Also the night before I flew back to the States, my organization asked me to stay an additional week to give a presentation to a funder. Pretty last minute and stressful, but this is how these things happen. I had nothing going on back in the States, so I decided to stay. The following week, I took Tuesday off to Limpopo with Nadia to check out the biggest baobab tree in the world…and possibly the oldest tree in the world. It took us about 4 hours to get there. We left at 5am, arrived 9am, climbed the tree, and took the even longer way home, just driving through the country and enjoying a day off.
15 Mar
The long good-bye
The night before I flew back from South Africa, my colleagues organized a really nice farewell party for me – an evening spent at a restaurant/bar down in Soweto with all of my colleagues and several other people I came to know over the course of the year. During an awkward hour, every single person there got up and said a good-bye to me. During an even more awkward 10 minutes, I got up and thanked them and said goodbye to them. It’s not easy to say goodbye to people you are likely to never see again…but if I’ve learned nothing this year, I’ve learned that people you care about, and people who have made a difference in your life, are with you all the time, even when they are not physically present.
With Fiks
I might not miss car-guards, but I will miss my co-workers.
10 Mar
A warm New Year’s celebration – I should have been doing this for years
Getting started at party number one
When we arrived back from Tanzania, Andrea and I had about an hour to get through customs and checked into our flight to Cape Town for New Year’s weekend. In the US, this would seem to be near impossible. In South Africa, it took us all of 10 minutes to get off the plane, go through passport control, get our bags and get through customs.
An added bonus to our trip to CT was that we were able to convince Ilona to come. too. We even got her on the same flight as us! Except that she got the date confused, missed her flight, and arrived later on in the afternoon that Thursday. This made for a hilarious situation as Ilona had Andrea’s keys to her apartment in CT. Luckily, Andrea’s friends bailed us out and gave us a place to hang all day before Ilona arrived later that night.
Trying not to fall off the balcony
As New Year’s preparations began, I was worried it would be a bust. This has nothing to do with my love/hate affair with CT, or Andrea, or Ilona. The way I wrote that sounds as if I have a love/hate relationship with Andrea and Ilona. That’s not what I meant. I have a love affair with them…just not always with Cape Town. Anyway…it has to do with New Year’s Eve and the inevitable disappointment that comes from an evening full of such hype. But, I will say this is one of the better New Year’s I’ve had in a long time. This is likely because it was summer in South Africa as opposed to frigidly cold, like I am used to spending the holiday. We hit up a few parties, went hiking in Stellnbosch (where I was forced into eating mince (dried fruit) pie and fruit cake – ACK!), went hiking up Lion’s Head on Saturday afternoon, and even went to a cricket match with Bryden, his friend, and his mom on Sunday.
Ilona and I got back to Jozi late on Sunday night so we were pretty tired the next day. I went to work, she stayed at my place…and pretty much stayed through the rest of the week, too!
With Ilona at the cricket match...during a four hour rain delay. Luckily, there was beer.
Not a bad last week to spend in South Africa before heading Stateside.
9 Mar
Jambo!
Sooo….I have to back track a few months here, but after popular demand, below are some pics from my Christmas holidays, spent in Tanzania with Andrea.
Now how did I get to go to Tanzania for two weeks, you might ask? Well, South Africa basically shuts down from December 15 – January 10th, so you have nearly a month off from work. Andrea, Shira and I started planning our trip months in advance. But when we saw it would cost us nearly $1000 to get from Jozi up to Dar es Salaam, we scratched Tanzania off the list. We then decided that we would take public transportation from Jozi up into Mozambique, to Malawi, and then back down to Jozi through Zambia. We had nearly everything planned, when one morning, we received an online special from Kulula (a discount airline) advertising for round trip tickets between Jozi and Dar for $200. So, we nixed our tour of Moz, Malawi and Zambia for two weeks in Tanzania.
The first part of our trip was spent up and around Arusha. From there, we went on safari in the Tangire National Park, the Serengeti, and Ngorogoro Crater. That’s where we learned Swahili words for all sorts of animals (tembo = elephant; twiga = giraffe; simba = lion; and, pumba = warthog). We couldn’t help but remember Disney’s The Lion King and realize ole Walt was teaching us Swahili without us even knowing it. We were lucky enough to see the wildebeest migration in the Serengeti, which is one of the most famous migrations in the animal kingdom.
