Reaching Ithaca

12/30/11, 9:46 p.m. (Eastern Standard Time)

                 Xhosa may not have separate words for “he” and “she,” or “blue” and “green,” or even definite and indefinite articles, but Xhosa people do know how to give a proper farewell. There are separate phrases for whether you or the other person are the leaving party—“hamba kakuhle” for “go well” or “sala kakuhle” for “stay well.” Both can be poetically translated to “goodbye,” which seems like an appropriate subject for my final entry in this blog. I realize I’ve been out of Cape Town for exactly 20 days now, so it seems like this is coming a bit late. Now that I’ve unpacked everything, sent off gifts, decorated my room with South African treasures, and developed ridiculous amounts of photos, I guess part of me realized that this blog marked the last loose end of the trip. Once I send this out into cyberspace my African adventure is over, so I better tie up the loose ends with a big, pretty bow.

                I did indeed get a proper farewell from my amaXhosa. Attendance at Home From Home had been dwindling for weeks, and was especially small that last week because of graduation the Saturday before.  Speaking of graduation, it was a great day where all the 6-year-olds had new outfits and hairstyles and the daycare was humming with excitement. The Christmas sketch and carols, my contribution, went really well and I may or may not have shed a tear as each of them received their diploma (a laminated paper with their picture and name on it) and when I saw how proud their parents were. Graduation culminated in a lunch where I got to eat mainly with my hands and had the honor of getting my soda bottle opened by a mother’s teeth. On my last day at Home From Home, I brought in the ingredients for no-bake cookies to make with the few kids that still showed up. It was a happy chaos of peanut butter, oatmeal, and chocolate. I thought I would be able to keep my composure the entire day, but when I heard CCS van honk (or hoot, as locals say) I immediately started bawling. The children seemed slightly mystified, but some of the staff was slightly misty-eyed. After several rounds of hugs, I passed through the gate one last time. On the drive out of Khayelitsha, I spotted one of the 6-year-olds who I hadn’t seen since graduation and we made eye contact. My last vision of the beautiful if troubled community in which I worked is of Asemahle vigorously waving at me from the dusty street.

                That afternoon, my last time at Sarah Fox Children’s Hospital carried out much in the same fashion, with the babies and I having a great time until the van showed up and I lost it again. Although it was my second placement it was harder to leave those children, because without volunteer attention they are in a much less loving, engaging environment than the daycare kids, and especially because they are all sick—that’s why they are at Sarah Fox at all. I got the biggest hug in the history of embraces from Lukhona, a 2-year-old who couldn’t walk when I got there and after 8 weeks of laps around the ward was waddling around proudly. Once I returned to the CCS Homebase, it was after office hours so most of the staff had already left. However, much to my delighted surprise, the program director Luann called to say she would be stopping by the next morning in order to say goodbye to me. I spent all that day in my traditional shweshwe dress, alternating time out with other volunteers and packing in my room, which was once a bustling epicenter of giggly female energy and now just seemed hopelessly empty. When Faried, the always slimy yet endlessly entertaining ATS driver, picked me up to go the airport, all the volunteers accompanied me to the van to see me off. A day and a half later, I was flying into the Philadelphia International Airport.

                As I write this sitting on my bed, I look around my room which was starting to get the aura of a rustic farmhouse before I left. Now, I see the framed elephant footprint on the wall, the Zulu passport mask on my dresser, and the tin art painting of Khayelitsha and vuvuzela in my bookcase. It’s an odd conglomerate but it makes sense as the room of Taylor. I’m in a whirlwind stage of my life and I’m interested in a lot of things. Going into this trip, I wished for clarity coming out of it, and I think I’ve gotten some. I now have a better idea of where to go from here. In the near future, I sent off my application today to volunteer at a branch of the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia here in Kennett Square, and I’m in the process of planning a trip up to Connecticut and New York next week to visit CCS friends. Farther off, working with HIV+ children now has me looking into making a career out of research in virology, public health, and communicable diseases. Plus, the Mother City never lets you go from her tender embrace. Children’s laughter and strains of the stirring national anthem, “Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika,” still waft over the Atlantic like the songs of sirens. Maybe this isn’t goodbye; maybe it isn’t the end of a journey. Perhaps it’s only the beginning.

