AXL's Adventures in Africa

Adrenaline Junkiesville

2006-07-16T11:52:00.000+02:00

It's back to Windhoek today, having spent four days in an adrenaline seeker's paradise. We toured the famous sand dunes of the Namib Desert in the best ways possible. We sand "boarded" (more like tobogganed) our first day here. Later we got a bird's eye view of the landscape, as we plunged from 10,000 feet in a 220 km/hour, 30 second freefall. That's right, people, we jumped out of a plane.

I had decided a couple of weeks ago that I wanted to take the opportunity to skydive in this incredible setting. I was really surprised when Justina told me she was onboard and Heather followed suit. So I made the booking for three, not sure if all three of us would actually make the jump. But we were off the very next morning to the airport. I was calm from beginning to end, more excited than anything else, having no expectations, though I was a little goofy throughout the whole process.

When they opened the hatch of our tiny plane, which only fits 6 people squashed together plus the pilot, and they insisted Heather jump first, I was a little nervous about seeing her drop out of sight. It was bizarre. They dropped, but the plane keept right on going ... obviously. I was the next to go, followed by Justina. Heather and her skydiving master turned out to be floaters, first to jump but last to land. My dude, Craig, decided to take me for a much crazier ride. We were doing donuts and swirlies all the way down, which cuts your time in half. But he also gave me the opportunity to enjoy the serenity as well. He told me to close my eyes and spread my arms ... we flew like a bird, feeling the rush of air on my face as we dove downwards and the sun as we sailed upwards. Justina's experience was more like mine, and landed about a minute after I did. We both were elated and jumped up and down on her landing. Heather was a little more subdued, getting a more tame ride than we did. But we all agreed on the sheer awesomeness of the experience, something I would do again if the setting could compare. A desert set against a bright blue ocean is probably tough to compete with, let alone beat, however.

Fortunately, we caught a lot of it on film, thanks to our handicams. Our videos reveal what freefalling at 220 km/hour does to Justina's cheeks, my nostrils, and Heather's face in general ... not pretty, folks. My video also includes a 15 second tanget at the end, when Craig egged me on to chat about my experience and I got a little sentimental about the past six months of my time in Africa. (We also have a really fun video from our time sandboarding, which we got for free!) It will be cool to share the experiences with you all, when I can figure out how to post them. And hopefully they will convince my parents that the experience was well worth the expense (ish!)!

It's off to the bus station for us! Can you believe I'm home in just a few days?!? I can't! Whoa ... whoa.

Peace out,

Allison

The Bad Dog Crew

2006-07-14T11:53:00.000+02:00

The Bad Dog Crew
Originally uploaded by axlinafrica.

We departed Vic Falls on July 8th, after four fun-filled days with Heather and Justina. The highlight of the week consisted of rafting down the Zambezi River. We flipped once, on "The Mother," though I know I for one pretty much dove in and made no attempt to keep the raft upright. Hey, you gotta go in at least once, right? I then was handed the helm by our guide, Taka, and became honorary navigator, which I (of course) delighted in, being the power monger that I am. We scored an amazing deal for the trip, after shopping around a little. We went with Bad Dog and bad boy Taka, who, um, took us under his wing for a few days, unexpectedly showing up at out hostel in the mornings and at our sunset cruise (well, eventually it was like clockwork). It got to be a bit much, really, and we found ourselves making up elaborate stories about imaginary friends we had to meet up with.

The sunset cruise, which I had done a few days earlier with my Zim friends, was well worth the repeat, being a totally different experience the second time around. We couldn't believe our eyes when a herd of elephants began wading across the Zambezi right in front of us. We parked for about 15 minutes to watch them forage. Unfortunately, by that time we had had more than a few Zambezis and Schweppe Lemons (Chantes), so I had to concentrate on just how big this moment was. We were again blessed with more elephant sightings on our journey to Maun, Botswana. It felt special to see them along the highway, along with their zebra pals, outside a tourist setting.

Admittedly, we were a little relieved to be getting out of the land of funny money, as it had just got to the point of frustration for me. And so we were off to the Zim-Bots border with a little help from an old friend of Simba's, Blake, the boy with the prettiest green eyes we ever did see. Blake hooked us up with a ride 80 km to the border and with some pulas (Bots currency) for a mini-bus on the other side of the border. After crossing and reaching the nearby town of Kasane around noon, we discovered there was no means of transport for the first 300km of the trip to Maun that "late" in the day (buses typically begin to run around 4am in these parts). This turned out to be a blessing in disguise, however. It offered Justina and Heather an opportunity to go on their first wildlife safari, and into Chobe National Park at that. For the price I couldn't justify doing yet another safari, but it was a most spectacular place for the two of them to be introduced to the African wildlife viewing experience.

By 6am the next morning we were at the taxi rank awaiting a bus for Maun, which came 2.5 hours later! Ha! Justina and Heather were of course not pleased by this, but it was a good intro for them to the frustrations of public transport. When a bus rounded the bend, everyone rushed forward and pushed to get on, as is standard practice here (otherwise, you may get left behind). The three of us managed to get on, though people voiced their disapproval of the size of our packs. Whatever. The ride to Nata, where we caught a TRUE "chicken" bus to Maun, was a tight fit. Once in Nata, we elected to jump on the first bus, no matter how ghetto, no matter if it meant standing for the whole journey. Fortunately, within a half hour we were all sitting relatively comfortably, though Justina had some greasy food dropped on her lap and we all nearly suffocated from the heat in there. No one would open the windows, as they all seemed content in their beanies and sweaters. Meanwhile, I was rolling up my jeans and fanning myself with a book of Sudukos.

In Maun, we began trudging to the Audi camp offices, listed in our handy Lonely Planet guide. We arrived a half hour later only to discover that the office had moved two years ago. Oops. Thanks Lonely Planet 2005. But I came across a man on the premises who offered to drive us the 10km out of town. Score, another kind stranger. And we couldn't believe our eyes when we arrived. This was THE swankest camping I've ever seen, with permanent luxury tents overlooking the water, a gourmet restaurant, and at least 10 different wines by the glass. Sweet. There was a lot of lounging around in style to be had for those couple of nights.

After a 7 hour shuttle ride (we had it all to ourselves ... well, until the driver picked up some hitchhikers to line his pockets a little) and 11 hours on an overnight train from Windohoek, Namibia (a luxury train compared to the ones in Zim, with heat and lights, though no sleepers, and an airing of the highly acclaimed "Kung Pow"), we are now in the coastal town of Swakopmund, now famous for being the birthplace of baby Brangelina. First impressions of Nambia ... a relatively strong economy, sharply dressed folks, quaint architecture (German influence), along with the shacks, pollution and garbage I've seen most everywhere else in southern Africa. Our train paused for a good 15 mintues by an informal settlement outside Swakopmund, as a strong reminder after leaving the picturesque city of Windhoek, that there is always another side to life here.

And we are having an amazing time here. But I will update you later on exactly what we've been getting up to, hopefully with some photos ... there will be a few shocking stories for you, have no doubt. Details to come soon .... :)

Love to all,

Allison

Typical conversation between Laura and Christina

2006-07-05T10:33:00.000+02:00

Scene: 11 am on Wednesday, July 5. Laura and Christina are sitting in the sun on the lawn of their hostel.

Laura: Hey Christina, what do you have planned to do this afternoon?

Christina: Well, I was thinking of going on an Elephant Safari where I get to ride on the back of an elephant for 2 hours. Wanna come?

Laura: Hmmm, let me consult my calendar. Tomorrow morning I have a white-water rafting appointment on the Zambezi river just downstream from Victoria Falls.

Christina: Wow! I hear that's one of the Seven (Natural) Wonders of the World (thanks Laura's dad). Maybe I'll come too. And then we can go check out the Falls from inside the National Park.

Laura: That sounds like a great idea! And then how 'bout we finish it off with an African-style buffet dinner with live dancing and music? In fact, I think I know someone who wants to take us out to do that!

Christina: Wow, how cool is that? Free buffet dinner, probably my favorite thing on earth. Next to cuddling lion cubs, that is.

Laura: Funny you should mention that. I made us a date with some lion cubs on Friday afternoon. Hope you don't mind. I figure we can go hug them after trading all our old clothes for market arts and crafts.

Christina: Sweet! I sure have a lot of old, dirty clothes I never want to see again. We sure are having an amazing time, aren't we? I think we should celebrate.

Laura: How?

Christina: How 'bout an all-you-can-drink sunset cruise of some kind? On the Zambezi, perhaps?

Laura: You are full of great ideas. That'll be a great way to celebrate before we fly back to Harare on Saturday. But it sounds expensive.

Christina: Hmmmmm.

Laura: Oh! I know! How 'bout we do ALL of the stuff we just talked about for only half price? I think our adopted family just hooked us up!

