Back To Joburg

Safari was amazing. We saw all of the Big Five, eventually spotting a leopard on our last night safari. The food couldn't have been better - I haven't been hungry in four days. The company was wonderful, we met a Swedish couple who live in Cape Town that we will meet up with in a few days. Most importantly, I had an amazing time hanging out with Liz as her birthday approaches. For our final dinner at the lodge, the staff set us up in the wine cellar and we had a very romantic dinner just the two of us. It's a shame that Merv and Shirley couldn't join us but they had a romantic dinner of their own in their room. They are an adorable older couple from Pretoria.

I can't believe it's already December. Time is flying. We came back to Johannesburg early this afternoon and are staying at a really beautiful hotel. We got a taxi from the airport and the driver ended up being our tour guide for the day. He took us to Soweto, the Apartheid Museum and Nelson Mandela's house. The city is different and beautiful in it's own way. I'm pretty tired from our schedule the last couple of days but we're powering through. South Africa, and Johannesburg in particular, has a very unique history. I actually took a class on South African history in college but sadly I don't remember much. I am picking up bits and pieces from people that we interact with.

Democracy is a fairly new concept here. Nelson Mandela was released from Robben Island only a little more than 20 years ago. This city went through a monumental change in a short amount of time. From the Apartheid government to democracy in a few years. Soweto was the scene of a grisly confrontation between school children and police that left 29 young people dead in 1976. There are deep seeded racial issues here. Everyone that we've talked to discusses them. I find it fascinating. America was there 50 years ago. Things don't change overnight. There's a rich culture here and the people are incredibly friendly. That being said.....I can't wait to get to Cape Town!!


Liz and I have some great stuff planned for the next few days and thanks to our friends on safari we have about 10 more restaurants to visit and places to go. I can't wait to have a drink on the beach with my shoes off and my feet in the sand. The thought alone puts a smile on my face. We are diving with great white sharks in a couple of days, we have a wine tour planned in Franschhoek and then tons of time to kill doing whatever we want.

A few more pictures from the last few days:

Cape Buffalo skull 

Hyena

Playing Scrabble 

There's a storm coming

Pretty bird

The Lodge 

First Day of Safari

Yesterday was unbelievable. Liz and I got to Johannesburg on Friday afternoon. We stayed at a nice hotel that literally had everything you could ever imagine: casino, theater, movie theater, 10 restaurants, bars; you name it they had it. Of course for our eating pleasure we chose Hooters.....I haven't had chicken wings in too long....

The following morning we left for safari. When we stepped off of the plane it was really hot and humid. This is weather that we are now completely unaccustomed to. I haven't stopped sweating for about 24 hours. It makes me not miss the weather in DC at all. That being said, we had a fantastic lunch and hung out by the pool and lounged around in the sun for a couple of hours before going out on our first ride.

When we did leave the lodge the weather was much more beautiful. The sun started to set about an hour into our ride. It was warm but the breeze in the jeep was great. We saw some small animals like Impala, that were ok, but nothing spectacular. Then out of nowhere CRUNCH!! Liz spotted a baby elephant tearing apart a big bush. We cruised over right next to it. It was a young male and as soon as we pulled up it faced us and flared it's ears. Thank you for the photo op young elephant. We ended up seeing a mother, a one month old baby and two young males with her. As we continued to drive we came upon a pack of about 25-30 elephants....a tide if you will.....all walking together through the woods. It was unreal. There were babies, huge males and females and young ones too. It was a sight:

 Next we stopped to enjoy the sunset, which was surreal. We planned this trip a while ago and it was so nice to finally be here. It was so much better sharing this experience with Liz. We had a drink as the sun went down. The colors were magnificent. I don't drink gin and tonics but I had one then; it seemed appropriate.

With an hour left in our first safari ride we happened upon a pride of 20 lions. There was one full grown male with a beautiful mane and one young male. All the rest were females. It was now dusk and the pride was walking in single file beginning their hunt. The sky got dark very quickly.

For about the last 2 hours of our ride you could see lightening everywhere and dark clouds. You couldn't help but notice it all around us but we were pretty preoccupied with the animals. As we followed this pride of lions around the lightening closed in. Soon it was literally encircling us and very close. Our ranger decided to head back. As soon as we started driving the skies just opened up. I honestly can't remember ever seeing a storm like that. The lightening lit up the darkness like daytime. The rain slashed faces as we drove back to the lodge. We were about an hour away. They had ponchos in the jeep so we put them on but Liz and I were already soaked. We are in a group with two older couples. Liz and I kept our hoods down and just got drenched. As we were tearing down these dirt roads Liz and I were cackling and howling in the back of the jeep like a couple of seven year olds. I haven't laughed that hard in months. It was that wonderful childish laughter that you just can't stop. We were crying laughing at the ridiculousness of the situation all the way back to the lodge. Upon our return we showered up and had an amazing dinner with a good group of new friends. We are the only Americans at this particular lodge and it is interesting hearing everyone's backgrounds.