Dope On A Rope

11/29/11, 9:07 p.m.

There is no cohesive way to talk about the notable yet random highlights of the past week or so. Thus, writing this blog reminds me of when my stepmom, Mel, makes smoothies. You throw in a whole lot of edible matter that has been lying around the kitchen, and if it tastes good—great! If it doesn’t, I still have another week here to try to knock out a stellar piece of literature. The smoothie analogy makes me realize how much I am ready to go home. Granted, I absolutely love working at both the daycare and the hospital and cannot fathom leaving the beautiful children. I found out that at a CCS meeting today the head office of the entire Home From Home organization had good things to say about me—I didn’t even know they knew who I existed because I only work in the daycare! However, the strain of living in such close proximity with a lot people at the CCS home base is definitely starting to show, especially since I’m perfectly content to live in my own thoughts much of the time. We have also had an unusually large share of house drama since I got here, like the favorite driver getting dismissed as well as a not-so-favorite volunteer, and an issue of some people keeping alcohol in the house, which is halaal because of the many Muslim staff members. I also feel like I have done everything I want to do and can feasibly do in Cape Town with my budget and time frame, particularly with completing the world’s highest abseil today. This requires a story.

                I knew this afternoon would be interesting just from the demographics of the group. With whom does one go abseiling, other than two other college-aged girls and Raphael, the good-humored, middle-aged man from Haiti who lives in New Jersey? We rode the cable car up to the top of Table Mountain, ears popping all the way, and met up with the Abseil Africa staff for the experience their website calls “Dope on a Rope”. As I learned, abseiling is the same as rappelling, comes from German (ab=down, seil=rope), and was first done by early adventurers in the Alps. Essentially, one walks down a rock face, perpendicular to the ground. After signing our lives away (I thought White Shark adventures already owned my soul) and receiving harnesses, helmets, gloves, and a safety briefing, we hiked out to the edge. The staff was cracking jokes the whole time we were setting up, but for the first time since planning this excursion I felt my stomach coil like a python and my heart start to pound. My friend Kala, who had abseiled before, and I opted to go first. They had us lean off the ledge to take our picture, told us there was a surprise halfway down, and then it was go-time. After the first couple of steps, I peered over my shoulder to see the water of beautiful Camps Bay winking sparkles at me, as if to say, “Don’t look down!” A thousand-meter drop is not something to be trifled with. Because of my indoor rock-climbing experience, thanks to 7^th grade PE class (some things you learn in middle school are useful), everything was going pretty well with intense concentration until suddenly we stumbled upon The Surprise. In reality, we didn’t actually stumble on anything because there was nothing there upon which to stumble. The side of the mountain cut in sharply and completely gave way to open space. Now, I’m not one to curse but you can be sure I was shrieking things I wouldn’t say in a job interview. Kala and I realized the only thing to do was to essentially freefall and try to control our speed as much as possible. After accepting this, I was much more at ease. I accidentally spun around to face the ocean and spent the rest of the way absorbing the natural beauty I will miss so much and singing Eye of the Tiger. Seemed reasonable at the time. After we finally touched glorious, glorious ground, I was giddy with adrenaline and certain that I want to do this again somewhere in the world. We watched as Kelsie and Raphael made their way down the mountain a bit more clumsily, with Raphael even tangling himself up in Kelsie’s rope, and chuckled knowingly when they also discovered the biggest surprise I think I’ve ever had. When everyone was finally 112 meters lower than when we started, we expected our guided hike back to the top, which ended up being a lackluster “Go that way, you’ll find it,” from the staff member at the bottom. After more than 20 minutes of scrambling over rocks and many allusions to the Donner Party, we arrived back on top of the giant table. My opinion is that abseiling is more of an extreme sport than skydiving or bungee jumping because it’s also cognitively extreme. With the other two, you essentially let yourself go and let gravity take over. Today, I felt I had to suppress my mind’s instinct to blank out because you have to be conscious of placing every step and regulating your speed down the mountain. I have never considered myself an “extreme sports” person, but I can definitely see myself doing this again. Heck, especially since every other one in the world is smaller.