Christina: Yay Tumazos'!

Laura: Yay Cathy!

Together: Yay Zimbabwe! To the elephants!!!!!!!!

Striking It Out On Our Own

2006-07-04T10:54:00.000+02:00

BEWARE: This one is long.

Phew! It's been a long time cause the internet situation has been a bit dire. But here we are, safe and sound, with a whole week's worth of stories to share. I believe we left you in Harare, so we'll start from there.

Despite being prepared for a long, toiletless, cramped ride to Bulawayo, we ended up riding in style on a luxury coach with a tea service! Sure the cream in the bottom of the tea was solid, but hey, Christina still managed not to puke. We were also very pleasantly surprised by our hostel in Bulawayo, who picked us up ON TIME in a sweet safari-mobile (i.e. elevated seats mounted on back of pick-up truck) for our own Welcome to Bulawayo private parade (we were the main attraction, or so we figured). The lodge was clean, the dorms consisted of 2 beds each (yay private rooms!) and we soon came to call it 'home'. That night we went out for what is quickly becoming our pattern: beer, World Cup soccer and fast friends. We finished it off with some live dancing that we're still not sure we understand. Maybe the pics will speak for themselves when we finally get them up ("high-speed" internet being a relative term).

At that hostel we met a super cool American dude named Zen who also intended to go to Masvingo the next morning to see Great Zimbabwe the next day. Great Zimbabwe is a 600 year-old ruin of civilization which Zen credited as being the first bureaucracy in Africa (he's an anthropologist). So early that morning we headed to the Bulawayo bus station to find a ride. The place was pure chaos, with people everywhere selling everything (including David Beckham sponsored Cola flavoured toothpaste from somewhere in Asia) and everyone wanting to know where we were from. We learned an important lesson about how to interact with the locals, and disarm the more persistent salesmen, by watching Zen's easy-going manner. Soon we were embroiled in conversation after conversation, which mostly went like this:
1. Where are you from?
2. How is Canada? (We get this one from EVERYONE. What do you say to that?)
3. It's cold there, no?
4. If I were to come to Canada, would I be able to eat maize?
5. Can you get me a job in Canada?
6. Can I have your phone number?
7. Oh, you have no phone number? Then can I give you my phone number?
8. Oh, you have no phone? Then can I give you my email address? (We have about 20 people's addresses/phone numbers/email addresses)

We got really lucky at the bus station (as we found out later) as the next bus leaving for Masvingo, a 4 hour ride away, was a mini luxury coach. No tea service, but lots of leg room. We arrived in town at night to the grossest hostel ever. But there were 2 other Canadians there! And it was fun to hook up with other travellers having not seen very many in this part of the world. Before hitting the sack, we headed out to Eddie's, a restaurant owned by the uncle of some guy Laura met on the bus over. We met who we thought was Eddie, based largely on his loud, managerial-seeming tie. The restaurant adjoined a bar playing late 90s hip hop (yeah Mase, Puffy and Biggie), filled with dry ice smoke and a cheesy spinning disco ball. Needless to say, the 5 of us rocked that dance floor for all it was worth. Before leaving, we got invited home by "Eddie". We politely declined, but not getting the picture, he proceeded to proposition us both. Together. At the same time. Classy. Suddenly the crappy hostel didn't seem so bad :)

Step one the next morning was move hostels. And we found a great one for only $2.50/night after enjoying a "Canadian dish" at the breakfast restaurant (we took a picture to prove it). Being experts at managing local transport, us 2 and Zen boarded a mini-van to somewhere near Great Zimbabwe and made our own way the rest of the way. The Hilltop Complex was extra fun: think a huge fort with lots of secret winding passageways and amazing views. We took tons of pictures, and will try to load them some time soon. After visiting the Great Enclosure, we said a fond farewell to Zen and made our way back to Masvingo for the night. That evening we found out from the other 2 Canadians that the guy we thought was Eddie, wasn't Eddie at all. So now he's just some weird dude pretending to own a bar. Ick. We also found out that the first hostel we stayed at wasn't quite as creepy as we thought. Zen had left his camera charger there, which we all thought would be stolen/sold for sure, but instead, they had actually locked off their entire dining room to prevent anyone from touching it. Zimbabwe continues to surprise us at every turn.

We searched the bus station outside of Masvingo for another one of our favourite mini-bus coaches, but unfortunately there were none to be found, so we took the cheapest option instead. You really do get what you pay for. It was pretty much the most uncomfortable bus ride ever, but at least it was short(er). Thank goodness we gave our bodies one day to recuperate from that, because we were soon to embark on one of our most ridiculous schemes yet.

When we first got to Bulawayo, we had asked the hostel about renting bikes to bike to Matopo National Park, about 40 km away (no problem, right?). We were sent to find some woman at the National Art Gallery, but found some other woman there instead, who had a brother and a cousin who owned bikes. 4 days later, we're on those bikes, biking through the Zimbabwean country-side. Sure, the bikes are slightly too big and the seats are KILLING us, but hey, it's all part of the adventure. At least we thought so until we collapsed at the park gates. But we were finally there. So we saunter up to the park gates with a certified receipt from the Central Reserve Bank saying we exchanged some Rand for Zim dollars at the official rate. It's a bit confusing to explain, but having the official receipt allows us to pay in Zim dollars rather than US dollars, and with the parallel market rate being 3 times the bank rate, we end up getting in places for a third of the price. As you can see, we've been doing a lot of head math! So, we pull out our receipt at the gate, and the guy shakes his head. Seeing right through out little scheme, he informs us that he will have to keep our bank receipt if we want to use it, but without that receipt, we lose all its perks. In the alternative, he told us he would charge us as temporary residents if we gave him a cut "for the sake of corruption". Our first bribe! Seeing as we were saving tons of money anyway, we were happy to oblige.

We biked about 9 km into the park before our legs and butts refused to take us any further. We had thankfully reached the closest site to the gate: the White Rhino cave paintings. But we couldn't actually make the whole hike up to the paintings until we collapsed at a viewpoint along the way and ate some food. We were beat! Thank goodness it turned out the cave paintings were only another 10 metres up the path from where we decided to call it quits. With Cecil Rhodes' grave, our hypothetical next destination, being another 7 km into the park, time and energy just wouldn't allow it. So we headed back along the road, moaning and groaning. About 15 km into the ride home, we finally managed to flag down a pick-up truck. Probably not the safest, but it was that or spend the night on the side of the highway passed out in a ditch somewhere. Besides, at this point, we felt pretty comfortable with local transport, and the roads are pretty much deserted thanks to the petrol situation. The ride was much appreciated and we were further rewarded for our hitch-hiking efforts when we drove past a herd of more than 20 elephants cruising through the veld. Summary of bike ride: we biked 45 km in one direction, and only 15 km home. Sweet!

The next stage of the adventure will be Vic Falls, the most tourist-filled part of the country. We feel lucky to have first seen the real Zimbabwe. People really appreciate the effort we've made to travel through Zimbabwe. We are told on a regular basis that while the people are aware of the political problems and the challenges involved (lack of electricity, worthless currency, etc.), they are touched that we're here. But the effort expended has been minimal as compared to the rewards we've received and it's us who are truly touched to have been received so warmly. We both feel that this trip has taught us a lot about what it is to be a good human being.

Much love,

C&L

Friends, Flounders, and Falls

2006-07-03T17:28:00.000+02:00

So much to tell you, so not sure where to begin. I’ll start off by pointing out that my last entry was written a few days prior to its actual publication, due to the granny computers at Antelope Park. By the middle of my stay there I was well aware of the fact that I was in a bit of a jam financially. That’s putting it mildly. You see, in Zim, as I discovered only upon my arrival here, it doesn’t matter how much money you’ve got in the bank; if you’re a foreigner without foreign currency (“forex”), you are SOL accommodations-wise. Nothing prepared me for this rather harsh reality, and if it hadnt’t been for the generosity of Thando’s family in Bulawayo, Thundi’s family friends in Victoria Falls, and total strangers along the way, I would have been without a roof over my head many times. There’s nothing like backpacking to teach you it’s okay to ask for help. And yet it is thse very predicaments that have made for some of my most memorable moments here ....

