"It's gonna be legen- ... wait for it..."

Rockin in Bulandz (at Bulandzeni, Swaziland)

Sun, 05 May 2013 00:46:11 -0500

Rockin in Bulandz (at Bulandzeni, Swaziland)

Summit of ____ w Thabana Ntlenyana (the highest peak in Africa...

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 05:31:03 -0500

Summit of ____ w Thabana Ntlenyana (the highest peak in Africa south of those on Kili) in the background.

Driving down the Sani Pass to SA. That’s right, it’s...

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 04:03:40 -0500

Driving down the Sani Pass to SA. That’s right, it’s snowing in Africa.

Sani Pass Lesotho

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 04:03:32 -0500

Sani Pass Lesotho

Hikin the Drakes in Sotho

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 04:01:36 -0500

Hikin the Drakes in Sotho

Sani Pass border gate into Lesotho

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 03:57:53 -0500

Sani Pass border gate into Lesotho

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 03:57:09 -0500

Sani Pass border gate into Lesotho

Bulembu! Home of our finest asbestos mine. It is now closed...

Fri, 25 May 2012 06:06:30 -0500

Bulembu! Home of our finest asbestos mine. It is now closed presumably due to lack of demand. I actually got to play with a little that I found on the ground. Neat stuff.

My last day I had a bit of an obsession with Table Mountain...

Fri, 25 May 2012 06:00:26 -0500

My last day I had a bit of an obsession with Table Mountain since I could now finally see most of it.

Photo

Fri, 25 May 2012 05:57:39 -0500

Yeah...nice view from the top

Everything was closed, wah wah

Our horrid plastic bag rain barriers

Check out the fog/wind

Awesome climb up Table Mountain

Fri, 25 May 2012 05:53:27 -0500

Cable car up to the fog

Me

Henrik

Useless binocs

Awesome climb up Table Mountain

Photo

Fri, 25 May 2012 05:49:26 -0500

SiSwati

Fri, 25 May 2012 05:21:00 -0500

So I am nearly finished helping with our new siSwati language manual. I am spending a lot of time looking up words in our handy siSwati>English (and slightly less handy) English>siSwati dictionary. It is actually entertaining to read the siSwati to English section as it seems to contain a fairly large and varied selection of words (especially compared to the English to siSwati section). For instance, I ran across:

“-yembeti: Aqueous humor (a transparent fluid occupying the space between the crystalline lens and the cornea of the eye)”

*sidenote: vitreous humor, the part that is probably more noticeable, was not found

Not as helpful as if numerals were included (in the English>siSwati section) but it was funny for a bit. I still don’t know how to count in siSwati.

Cape Town: Getting Home

Fri, 25 May 2012 05:20:41 -0500

The next day I had to start my journey back home. For most of my vacation I thought I was leaving Cape Town around 1:30pm however the day I was to depart I looked at my ticket and saw that I was not to leave until half 5. I had a day to kill! Unfortunately that meant that I had to drag all my belongings with me until then as check out was 10am. At least it was a great day. It was cool but the sky was blue and the sun was shining. I was even able to snap a picture of Table Mountain from the backpackers’ parking lot.

I wandered around for most of the day. I spent most of my time in the Company Gardens which was quite pretty and then decided to try the South African National Gallery. I particularly enjoyed a collection of sketches depicting a handful of southern African peoples in traditional attire. I especially liked seeing things that I see fairly regularly in rural Swaziland.

On the way out of town I met another PC Swazi volunteer, Sophia, who was beginning her vacation. We had a rushed dinner as I had to get to the bus terminal and leave town. It was nice to see a friendly face and have good conversation before I got on a bus for hours.

The bus ride back went quickly. I was given seat 1 which was on the top deck in the very front. It had an excellent view but there were leaks around the windows and windshield and no heat which made for a frigid night. Seriously, the guy two seats over was shaking. I wish I had worn shoes. That would have shown adequate foresight.

The ride from Jo’burg to Mbabane was uneventful except for an extremely long delay at the Oshek border post.

So there is an abbreviated version of what seemed like a very abbreviated vacation. I have decided that Cape Town is definitely a place I will have revisit.

I will upload a few photos of the vacation to go along with this post.

Cape Town: Table Mountain

Fri, 25 May 2012 05:20:22 -0500

Oh Table Mountain. It is probably the most noticeable thing in Cape Town, when it is not raining which it was during my time there. Sunday morning seemed beautiful outside. I had met a Norwegian, Henrik, who’d just finished a volunteer program in Zimbabwe. We decided to hike Table Mountain and set off from the backpackers. I was a little sore and my left knee felt destroyed from the run the previous day. I was also wearing a nicer outfit since I had planned to go to an Easter service. The walk up to the base of the mountain was long enough. Once we got there we asked a worker how long the cable car would be running. We had hoped to take it down from the top. We were told that it was going to be closed due to high winds and incoming rain. For some reason we decided to climb anyway.

