Hi everyone -

We hope everyone has had a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.  Jon and I had the best Christmas present when Jonathan came to visit us for the holidays.  After his 16-hour flight from the US, we put him on another plane the next day for 4 hours when we all flew to Mauritius for Christmas.  Mauritius is a small island on the eastern side of Madagascar.  Click here if you would like to read a little more about the island from a tourism standpoint.

Mauritius has quite a history, beginning in 1638 when it was first colonized by the Dutch.  It has since been under French and British rule and has been an independent stable democracy since 1992. You can click here if you would like to read more about the history of the island.

We spent 5 nights in Mauritius in a beautiful resort on the east side of the island, called Belle Mare Plage. It was literally picture postcard beautiful - white sand, crystal water, giant palms.  It rained Christmas Eve and Christmas Day but the beach was still beautiful and Jonathan and I, as well as other tourists, flopped on our beach chairs under our tiki shelters and read, listening to the waves crash.

This is the first time I have ever spent a Christmas away on vacation, and while we did thoroughly enjoy ourselves, I am looking forward to being back in the US for Christmas 2013.

Hotel Lobby

View from our lunch table

Santa even comes to Mauritius

A beautiful evening, an almost full moon

Christmas evening and like every other dad,Jon is
wondering how he is going to pay for this come January!

Christmas Eve, Mauritius 2012

A Tough Day Today

I watched a man die today. I couldn’t do anything to help him. I watched as he bled from his nose and mouth and head, his eyes half open, glazed over. I watched as his body involuntarily twitched, his shallow breaths coming at greater intervals. 

I haven’t updated this blog in months. To be perfectly honest we just haven’t done much that seemed to warrant an entry. Jon and I have fallen into the same old routine – home to work and home again. Yesterday I had a doctor’s appointment at a nearby hospital which has a wing of doctor’s rooms, as they are called here.  I got there to find the power was out, and so I completed my new patient paperwork by lantern.  It didn’t seem to bother anyone, least of all the doctor, who simply pulled two chairs up to the closest window in his office to examine my hand.  I called Jon at work and told him about this funny little episode. He laughed and said, “Now there’s your next blog entry - another ‘welcome to Africa’ moment. “

It has been such an incredible adventure for Jon and me here in Africa. Our blog’s subtitle even reflects that. We are planning to return home in June next year and lately I have become torn about leaving.  Though the first year here was excruciatingly difficult for me, both Jon and I have come to like it here more and more. Yes, there have been lots of “Welcome to Africa” moments, those silly little incidents when we are reminded we are not living in a first world nation. We watch the news and read the papers daily and there is no doubt that South Africa is a “rough neighbourhood.” Our friends and family worry about us. Currently there are over 20,000 SA miners on strike. There have been protests, violence, riots and dozens of deaths. But we live a long way from these mines so it doesn’t affect us. There has been a trucking strike for the last few weeks. Violence and protests between strikers and those truckers who cross the picket lines left us with some empty grocery shelves, but nothing more serious. Closer to home, two more houses in our complex were robbed a few weeks ago. That makes four in a year. We are reminded by security to keep our doors and windows locked and closed, unless they have bars. We are told to stop when we come through the entrance gates so no one can tailgate in behind us. People here shrug off the corruption in government, steer clear of the growing illegal settlements, and turn a blind eye to the street hawkers and beggars. They blow their horns and gesture with their hands when seas of taxis disrupt traffic flow, create roads from medians, shoulders and sidewalks. Everyone knows they are a necessity for carrying hundreds of thousands of native Africans wherever they need to go. I’ve talked about the taxis here before, how there are gazillions of these rickety old tin cans on the road in Jo’burg, and all over Africa as well. The taxi drivers are callous and careless. They must meet a daily minimum in cab fare each day. Once the minimum is met the driver gets to pocket all the overage. This incentive has created an army of drivers who regularly run red lights, pass illegally, speed recklessly and behave rudely. But other than making me a much more careful and defensive driver, I have learned to ignore them, just like I do with the street hawkers and the beggars.