On leaving Antelope Park, which is about 15 km outside of town, I was hoping to catch a lift into town for free, with money being as tight as it is. But no, the manager insisted that this would require $10US or R70, the bag. On hearing this, my guide advised that I hike out of the park with him on foot and then hitch a ride into town. To me the prospects of seeing some more wildlife up close (and hitching my first ride) sounded very thrilling, so I agreed, and we headed out after breakfast. Fortunately for what would have been my very weary feet, another guide, Lovemore, was passing by in a pickup to collect fuel. So Joseph and I climbed in the back, with dirty oil drums and all. I took 2 photos of that ride, and I look as elated as a little kid in Disneyland, I tell you. We collected about 4 more guys along the way before we reached the highway, at which point I asaid goodbye to Joseph, and Lovemore let me move to the front (admittedly, I was relieved not to have to ride in the bed of a truck on an African highway). I was dropped in town, where I began Mission Impossible IV: Operation Acquire Forex. I went from bank to bank, asking if I could purchase forex. I must have looked like a total moron to these people, trying to get the most coveted good in Zim. “Is she joking?” each teller’s face read. And so at bank #3, again hearing no, I turned to a man next to me and asked point blank, “do YOU know how to get forex in this town?” This man had an instant look of concern. He then took it upon himself to locate someone willing to sell, for ZIM$70,000 per R1. Ouch. But what choice did I have, really? He recommended that I shop around the street for another dealer, but the Lonely Planet specifically states about 10 times, “whatever you do, don’t change on the street.” It’s illegal to change outside banks and bureau de changes, but foreigners are left with little choice, aren’t they? (Plus, the bank rate is only ZIM$15,000, whereas on the street its anywhere between ZIM$50,000 and $70,000.) And though these were desperate times, I knew this wasn’t a good idea. As a single white female pounding the pavement with a giant pack on my back, I was a little less than inconspicuous to the local residents and cops. So I proceeded to stand in a 30 minute queue for the ATM, prepared to buy. (The queues at banks are very long because you can only take out ZIM$2,000,000 at time, about the equivalent of less thank $8 CAN, which you can take out 5 times for a daily max of ZIM$9.5 million.) My white knight (um, another White Farmer), waiting patiently for me to go through this process, decided I mustn’t further waste my money. His solution: to drive to this farm while I stood in line at the bank, to grab R100 to lend to me, a total stranger, with the understanding that I would repay his wife who works in Bulawayo on my return there. Can you believe that? I must have said thank you ten times, as R100 could cover me for 2 nights of accommodations. A few days later, when I returned to Bulawayo, both he and his wife dropped by my lodge, and they were both so gracious. He then insisted that if I come through the city again, I must stay with his wife! But I digress ….

The original plan was to head from Gweru to Masvingo, to tour ancient ruins at the Great Zimbabwean Monument. But alas, the tourism gods were once again against me; most national parks also require forex, and at R120 with only R190 in my pocket, venturing further into rural Zim virtually penniless was just too scary a prospect. I called my Zim friend Thando, who also didn’t have a good feeling about it, and we agreed I should retun to the city. I was still feeling adventurous, so I ventured down to the taxi ranks and looked for some young women to help me track me down a ride to Bulawayo. There I met a very kind local named Hazel, hoping to attend law school in Gweru, and also the only Mormon I’ve met in Africa so far (though I spotted some missionaries in Moz). We took, what my friends tell me, was a “chicken” or “shoeshine” bus, a really grungy thing where they pack people in, including the aisles, and everyone’s luggage sits on their laps. It was hilarious!!! I was squished against poor Hazel, and someone’s bag sat on my head for most of the journey. In Bulawayo, once again, Thando’s brother picked me up and her wonderful parents put me up at the beautiful Motsamai Lodge.

Thando, Nikita, Thundi and I soon headed to Vic Falls via an overnight train – our first class tickets got us a sleeper-cabin with no heat or lights, but we were comfortable and slept like babies nevertheless. You wouldn’t believe how starry the night sky appeared, and the clankety clank of the train on the rails was, well, magical. When we arrived the next morning, greeted by Thundi’s kind friend, Anold, we met up with Thando’s boyfriend, dear sweet Simba, and his boisterous accounting buds, who were in town attending a convention at the lovely Elephant Hills Hotel, where Anold is General Manager. Knowing someone in a convention (and the General Manager) comes with perks, including free food and a free all-you-can-drink sunset cruise on the Zambezi River with hippos and crocs (and man, can accountants-in-training give law students a run for their money!).

The girls and Simba left on a 4 a.m. bus this morning. I said goodbye last night, and Simba presented me with a beautiful handmade wallet he made from elephant skin (elephants are culled in some parts of Africa due to over-population). I couldn’t help but tear up, it was such a lovely gesture. I have already transferred all my thinkgs into it, and for years will have it as an everyday reminder of my incredible experiences and the incredible people here.

Today I await Heather and Justina’s arrival to Vic Falls, set for tomorrow morning. They’re currently in Jo’burg. We’ll have an action-packed few days here whitewater rafting, checking out the Falls, getting spa treatments and pedicures, curio chopping, and maybe even parasailing. Hey, Vic Falls is the Disneyland of Zim with overland trucks (organized tours) galore, so there won’t be much roughing it here, nor all that much wildlife viewing (thought we’ve come across many wart hogs and buffalo roaming the streets). In a few days, we’re off to the Okavango Delta in Botswana, where I’ve been told we’re in for the most beautiful sights of our lives. I choose to reserve judgment until we get there, however, as I’ve learned you must do here. Sometimes you find beauty in the most unexpected places ….

Peace and love,

Allison

Animals Galore

2006-06-27T15:02:00.000+02:00

Hey y'all,

Coming to you live from rural Zimbabwe. I arrived a few days ago to a private game park called Antelope Park near Gweru. The Park runs a lion-breeding programme endorsed by the World Wildlife Fund for the release of lions into the wild. They breed them and then train the young to hunt and all that jazz. I wil be checking out the cubs this afternoon, though I'm a bit sore from a safari on horseback yesterday. I went out for a couple hours with a private guide and got a phenomenal perspective of some of the wildlife indigenous to these parts. You wouldn't believe how close you get to the animals on horse, as the animals are all very accustomed to one another. The horses graze out amongst them when they're not saddled up. Imagine being in the middle of a swirling herd of wildebeests or galloping alongside running giraffes. I never thought I'd experience such a thing. Witnessing giraffes in full trot, you can see an entire chain of muscles working their way up, from their legs to the top of their necks, almost as if they're moving in slow motion. Breathtaking.

I arrived to Gweru by bus "with black people," a fact which some locals have difficulty grasping and makes me feel strange explaining … like I'm supposed to be rich enough to afford a rental car, or something. Locals also think it's bizarre that I'm traveling alone … this statement is almost always followed by 3 questions: "aren't you scared? … how old are you? … aren't you married?" When I tell them, "no, 26, and no!" they say, "Ish, no … really?!?" Our conversations, of course, go much deeper than this, and I've met some fascinating characters.

One employee at the park, Moses Kevin, dreams of attending the University of Toronto, like his father did in the 1970s. when he heard there was a Canadian law student at the camp, he searched all over the park to talk to me. He's a bright articulate guy just trying to make ends meet with the hope of going to school in Canada. And I never thought I'd meet one of the so-called White Farmers evicted from their land recently by some neigbours with Mugabe's blessing. They arrived home one day to find their tractors embedded in the walls of their home and everything gone or destroyed. He received no compensation for the seizure of a farm that had been in his family for generations.

My time in Bulawayo, a sleepy town of 1 million, was a good mix of meeting Thando's friends and their families and just seeing Zim urban life. there are few cars on the road and surprisingly few queues considering the scarcity of necessities (though I had to stand in a 20 minute lineup for the ATM in Gweru, taking $2, 000, 000 out at a time, 5 times!). But as Thando told me, it has a very different feel than just a few years ago. she says people have started to give up and you can see it in their gait and appearance. yet I wouldn't have guessed it, as Zimbabweans seem so jovial, even laughing when they tell you about how hopeless life has become. with unemployment at a reported 75% and inflation at 2000%, I can only imagine. I spent my whole 15 minute cab ride to the bus station counting out the ZIM$2,500,000 fare.

The night before I left for Gweru I was invited to a braii in honour of the cousin of Simba, Thando's boyfriend, who was getting married in a few days. Southern Africans love their meat, but I chowed down on coleslaw and sadza - think a cross between potato and maize. They had a stereo pumping incredible African hip hop, so we all busted some moves that night. They were more than a little surprised to see a white girl gettin' down with the rest of them and howled in delight at my enthusiasm. They insisted Thando gave me lessons, and it took repeated assurances that it's a common misconception that white people can't dance. They did not believe me. They were fantastic hosts and I feel fortunate to have met them all.

Love,

Allison

All in the Family

2006-06-26T14:44:00.000+02:00

Well, except Thursday night, when we gave our poor adoptive parents a bit of a break from their new 26 year-old kids :) It also gave us the chance to explore Harare nightlife a bit, Harare being a bit like Durban…not much of a nightlife downtown, but lots of fun if you know where to go. On Karen’s recommendation, we checked out the Keg & Maiden, a sports pub just a $1.50 cab ride from our hotel. We were thrilled to discover that not only was the World Cup on, but Ghana (the only African team that qualified) was busy beating the socks off of none other than the U.S. of A.! The place was packed, and we made friends quickly. One in particular, Tich, sat with us through two soccer games. His friends, however, seemed a little shy, giving Tich his space to be “the Man.” By the end of the second soccer game, we were ready for a different scene, so we headed to the Mannenberg for some live jazz. Tich treated us pretty much the entire night, cementing our notion that people in Harare are very kind.