It was rough. And it started to pour and my cotton khakis and leather dress(ier) shoes were far from appropriate. Before we had even really started to climb I was regretting my decision. My knees were shot and I knew it would only be worse on the way down. However, I figured that I was already here and who knows if I’d be back. At least I had a hiking partner who could talk as much as I can and the path was pretty much deserted. The rain continued in waves but the fog was thick enough that the city below was quickly obscured.

We climbed over a few waterfalls and some pretty large “steps” until we reached the top. The wind was quite strong and it was blowing the fog around in a way that reminded me of a blizzard. I was surprised at how much standing water was pooled at the top. We slogged through some puddles and finally got to the buildings. As we assumed, everything was closed. We huddled under a small recessed doorway and peered in at all the food and drinks. It was now after noon and I had only consumed a bowl of museli with raisins and a glass of grape juice. I hadn’t really planned my day well.

We felt pretty miserable and decided to see if the bathrooms were open. AHA! The men’s room was open and we quickly headed for the hand dryers. Soon we were joined by a family which we had passed on the way up. They all had rain gear and whatnot and soon they headed back down. We stayed for over an hour waiting for the rain to let up. I found a couple garbage bags and we put them on (I told myself I was staying my hatred toward wearing bags out of necessity) and headed back down.

The way down was as bad as I expected. Henrik asked if I’d like to run down. Heh. I would have actually but today was not the day to do it. I was having enough trouble stopping myself as we jumped down from step to step. Luckily there are scattered “handrails” made of barbed wire which catch your hands or clothes if you get to close. Actually I am pretty sure they are there to keep people on the paths however at times I had to use them to keep myself from falling over.

Finally we reached the bottom. We decided to ditch our bags into a trash can since the rain had stopped. It then started to pour, just as soon as we got far enough away so that we didn’t feel it was worth going back and retrieving them.

One nice thing about the whole event was that I did not spend a single rand. That was nice. By the time we got back near the backpackers it was almost 6pm. I was really hungry and it was about dinner time so we ducked in to a nice little noodle place called Simply Asia. Check it out, it is very reasonably priced and both the food and service were great.

Cape Town: Post-race

Fri, 25 May 2012 05:20:02 -0500

That afternoon I washed my clothes with a washing machine. This was and still is a big deal to me. It was a process: waiting hours to get the tokens, then having to walk to a shop to purchase soap, waiting for the washer to be vacant… but my clothes were super muddy and I figured it would be totally worth it. It was.

An aside: As I write this I am soaking a load of laundry that I previously washed two days ago. That had been the second time I’d washed my clothes using a sink hole near our fields. We had been without rain and water for quite a while. I do not want the kiddos to have to schlep water from the river up the hill to the homestead for me to wash my clothes so I opted to wash at the sink hole. It seems clean enough and I am pretty sure the snails I pick out are not carriers of anything. Anyway, later on that day we got an amazing storm. It filled our tanks and barrels…and hearts. It also soaked my clothes. This is nothing out of the ordinary, especially in the summer, and we all just consider it a second rinsing. Today however, I noticed something that was out of the ordinary. Nearly all of my clothes had been targeted and bombed by birds. I guess I needed some adversity thrown in to balance out the gifted water.

Anyway, I liked being able to use a washing machine aaaaand more importantly the dryer.

Once I had my clothes all nicely packed away I decided that I should get some food. It was around suppertime anyway. I headed down to the waterfront area and watched the people as I ate a strawberry frozen yogurt, get this, in a waffle cone! I walked around to nearly every single restaurant there and looked at menus, seating areas, view, etc. hoping to be inspired enough to choose one. I walked by a pizza place and got a big floppy piece of “Deluxe.” It really shouldn’t have been called “deluxe” but it was tasty enough and I hadn’t decided where to eat yet anyway. I walked around for quite a while looking at more seafood options until I found myself at McDonald’s ordering a McChicken and a large fry. Don’t judge me, it was great and McDonald’s has class in SA. It’s also a lot more expensive.

Cape Town: 2 Oceans 21km Day

Fri, 25 May 2012 05:19:41 -0500

At 4 am I woke with probably a cumulative 4 hours of sleep due to staying in an 8 person dorm and being nervous about my first 21kay. I ate breakfast and hitched a ride with Kelly and her family to the University of Cape Town where the race was to start. It was packed. There were a ton of people wearing stupid plastic garbage bags. We commented on how dumb they looked. That sentiment only became more negative when the race started and they stripped them off and threw them on the ground. There were countless bags and probably even more trips and falls. I really disliked those bags.