The middle part of the trip took us to the middle of the Usambara Mountains, located in the northeast corner of the country and accessible from both Arusha and Dar. So Andrea and I went there for a few days for a break from the tourist trap that is Arusha and for an evening and day of hiking through various mountains towns. It was perhaps my favorite part of the trip – no people, lots of trees, and lots of exercise.
The final part of our trip took us to Zanzibar Island, or Spice Island! I don’t really know what to say about it other than it’s a tropical paradise, much like other islands, with lots of sand, and sun and surf. My favorite part of our 4 days there was when we left Stonetown for Paje (on the Eastern side of the island) for a night of dancing at out hotel bar, sleeping on the beach, and then riding bikes in the afternoon. I love bikes.
Shira was supposed to come, too, but she got a job back in the States and had to head back. Her loss! And also ours, as you can see in some of our photos below.
10 Jan
2010 Year-In-Review
My friends from undergrad always write a Year-in-Review at the end of every year. It’s a way for us to all reflect about what’s happened over the past year and to use those reflections to lead us into improvements for the following year. Not necessarily resolutions like “eat less carbs” but things to help us enjoy life more fully.
So, here is my 2010 Year-In-Review:
biggest accomplishment: learning to appreciate myself
biggest failure: did not use free time to learn another language, experiment in cooking, or read! Sigh.
biggest good change: cut back significantly on worrying about everything all. the. time. allowing myself to live in the moment.
biggest bad change: keeping in touch with peeps (this blog only served as a way for me communicate less on an individual level with people I care about)
other notable changes and accomplishments: began volunteering for things I really care about (youth health education), rediscovered how much i love my siblings, created a life in a far off place, experienced a World Cup, became a good host to guests, discovered that I don’t hate running (!), allowed myself to learn to say “no”, allowed myself to learn to say “yes”, achieved a better work/life balance, began to truly believe that those i love are always with me even when they are very far away, was a good friend to my best friend, got my first sister-in-law (!), kissed a hippo, laughed a lot, played with a lion cub, swam in the Zambezi River, saw lots of wild cats, slept under the stars, camped during a thunderstorm and only got scared once, opened my heart.
places i went:
South Africa (johannesburg, pretoria, cape town, kruger national park, durban, east london, port elizabeth, rustenberg, bloemfontein, ETC.)
dar es salaam
arusha
serengheti national park
tangire national park
ngorogoro crater national park
zanzibar
usambara mountains
victoria falls
livingstone, zambia
baltimore
boston
maine
dc
frankfurt
10 Jan
A farewell to Shiraaaaa
As my time in South Africa is coming to an end, I can’t help but think of all of those people who made my time spent here so special. For those of you who read this site regularly (so there are about 4 of you, right?), you all know Shira, who was another volunteer for the same U.S. organization.
Placed up by Kruger, her experience in South Africa was a bit different than mine, but given the fact that I saw her at least once a month, many of our experiences here are shared! Shira left South Africa before I did, so Andrea and I took her to the airport for one last hurrah before she left for the States.
So here’s to Shira, who made life here in South Africa infinitely more fun, funny and bearable.
Top Ten Memories of Shira (in no particular order):
- Our first weekend of hanging out – consisted of going to see Freshly Ground with John and Janna, a flat tire, dancing sookie at an Afrikaans bar, staying out ’til 3am and sleeping on cushions.
- World Cup – leg injuries and black eyes. Seriously, I can’t help but get injured with her around.
- Marathon email exchanges about any and every single thing
- Boot camp
- Our “don’t say anything but…” plans
- Week-long visits to Jozi
- IGYN discussions
- Weekend jaunts (Kruger, Cape Town, the Garden Route, etc.)
- The long goodbye
- Shiraaaaaa vs. Katieeeeeee
- World Cup – leg injuries and black eyes. Seriously, I can’t help but get injured with her around.
10 Jan
38 Days of Nothing
So it’s been about 38 days since I last posted. I could claim that it’s been 38 days full of nothing to report, but that would be a lie. Honestly, it’s been one of the most hectic periods of my life – much of it without access to email – but that is no excuse. It all involves lots of working, even more traveling, moving, then not moving, and interviewing for jobs.