Exhibit C of this generosity came with the Tumazos’ invitation to head up to the Nyanga mountain range to spend the weekend at their cottage on a lake. Much relaxing in front of the fire and roasting of marshmallows ensued. To work off the marshmallows (and cookies, and hot chocolate, etc. etc.), we decided to go for a walk around the area, which included a short hike up a ‘mountain’ peak at a place aptly named World’s View. We started off feeling really good; the sun was shining and the temperature was perfect. By Hour Four, we were ready for some lunch, but we couldn’t figure out where we came from despite being on a circular road. What we could figure out was that we had been where we were once before, and we had photographic evidence to prove it. Turned out we had overshot the cottage by a solid 25 minutes. Typical Laura and Christina hiking: we tend to push past Enjoyable, through Alright I’m finished now and clear into Please make it stop. But eventually we uncovered our mistake and made it back to Home Sweet Someone Else’s Home.

Later that afternoon, Dino kindly took us for a little car trip to go check out the nearby river, where apparently there is some excellent trout fishing, although we didn’t try what with the fading light and the fact that Michael and Dino had already managed to catch a couple in the lake. Dinner was an adventure in cooking without electricity, but Christina and Dino pulled through on a jimmy-rigged gas contraption, producing a delicious Chicken Cacciatore. The highlight of our last day was a drive through the unknown in search of waterfalls. Thanks in no small part to Christina’s compass (well, according to her anyway), we managed to find some stunning views and had a lovely picnic.

Tomorrow we take off for Bulawayo, in the midlands. Having been introduced to Zimbabwe in a way we could never have imagined, we are ready to confront the next part of our adventure through this lovely (if electrically challenged) country. We’ll be a lot more self-reliant in Buluwayo, and may even attempt to take the dreaded chicken busses if we find a place to stash our valuables. But we have to admit it gives us great comfort to know we can always call Karen and Dino for a little friendly advice if we need it.

Thank You, Tumazos Family!

Love,
C&L

Happy Happy Harare

2006-06-21T10:54:00.000+02:00

Wow! What a journey. Laura and Christina, coming to you from some random travel agency somewhere near downtown Harare, Zimbabwe! We've been adopted by a suburban family. What are we talking about, you may ask? Well, let's start from the beginning...

Getting out of Durban was absolutely crazy. Between the 7000 word papers, 7000 bags of recycling and 7 million other errands, it was non-stop action. We left the house at 8am (admittedly) for pedicures and massages, and Christina finished packing at about 2. AM. The next morning. But the house looked good, and our friend made off not only with our speakers but with four bags of food and a bottle of whiskey.

To everyone's surprise, we made it to the airport Tuesday morning, thanks to a crisp 6:15am rise from bed. It's a good thing we gave ourselves a long layover in Jo'burg on the way to Harare, because our plane in Durban was delayed. Technical difficulties? No. A catering truck had burst into flames on the tarmac. Just another day at Durban International, we're sure. The layover was also handy because apparently it takes about 3hours of effort, four mathematicians and about 8 calculating devices to buy US dollars. But it happened.

Having exchaged all her Rand into dollars, Laura wanted to grab some more money from an ATM before boarding a plane to Harare. Unfortunately, although in retrospect not surprisingly, there are NO ATMs in the international terminal.?! So, with 20 minutes to board the plane, Laura had to woo her way back through immigration by claiming that it's impossible to use ATMs in Harare. This is at least 80% true. So she checked out of immigration, checked back in, and made it just in time to sit on a bus waiting to get to the plane for 30 minutes. Again, it did happen, but our exhaustion had really started to get the better of us. Good thing we're seasoned traveller vets...

The flight to Harare was uneventful, especially for Christina who passed out cold. This forced Laura to look elsewhere for advice as to what to put on the landing card which asked how much money we were carrying in cash. Real value: $500 US each. What Laura thought she should put: $20? She looked around, and saw a nice looking lady sitting across the aisle and back a row. She politely asked her question, and was told to put 200...Rand. She turned to tell Christina, only to receive a tap on the shoulder. Apparently on the basis of our appearance, accents and ignorance, this lady had become very concerned. She asked us our plans, and became even more concerned (our plans amounted to going to tourist information at the airport and asking them for a plan. Note to selves: Harare Airport has no tourist information). So Karen, the lady, gave us her card with her phone number and told us to call if we needed any help. Laura turns to tell this to Christina, only to receive another tap on the shoulder. On second thought, Karen thought it would be better if we just came home with her and her husband, Dino. Having discovered that our "plan" was completely ridiculous, we happily accepted the invitation.

"Home" turned out to be a BEAUTIFUL place in the suburbs of Harare, not too far from Bob's house (Robert Mugabe to those of you not in the know). We were welcomed with open arms, given a room and left to play with the dogs and kids while mom made dinner. We strolled through the backyard and admired the pool and tennis court with two Milk Stouts in hand (courtesy of Karen). We played Uno in front of a fire with Michael (7 yrs) and Nicola (9 yrs). We showed Michael where we lived on a world map. We were totally one of the family! We figure we were officially adopted after working with Karen and Dino on Nicola's school project, while Nicola slept. We chatted about their old backpacking days when they did a trip around the world. They could totally relate to our situation on the plane. They'd been helped in their time and we'll be sure to carry that torch too. Forty clothespins (decorated by Christina and Karen) and 13 packs of 5 cards each later (hole punched by Laura, packed by Dino), we called it a night. At 9 pm. But it FELT like 3 am. We slept like the dead in Nicola's super comfy bed and woke up to head in to town with Karen the next morning.

Karen works for a travel agency and took us into her office complex to help us organize the rest of our trip. With the help of a really nice lady, we made a million phone calls to every bus station and train station in Harare. Two hours later, we had WAY more of a clue of what's going on! With hook-ups all over to boot! Finally free of planning the trip we should have planned a month ago, we hoofed it into town to see what Harare was all about.

We were only there a couple of hours, but here are a few quick impressions:
-Feels really safe to walk around and it's WAY cleaner than Mapoto.
-People are really friendly.
-More relaxed than South Africa - racially, there is way less of a divide and you don't have to be ultra-paranoid to pull out your cash, which is a good thing, because if you were trying to hide this amount of cash, you'd need to be wearing a burka. Seriously, we exchanged about $45 US total, and ended up with a stack of cash 5 inches high. Breakfast cost us $4 million, about $10 US. The picture will tell the tale. It's hilarious!!! And arithmetically challenging to say the least. Neither of us learned the 350,000 division table in elementary school.
-Definitely felt like a minority walking around downtown. I think we saw one other white person downtown the entire time. But everyone we interacted with has been more than sweet. The people here seem very open, warm, calm and grounded. It makes you feel really welcome.

We finished off the afternoon in Harare with lunch at Taste of Africa, a stall in a food court. As we were walking out, accompanied by our new friend Leslie who ate lunch with us, we were stopped by a woman at the Taste of Africa counter. She asked if we like sculpture. We cautiously replied in the affirmative. She proceeded to invite us into the bathroom to look at her sculpture. We cautiously accepted after some hesitation, having never been invited into a bathroom to do much of anything before. Turns out she makes beautiful rock scultpure and we bought 6 of them for $7 US. Why did we have to buy sculpture in the bathroom, you ask? Well ...

The social, economic and political situation in Zim is a bit of a mess. In fact, it is a HUGE mess. Let's see ... a few months, Bob decided to clean up the informal sector. By clean up, we mean he used the army to drive people to shut down their market stalls and tear down any and all informal homes. What was once a bustling local economy selling crafts and art is now non-existent in public. Banned, in fact. This situation was explained to us on our drive in from the airport with Dino and we got further glimpses into the daily challenges of living here when the lights went off at Karen and Dino's and we were forced to fire up the generator. The generator sits in the house to prevent it from getting stolen. They are attempting to build something to keep it safe, but they (a) can't find cement anywhere and (b) have no idea how to cost cement in light of the inflation. And these are the "haves". We heard stories about their houselady whose rent is being raised almost daily, making it impossible for her to make ends meet. Office building aren't immune either, which we discovered when we tried to use the toilets in Karen's building but there was no water "for whatever reason". There also appears to be a bread shortage due to the central economic planning power insisting that bakers sell bread for less than they can actually bake it for, due to the flour shortage. Yet despite these difficulties life goes on and people persist, as our toilet transactions demonstrated. And throughout it all, the people are smiling.