11/30/11, 6:03 p.m.

                I’m back after intermission. I just found out today that my friend Ariana and I are in a huge picture together in the Athlone News from the march on Friday! Friday was the first day of an international campaign against domestic violence that’s particularly prominent here called “16 Days of Activism.” A Salvation Army women’s shelter, Carehaven, organized the march along with CCS, so all the volunteers participated in a workshop about a month ago discussing abuse with women from various shelters and painting signs to hold during the march. When November 26^th finally arrived, I donned the official garb of a march marshal, which was a neon green penny about two sizes too big, and grabbed my sign and a vuvuzela. The march kicked off from Carehaven and wound through the streets of the Athlone neighborhood before arriving at a field where there were speakers, performances from a primary school, and facepainting done by some other CCS volunteers and me. The march itself was a bit awkward because they were hoping for a turnout of 1,000, expecting 500, and then ended up greeting about 100 at Carehaven. Plus, the police band never showed up, and we were chanting and making all kinds of noise but the streets seemed deserted. In the end, regardless of what passerby’s beliefs we may have influenced that day, I think it was an important event for the women themselves. Sometimes it’s good to shout what you feel but are usually afraid to say, even if it falls on deaf buildings. “Genoeg is genoeg! Enough is enough! Hands off our women and children! Break the silence, stop the violence!”

                I know I promised an obscure medley in this blog, which is why I want to end with Thanksgiving last Thursday night. There are simply some holidays that shouldn’t be attempted in other countries. Usually the CCS tradition is that the volunteers get a chance to cook by making a traditional turkey dinner, but after a food fight in the kitchen last year the staff decided to ask a restaurant to attempt Thanksgiving. A few of us did get to make pumpkin pie, though, and a volunteer even made vegan stuffing! Although I hadn’t seen turkey here at all before that night, there was indeed turkey, as well as green beans and mashed potatoes. The climate in South Africa isn’t really conducive to the presence of bogs, so cranberry sauce’s esteemed place was usurped by a wine sauce. Nice try. Interestingly enough, the most memorable part had nothing to do with the food. The CCS director asked me to come up with Thanksgiving decorations, so a few days beforehand I cut out a rakeful of fall colored paper leaves with “I am thankful for…” written on them and stuck them in everyone’s notice pouches—volunteers and staff alike. I was surprised that much of the staff took it very seriously, and there were some pretty striking responses. I would never think to write that I’m thankful “for my family members who are still alive,” even though I certainly am.

                I guess there is a spine running through and supporting this blog—gratitude. I’m thankful for the opportunity to see sights, do things, and think thoughts that would not have crossed my path had my life gone on the trajectory set for me ages ago. I’ll be relieved when I touch ground in Philadelphia next Saturday, but my experience in Cape Town will forever be an important part of who I am.

Haai Society Life

11/14/11, 7:44 p.m.

                What an incredible three day weekend! As a 12-week volunteer I am allotted 2 days off, and since I haven’t taken any sick days yet in 8 weeks (at this point I’m in a small minority there) I figured I could afford to take today off to go shark cage diving. But I’m getting ahead of myself. It’s not like I don’t look forward to going to work—that will always be the most significant part of this trip for me. On Friday alone, when my CCS placement director and the South Africa program director visiting from New York came to poke into the daycare, they found me standing on a desk scrubbing years of sticky tack off the walls with paint thinner the teacher gave me. Who doesn’t want to be completely flammable for the sake of 4-year-olds? The most poignant moment of the day and possibly of my whole time at Home from Home was when our token 18-month-old Olwethu, who usually only babbles occasionally or says, “Lifa!” (his older brother in the 4-year-old class) squealed, “Taylor!” It really touched me to know that I’m important enough in his life, especially because he’s one of the orphans from the foster homes, and hopefully in the lives of the other kids at the daycare and the hospital.