Taxi accidents are a daily occurrence. Fender benders, side-view mirror taps and paint scrapes are the norm. Occasionally the wrecks are catastrophic, with dozens hurt or killed. Two weeks ago Jon and I watched a taxi T-bone a Jeep, flipping it on its side. The taxi’s windshield was shattered and as Jon and I pulled over to help, we watched several women crawl out of the taxi, crying.  We stood with them, talking and hugging.  No one was seriously injured and so eventually we drove on, chalking it up to one more crazed taxi driver who should have his license revoked.

And then, there’s today. I dropped Jon off at 5:50 this morning at the nearest bus station where he catches the bus every morning for his ride to work. I always then head north for my 40 minute commute to Pretoria. While I was waiting at the light, second in line behind a van, I heard the crash. I looked up to see a white taxi and a blue car that had collided violently, a third car hit peripherally. The man in front of me and I jumped out to help.  The people climbed from the crumpled taxi; there were women’s shoes in the street, a car speaker, other car parts and glass. An older black woman about my size was clutching her head and literally fell into my arms. She was dazed and crying. I held her and guided her to the curb to sit down, rocking and talking to her. The sidewalks on either side filled with onlookers but no one came to help.  When the woman seemed to be okay, I ran to the blue car, the most damaged of the three vehicles, to see if I could help the man. I was crying and yelling for someone to help, but no one came. I felt like I was in one of those strange post-apocalyptic movies; it was eerily silent even though by now, there must have been 50 people standing on the sidewalk. I didn’t touch him because I wouldn’t have known what to do for him anyway. I just wanted to comfort him or do something to help. But I didn’t, remembering the high HIV population here. The man who was driving the van in front of me came over and looked in on the driver as well. He just shook his head when I asked him what he thought. And on this surreal Friday morning, I came to the realization that, for me, Africa no longer feels like an adventure. Today I know I am ready to come home.

 

 

The Elephant Sanctuary

The day before the last day of school we took the middle school students to visit The Elephant Sanctuary, about an hour's drive north of us.  You can visit the link to read more about the program but basically the three sanctuary locations are places to shelter elephants needing care. They are eventually released back to the wild or stay on at one of the sanctuaries as teaching elephants. It is a very interactive program where you learn all about the elephant's anatomy, get to feed the elephants and even pet them and receive a little peck on the cheek.  After having experienced that first hand, I can tell you elephants are slobbery, smelly creatures whose aroma stays with you long after you wash your face and hands! Other surprising facts I learned about elephants- they have incredibly long eyelashes, their skulls look like a honey comb on the inside. A solid skull would be too heavy for an elephant to hold up. An elephant's trunk has 100,000 muscles units in it and elephants use their trunks as a nose, a mouth and a hand. Without their trunks, elephants could not survive. Elephants use their tusks to scrape bark off trees to eat and will do this with only one tusk. If the right tusk is shorter, then the elephant is right-tusked and uses the right tusk for scraping. If the left tusk is shorter, the opposite is true. 

One of my smallest students feeding one of the biggest elephants!

GRADUATION DAY 2012!

What a spectacular day on Sunday, 20 May!  Four years in the making and it went off without a hitch! It was a whirlwind trip for both Jon and me. He flew in to DC on Wednesday night and I arrived on Thursday morning from Jo'burg. We met Jonathan on Friday afternoon in Charlottesville where we feasted on Mexican food at Guadalajara, Jonathan's favorite Mexican restaurant. Tex-Mex is about the only food you can't get in SA and we miss it so much. Saturday Bonnie and Brook (Jon's sister and sister-in-law) drove over from DC and Jonathan took us all on an extensive fact-filled walking tour of the campus that included a stop at his frat house. Yes, Animal House is alive and well.  We all had a nice dinner that evening, joined by Jonathan's girlfriend Ally.