Our short term plan is to head into the mountains on Friday with Karen, Dino and the kids for a weekend of cabinning :). Our original plan had been to camp in caves in the National Park ... until Dino informed us that we were insane. This is the coldest time of year and Chrisitna's fleece blanket and my summer sleeping bag just wouldn't cut it. So instead, we were invited to join them. These people are incredibly generous. Hopefully these stories give you some sort of insight into just how lucky we feel.

So know that things are absolutely AWESOME, everything's falling into place, and pictures are on the way soon!

Cheers m'dears!

C&L

Cruising "Josie" ... oops, "Jozi"

2006-06-18T13:50:00.000+02:00

I arrived yesterday to Joburg after a long 7 hours in a toiletless coach baking at close to 30 degrees (South Africans hate to be "cold"). I, of course, considered asking the driver to turn the heat down, but didn't want to brand myself as the resident complaining American. So I bit my tongue and sweat it out. But at least I made it here, for $25 no less. Yesterday morn I wasn't sure I would. The buslines have some strange rationale for not accepting int'l credit cards, so, knowing there were only a few seats left on the 11 a.m. bus, I could only hope there'd be one left when I arrived to the station. There were two, actually. But the man directly in front of me in the queue bought them both, go figure. Ish. So off I went door to door to the other liners. Thankfully, the very last one I tried had an 11 a.m.'er as well. Ha! So off I went with a little extra cash in my pocket for taking the budget special (i.e. no toilets, no refreshments or snacks). I'll take budget anyday, thank you (well, a toilet would be nice ...), but do these people know how to do bus trips, or what? ... movies, attendants, and all. Park Station in Joburg looks like an airport.

And am I ever glad the first bus didn't work out because I met some really interesting characters on my trip. One 50+ year old man thought for some reason (something I said probably) that I had just run the Comrades, an 89 km foot race from Durban to Pietermartizberg. He, only running for 4 years, ran it in 10 hours and 43 minutes ... with an injury. There's hope for us all, isn't there?

And then there was Joe, a soft- but well-spoken young dude from Zambia. At first I was a little scepitcal of this guy, who plunked down next to me after jumping on at a set of lights near the station without a ticket. A few hours later I discovered the driver likes to make side deals with young guys with little baggage, pocketing the fare for himself. Joe and I soon got to talking. He told me he had spent the night at the bus station after his buddy, who he had come all the way from Botswana to collect a debt from, stood him up. So I'm thinking, okay, what's the deal .... More stories emerge and Joe becomes increasingly mysterious. I tell him so a couple hours in, to which he takes offence a little. So he proceeds to open his whole life up to me, and I soon realized this guy is the real deal. What didn't we talk about? I mean, once you go down the path of "what does Jesus Christ mean to your life," well, then, things are pretty much free game. We talked for 7 hours straight. A good guy, that one is - so much so I hooked him up with a room at my hostel.

Our arrival to the hostel was chaotic to say the least - not a single person, staff included, was less than hammered. A bunch of red necks, really. One man snarled in our direction within less than 10 seconds of arriving, "is that your boyfrieeend?!?" So Joe and I excused ourselves and walked over to the Rosebank district, one of the few areas in town safe to walk at night - a really beautiful area. We weren't surprised when, on our return from dinner at 10 pm, there was no one sober enough to answer the bell. So I proceeded to scale a 20 foot gate - a breeze (and jolly good time) really - as, to my surprise, there was no barbed wire to keep us out. I expected all of Joburg to be blanketed in the barbz.

So it was an early night for me, exhaused from the past week of staring at computer screens under fluorescent lights for so long that my eyes actually started to get wonked. But I was up and at 'em bright and early this morn, writing you this entry over breakfast and espresso in trendy Melville. The sun is shining, the air a little crisp, like a fall or spring day in Victoria (and sweet, I get to wear my blue puffs). I've noticed from my brief time here that Jo'burgers like to dress to kill ... I mean, it's a Sunday morn and these people look like they're ready to go clubbing. Anyways, I'm thinking of hitting up some live jazz in Newtown tonight myself, after I buy a new shirt (just spilt coffee all over Mr. Trudeau). But first over to Braamfontein to cruise what's happening there. It's dang expensive cabbing around this city, so I'm in for the long haul today, to get my money's worth out of the ride into town. I can't be bothered to taxi here, as I know I'm going to be doing it for the next two weeks. But I'm looking forward to saving a little cash once I cross into Zim ... oh, and to a bed that isn't lumpy and a room that hasn't just been spray-bombed for bugs ... what bugs, I'm not sure (before coming to SA, I never imagined I could be so tolerant of insects ... I'm practically a warrior). Backpacker's Ritz it is for us, Heather.
A'ight, so I'm safe and sound in the big city.

Love to all,

Allison

Saying, "Goodbye, South Africa! Hello, Zim, Zam & Nam!!"

2006-06-18T13:44:00.000+02:00

Wow, I can't believe the end of the semester is finally here. It seems like it was just yesterday that we were sitting around mulling over the notion of "only two more months!" By "only" I, of course, don't mean "only two more months until we get to go home" ... because I haven’t been counting down the days to get out of here, or anything. It's just hard to believe we've been here for so many months, and now we’re free to wander wherever our hearts take us.

And our hearts are taking the three of us in quite different directions: I’m heading up to explore the western part of Zim for about a week or so, to visit friends and swim with elephants and lions in Gweru … oh yeah, baby, you heard me … I’m reserving judgment until I see what it looks like. If it’s a giant circus with wild animals in captivity for profit, well, then, I’m not so sure I can get down with that. But it sounds pretty mystical, and I’m looking forward to just being in their midst, waking up to lions roaring and elephants splashing … okay remember, Allison, it isn't Disneyland.

Then I’m heading north with friends to one of the Seven Natural Wonders, Victoria Falls, where Zim meets Zambia, Botswana, and Namibia. There, my sister, Heather, and pal Justina are flying in a couple of weeks before Heather begins a rotation at a hospital in Jo’burg. The plan is to cruise the Caprivi-Vic Falls region, where Thando and I have pledged to throw ourselves down the rapids of the Zambezi. I’m sure it’s no Elk River in a flimsy six-person dingy, but it’ll sure be cool to say I’ve had a face full of Zambezi. Like cruising down the Nile, just … cool. And thanks to a local hook-up, we’re also not going to be robbed blind by the hotel industry up there, which charges, like, US$100 per person per night. I know! WHAT is up with that?! Give me the $4 bed-bug special any day … Okay, the $8 bed-bug-free special. The whole sitch in Zim will be a little bizarre, with inflation reaching 2000% last week. I have NO idea what that even looks like. Apparently CAN$100 looks like ZIM$9,000,000.

From Zim, somehow we’ll duck down to the Okavango Delta for some world-renowned wildlife viewing in what’s probably the most expensive country in southern Africa, Botswana … needless to say, we won’t be staying long on my budget. Heather and Justina, well they get a pay check every month. We’ve already worked out a compromise: while they stay in private rooms, I’ll stay in dorms, but get to stash my stuff in their locked rooms. Totally sweet.

I don’t know how on earth we’re going to swing getting between Zim and Bots. We’ll apparently be cabbing to the border, then taking a kombie ride for a really, really long time. Well, we’ve got to do it at least once, don’t we? Still haven’t figured out the Bots to Land of Brangelina thing either, but it’ll all fall into place, I’m sure. Flying down the dunes of the Kalahari Desert on a sandboard or quad while overlooking the ocean doesn’t sound half bad, does it? Well, if it’s good enough for Brad and Angelina, it’s good enough for me. Uh, yeah. Then it’s back to Josie for us, to hit that city up for all it’s worth. I’m talking cruising the largest township in the country, Soweto, and storming the halls of the Constitutional Court (I mean, I have to at least see it, with all the constitutionalism talk that’s been going on in our house these past few months … I mean, Sachs J … how cool is that guy?!?). … oh, and I’ll be stuffing my bags with as many new clothes as they can handle. Hey, our dollar is practically on steroids right now. It’d be a shame for it to go to waste, right?

So, as you can see, I won’t actually be saying, “Goodbye, South Africa, hello Zim, Zam and Nam,” as the title of this entry indicates. It should be more like, “Check ya later, South Africa, hello Zim, Bots, and Nam.” So I took some artistic license, so what? Yes, I’ve updated the album with some real gems from my time here, including from my latest trip to the children’s home and a toxic tour with my Pollution Control Law class, which was an excursion to parts of the city I wouldn’t have otherwise gotten a chance to see. I was so relieved that I got to say goodbye to the kids. It had been a few weeks since I saw them last, and I thought it’d be nice to surprise them with some parting gifts (chalks, stickers, and 5 bouncy balls). It was such an incredible afternoon, spent drawing on the cement, taking photos, balls flying through the air, and just taking in the whole experience of working with these kids these last three months. It has most definitely been a highlight for me, and I wish I had seen them more. There has also been a lesson to learn: I should give myself a little more credit when it comes to little ones. I ain’t so bad at it. Hopefully the days of Ceili recoiling in fear when I enter the room are over! Ceili, promise me …!