                When the weekend arrives, though, I make sure they’re busy simply because there is so much to do in a large urban area that also has expansive natural beauty. On Saturday I got the chance to perform in the Casa Labia museum in the beautiful beachside town of Muizenberg. The cultural director of the renovated Victorian mansion of the Italian Count Labia is an old friend of a CCS volunteer, so she contacted me about doing one of their free afternoon concerts. I envisioned playing in a gallery where I’d be background music but I was placed in a ballroom where a lot of people were having lunch and certainly listening. It went well considering I was playing serious repertoire on a student Armstrong flute (which is like competing in the Indy 500 with a rickshaw) and I even made R30 in tips. After the performance and my complimentary lunch a waitress came up to me and told me a man from the birthday party in the dining room (where I popped in and played Happy Birthday) wanted my contact information for gigs with his band. I went in to tell him that I’m American and only here for 4 more weeks, much to his disappointment. I almost had my big South African break, though!

                                On Sunday, several of us had planned to take a day trip to Hermanus, which is famous for whale watching. Unfortunately, after I had woken up early and gotten prepared, I came downstairs to find out all the boat tours were cancelled that day because of rain. The dismay didn’t last long because we found ourselves baking a spice cake and making lunch with the kitchen staff, to whom I’ve gotten much closer lately. CCS has severe rules about relations with staff, so it’s unfortunate that I won’t be able to keep in contact with them after this is over. We found out that Bongi has a boyfriend, Leonard, and that they will actually be getting married soon, so our cake had lavender icing and jasmine flowers on it and I wrote “B [Heart] L” on it and did the piping. We didn’t go anywhere or do anything particularly South African, but surprisingly it was a really meaningful morning to me. Then in the afternoon we went museum-hopping. You wouldn’t expect a Jewish museum in South Africa to be of much interest or importance, but we ended up spending much more of our time there than the South African National Gallery. My favorite part was an exhibit going on right now on Zapiro, the alias of the political cartoonist Jonathan Shapiro. I don’t know why it never occurred to me to look into political cartoons during something as political turbulent as apartheid and its aftermath, but as he said himself, "At age four, I had nightmares about monsters. My mother made me draw them. It was a kind of exorcism. The monsters disappeared, but I didn't stop drawing. At 29, I was still drawing. There were other monsters to draw."

                This morning I woke up at the lovely hour of 4 o’clock in order to be ready for the van that would take us on our 2-hour ride to Gansbaai, where we would set off on a boat for shark cage diving at 7 a.m. Due to circumstances that were never really revealed to us, we were actually picked up at around 5:30 and didn’t get there until 8:00. Needless to say, we were more antsy about an already slightly nerve-wracking experience. They gave us breakfast and huge orange raincoats worthy of Captain Ahab and we set out on a 15-minute ride to the shark spot. It was actually disconcerting how close we were to shore in the grand scheme of the entire ocean. Great whites do swim to shallow waters here, and beaches like Muizenberg have shark spotters, a flag system, and an air horn. We hadn’t even donned our wetsuits yet before a 12-foot-long shark took interest in the tuna head on a string and the chum with which the crew were teasing it. The cage held up to 6 people, and I was in the second group. After you put on some weights and goggles, you slide in through an opening on top and climb like monkey bars over to an open “regulator,” which was our breathing apparatus attached to a communal air tank on the cage.  Apparently this was the only company that offered such a device and usually you have to hold your breath and come up for air. We were only submerged a couple of feet but it was really convenient to stay underwater as long as you liked. The water was warmer than I expected, but it was also my first time in a wetsuit. In related news, I discovered post-wetsuit-hood hair is a good look for me. But I digress again.