Sunday we were up bright and early to stake out our lawn seats.  Families of graduates get only three tickets to watch the graduation from the Lawn. Other members have to watch from remote viewing locations. Big Jon bought two lawn chairs for Bonnie and Brook and set them up under a tree to listen from loud speakers. Ally and I grabbed 3 seats along the processional line in hopes of seeing JB, which we did.  There were an estimated 35,000 people in Charlottesville for graduation and the excitement (and traffic and parking nightmares and short tempers) was evident.  Jon joined us as the processional began. The colored banners representing each college came by with the degree candidates behind them. Many of the graduates carried balloons and had decorated their mortar boards with funny sayings or thank yous.  The procession went on for almost an hour as the more than 6,000 degree candidates(undergrads, grads, PhDs, MDs, JDs) began at the Rotunda and worked their way down the Lawn.  Katie Couric was the graduation speaker and she did a fabulous job. Each college was recognized and asked to stand by the dean of the college, the President conferred their degrees upon them and so on. Jonathan found his way to us eventually where we snapped a few pictures before Bonnie and Brook headed back to Lewes, DE where Bonnie was being sworn in on Monday as the newest Lewes, DE councilwoman!

Jon, Jonathan, Ally and I had a wonderful dinner and a beautiful country club just outside Charlottesville. It was the perfect way to end the day, celebrating JB's accomplishments and talking about his future. His future is somewhat certain - law school for sure. He is just not sure where. He has had several acceptances and is still on a few waitlists.  William and Mary is at the top right now, where he is assured a spot and has been offered some scholarship money.  He is still hoping to clear the UVA waitlist, which is his top choice.  We will wait and see. In the mean time, he has sublet an apartment in C'ville for the summer and looking for a job.

It seems like yesterday when he got off the bus after his first day of kindergarten in Gainesville, GA and told me his first day of school sucked.  Never did I think it would all go by so fast!

Ally straightening Jonathan's mortar board

Jon, Jonathan, Bonnie and Brook
outside JB's frat house, Chi Phi

Ally, Jonathan and his friend Gavin

A visit to the cheetah preserve

This past Friday (April 27) was Freedom Day here in RSA. This year marks the 18th anniversary of the new democracy.  With a long weekend, Jon and I spent Friday doing a little work (grading papers for me and answering emails for Jon), a little shopping and caught a movie (The Avengers).  Saturday we drove about an hour north of Jo'burg toward Hartebeesport Dam and to the Ann van Dyk Cheetah Centre. You can visit the link to learn more about the Centre's work.  The Centre began over 40 years ago with a woman who turned her family's vegetable farm into a safe haven for cheetahs and other local wild animals who were being wiped out by farmers trying to protect their livestock.  It has since become a renowned centre for rehabilitating specifically cheetahs, wild dogs and several types of birds - mostly cranes and vultures.  We spent four hours there watching the cheetahs run in a specialized area where they can stretch their legs.  It was an incredible sight!  They are the fastest creatures on earth, hitting speeds of 120 km per hour (75 miles per hour). We then toured the facility, learning so many interesting facts about all the wild animals on the preserve and how saving them from extinction is vital to the eco-system. 

One of the most important missions of the Centre is their education program.  They have a 9-year-old cheetah named Byron that they estimate has been petted by over 100,000 children in SA. Byron travels to schools who cannot afford to come to the Centre and acts as a ambassador teaching children the importance of conservation.  We got to pet Yates, Byron's replacement, who is currently in training.  We got to pet him and you cannot believe the purring!  It was so deep and his whole body rumbled.  It was an amazing experience!

Petting Yates, an ambassador-in-training

the beautiful markings on one of the wild dogs

Entabeni Game Reserve for Easter

View from our cabin porch. Those are warthogs in the photo.