Okay, I must go finish off my packing now. I’m off to Josie in the morn (well, if there are any seats left on the bus … they don’t accept international credit cards for reservations in this country … geesh). Just 20 hours of bus rides separate me from Zim. Laura and Christina are being much more sensible about the whole thing and flying in …. Well, thank goodness for Sudokos.

Safe travels, Laura and Christina. Take care, all.

Peace and love,

Allison

You are proudly South African when ...

2006-06-13T15:42:00.000+02:00

We gotta give a shout out to our friend Ed (our Cape Town hero) for sending us this one. Priceless!

You produce a R100 note instead of your driver's licence when stopped by a traffic officer
You can do your monthly shopping on the pavement
You have to hire a security guard whenever you park your car
To get free electricity you have to pay a connection fee of R750
Hijacking cars is a profession
You can pay your tuition fees by holding up a sign at a traffic light
The petrol in your tank may be worth more than your car
More people vote in a local reality TV show than in a local election
People have the most wonderful names: Christmas, Goodwill, Pretty, Wednesday, Blessing, Brilliant, Gift, Precious, Innocence and Given
"Now now" can mean anything from a minute to a month
You continue to wait after a traffic light has turned to green to make way for taxis travelling in the opposite direction
Travelling at 120 km/h you're the slowest vehicle on the highway
You're genuinely and pleasantly surprised whenever you find your car parked where you left it
A bullet train is being introduced, but we can't fix potholes
The last time you visited the coast you paid more in speeding fines and toll fees than you did for the entire holiday
You have to take your own linen with you if you are admitted to a government hospital
You have to prove that you don't need a loan to get one
Prisoners go on strike
You don't stop at a red traffic light, in case somebody hijacks your car
You consider it a good month if you only get mugged once
Rwandan refugees start leaving the country because the crime rate is too high
When 2 Afrikaans TV programmes are separated by a Xhosa announcement of the following Afrikaans program
The employees dance in front of the building to show how unhappy they are
The SABC advertises and shows highlights of the program you just finished watching
You get cold easily. Anything below 16 degrees Celsius is Arctic weather
You call a bathing suit a "swimming costume"
You know what Rooibos Tea is, even if you've never had any
You can sing your national anthem in four languages, and you have no idea what it means in any of them
You know someone who knows someone who has met Nelson Madela
You go to "braais" regularly, where you eat boerewors and swim, sometimes simultaneously

You have NOT been served

2006-06-10T18:44:00.000+02:00

Hi all,

Just a quick post to share a little anecdote which I thought, and Laura heartily agreed, was probably one of the best single examples of the service in South Africa so far. It's got everything: total unfamiliarity with the product being sold, dour and clueless waiting staff with only a vague grasp of English, a menu that has absolutely nothing to do with what the kitchen actually has in it, and frankly made-up responses to perfectly mundane and straightforward questions, all ending in me getting something I really didn't want at all.

I was so excited: I actually found a cafe with wireless internet! Hoorah! So I went one afternoon, dreaming of the perfect combination of caffeine, chocolate and online study space. The waitress eventually turned up and asked, in a distinctly disinterested tone, what I would like to order. Having not been offered a menu, I decided to hazard a guess that they had Earl Grey tea because it is quite common here and well, it's a cafe.

So I asked for a pot of Earl Grey tea and glass of tapwater. After a blank stare my waitress decided she had better get out a pen and paper to handle this one. Adjusting myself to her now-familiar skill-level, I decided to just start with the water. Okay, we had lift-off, she wrote down tap water. Now for the really confusing part, "Earl Grey tea."
"Ooo gway?"
"ER-LE GrAY. Tea."
"Tea."
"Yes, Earl Grey tea."
"Oh, I don't know."
"Okay, but you do have tea."
"Tea?"
"Yes, what kind of TEA do you have?"
"Cammomile, lemon, these kinds of things."
"What about black tea?"
"Black?"
"Yes, you know, Five Roses, Orange Pekoe..."
More blank staring. I finally gave up and asked for a menu. There, in plain print, were the words "Earl Grey Tea" which I could thankfully just point at to end this battle of wits. To her credit, she did subsequently manage to bring me a pot of tea AND tapwater. I was pleasantly surprised.

Menu now in hand and feeling deserving of some kind of chocolaty study-treat, I was enticed by the fudge brownie served with ice cream and chocolate sauce. Mmmmm... But I also made a mental note to ask about the "Variety of Cakes baked fresh daily" just in case they had something even better. Well, they didn't have any better cakes. Nor did they have any cakes. Nor did they have brownies, chocolate sauce for ice cream, or chocolate of any kind. My real choice, apparently, was between croissants and muffins. Disappointed, but really wanting something sweet, I asked what kind of muffins they had. I should have been suspicious when she did not actually go back to check. "Blueberry," she said, wihtout hesitation and in a voice of absolute authority. Momentarily, I was so taken-in by her sudden aura of competence that I even dared ask to have it heated.

Later, as I sat there dutifully swallowing my cold, cinnamon raisin muffin, I remembered the days when I would have sent it back and asked to speak to the manager. Thank you Africa, you have truly taught me patience.

:)Christina

Music Maaaaaaaaaaaaadness

2006-06-07T14:16:00.000+02:00

Hey Kids,

Well, exam period is rolling along nicely with me (Laura) and Allison having written our undergrad Succession exam, and Christina having written Family Law. With only International Law left for Christina and Pollution Control Law left for Allison on the exam front, we're all anxiously counting down the days 'til we're free again! However, despite having to study and write papers, we still managed to fit a whole lotta fun into last week.

It started on Wednesday, when Christina and I went to see what we thought would be a high school talent show by my old camp friend, Marc. (Backtrack: I worked as a camp counsellor at a summer camp 4-5 years ago and there I met Marc Maurel, a guy from South Africa. When I found out I was coming here, I hunted him down and found out he was living in Jo'burg, but was originally from Durban.) He was being flown in by his old high school for this 40 year (or something) anniversary celebration where they asked him to sing a few songs in front of a crowd. I have to admit that when he invited us to go we were totally sceptical. The last time I set foot in a highschool was to use the bathroom. And the time before that, I was in highschool. And a highschool musical event? We all know how those usually go. So you'll be as surprised as we were to hear that it was INCREDIBLE. I mean, the talent was phenomenal. There's really no other word for it. The show was 3 hours long and I would have happily sat there for another 3 hours if there were more acts. Beside the consistently amazing vocalists, there was one dude who could play the violin AND beat-box and another group that sang a song about a Pharaoh getting it on with his Siamese cat (in front of a whole room full of parents! hilarious!).

The next fun musical event came on Saturday, when we went to a show-casing of Durban hip hop artists. The event happens monthly and was organized by a guy in my capoeira class (and probably other people too, but I never really found out). It was held in this old abandoned restaurant that a bunch of people had cleaned up after it got TOTALLY vandalized (like the vandals stole anything and everything containing aluminium vandalized). It made for a really cool space with a stage, the sun streaming through huge windows and an area in which to watch graffitti artists do what they do. The hip hop was rad with a few absolutely amazing MCs. The quarts of beer being sold by 'Mama Jabu' (who also owns the building) for $2 were a nicely added touch.

The week ended with a Sunday show at the Rainbow Cafe. You may remember it from earlier posts, and the video clips on the blog. We got there just in time to share a table with some random dude's sister, wife and kids. Christina, me and our friend Steve barely managed to fit in the booth too, but we made it. And the squeeze was well worth it, because the music was so rad. This one vocalist (see pics) looked like a witch doctor and had enough character to pull it all off. A few hours and two super cheap plates of food later, we headed back home to study (no quarts of beer this time cuz those sent us crashing the day before!). And the studying continues ... but Zimbabwe, here we come!

Lotsa love,

Laura

P.S. Pics of all this can be found in the Red Eye album that's been posted for awhile now.

P.P.S. Just kidding. There is no Red Eye album. I know I could have simply deleted the P.S. and avoided having to explain this, but I'm procrastinating so bear with me. The photos can actually be found in the 'Mega Music Madness' album.

Countdown in Durban

2006-05-28T21:40:00.000+02:00

Strike a pose - Red Eye modern art exhibit
Originally uploaded by axlinafrica.