                It was a lot like fishing where you wait around for a long time and get bored looking through the murky water at the school of fish that’s interested in the tuna head, and suddenly WHAM. The crew shout, “Haai!” (Afrikaans for shark) and there’s a great white shark charging near the cage. They never rammed into the cage but we did get jostled around. As soon as I was sure its mouth was far enough away, I actually reached out and touched the tail of one through the bars! Before we got in, they warned us that when you recoil as a reflex when the sharks swim close the breathing tube sometimes becomes strained and a little compromised, but I never had that problem. My face was pressed up against the bars every time we had a sharky greeting, which happened about 4 times. After the third and final group had their chance, they asked if anyone wanted to go again. Much to my surprise, a middle-aged man and I were the only ones who jumped on the offer. For the first time on the hours-long trip I was getting seasick in the cage and the water actually felt cold, but I’m glad I did it because a shark came even closer. An underwater thumbs-up is even better with someone you’ve never met before but with whom you are possibly risking your life.

                On the way back, we saw some of the last of the southern right whales because they are moving on in their migration after being in this area for a couple of months. Earlier, I was kicking myself for not seeing the whales sooner on my trip and for the missed Hermanus trip, but we saw a 55-foot-long one wave to us and what looked like a mother and a calf frolic under the surface and even make use of their blowholes. Once we arrived back on land and received lunch, we watched the DVD they created with footage from the day. If there’s one overpriced tourist item I’d actually buy on this trip, it would be something like that, so I succumbed. Besides, one always needs evidence for true gloating rights for doing something like cage diving, right?

                With the Garden Route trip last weekend where I ventured all the way out to the Eastern Cape for ziplining over waterfalls, a primate sanctuary, a trunk-in-hand walk and feeding elephants at an elephant sanctuary, witnessing bungee jumping off the world’s highest bungee jumping bridge but valuing my life too much, waiting at a baboon family-induced roadblock, and doing a safari at a game reserve, I’d say I’ve been doing a good job of keeping myself occupied. I feel so fortunate to have these experiences at such a young age, and I know I’m going to have some pretty great bucket list items checked off by the time I get back. As for now, I’m eager to go back to work tomorrow and see Olwethu waddle over and chirp my name again. As magnificent as they are, I’m fairly certain that’s something great white sharks can’t do.

Wathint'abafazi, wathint'imbokodo!

10/26/11, 9:17 p.m.

                The Xhosa phrase in the title translates to “You strike a woman, you strike a rock!” and it’s very relevant to the day I had today. I am ready for bed and feeling very fulfilled. All of the volunteers skipped our normal placements today in order to help the CCS staff facilitate the “Art of Healing” workshop at the Athlone Community Center. Delegates from women’s shelters across Cape Town gathered together to participate in activities led by Themba, a good friend of CCS who works in healing and reconciliation and does a lot of these workshops in South Africa (a place that needs a lot of healing for multitudes of reasons) and even around the world. We did breathing exercises, a repeat-after-me sort of game, a story-telling activity, and we hung on to his every word when he recited a poem while accompanying himself on the mbira. I think his presence there was beneficial because it’s really important for men to also take up the cause of ending violence against women and children. Being a female is certainly not a prerequisite for being a feminist—it only means you support equitable treatment of others.

                After Themba’s portion, we were all broken up into smaller groups to have discussions about abuse against women and children. Each group had a poster with a tree labeled “abuse” on it, and we had to label the roots with causes and the branches with effects. My group discussed the different manifestations of abuse, like physical, sexual, emotional, substance, and even financial abuse. We found that many of our causes were also effects and vice versa, so we showed apples falling from the tree (people raised in a society where maltreatment is rampant) and creating new abuse tree seedlings. After all, a vicious cycle as odious as this can only be broken if people actively address it. That is why we spent the rest of the day painting signs and banners to hold during the march on November 25^th that kicks off the international “16 Days of Activism” regarding abuse against women and children. I paid homage to a good friend of mine with a Ph.D., one Dr. Seuss, by painting “A person’s a person, no matter how small” on my poster because I decided to focus on child abuse. All the posters were creative and beautiful, with phrases like “Real men don’t hit” and “Respect my mind, body, and soul.” Then I spent the rest of the time helping the Salvation Army, which has a women’s shelter in Athlone called Carehaven, paint their banner. I’m so glad I will still be here for the march, because I’ll get to participate and all the CCS volunteers will even be martials. What that entails, no one’s quite sure yet, but one of the directors, Tahira, has been appointed head martial of the entire shebang along with a woman constable from the police force. The police will be making a positive appearance because here especially they have a bad reputation when it comes to protecting the rights of the abused.