We walked probably the first 2km. There were 16000 (?) people running/walking down single lane residential roads so it was pretty difficult to advance. There were a few near collisions. The first half flew by. We had a nice long hill in the beginning which was meant to break up the pack. Maybe it worked but it seemed to just cause congestion. Once on my way down the other side it was significantly less crowded.

I have never run a race like this before and found the water/powerade delivery interesting. Both came in plastic bags. Pretty efficient but the water tasted like plastic. Still, I took at least one water and one powerade at each stop. Every once in a while you could hear a “POP!” as someone stepped on a dropped bag. Not so fun when it shoots a stream at you but soon it didn’t matter anyway.

That is because it rained. Some people did not appreciate that but I LOVED IT! I thought it felt really nice. Sometimes it was a light rain but at times it was fairly heavy. The puddles were my favorite. At one point some of us ran through a body of water that was above ankle depth.

I found the crowd to be very motivating. There were a lot of spectators and a few choirs, bands, and sound systems set up along the way. I heard my name called quite a few times and remembered that my name was written in large letters on my number. Kinda cool that so many people came out to support the 21km. I wonder what the 56km route was like. The only thing I wish I hadn’t noticed was the smell of grilled meats. I could have done without that.

The last hill seemed to take up the last quarter of the race. It was undulating, zig-zaggy, and so tiring. I was running too slow that people could have walked passed me (I bet some did) though I kept passing a few people who were doing a run/walk. I was surprised at how easily I was breathing but not at all surprised at how very weak my knees were. I really should have strengthened them more. At one point I had to stop to tie my shoe. My knees were so weak I almost fell over. Motivation to get going!

The finish was out in the university’s athletic field. It was all muddy by 2:27 with thousands having ripped through it before me but I made it over. It was a cool feeling and one I hope to have many more times.

Once I had finished I realized it was extremely cold. I noticed that everyone who had one of those dumb garbage bags on seemed happy. Unfortunately I did not have my pullover or my phone. I did find my way to some rooibos tea and though I was shaking so hard that I slopped it all over myself, a few cups in warmed me up. Eventually I found Kelly and her parents. By that time I think everyone was ready to get out of the rain and get warmed up.

Cape Town

Fri, 25 May 2012 05:18:22 -0500

The next day I walked down to the Waterfront and saw the fun run precursor to the next day’s race. I saw flags from both the US and Swaziland so that was pretty cool.

I wandered around and gaped at the stores in the mall. It was so odd to see all the shops selling their designer whatnots (think dedicated Haagen-Dazs, Louis Vuitton, and Le Creuset shops). There was even a shop selling biltong and an “Old’e English Shaving Shop”. Imagine the draw! I can always eat jerky and I have lost both my strop and my shaving soap. Unfortunately I couldn’t really justify the prices.

Later I saw someone shoot heroin and another huff something out of a paper bag on my way to the race registration. Never seen that before so I guess that was an experience. I probably should have taken a taxi.

At registration I perused the sports vendors’ wares and saw all the cool things I had no ability to purchase. Puma was sponsoring and had a massive selection of 2 Oceans merch that looked pretty cool. I got shirt in my goodie bag so I was happy enough with that.

Earlier I had run into another volunteer, Kelly, and was invited to dinner with her and her parents. We had a very enjoyable seafood filled time down at the waterfront. That area is very pretty but filled with tourists. I was one of them though so I cannot complain.

Cape Town: Getting There

Fri, 25 May 2012 05:17:41 -0500

I went to Cape Town early April. The reason was to run my first 21km and get a little vacation time. I ended up getting a ride from Swaziland to Nelspruit from a friend and then hopped onto a khumbi to Johannesburg. I had been advised to go to a grocery store and get some food for the ride but standing some 15 people from the front of a line to use the parcel counter did not fit into my sched.

As it was, I just managed to get the last seat on a sprinter bus to Johannesburg. I shelled out the cash and we were off. It went really well and I was even able to get some shut eye until we got into Jo’burg. Then there was an explosion. The kid next to me had a 2L orange soda which he had been sipping. I don’t know how but as we were driving around, in what seemed like a circular route, his bottle top shot off and orange pop sprayed all over as the bottle tipped and rolled around. I quickly reached down and somehow found the cap and twisted it on. Both my bags were among the casualties and I noticed that everyone now had their luggage on their laps. Yay.