So first up was my weekend in the bush with Alwyn, Attie, Ben and Nadia. Alwyn develops game farms for a living, so he invited us up to check out one he’s about to launch. Or it may have already been launched. I can’t remember. I seem to have the memory the size of a dried up pea these days…
3 Dec
Victoria Falls: There’s lots of water there
Anyone who knows me has known that I’ve wanted to go to Victoria Falls for a really long time – probably since I first went to Niagara Falls with Mom, Dad and Molly on my way out to Grinnell in 1999. There is something so powerful and majestic about water falls that seeing Victoria Falls made sense. Plus, it’s considered one of the Seven Natural Wonders of the World AND it’s nicknamed “The Smoke That Thunders”. Who wouldn’t want to check that out?
I decided that I wanted to go when the water was low enough that I could raft all the rapids (21) of the Zambezi River and during the full moon, so that I could see the moonbow – or the lunar rainbow as some like to call it. What is a moonbow, you might ask? A moonbow is a rainbow produced by light reflected off the surface of the moon rather from sunlight – so during the full moon, the light reflects off the spray from Victoria Falls and you can see a moonbow. It’s one of the few places in the entire world where you can see one! Sounds pretty awesome, right? Yes, well it sounds awesome. I wouldn’t know if it is actually awesome since it was cloudy when I was there. Sigh.
Anyway…Mosi-oa-Tunya (the indigenous name for Victoria Falls) may not be the highest falls in the world nor is it the widest – but it is the largest because it forms the largest sheet of water in the world.
I only went to Vic Falls for about two days. I spent the first day getting there. My plane was delayed five hours and upon arrival in Livingstone, one must pay an entrance visa to Zambia. I stayed on the Zimbabwe side, so I also had to stop and pay a visa entrance fee there. By the time I arrived at my hostel, Shoestrings, it was about 5pm. The park closes at 6pm, and all adventure activities were finishing up for the day, so I decided to set myself up at the hostel and hang out with the people there.
The next day, I rafted the Zambezi River. Of the 21 rapids we faced, we only flipped once. This was my first time flipping while rafting and given the horror stories shared to me by Mariah, I was terrified at the prospect. But, I am alive and well with only a few bruises to show for it. On Sunday, I got up at about 5am to make it over to the Falls before heading back to Jozi at 9am.
Check out the photos below!
I promise I don’t just like to take pictures of myself – I just went to Vic Falls alone so there was no one else to take pictures of! Plus, I know that my Mom misses me, so those are really for her.
1 Dec
World AIDS Day: Staying sober amidst promising strides
There is a lot to be thankful for this year in terms of the AIDS epidemic, specifically the recent strides made in HIV prevention research. The CAPRISA 004 trial results and the recent results from the iPrEx PrEP effectiveness trial (which showed that once-daily Truvada reduced risk of HIV infection in gay men, transgender women and other men who have sex with men by an average of 43.8%) are something to be celebrated!
Unfortunately, despite these landmarks, UNAIDS reports that an estimated number of children living with HIV or AIDS in 11 Asian countries has increased by 46 percent between 2001 and 2009; that for every one person starting HIV treatment, there are two new HIV infections; that new HIV infection rates have increased by 25% in countries in Eastern Europe and Central Asia; and, that the global economic struggle has resulted in a massive decline in international funding for AIDS programs.
Sigh.
But – everyone likes a challenge, right?
What’s next?
26 Nov
Giving Thanks
Bagourke 2010!!
Since I am not in a good Thanksgiving mood, I decided to write a list of things I was thankful for to pull myself out of this spiral I’m in right now.
There are so many things to be thankful for – so here’s just a few of those things that make me happy:
Mom, Tim, Geoff, Michael, Mabu, remembering Dad, friends, my expanding family, my education, cookies, underarmor, speaking French, long slow runs when the sun is rising (or setting), afternoon naps, full moons, not throwing “like a girl”, midnight swims, long phone calls from old friends, trees rustling in the wind, laugh out loud emails, road trips, dancing around the house when i’m all by myself, dogs, stars in the African sky, dinner parties, playing wiffle ball in the backyard, holding hands, nail polish, musicals, big hair, books, sunscreen, hugs from people who really know how to give them, daisies, my past, a future full of adventure.
Bangs and a fanny pack? Good lord.
A Cup in Jo 