                I couldn’t be happier. This is a cause in which I believe with all my heart and I’m so excited to be playing a part in the 16 Days of Activism and its preparation. I met all sorts of beautiful women today whose particular life stories I will never know but whose feelings were shared by everyone in that little auditorium today. I loved laughing and talking seriously with the women in my tree group and I got to know the Carehaven ladies well. One of the directors was excited that I would be there for the march and took an interest in me. When I mentioned that I’d probably be studying neuroscience at Harvard and tossed off, “but who knows, I might even end up in social work after a trip like this!” she said she definitely see me as a social worker dealing with children. She’s not the first person who has said that on this trip, and not even the second or third. Who knows? Also, I’m sure the workshop meant a lot to those who have probably never expressed their thoughts on abuse—verbally, artistically, otherwise. I know it was even therapeutic for me. Considering my past and my “Too Nice Weary Gene” tendency to put everyone else’s happiness before my own, I truly felt like something strengthened inside me today. There might have been steroids in the burgers we had at lunch (our poor kitchen staff was working at a furious pace all day) or I might have just had a really special experience. I returned covered in paint and a little wiser. At this point, all I know is that on November 25^th, if you strike a woman, prepare for a rockslide.

It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas

10/17/11, 8:54 p.m.

                As of today I have been Cape Town for a whole month, with two more to go. That’s good, because I can’t imagine leaving anytime soon. A new group of volunteers arrived on Saturday, bringing the head count in the CCS house from 7 to 19. It’s definitely a different dynamic, especially because some people in this group already knew each other, so factions have started to form. It’s a lot noisier in the house and you now have to wait in line for meals, but meeting new people and hearing their stories about why they found themselves here at this point in their lives is very interesting. Being a veteran volunteer is also novel, since we now have a new schedule (we don’t have to participate again in the activities that the new people are now doing) and also because there were no veterans when my group arrived for the first time in CCS-SA’s existence.

Being the compulsive overachiever I am (still have to work on that), I opted to start afternoon volunteering now that I’m a veteran and the mandatory cultural activities have eased up a bit. Four hours of volunteering each day before lunch doesn’t sound like much but it is tiring, especially when working with small children, so they wait to offer afternoon placement until you’re settled in your fifth week. I figured that since I’m here to volunteer anyway and I don’t take afternoon naps like most of the others, why not? I will be working in Sarah Fox, which is a children’s hospital in the township of Athlone, which is much closer than Khayelitsha. Many of the children there have HIV, tuberculosis, or are burn victims. Plus, because of the stigma around debilitating illness and also sheer lack of knowledge about how to take care of it, there are a lot of orphans there. Others go for months without seeing their parents if they can’t afford transportation or the like. For variety, I hope to work in the infant ward. After a morning of chasing 3- to 6-year-olds I am totally okay with holding babies for a few hours! My volunteering is in the process of getting set up and I am very excited for that to start.

Of course, I’m still in love with my placement at the Home from Home creche. I finally have the long-term project I’ve been looking for, because the older two classes are putting on a Christmas pageant before I leave in December! Since last week, I have been teaching the teachers carols they want to learn so the kids can perform them. I wouldn’t be able to count how many times I’ve sung “O Come, All Ye Faithful” and “Hark, the Herald Angels Sing” so far, and it’s only mid-October. They also have an adorable skit, and I’ve learned that a toy dog wrapped in a scarf makes an excellent Baby Jesus. I love my day-to-day activities at the creche but I feel more purposeful and useful now. Starting tomorrow, I won’t be the only CCS volunteer there since one of the new people will be joining me, and as selfish as it sounds I’m not looking forward to sharing my little angels with anyone! As of today I can add face painting to my resume since I brought that in for two of the classes, and will be doing the third tomorrow. Princesses, monsters, pirates, butterflies, rainbows, flowers, cats, stars, and a whole manner of other things scurried around the classrooms and playground. Our one 18-month-old, Olwethu, made for an excruciatingly adorable puppy dog.