What was your Saturday like......?

Couldn't be happier to be taking a break from work and getting ready to celebrate Elizabeth's birthday on the 14th!!

A Big Success!

Today was a huge day for Elizabeth and I. This is the first day that we implemented a program that we can completely call our own. I think it was a success. Honestly, it wasn’t too difficult and speaks volumes of the students here. But I digress……let’s talk about the Eye for Zion mission first.

Elizabeth and I had the privilege of spending some time with the Eye for Zion mission that is here this week. These are Israeli specialists in Ophthalmology - some specialize in cataracts, some specialize in glaucoma and one doctor specializes in plastics. All of them were captivating. This is the third year (for some) and fourth year (for some) coming to Gondar. The mission has been a huge success. JDC got involved and helped give them direction, They are not only conducting eye surgeries, but they are educating the Ophthalmologists in Gondar on new techniques and perfecting existing ones. They bring so much experience it’s really amazing.

We got to volunteer one day and help out at the Ophthalmology Clinic in Gondar with the doctors. They gave us scrubs and they let us assist with medial tasks in the operating room. I am really squeamish when it comes to surgery, blood, broken legs, etc., but this was awesome. The attention to detail was amazing. They were literally sticking these tiny utensils into peoples’ eyes and giving them sight again; come into the OR blind, come out with sight. Absolutely incredible and life changing. We took tons of pictures and the doctors liked having us there. The power went out in the clinic right before they began with the surgeries for the day……welcome to Ethiopia my friends.

Us in our scrubs

I should be paying attention to surgery

Liz with Dr. Assia

Close up.....gross I know......

Now to our success. In Ethiopia, classes aren’t separated by ability. In school the classes are separated by age and what grade the student attended last. Hence the reason why we have some students pushing 30 in ninth grade; they went to eighth grade, stopped going, and came back some years later as a ninth grade students. Some students don’t know the English alphabet. Some can’t read or write. Some are fully conversational and really bright. The one thing that all of these students have in common is their capacity to learn; some just choose not to.

About a month ago Liz and I started discussing an English Club. They have clubs at Fasiledes and plenty of them. When I asked one of our professors why there wasn’t an English club he replied because the students don’t care enough. No one would come. Wow, that couldn’t be further from the truth. Two weeks ago I asked two of our best students to meet me during break. They came as instructed. We sat down and I told them that we wanted to start an English Club. The difficult part was that I had no idea what I was doing. I told them that I didn’t know how to get the students together, how to organize it, when to meet etc. One of the two students calmly said, “This is how we’re going to do it” and rattled off instructions to me for a few minutes. I was completely blown away. These kids are really smart. He told me to take two students from each class, one boy one girl, We’d meet on Saturdays so everyone was free. Give me a list by next Monday, he said, with all of the students you want and me and my friend here will get them together and tell them what to do. I just stared at them in shock and said ok.

A week later I had a list, I secured the room at school and we had a time to meet – 12pm Western time on Saturday (TODAY). So we prepared a lesson plan. We want these students to learn to think critically, to formulate and voice their opinion articulately, to think outside of the box and be confident. We turned to poetry for this first meeting. I printed out a poem by an Ethiopian poet. It was simple and good.

To me, the material was important but it wasn’t the most important thing. I thought that no one would show. I was wrong. We got to school and ended up having twelve students, not my entire list but a great start. I asked the students how often they wanted to meet expecting they’d say once a month if ever; they said every Saturday. This means something to them. In order to get teachers to teach them in their free time the students have to pay. I learned this last weekend and it made me sick. They can have our time for free and we will be there as long as they need us to be.

While we’re here, Elizabeth and I plan on doing this every Saturday. I encouraged the students to tell their friends – from other schools, from their kebele, their family members. Hopefully this thing will catch on and grow so that we can start teaching for a few hours on Saturday.

I’ve never attempted anything like this in my entire life. I was a little nervous that no one would show and I was proven wrong. I thought they were there because I told them I’d give them some poetry. Turns out they liked the poetry but wanted to do other things as well. I am constantly amazed by the people here; sometimes good sometimes bad. I will say that some of the lows are pretty low (teachers making the students pay them to come on the weekend for an hour when the students themselves are incredibly poor), but the highs completely restore my faith. These students are smart, driven and willing to give up their free time to be in a classroom. I couldn’t have said the same thing for myself when I was 15. I am happy to be here and proud to be a teacher. It feels good to have the students reciprocate our efforts. They want to be there as much as we do and that makes all of this worthwhile.