We hope everyone had a wonderful Easter holiday. Here in SA Good Friday and Easter Monday are public holidays so Jon and I both had a long weekend to enjoy some time together.  We spent the weekend at a place called Entabeni Game Reserve, a private game reserve about 2 1/2 hours north of Jo'burg.  It is a beautiful place in the mountains with incredible views and amazing animals.  We were lucky enough to see three of the Big 5 animals - lions, elephants and rhinos - along with a host of others. The lodge was romantic and secluded. Our stay included 2 game drives per day with a ranger, one at 6:30 in the morning and one at 4 each afternoon. It has begun to cool off with typical fall temps, cool each morning and night.  We would return to the lodge in the mornings to a fire and big breakfast. Evening drives ended with hot cider or sherry and then a 3-course dinner.  It was a perfect getaway.

A crocodile sunning himself in the middle of the track. We
had to back up several hundred yards to go around him.

A mother and her calf take a stand against unwanted
advances from a male rhino.  Right after this photo they got
in a fight. The baby even tried getting between them to defend his mom.

The female won this round. The male ran right past our
vehicle with a wound to his head and some blood
dripping down his face. The ranger says the male will try
again next month to win the female's affections.

We could hear the elephants before we saw them.  They make
incredible noise tromping through the bush.

Lion cubs (about 8 months old)

The cubs play and dad yawns. They woke him up and he let them know
he wasn't happy with a growl and a swat of his paw.

We drove to the upper escarpment (the top of the mountain)
with our ranger one morning and saw giraffes among other animals.

The cabins

The lodge at dinner time

Adventure Team-Building with My New Middle School

We survived the first obstacle course!

Our middle school students and teachers recently spent 4 days out in the bush at an adventure team-building camp. We crawled through muddy obstacle courses, learned to cook eggs by burying them in the ground, practiced rescue skills like building rafts and making stretchers with minimal resources, and "stalked the lantern" by crawling silently through the bush at night, looking for the single lantern acting as a beacon for the teams.

It was so much fun, not to mention dirty and exhausting and bug-ridden and hot. I was cleaning dirt out of my ears for at least 3 days after I returned!

After our first obstacle course - just a little dirty

Our rafts didn't float too well

Navigating one of the courses

The bunkhouse-complete with thatched roof

Roasting marshmallows on our last night

A mother and baby giraffe sighted in the bush

My New Job

The Gate at the American School-Pretoria



The Office/Reception Area

My classroom-MS2

Hard to believe but I have been in my new job now for 6 weeks and I am loving it!  I thought I would post some photos of my campus. It is a beautiful spot and I feel so lucky to be here.  My kids are terrific-a mix of American and other nationalities including British, French, Kuwaiti, Hungarian and Indian. They are so well-traveled that I am learning more from them than they are from me.  I think what is most amazing about these kids is how well-adjusted they are considering some of them have lived in as many as 4 or 5 different countries in their short lives.  Most of them speak at least two languages if not three. 

The garden view from my classroom

We are leaving Tuesday (the middle school students and teachers) for a 3-night camping trip in the bush up in the Northwest Province. The kids are so excited. The teachers, not so much.  I will post an update when I get back, after I have had a long hot shower.

Our guards check under each car before coming through
the gates due to the large numbers of diplomatic children here.

Hope all is well with you.  Jody

This is our cafeteria. It is called the lapa, which is an old African
term for an open, thatched-roof building.