The kids mean so much to me, and on Friday I found out that the feeling is apparently mutual. I found out from the head of Home from Home herself (not just the daycare but the entire organization) that the children really like me. Luann, the CCS-SA director, told me during lunch on Thursday that she was going to Home from Home’s AGM that afternoon, “so if you want to go, be ready to leave in 10 minutes.” Gasp! I inhaled my lentils and then rode there with Luann in my first ride in someone’s private car since leaving home. The meeting was held in a classroom in a church and some of it was dry like budget reports and thanking the board, but they also explained the Home from Home idea of “cluster foster care” in depth. Cluster foster care is where children are kept with their siblings in family-like environments in their own community, rather than in large, austere institutions, and Home from Home has received international non-profit awards for their work. They even interviewed one of the foster mothers, who cares for 6 kids who range in age from 2 to 14. When asked about difficulties raising these orphans, she said that they can be very defensive and withdrawn, especially when feeling the threat of punishment. However, when asked about the positive side, she did recount a story where her kids locked her in her bedroom and when they let her out some time later the entire house was completely spotless. Hearing about the organization as a whole really spurred my enthusiasm for my volunteer work there even more, and the fact that I’m on the president’s radar was quite the pleasant surprise. I’m a small cog in the wheel but it’s nice to know that the wheel turns a little smoother now. I can only hope I’ll bring as much to the table at the hospital once I start there.

Anything Not Safari-Related Is Irrelephant

10/10/11, 8:08 p.m.

                A trip to Africa is certainly not complete without a safari, so with that in mind several of us went on a daytrip to the Aquila Game Reserve yesterday in the hopes of spotting some of the famed “Big Five” animals (lion, elephant, black rhino, Cape buffalo, leopard) and to have a weekend adventure. Our driver told us on Saturday that he would pick us up between 6:15 and 6:45 a.m. the next day. We prepared for an early start, but you can imagine our surprise when the security guard told us our transport was ready at 6:05 a.m. We threw ourselves together and the van started moving at 6:25. Granted, we were 10 minutes late from the time we expected all along, but the driver accused us of making us extremely late for picking up the next people (we weren’t informed there were others) and even forced Melanie to sign a form when one party cancelled literally at the last minute. They must have had other issues because who cancels a safari because their ride is 10 minutes late?! He growled that he had to make up for lost time so he drove FAR too fast on surface streets and the freeway alike, and even sped through a blatantly red light. For those of us who thought they would get the chance to sleep in the car, it was now out of the question. Luckily most of the trip was spent winding through endless vineyards and noble-looking mountains.

                Much to our delight we arrived alive at Aquila 2 hours later, and the rest of the day was phenomenal! We were greeted with breakfast before heading out on a 2 ½-hour game drive through the reserve. I’ve been to the San Diego Wild Animal Park and seen animals roaming free, but it’s another experience entirely to visit them in their own home. It’s quite surreal to let two adolescent elephants cross our path (those pedestrians ALWAYS get the right of way) and then watch them dust themselves like giant, wrinkled chinchillas. We drove right up next to a mother white rhino and her three female children, one of which was only 10 months old, who blinked sleepily at us in the almost 100-degree heat. The hippos in the water hole had the right idea for the weather that day and only surfaced their noses every so often.  We passed herds of buffalo, zebras, elans (antelopes), and springboks, who were all pretty glum because their rugby-playing counterparts lost to Australia that morning and will not be advancing to the World Cup quarterfinals. The best part was when we went through two levels of security that was oddly reminiscent of Jurassic Park in order to see the lions. Right as we entered we were welcomed by four lionesses sunning themselves like the big kitties they are. Well, big, bloodthirsty, kitties with fearsome incisors. Two males, the father and son, were astute enough to recline in the shade of some bushes. Heck, I wouldn’t want to have a full, luscious mane during the African summer. Sometimes it’s hard being sexy.

