Last day of Camp 1!

Today was a pretty fun day. We covered Sexually Transmitted Infections, which aren't necessarily very fun, but we got through it pretty fast. We talked about having an STI makes you up to ten times more likely to contrat HIV.

After this we split up the kids again by gender, except taking all of the kids under twelve out. So first we had girls twelve and up while the boys and young'uns went outside. Then it was time for me and Jessy to do the... CONDOM DEMONSTRATION!

I don't know how we two were roped into doing that, but we were. For this purpose AYO had purchased and given us five dildos. They were the glow in the dark kind! The reason for it being so explicit is that another group a while back had tried to do the condom demonstration on their thumbs and the kids didn't really get that thumb = penis, so... anyway, there's really nothing lost in translation when you whip out five glow-in-the-dark dildos.

The girls were shy to start, but seemed to have a little fun. There was definitely a lot of giggling, but they all seemed to understand. We discussed how if you start putting a condom on backwards you have to throw it away, since some potentially infectious fluids would be on the outside once you flip it around. Considering my high school didn't offer a condom demonstration even in my senior health class, I think these kids are getting a great opportunity.

So every girl got the opportunity to try and then we went through some sex negotiation where Jessy and I acted out some things they may hear people say about sex (“everyone is doing it!”) and things they can say in response (“no, everyone is not doing it. Some people even pretend to be sexually active to impress their friends.”)

Next we got the guys in. They were similarly shy to start out with, but opened up pretty quickly as well. I think it helped how matter-of-fact me and Jessy were, not flinching when doing the demonstration or showing any shame. Mostly these kids need to understand that condoms are normal and safe and healthy and that they shouldn't be ashamed of using them.

After the negotiations and stuff we made power dolls with the kids, which they really enjoyed and I was glad for it. If you don't know what that is, it's where they write a message to themselves on a half sheet of paper and then crumple it into a ball. This will become the head. They wrap it in a 12' x 12' square of fabric. Using just some yarn, it becomes a little doll. I'll have some pictures of them later, after I return.

I spent the time organizing the stuff for the giveaway at the end. By the time the power dolls were done we were ready to eat. Each kid came in and got a sparkly pencil and some stickers and a TY beanie baby. Some of them were kind of puzzled at them, since I'm sure they aren't used to a lot of the North American wildlife that they take some inspiration from. For instance, nobody was listening to us tell them that the beaver wasn't some kind of dog. Heh.

After camp we headed home to bust out the wine. Or, rather, we ate some dinner, waited for Eugene and Vusi (two of our translators) to show up, and then we busted out the wine. We had a bottle of red and white and although I can't remember the exact brand, I know they were both from South Africa. They were pretty delicious. We played cards. We learned a South African card game, Casino, and we taught Eugene and Vusi Circle of Death. By this point it was just the two of them and Jessy and I and we figured that they should learn some authentic American college student past times. They seemed to like the game, and it helped us finish out our wine (not that we needed the help!)

After that it was definitely time for a little dancing, but mostly time for bed. I was only too happy to crash.

Day 9 - Thursday, July 2 - Camp 1, Day 3

More than halfway through the first camp! Today was the first day that we had two translators, as we added Vusi to the mix. He's a pretty great guy, and having three really helped us along. It also seemed to help them from being worn out.

We started off with just asking what they remembered from the previous day, which was surprisingly quite a lot. We collect their journals, where they take notes if they do take notes, at the end of every day and since we hadn't passed them out everything they told us was stuff they remembered. We were very impressed.

At this point we split them up so that half of the students worked on a page in their Hero Books while half went outside to try out the drunk goggles. Those things are fuuuuun. They're this huge pair of goggles that warps everything you see so that things are way closer or farther away than you think. They do a good job of making you dizzy and disorientated. The kids were hilarious in them and had a great time trying them on.

After that we finished up some lecture on drugs, covering Marijuana and a few others. Then it was my turn to try and teach them about HIV prevention, testing, and treatment. I did the first two relatively quickly and the students seemed to be getting just a little antsy, which we'd planned for.

After testing we decided to play a game with them. We handed every kid a paper bag. Inside the bags each had seven pieces of candy and an index card. Some had instructions on their index card and if they did, they had to follow the instructions. Otherwise, they had to try to share the candy with each other. Now, some gets were “abastainers” and were told not to share their candy with anyone. A few were called up in front of the other as monogamous couples, and only shared with their partner. Still others just had a C or an IC on their bag. Most of the kids had red candy, with a select few having green.

You see where this is going?

Yes, after the game, we asked everyone with a green candy in their bag to stand up. All of these people “got HIV”. Some people had stars on their bags and these people started with HIV. Those with C or IC got to sit down because they “used a condom”, so they were safe... EXCEPT those with the IC used the condom INCORRECTLY, so they did in fact get HIV (we're tricky). It was a fun little activity and the kids seemed to enjoy it.