Not going to lie, I felt scared at the bus rank. Not necessarily scared for my life or anything just that I felt that I really did not belong there and that I wanted to get out as soon as possible. I pretty much ran to a neighboring KFC and hid in there while I tried to figure out where to go without having to pay someone to show me. I ended up buying some chicken and hanging with a little sisi and their giant bags of purchases while her mum stood in line for their food. For some reason I had believed I needed a 5-piece and a side of fries. After eating a few I realized that my stomach had no business trying to finish it and gave the rest to the little girl. You can do that here. It was good to make a friend. I was pretty uneasy in this bus rank.

I wandered, though tried to make it look like I knew exactly where I was going, through the bus terminal in search of a bathroom. Found one and but it was closed. Walked hurriedly to the opposite end and found another. Closed. Finally I asked one of the 10000 security persons in sight and she pointed me to the one and only open men’s restroom. It was a terrible experience and I would suggest not relying on public restrooms in the Jo’burg bus terminal. No tp, no toilet seat, floor was covered in…stuff. Good thing I had brought travel wipes and strong quads.

During my random roamings in a quest for the facilities I found the Intercape terminal where I would depart. I had over an hour before I would need to get in line so I sat down on the immaculate floor (seriously there were always at least 3 people in sight who were cleaning the floors at any given moment) and read a little. At 5:15 I got up and walked to the line which had already formed at the gate. For some reason we remained there for nearly an hour and a half. It was strange. I was the only one who was not getting upset about what was happening. During a discussion with another passenger I mentioned that I was traveling from Swaziland and that I considered this to be quite normal. Many thers started chain smoking as soon as we got out the door.

The bus was pretty nice. It was a double decker and the seats were able to open up an advertised 150 degrees! I sat down, passed out, and didn’t leave my seat for the first 16 of a total 20 hours. I felt kinda bad about that because after I had boarded, the lady next to me said she would be right back. I figured she was using the onboard facilities but when I woke up later she wasn’t there. After our first stop she came back to her seat. I asked her if she had changed seats, though she had left her bags, and she said that she had gone inside the terminal and when she came back the bus was gone. Luckily there were two.

I originally booked the bus because I figured it would be cool to see the SA countryside since I would be crossing so much of the country. Around 11am the next day, and a little after 16 hours of sitting in my seat, I woke up as we pulled in for a pit stop. So much for seeing the countryside. Actually, the ride reminded me a lot of riding through the central Midwest. In other words, not too interesting. A couple hours out of Cape Town became more interesting. We hit some mountains and in a valley there was a bit of wine country. There was even a really long tunnel thrown in there. Fun stuff.

Cape Town is pretty big. It took quite a while to get through it to the terminal. It felt pretty weird to see all the businesses, hotels, and touristy sites along the way. We arrived around 3pm and the place was packed. One thing I noticed was all the White people. That may not be the most politically correct thing to say but it is true and part of a different discussion.

If you stay in Cape Town and you do not have a lot of money, around 20USD will get you a bed at The Backpack. Go there, it’s GREAT

Popcorn and TV Night

Fri, 25 May 2012 05:17:04 -0500

This last weekend we had some new additions to the homestead. We got three visiting young’uns on Friday to bring the total to 12 people on the homestead. One of the kids was my brother’s daughter who had previously been living with us but was now schooling elsewhere. She had loved my popcorn before (she could down a 5 quart sized batch easy and she’s less than 25kg) so I decided to make it while she was visiting. I stumbled through the dark with my four batches of popcorn, dodging dogs and attempting to keep them from jumping up and pulling the bowls out of my hands. Unfortunately the wind was picking up and blowing kernels onto the ground. Wah wah. Once inside, everyone was gathered together and my popcorn was demolished, even the two batches of slightly bitter/burnt kettle corn (never used refined white sugar before and it didn’t work). We watched SA news and part of Beowulf. It was a good bonding time with some pretty funny moments. At one point half the family started exclaiming their surprise while watching a news interview. I didn’t understand until I noticed that the woman was holding a child who looked to be 3+. Apparently the child was hungry so she just whipped one out and started feeding her kid. Apparently I was the only one who didn’t notice. Instead I just seemed to not find it weird. Then I saw a commercial for internet connections. It went through a series of rooms in a house with family members all connected to the internet with their computers and other gadgets. I got a little excited as I had just read an article about internet in southern Africa and how it is being upgraded to a level more comparable to connections in other countries. I was more than let down when I saw the advertised speed was 1Mps. Later there was this really sexy commercial with hot couples jumpin around and all. Then this lady’s voice came on and was all like “masculine this” and “sexy that.” I figured it was for some crazy designer fragrance but then the visual cut to a bottle of Brute. Wow. Pretty sure I bought a 10oz spray can of that at Walmart for a few bucks. It was shook up and tossed into Brent’s Jeep with its nozzle duct taped down. He probably felt super sexy.