Our Amazing Holiday Vacation

Jonathan and Ally
Hout's Bay, Cape Town

Table Mountain

We hope you and your family had a wonderful Christmas/New Year holiday season.  Jon and I got the best Christmas gift ever-Jonathan and his girlfriend Ally came to SA the day after Christmas and we began an incredible 14-day adventure (Please see below for our photos).  We spent 2 days in Jo-burg, taking the kids to Pilanesberg for a game drive and to the Lion and Rhino park to pet the cubs and watch the lions feed, among other things.  Then we packed up the rented SUV and left Jo'burg at 1:00 am on Dec 30th to begin the 15-hour drive to Cape Town.  Little did we know that this was just the first leg of what would turn out to be a 3,000 mile road trip through South Africa!  We arrived in Cape Town the evening of the 30th and stayed in a hotel down on the old market square.  It was what you might call a boutique hotel, across the street from a 150 year old Methodist Church and overlooking the old market square which is today a "traditional" African market of tents and tables and everything from wood carvings to Bob Marley t-shirts.  Ally and I had fun exploring.  This old part of Cape Town has a bit of a New Orleans feel with converted warehouses and iron-wrought balconied buildings.  It is an eclectic mix of old and new with a melting pot of people.  On New Year's Eve day we got up early to ride the cable car to the top of Table Mountain. We got there only to be told that there were gale-force winds and the cable car was closed.  We re-grouped and changed our plans and spent the day driving south along the Cape Peninsula where we went to Boulders Beach and saw the penguins, drove to Cape Point and felt like we were standing at the bottom of the world, and wound our way back north along the western edge of the peninsula on Chapman's Peak Drive, the steepest, narrowest, most harrowing road I have ever been on.  But the views were breathtaking.  Jon made reservations for us that night for New Years' Eve dinner at his favorite restaurant in Cape Town, called Codfathers.  You select your seafood fresh from the ice and it is grilled to order. It was spectacular.  We finished the night standing on the balcony of one of the many bars in town, watching the streets below, people and cars vying for space, listening to car horns and the music of the New Year's parade a block away.  I can honestly say it was the best day I have had in recent memory.

We also managed a rather rough ferry ride to Robben Island while we were there.  Robben Island is a small island about 6 km off the coast, originally a leper colony during colonial times and a prison for political dissidents in recent history and the home of Nelson Mandela for 18 of his 27 years in prison.  It is a desolate island, scrubby and sandy and windy, yet within sight of the mainland. It must have been awful to be so close and yet so far to freedom.  The prison tours are given by former prisoners and so with their individual stories the island and prison really came to life. 

We never got up Table Mountain because of the clouds or winds, but we managed the drive up to the top of Signal Hill and got some great photos overlooking the city and out toward Robben Island before climbing back in the SUV and heading East along the Garden Route.  We made it to Stellenbosch in time for lunch. This part of SA is known for its vineyards. Stellenbosch is a quaint Dutch Colonial town and the countryside is covered in vineyards and flowers.  We found a little private vineyard where we had a lunch of cheese and meats and did some wine tasting to accompany our meal.  It was a unique experience for us all.  We traveled a few hundred kilometers more and after a one-night hotel stop we made our way to Tsitsikamma National Park and the Storms River suspension bridge.  The park is perched literally on the side of mountains that drop right to the water's edge.  We made the short hike to the suspension bridges and walked and rested overlooking the ocean.  The entire day's drive was gorgeous.  Between the scenery along Cape Point and Tsitsikamma National Park I can honestly say I have never seen anything more beautiful and breathtaking in my life. 

Our final destination was Jeffrey's Bay, South Africa's premier surfing spot (can you guess whose idea that was?) and along the way we made a detour (again, guess who) to the actual southernmost tip of Africa and the place where the Atlantic and Indian Oceans meet, called Cape Agulhas.  Most people think the Cape of Good Hope, also known as Cape Point, is that spot but in fact it is not. But since you can only get to Cape Agulhas after 30 km of dirt roads I guess the SA board of tourism decided to give the honor to Cape Point.  We trusted Jonathan, our navigator since our GPS can't navigate dirt roads, to get us to Cape Agulhas, which he did.  This was another special moment of the trip- an unplanned detour that turned out to be well worth the dusty drive.