After that was the treatment lecture and then we split the kids up into boys and girls. Machiko and I took the boys outside for a journal question and games and face painting while the girls got the lecture on rape. I wasn't there for the rape lecture, but I hear it went pretty well. It's important to stress to these kids that if they are raped, it isn't their fault (which is a common idea here).

There was a break for lunch in the middle and then we switched it up. The girls were very excited to get their faces painted and I guess the guys were more forthcoming than expected in their rape lecture.

By the time we were done with this we'd covered a lot of pretty heavy information, so we released the kids and went home.

That night we joined the little kids staying at IOC for some fun and dancing and games. They'd found a CD player and were playing some local music. We learned a dance that is kind of like a modified electric slide and I taught one heartbreakingly adorable little boy how to play “hand-clapping games”. His name was Siyabonga and as soon as I gave him that little individual attention he was attached to me for the rest of the time he was there.

Day 8 - Wednesday, July 1 - Camp 1, Day 2

I'm actually writing this entry days later, since I didn't have enough time Wednesday night to write about the day.

Wednesday went much better than the first day. We planned differently, more flexibly, and didn't forget any supplies. The drive there was just as crazy and bumpy, but Thembi seems to know the roads pretty well. Again, we had to run to the store before heading to school so that we could pick up bread for their brunches. They should be breakfasts, but since they happen on South Africa time (plus 45 minutes or more), they're more like brunches.

We started the day by just talking to the kids. I can't specifically remember everything we did, because I stepped out to work on my lectures. I do remember my two lectures; I covered the immune system and HIV.

To be honest, I kind of loved talking about the immune system with them. I had to simplify it a lot for them; I only talked about white blood cells and antibodies, and even then only in the most basic sense. But at least I know that my information was pretty accurate, and wasn't made incorrect by my simplifying it. With how stressful my classes can be, it's nice to kind of affirm that at its core, I really do enjoy my area of study.

Although we did schedule much better this day, we actually had the opposite problem; we weren't able to get through everything. We did the Immune System and risky behaviors (sex, coming in contact with infected fluids, etc) and HIV and then half of our drugs and alcohol material (alcohol, cocaine, and heroin) before we had to let the kids go. I brought some water along and was able to eat some of the prepared food, so I wasn't nearly as exhausted by the day, despite delivering two pretty heavy letures.

We're still riding with Thembi and the translators (Hlengiwe and Eugene), but we have a shiny new car chilling in the IOC “parking lot” (which is a parking lot in only the vaguest sense of the words). As it turns out, the owners of the guest house we stayed in in Joburg knew someone high up in Budget Rental's corporate structure, at least here in South Africa. He must have called in a favor because we got about ten apologies about our treatment when we blew the tire, leading us to not have to pay for the tire or the rim damage. They replaced our car, driving a new one probably four hours out to Ingwavuma (for those in Wisconsin, it's like someone driving a car into the middle of deep woods up north, down logging roads, from Milwaukee). All of the three cars that our group rented had two days taken off of the rental price. The car we have now is also larger and an automatic and we only have to pay for a small car to have it. Basically, we got incredibly lucky.

While we were eating dinner this night we noticed Eugene (one of our translators) hanging and working with the little orphans staying at IOC this week. They played the “teddy bear” game, which Eugene had also played with our kids. The game involves everyone standing in a circle with one in the middle, everyone singing and clapping: “My teddy bear, my teddy bear, I love my teddy bear... my teddy bear, my teddy bear, I love my teddy bear... Polish your shoe!” And on that last part the person in the middle pretends to polish the shoe of one kid. Then everyone sings “I love my teddy bear” and those two people hug and then switch, so that the kid who got their shoe “polished” is in the middle. Repeat ad nasueum.

After the kids were dismissed to their rooms and we were preparing for bed we heard them singing the song and it's pretty catchy, so we joined in and it turned into a full-on game. Keep in mind, these kids speak no English and we speak next to no Zulu, so the only thing we had between us was this game. In this way we also taught them the chicken dance and basically just played the teddy bear game for a very long time. The kids loved it, though. They are so adorable and precocious and just like “our kids” at camp, you can tell that they could do great things if given half the chance.

After that, though, we were completely wiped and crashed by about 9 or 10.

Day 7 - Tuesday, June 30th - Camp 1, Day 1

Wow.

Well, our first day is done, and that's an accomplishment in and of itself. It was an exercise in endurance and flexibility to rival any Olympic sport. Keep in mind, none of us have experience with teaching in any real capacity, and teaching in another language and in another culture is a huge obstacle.

Jessy and I (we're roomies for this part of the trip) woke up around 6:30 to the sound of honest-to-God roosters and children. Mostly children. I had underestimated the ability of children to be up at horribly early hours with enough energy to be laughing and running. I was similarly impressed by their commitment to playing... they were outside even though it's really freakin' cold in the morning.

So we physically got up around 7 and got ready to head out. Thembi, who was driving us, said that she'd be leaving around 8. To make a long story short, we left around 9... Africa time. Everything is plus or minus 45 minutes, and usually it's plus. So we arrived at the school at about 9:30 after stopping for loaves of bread (for breakfast for the kids). Considering our itinerary had said that breakfast would start the day at school at 8, we were somewhat behind schedule.

