South Africa

It's been a big couple of weeks around here, so get ready, there's a lot in this post - there, you've been warned...

Our bus ride down to Maputo on Friday was pretty quick and uneventful, which is a good thing for a Mozambiquan bus ride - one tell-tale sign that it was a good trip occurred when we realized that it took us 7 hours into the ride to notice that there was a live chicken under the seat next to ours and a live monkey in the front of the bus. Luckily they were fairly quiet passengers. 

Saturday we boarded a chappa to go across the border to Nelspruit. It's funny crossing a border on public transportation - everyone gets out of the van and walks through customs and immigration (a flurry of activity completely void of any signage or polite lines that us Americans are so accustomed to), and then magically everyone meets back up at the van on the other side. With the amount of people and vehicles coming and going it seems a wonder to me that it actually worked without anyone getting lost or left behind somewhere. But then again I have that feeling often in Africa, when I don't seem to have any idea what is going on around me, but with a little bit of patience everything somehow always comes together. The chappa driver that day did have a certain fondness for eighties music and we entered South Africa to the tune of Toto's "Africa" blaring from the speakers. Considering we were the only internationals in the van I think the irony was lost on everyone else. 

We spent three days in Kruger Park, discovering how to drive a stick shift left-handed, spotting wildlife, and camping at campsites surrounded by giant electric fences, which kept the animals out but not the sounds of them which made us feel like we were in Jurassic Park. We were a little worried going into it that it would feel just like a really big zoo, but as soon as we saw our first elephant emerge from the trees and cross the road immediately in front of our car, it became obvious that getting close enough to the animals would not actually be a concern. We saw all of the big animals that we wanted to see in the first couple days: antelope, elephants, giraffes, rhinos, warthogs, buffaloes, hyenas, zebras, hippos, and we had almost accepted defeat in seeing any cats when we spotted a little family of lions on our way out of the park on the last day. The reality of peace corps accommodations are put into rather harsh light when you consider that the campsites inside the park felt like a luxury resort to us. I don't think anyone has ever been as excited as we were for flushing toilets and hot, running water in the showers. 

        

The Mpumalunga region of South Africa is beautiful. There's rolling hills, giant blue sky and lush open spaces that could have honestly been mistaken for Napa Valley. The most surprising part though was how quickly the landscape could change. One minute the view was green and lush, and then we would come around a bend in the road or over a hill and all of a sudden it was brown and arid. The dichotomy between the two landscapes deepened when we started to realize the architecture and the culture changed as well. The lush areas were peppered with giant houses set apart from each other with electric fences and not a person in sight; while the other side of the hill was covered in small concrete houses, goats, cows, and people on either side of the road walking, hitchhiking, carrying goods home from the market. We realized rather quickly how obvious some of the lasting effects of apartheid really are. 

On our last day we drove through the Blyde River Canyon on a scenic route called the Panorama. After three days confined to the car driving 30 mph, it was a welcome change to get to interact with nature again and actually get out of the car and climb around on rocks and discover waterfalls. It was the perfect ending, before two more long days of bus rides to get home. 

  

We thought we had lucked out on Friday morning when we found a bus in Maputo that would be going right by the school. And not just any bus - a bright yellow school bus with "Atlanta Public Schools" painted on the side, and a "door" cut into the left side of the bus for passengers to enter and exit on the correct side of the road. Four hours later, when we were still sitting in Maputo waiting for it to fill up we were beginning to re-think our luck. Although the extra four hours did give us ample time to discuss the feasibility of how a school bus from Atlanta could honestly end up in Mozambique….we still haven't come up with a very good explanation for that one. Before we left for South Africa we had a little rat epidemic at Jonathan's house. Luckily one of the other volunteers has a cat that recently had kittens, and we just happened to be passing by his town on our way home. So we facilitated a little hand-off as we pulled through town - only in Mozambique can you pass a box with a kitten through the window of a school bus without any comments being made. I mean, I guess it could have been a monkey…

Twelve hours later we thought we were home-free, until the bus drove off the road and got one wheel stuck in the sand. Luckily we were less than a mile from home, so we threw on our backpacks and walked the rest of the way, cat in hand. It was a bit of a traumatic start to their life together, but for a boy who loves the Simpsons and a cat who spent six hours on a school bus, Otto seemed to be an obvious name for the little one. Things could get very interesting here soon, considering the dog was pregnant and gave birth last night to five puppies (we think it's five, right now she and the pups are holed up in a little nest that she carved out under a bush), so the animal count in this house has jumped in the last week from one to seven. But so far, no more rodents...