Greetings faithful blog-watchers,

Exams are descending, and as a result we don't have any more travel tales for you at the moment. Yet we're still managing to sneak out occassionally to take in a sight or sound or taste around Durbs. For example, this pic is from a really full-on modern art event which took over City Hall last Friday night called Red Eye. One of our local friends, Roger, casually mentioned that he had an exhibit in the show and we should stop by. Turned out he had an entire gallery all to himself with a crazy computer-based interactive display splashed all over the walls (which he totally deserved, Roger being one of the most creative and talented graphics design dudes ever. AND he makes wicked humus. Will the wonders never cease.). Other highlights included awesome stomp-style improvised percussion madness beaten out by five guys on a bunch of...well, garbage, as well as what could only be described as a Zulu barbershop quintet. Despite a slow start, it was a very entertaining evenning.

We've also managed to suss-out the absolute best place to get about a kilo of assorted uberdelicious vanilla-pudding-based cakes in a bowl for less than four dollars, and a fair featuring samosas, kitchenware and enlightenment. On the to-do list is another visit to the Rainbow Cafe for some more Sunday jazz, curry and quarts of beer, as well as chasing down a hot tip on a Pakistani restaurant (?) and an alternative rock club omniously known as 'Burn'. We'll keep you posted. (Get it? Of course you do.)

Future plans are to leave Durban mid-June and do some more border-crossing before we go. Allison's done early and is being joined by her sister, so it looks like plans are in the works for quite the trip. Laura and I are a bit more restricted, but plan to head for Zimbabwe June 20th and take it from there for about three weeks. So papers and exams for now, but lots to look forward to as usual!

Cheers for now!

Love,
Christina

PS. The last of the Mozambique pictures are up. Apologies for the delay.

Law Geeks Alert! Choice quotes from the South African Constitutional Court

2006-05-14T09:05:00.000+02:00

Even those of you who aren't studying law can likely appreciate what we're about to throw down. Over the course of our time here, Christina and I (Laura) have had to read a number of South African Constitutional Court judgments for our Constitutional and Human Rights Litigation class. As is to be expected, we've come to recognize certain judges' styles and have discovered a common favorite: Sachs J. Why is he our favorite, you ask? Just read these quotes and tell me if YOU could keep a straight face if this was read out loud in court. Even the other judges appreciate his judgments. Case in point: he got a personal shout out from the majority in a 2001 Constitutional Court case where the J said, "I want to acknowledge the benefit and pleasure I derived from studying the dissent of my Colleague Sachs J before signing off this judgment." No doubt. Read on ...

1. "Section 9(2) [the affirmative action clause in the Constitution] should be seen as an integral and overacrching constitutional principle established by section 9, rather than as a discreet element within it that seves as an autonomous and sealed off launching-pad for State action. It would, in my view, do a disservice to section 9(2) to treat it as a fantastical constitutional device for leaping over the gritty hurdles of hard social reality and escaping from basic equality analysis. It is not a magic analytical slipper which, if no toes protrude, converts the wearer into a sovereign princess unrestrained by any notions of fairness and beyond the bounds of ordinary constitutional scrutiny."

That's right ladies. Don't go putting on crowns and glass open-toed slippers and jumping hurdles while trying to tell people what to do. Section 9(2) does NOT make you a constitutional princess.

2. "It is not the body of the argument which is different, but the manner in which it is clothed: should it wear the apparel of section 9(2), or shoudl it present itself in the dress of section 9(3)?"
Nice metaphor action.

3. "In a matter like the present it should accordingly not make any significant difference whether one starts one's analysis from the vantage point of those former disadvantaged, or of those who have been advantaged. Nor should there be a Chinese wall between the two."

A what wall?

4. "Thus, when resistance to the self-ordained sanctity of the brand comes in the form of satirical T-shirts, corporate reaction is as if a crucifix had been smashed in a monastery in the 14th century."

5. "The Constitution cannot oblige the dour to laugh. It can, however, prevent the cheerless from snuffing out the laughter of the blithe spirits among us. Indeed, if our society became completely solemn because of the exercise of state power at the behest of the worthy, not only would all irrelevant laughter be suppressed, but temperance considerations could end up placing beer-drinking itself in jeopardy."

Thank god someone on the Constitutional Court is looking to protect beer-drinking.

Quick hello and impressions of Mozambique

2006-05-12T16:16:00.000+02:00

Hi all,

Sorry about the lack of new photos, but we returned from Mozambique at the end of last week into a malestrom of tests and tutorials. But there's a bit of a breather here this weekend so we'll sort and upload soon.

Just wanted to let all our faithful readers know that, despite a car breakdown and "roads" like you have never seen before, we have officially survived a nine-day trip into a real third-world country. The AXL triad took on a fourth for the trip: a really lovely and fun American girl named Katie who's here doing a really interesting women's rights project on an internship and is all set to go to Yale for law in the fall. A fellow 'foodie', she was my partner in crime in systematically hunting down all the new local beers and ordering calamari at every available opportunity. Before picking her up in good ol' Mtubatuba (the town names around here are always good for a laugh), the three of us canucks went to a huge game reserve (spelt Hluhluwe, pronounced, rather inexplicably, schluh-schloo'-way) and saw all sorts of crazy animals, including elephants and a leopard and rhinos and a whole pile of unbelievably cute giraffes. So may photos were taken (like that use of the passive voice, Laura?:) that my memory card was full by day three, but thankfully Allison was also on the job with her digital.

In Mozambique after a drive from hell (really, who needs the undercarriage and working shocks, anyway?), we all got to chill out at an awesome beach-front hostel where I think I put on shoes twice in four days. We met some really wicked people there of the young and hip world-traveller variety. For example, Hasse DeBoer, a super chill, interesting and educated dutchman who has possibly the awesomest pictures ever (hassedeboer.blogspot.com - check out the Guatemala album), and Michelle, the coolest American I've ever met (from California, of course) who gave us sweet travel tips and regailed us with HILLARIOUS impressions of the locals from various parts of southern Africa. I can only hope I'll be able to do anywhere near as good a job for you guys when we return.

I'm sure the other girls' Mozambique entry and photo descriptions will fill in more details, so I'm just sign off with a quick list of what I learned: Maputo = filthy, filthy dirty but fun and yummy; beaches are definitely the best place to study South African constitutional law; potholes are not your friend; always leave a solid two hours to cross an African border; there are different kinds of sea shells over here; I love calamari, the sun and dark beer. Oh wait, I already knew that last bit :).

Love,
Christina

Cape Town: The Finale

2006-04-27T17:21:00.000+02:00

Whew, after all that, I’ve been assigned to tell you about our last night of debauchery in Cape Town and the epic road trip that followed. Still onboard?

I’ll start off by conceding that we ain’t undergrads anymore (well, other than technically). By the end of our stay in Cape Town *sigh*, LL, CGoddess and I were running almost on empty, having partied our little hearts out all week. Despite this, Laura and Christina managed to drag themselves to the Kirstenbosche Botanical Gardens, which Christina had been dying to see (see peek-a-boo photo series). Me? Well, I admit, I vegged back at the Pickups with Ed and Carlo … I mean, how can the Butchart Gardens ever be outdone? Okay, you caught me, I haven’t been to the Butchart Gardens since I was, like, 10 or something. I was just being lazy. As for the evening, our last in town, it was not to be outdone by the previous eight. It entailed a deadly combination of wine “by the glass,” gourmet pizza, and a few games of Drinking Jenga in a great lounge called Oblivion. Things soon began to run amok, as things tend to do when Drinking Jenga is involved (we at least didn’t sink so low as to chug our good wine). Highlights from the night include a lap-dance, courtesy of Laura, to some dude’s car (we decided a stranger was just too cruel) … Christina’s apparently convincing pantomime as the establishment’s boss lady and the requisite offer of “favors” to customers … each of us getting way too cozy with a one-dimensional headless man *shudder* … Carlo getting his 15 minutes (wasn’t it supposed to be 3? ; ) … Laura sweeping into the men’s room like she owned the place (and getting busted) … and Ed’s valiant effort to abide vigilantly to every rule to the very end (I’ve never seen someone go without talking or using his thumbs for as long as this guy did … or spank Christina like he did … or ask a girl if she was gay like he did ….). As for the rest, what happens at Oblivion, stays at Oblivion …. All in all, it was a killer end to a killer nine days.