We'd anticipated having some time to warm up and get ready, but when we got there the kids were all there and ready to go, so we just jumped into the first activity. Basically we set up the camp, went over some goals, got some “community agreements” (listen when others talk, don't laugh, be respectful, etc), played a game to learn names and did a presurvey (of how much they think they know about the topics we'll be covering).

By the time we were done with ALL of that, only about... one hour had passed. Our thoughts upon realizing this: “Uh-oh”.

About here we decided to slow our pace a bit. Our next step was to do the first page in their “Hero Books”, but we quickly realized that due to some amazing oversight, we'd forgot all of the books that we'd spent an hour or more making the previous day. Oops! So we introduced the idea and had them all make covers for the books, and they'll get the books (with cover) tomorrow. Not a terrible setback.

After this we did another little game and then handed out journals. I suppose that I should mention how in love these kids are with their school supplies. I dunno if others agree with me, but I always loved school supply shopping. Every year I got new paper and pencils and markers and whatever else and no matter what it was, it was great. These kids clearly don't get that luxury, so when we handed out their little pencil cases and notebook for the journals... they were clearly really excited. The care they took in drawing and the joy they clearly got from using markers and colored pencils was so wonderful.

About this time (11 or 11:30) the breakfast sandwiches were done. Originally we'd been told not to start before breakfast was done, but since the day was mostly light-hearted activities we'd pressed on. We probably wouldn't do that another day because of the heavier material and because for some of these kids this might have been their first meal in a long time. Breakfast tomorrow might be their first meal since the lunch we provide the day before.

After the sandwiches were eaten it was nearing noon and we'd originally had lunch in this time slot. Ha. The women preparing the food started on lunch, which was going to take a good three hours. We're now thinking: “What are we going to do with this time?!”

So we moved to the trust hand activity. In that activity the students trace their hand and then write their name in the palm. The fingers they use to write names of people they trust. They also list their struggles and successes on the side. The exercise is supposed to help the kids visualize that they have people to turn to for help. It's a fun little activity and afterwards we put the hands up so kids could look around to see if other kids have similar problems (obviously, they often do). It worked pretty well, even if a few kids copied down the answers off our examples.

We did another journal question (What do you know about HIV/AIDS) and then had a discussion about that. The kids did seem to know quite a bit, especially that you should use gloves when handling blood, but I'm unsure of how well they understand WHY that is. I think a lot of the teaching here is done by a lot of copying down what is written and memorization. Hopefully I'll be able to better explain how HIV works to them. In any case, they didn't seem hesitant about participating here, although that may have been helped along by the stickers we gave them for doing so (they LOVED the stickers).

So then we did a little game about facts and myths about HIV, but it didn't get very far, so we abandoned it. Realizing that the kids were getting restless, the four of us were at the ends of our ropes, and that lunch would be happening pretty late, we dismissed the kids for games. We'd brought a soccer ball and frisbees and some clotheslines as jumpropes. I didn't really see the kids playing soccer (they seemed to be using it for basketball instead?) but I played frisbee with some kids the whole time. It was awesome because they had obviously never used a frisbee before, so they were even worse than me! I was looking like some pro. Unfortunately for me, the kids started getting the hang of it pretty quick, but I'm keeping up with them.

The jumpropes probably would have been fun to play with, but I'm gonna need to study how they do it a little more first. They have this weird style where the two spinners go really fast and the person jumping jumps for a few spins, but then catches the rope on their legs and the whole thing pauses. It's a weird start and stop action that looks pretty cool, but I'm not about to try my hand at it.

So after this was food, which was pretty well received. Chicken and rice and I don't know what else. I didn't really have anything aside from an apple and some juice, both of which I realized after having started that they were probably bad ideas. Generally when travelling to foreign countries you try to avoid fruit without hard shells (like apples) and the local water (which they put powder in to make the juice). Oh, well, I guess we'll see if I keep over!

We ended the day with some singing and dancing, courtesy of one of our translators, Eugene. That was another huge obstacle we faced... we'd been operating under the assumption that we'd have 4 translators. The day dawned and we had 2: Eugene and Hlengiwe. Granted, those two did a fantastic job and are simply wonderful people and great helps to us... but it pretty much eliminates our ability to break into smaller groups. We'd planned to have 4 small groups of kids, which each AYO volunteer would lead, along with a translator... but that idea had to be tossed. In any case, Eugene knew most of the kids already from teaching them English or something, so he knew how to keep them energized and entertained.

Okay, well, it's 10:00 PM here and I'm crashing hard. The end of our day was far less amusing; we drove home to Eugene and Hlengiwe trying to out sing each other, drove to the store for some last minute food supplies, got our car exchanged (I'll try to get to that story tomorrow), ate a scrumptious dinner of tuna sandwiches, rice, and oranges, prepared a far more flexible lesson plan for tomorrow, and that brings me to here. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to get some sleep.