A calmer day

This morning I woke to the rare treat of a quiet flat.  So, I yoga-d on the terrace with the rising sun to wake me up and warm me up!  After my flatmates awoke, we headed to the beach.  It was so windy that the sand pelted us as we tried to lay out.  I strung my swim-suit-cover-up-dress-thingy around my head like a hijab to keep the sand out of my eyes, ears, mouth, and nose.  Some of the other ladies were not so lucky.  Those unfortunate people are still digging sand out of their ears, hair, and plenty of other crevices.  We walked up and back to the closest grocery, made ostrich pasta sauce with wilted spinach and pasta, and went to a Port Elizabeth Southern Kings pro rugby game at one of the Soccer World Cup stadiums.  The sweetest part of the game was at half time when they lit an orange smokebomb and within a few seconds some of the gladiators, the team mascots, parachuted into the stadium and landed on the field.  It was SOOOO cool.  They both hit the ground so hard that their knees collapsed.  The game was also really interesting and, sad to say, but a lot more exciting than American Football.  I would love to watch it regularly.  Another almost-as-exciting-part was when I showed Taylor a sweet HUGE moth on the sweatshirt of the boy sitting in front of us.  We quickly switched spots and she got the moth out of his arm pit without him noticing, despite a whole row of girls laughing hysterically, lol.  Then the moth just hung out on her sleeve for the rest of the game.  She hypothesized that the bug was drawn into the light and had nowhere to go, so it fell.  She said that it just hung out on her sleeve because when insects get too cold, they can’t fly.  So there you have it!  Ya can’t get between a girl and her bugs, right? Haha.

Here are some more pics from the tour yesterday:

Unexplored beach.

The South African Flag!  It's on the highest hill in the city.

Homes in New Brighton Township, the location of two of our three service sites.

This is where I will be volunteering in the preschool room on Monday and Tuesday mornings.

Can you see how far the township stretches?  It's unbelievable how many shacks there are.  In these shacks there is usually no running water or sewage.  There is a little house outside with a bucket for a toilet.  There is a high incidence of rape because young girls need to go out and use the rest room in the night when men are floating home from the spaza shops and bars.  Families as big as ten can share one bucket and then put it out on the street for pick-up in the morning.  If the municipality lays people off for lack of funding or the vehicles don't have gas or any number of other issues than the people do not receive the luxury of waste removal.

A township

An ancient-looking woman sweeping her front walk way.

A look at the path to the pottery house, Aya's Pottery, from the inside.

The front gate of Aya's.

Woman carry VERY heavy loads on their heads.  It is amazing to see how they maintain their posture.  Sometimes they carry enough water for the whole day on their heads back to their homes.

Children from a school who went nuts when they saw our bus.  They are adorable.

Some of the homes in the townships received solar panels as part of a government funded initiative to get electricity to the townships that was promised when the Apartheid government fell in 1994.  Seventeen years later the African National Party (ANC) has not delivered on the simplest promises.

Beautiful coastline but a cloudy day.

The Ford, GMC, and VW plants are on the coast on the way to our service sites.  There are also tire factories close to the townships to provide cheap labor that does not require extra transportation to the factory.  These cars are ready to ship.

All of the white vehicles ready to be shipped.

Ford, GMC or VW vehicles ready to ship around the world.  The factories keep the people employed.  During Reagan's presidency there were sanctions on South Africa's trade that severely stunted the growth and success of the manufacturing and shipping of vehicles out of PE.

Another beautiful vase.

More pottery

A little too much fun in the sun

Last night I wasn’t able to go to the Superbowl due to some miscommunications and safety precautions for travelling at night.  So, I got a pretty good night of sleep and got up early to bring dirty clothes to the Laundrette.  The nice women weigh the clothing and 5kg is a load.  Then, they give you a ticket and a time to return to get the folded laundry.  It costs R39.50 per load, equivalent to about $5. 

We caught a bus to school for our first time on NMMU campus for an orientation bit.  We listened to information from 9-12 and then had yellow rice and curry for lunch, compliments of the university.  After lunch we headed down the boardwalk towards Langerry.  What we thought was a 30 minute walk was actually an hour.  But, there is a cool breeze, which is obvious enough for the 2^nd Windiest City in the World ;) haha.  It definitely cools things down though. 

After we got back to Langerry, the beautiful beach was too hard to ignore any longer, so we headed down to read Poli Sci and lay out.  We talked to our lifeguard friends for an hour and they made terrible fun of us because we asked if there were coupons in the newspaper for the grocery.  At about 3pm, we ran down the boardwalk to the store and figured the phones out to some extent.  Then we ran back and got ready quickly for the rugby match at NMMU from which we just returned.

We grabbed a kombi to the match and it was fabulous!  There is one guy to yell on the streets and get people to ride, gather their destination, and get their money, another controlling the BLASTING music, and the driver is “in the zone.”  We piled about 20 people, maybe more, into the kombi and just jammed on the way to school.  It was amazing that they just kept pulling over and fitting more people in the vehicle.  Then one of the guys came out with us and showed us where the stadium is. 

It was a packed and hoppin’ joint.  There was a huge group of people taking up about half of the grandstands singing African songs, popular American music blared the whole time with an Emcee rousing the crowd not just during breaks, but the whole time, and we sat in the beer garden which any student can of course enjoy.  Although I didn’t understand the game, it was fun to be at such a lively event.

Despite liberally applying sun screen, I resemble Mom’s favorite childhood “pretend-this-is-communion candy,” the Pinkie.  I haven’t decided if I am joining the CSB/SJU group and other international students to the after-party of the rugby match at a bar down the way.

Love from the Beach Bum