                On the way back to the main building for lunch, we stopped at Aquila’s Animal Rescue Center. There were a couple of warthogs, who seemed to be fond of pineapples judging by the stems littered around, some alligators attempting a dog-pile, and two lions rescued from a company that was illegally raising wild animals to be hunted. My favorite was the female cheetah. She was scrawny but beautiful, and only there because they were trying to breed her with a male that we didn’t see. Apparently he was a jerk or something because they weren’t having much luck and were actually in search of another suitor. Part of me says, “Yeah, girl power!” and then I remember that cheetahs are very endangered and too genetically similar for their own evolutionary good. I suppose if the human population bottlenecked (due to some zombie apocalypse-related catastrophe, of course) we wouldn’t be allowed to be choosy either.

                Before heading home to Cape Town, we stopped at the Karoo Ostrich Farm, which is a lot more interesting than you might think. For one thing, our guide had a pet year-old springbok named Chantal who he had since she was 3 days old, and she followed us like a faithful dog for awhile. For R10 (a little over a dollar) you could purchase food pellets with which to feed the ostriches, and even if you only put one in your palm they have quite good aim. We saw the incubators, where the eggs are kept for 42 days until they hatch. Not only are the eggs enormous, they are very strong because the shells are so thick. Our guide dared us to stand on two unfertilized eggs and even put all our weight on one, and sure enough they held everyone up! We saw the hatchlings’ room, where some of them were only 2 days old, and even got to hold a soft, little baby before he got too skittish. We passed the pen with the adolescents (which are awkward in every species) and the pens with the giant adults. The breeds have names like Zimbabwean Blue and Kenyan Red because of the color of their skin. However, the legs of all males turn reddish during this time of year because it’s mating season and they’re excited. Cue the Barry White. I learned they certainly are bird-brained, with their eyes weighing 60 grams each and their brain only 40, but one can already tell that from their dopey smile. Plus, the common belief that they stick their heads in the sand when scared is a myth, because it only looks like that from a distance when their heads are lowered. They do get stressed easily, though, and it can even kill them. That combined with their brain size explains the lack of representation of the ostrich community in our world’s surgeon supply.

                At the end we poked around in the gift shop for a bit, but after a tour like that I don’t see the appeal of then buying an ostrich skin wallet. “Oh my God, I’m buying a slow learner.” I’m sure on a farm like that, though, they use the meat and everything else too, and from this trip I do know that ostrich steaks are quite tasty. Afterwards, we piled into the van again with our driver for the long drive back to Cape Town, and thankfully it was much more civilized than the first time around. I stepped back into the CCS homebase sometime before 5 p.m. filled with good memories and astonishingly without sunburn. It finally dawned on me that I was actually living in Cape Town on other side of the Prime Meridian AND the equator about a week ago, but because of the Aquila trip it now really feels like I’m in Africa. And it’s an awesome feeling.

What I've Learned Thus Far

Inspired by the poetry at the District 6 Museum, I decided to compile some deep thoughts I've been having lately. :)

1)      Dear Teenagers:

If sexual feelings

Have you in a hold

Go work in a daycare

With a three-year-old.

(Or perhaps 15.)

2)      An Elegy for a Missing Sock

When “by weight” laundry fees

Cause you to shriek

Wear half as much clothing

Or the same pants for a week.

(I’ve tried both.)

3)      Transport

Ride those packed, speedy minibuses

If you’re feeling brave

But which—your life or wallet—

Are you willing to save?

(Price check: 5 rand.)

4)      Fish for Lunch or Lunch for Fish?

When the surfers get mangled

By sharks out in Fish Hoek

I stay here at Homebase

With some rooibos tea and a book.

(He had it coming—they told him to get out of the water.)

5)      Nurture

If you’re feeling homesick,

Tired, lost, or unsure,

Remember the love, trust, and awe the kids have for you—

It’ll help you endure.

(Not that I’ve felt this way yet, but it’s nice to think about.)