We finally reached Jeffrey's Bay and stayed right on the beach in a lovely 10-unit condo. It was beautifully decorated in beach style and the bedrooms had AC!!  I haven't slept in an air conditioned bedroom in a year! The most decadent part of our stay there was that every morning the staff at the guest house as it is called in SA came into our unit, set the table and cooked us breakfast to order.  We felt like royalty.  We had eggs, sausage, assorted breads, fresh fruit, yogurt, coffee and tea each morning. The unit had excellent views and Jonathan loved that he could walk right out on the beach with his rented surfboard and be in the water, surfing the waves (well, attempting to) within minutes.  All four of us enjoyed our four days in Jeffrey's Bay, laying on the beach, reading, body-surfing, collecting shells.  The town itself isn't much, a miniature Panama City Beach, but we managed to eat some delicious meals and Jonathan and I snuck off for a moment of mother-son time and a round of putt putt golf on the old boardwalk. I beat him by one stroke which felt good after all his trash talking.

On one of our beach days we drove an hour back toward Storms River to a bridge we had crossed earlier in our travels called Bloukrans Bridge.  It is a world-famous bridge known for being the highest bungee-jumping bridge in the world (over 700 meters).  Jonathan, Ally and Jon all jumped!  I can't believe they all had the courage to do it.  Ally didn't call and tell her mom back home until after she jumped.  We all agreed it was better that way.  I don't know if the kids will ever do it again but I think I can safely say that Jon has added that to his "one and done" list. 

Our last night in Jeffrey's Bay we ate at this great little restaurant right on the beach called the Walskipper. The moon was out over the water, the tables are under a big thatched roof cover and it all  sits right in the white sand of the beach.  The seafood and meats are cooked on open fires and served on a huge platter with rice and potatoes.  We dove in and ate langoustines, prawns, calamari, oysters, crab, line fish, ostrich, oxtail, lamb, springbok and crocodile. It was a beautiful evening and an incredible meal.  We headed back to Jo'burg the next day, a grueling 12 hour drive through some desolate landscape and 40 degree Celsius temps (104 F) and ending the drive in pouring rain and an incredible lightning show. 

After a day in Jo'burg to catch up on laundry and rest, the kids had to fly back to Virginia.  We hated to see them go because we had the best vacation of our lives. I can't remember a time when we all laughed so much, did so much, and detoured so much as we did for those 2 weeks.  I am so grateful we got to spend the time together.

The kids flew home on Wednesday night and I started a new job on Thursday morning. The day after Christmas I got a call from the American International School principal in Pretoria needing a social studies/English middle school teacher in January.  They had a teacher quit suddenly at the end of the first term and he had heard good things about me from the American School principals in Johannesburg, with whom I had met and interviewed for some other positions.  So I took the job and I am loving it, even after 2 days.  It is a bit of a drive to Pretoria (about 40 minutes) but it is all interstate and I have a total of 28 students. Not 28 in each class, 28 total!  It is a dream job.

So far 2012 has gotten off to a terrific start-a happy visit with Jonathan and Ally, a new job for me, and a happy Jon because now I will have a paycheck to help pay for the mammoth road trip!

Happy New Year and all our Love,  Jody

Cape Point Preserve

Yes, it's a real baboon sitting on the sign! Baboons are found all over Cape Point Preserve.

The penguins at Boulders Beach

The view along Chapman's Peak Drive on the west side of the Cape Point. FRIGHTENING!

The Stellenbosch wine country

The dirt road we traveled to visit the true southern most tip of Africa, Cape Agulhas

Jon and Jody where two oceans meet

A shipwreck off Cape Agulhas

The suspension bridges across Storm's River. The Indian Ocean is directly to the right.

Bloukran's Bridge-the highest bungee jumping bridge in the world

The bungee jumpers

Jonathan takes the dive!

The boys checking out the waves at Jeffrey's Bay

A rainstorm over the Karoo

These are just a few of the amazing animal pics we were able to snap...

A mother and baby baboon sitting on the side of the road
in the Cape Point Nature Preserve

There are seals all over the harbor in Cape Town. This one was laying on a slab of concrete along the
dock cleaning and sunning himself.

Two of the 5-month-old lion cubs we petted at the nature park

The lion pride at the nature park

One of the penguins at Boulders Beach

"These tourists are always tying up the bathrooms"