The next morning, we were up and at ‘em bright and early, off to the airport to pick up our rental car for the loooooooooooooonnnnnnnggg drive home (as in, 3 days long). Admittedly we weren’t on the road until, like, 10:30 or something, but at least we did so in style – somehow Laura sweet-talked ourselves into a car with power-steering (yea, you’d think it’d go without saying, but apparently here it’s an “added feature”). And we were off towards the adorable town of Knysna, five hours away. There we chilled on a waterfront that could give CT’s V&A a run for its money, and Laura and Christina chowed down on some clams or oysters, I can’t remember which (Knysna is the oyster/clam capital of the continent). And we picked up a few nice items for our burgeoning jewelry collections from, strangely enough, a homeopathic pharmacy!?! Then it was off to Stewart’s house, a super sweet friend of Ed’s sister, Linzi. Stewart not only fed us braii (bbq), but he put us up for the night and even gave us his room! (I think Laura’s drooping eyelids and struggle to stay awake pulled at his heartstrings). Yep, Team AXL party-pooped on that night, alright (well, Christina was ready to party … but Christina’s ALWAYS ready to party). Nevertheless, Stewart was at our door the next morning with our 7 AM wake-up call, three coffee mugs in hand … I know!!! I just can’t believe our South African hosts so far; they have really taught us what opening your home and city to adventure seeking (okay, and sometimes weary) travelers is all about. Do unto others, I suppose ….

Day 2 of our journey back to Durbz: It was only a few hours into our drive when Storm River quickly appeared and Laura had to face what was looming all week: she was about to jump off a bridge 216 m high. Getting to be there and watch her lunge was a thrill in and of itself … yes, obviously not as much as a thrill as throwing myself off a bridge, but … oh, shut up. At least I handled the walk over the wobbly bridge to the jump site with a little more finesse than Christina … that’s something, isn’t it? Sorry, Christina.

But, while Christina may not handle heights with the best of them, let me tell you … has that girl got nerves of steel when it comes to navigating the death traps they call roadways here! Christina did, I’d guestimate, about 85% of the drive home (um, me 0%). Between cows, goats, dogs, and sheep wandering the fenceless roads, and men, women and children using the shoulderless highways as personal footpaths, the Transkei kept our knuckles (well, mine at least) white for most of the drive. The death toll along there wasn’t pretty. One day we saw a dead cow by the road, then the next, a mule and 8 dogs. Soooo sad. So coming around a bend at night on a single-lane highway to find an oncoming kombie on the right and a small gang of people walking in your lane on the left made for some surprises. Christina was our own personal Jacques Villeneuve (without the speed, of course, moms and dads). Even Formula 1 drivers make mistakes, however, and we were stuck in a whole lot of mud on Day 3, in beautiful Port St. Johns on a drizzly day. This particular sitch called for Laura’s tactical maneuvers behind the wheel, and a little grunt work from Christina, myself, and a kid whose mother just stood there, pointed, and laughed. It was good practice, though, as I’m sure we’ll be doing a lot of pushing on our end of year journeys.

But, back to Port St. Johns. But it’s kind of funny how we ended up there in the first place, as our intention had been to stick to the main highway and do a hike at Coffee Bay instead. Various incidents the night before, however, plus the rainy weather that began in East London and kept us company all the way back to Durban played out in such a way that PSJ was a kind of a last-minute destination. I can’t say enough about that town, so I won’t, just to spare you (you can thank me later). The photos do a great job of capturing just how quaint and laid back it is, all the while feeling kind of lively and like a real African coastal town. Our time there was definitely too short, because we were back on the road and heading for home a couple hours later.

And so here we are today back in Durban, waiting to hear from a mechanic about whether Roxie is roadworthy (enough) for a trek north to Mozambique scheduled for tomorrow. I know, I know … we’re back in town for less than a week and a half and we’ve already schemed another grand adventure. The white sands and turquoise waters are calling our names, I can hear them, so we pack our bags and await our fate. Hey, I didn’t say life here was easy ….

Congrats to all the UVic grads! We would have loved to be there with you for the big finish (and the even bigger parties). Now get out there and have a delinquent summer, you know, before the real world gets its greasy paws on us!

Allison

Cape Town: The sequel

2006-04-26T14:35:00.000+02:00

A'ight kids, Laura here, ready to guide you through the second part of our wild and crazy adventure. I believe we've reached Monday, April 10 in the play-by-play that is our Cape Town tale.

That day we woke up excited to meet our Robben Island tour guide for lunch. We figured he'd want to meet downtown, so we headed down there earlier in the morning to check out the downtown scene. While we haven't put any pictures up of Durban's downtown core, I can assure you that these two place might as well exist in separate universes. Well, what we've seen of both of them could, anyway. We only really went up and down one street in Cape Town: Long Street. It was full of cute shops, coffee shops and restaurants, hostels and bars. We cruised around for a few hours spending money we don't have, and then met up with Modise at a cute African cafe for lunch. It was really interesting to hear him tell all that he's managed to accomplish in his life since his time on Robben Island. He's turned a horrifying experience into a positive force by using his notoriety to further his education and benefit his community. It was inspiring! And lunch we delicious (I had to put that in there. It really was SUPER delicious).

Once lunch was over, we were cruising around with not much in mind when we came upon a South African High Court (kinda like our Supreme Courts). Being law geeks (apparently, cuz who else cares about such things?), we decided to go see if we could catch some court in action. Unfortunately court was over that day, but we were introduced to a nice lawyer (Andre) who invited us to his office ("chambers") for tea and a chat. After an hour of learning all about the South African court system, our geekiness had gotten its fill and we jumped into Ed's car, eager to return home for dinner. His parents being pet lovers (they have a million birds, a cat, and 4 dogs), we decided it was high time they saw 'Best In Show'. So we settled down for a chill evening with the fam.

The next day we woke up, went out for some brekky and bummed around the neighborhood mall a bit, checking email and the like. We were waiting on Ed to hear about when we could come pick up his car, because he was generously giving it up to us and taking on a rental car from his sister's company so that we could have our own transportation free of cost. (That gives you a small glimpse into how amazing a host Ed is. Go Camp Chateaugay!) Once we got the OK, we took 3 minibuses into town to go pick up the car. We felt pretty proud of ourselves for navigating the system, and it let us see some parts of Cape Town that we likely would have missed.

That night we went out for dinner at the Africa Cafe. Unbeknownst to any of us, it was a flat rate, eat all that you can sorta place. Although we were planning on going to a buffet dinner the next night, we were too far in to stop so we gave it our best shot. The meal first involved a taste of everything on the menu, after which point we could order anything we wanted again. It was totally made for a person like me! We managed to roll ourselves outta there after an hour or two and went to a karaoke bar. Karaoke in South Africa is much like karaoke in Canada, except they have WAY better videos. Or did they have way worse videos? I can't actually remember. In any event, even if they were better, they were still SO BAD. Example: A song from the Killers is playing, and the video is all about sheep. Sheep in a pasture, sheep being herded by a dog, shots of the green pasture, shots of more sheep ... You get the picture, I'm sure. What's up with karaoke videos anyway? Do they just tell their photographers to go out and shoot absolutely any random thing they come across cause that can be made into a video? If I were a karaoke video filmer, I'd be filming the other people who are working in the computer lab right now. I bet I could sell it for millions. People logging on computers, logging off. It's gold.

But I digress.

The next day (where are we? Ah yes, April 12) Christina and I decided to hike Table Mountain. Allison, feeling sick, opted for the cable car up. We had been warned that the hike could take anywhere between 1 and 8 hours, which made us realize that locals don't hike Table Mountain. But we wouldn't be deterred. So in the heat of the BLAZING sun, Christina and I began what we've now termed "the death march up Table Mountain". Having been in a desert once, I can tell you that to walk through it with the sun beating down on your head incessantly and no shade to be seen for miles in the middle of the afternoon just isn't a good time. Well, that's where Christina and I might as well have been. It was SO HOT and this hike was basically a staircase going up the mountain. The only shade we could see was a solid 45 minutes up (although I must admit I considered squishing myself into the shade cast by one stair on another stair more than once cause it was SO HOT). We managed to drag ourselves up to the shaded spot, just barely surviving. I got to witness Christina's approach and lemme tell ya, it wasn't pretty. We did not move from that shaded area for a solid 45 more minutes. You'll notice the one picture we put up of the hike is of Christina's back because both of us refused to smile for anything at that point. Thankfully we were only 20 minutes from the top (note to Cape Townians: It takes an hour), which meant 20 minutes from the cable car we intended to take down. At the bottom of that ride, I insisted we take a cab the 10 minutes to our car cause I was D-O-N-E, that's how tiring it was!

That night we went to the coolest restaurant ever: Cafe Moyo. It was at the Paarl winery, in Stellenbosch (South Africa's largest wine region). We were lead to our table, which was set under HUGE trees, outside and well-equipped with blankets and candles. There were tables in tree houses and a huge tent with tons more tables under it. The place as magical! It was fully lit with pretty lights, there was live music and dancing, and best of all ... IT WAS A BUFFET! The food was incredibly delicious, and Christina and I got to try antelope (springbok) and ostrich (for our second time). We all ate to the point where we could do nothing but relocate the group to the benches under the trees and lie down on them (following a sleeping 8 year old's example). We lay there in a semi-coma for a half hour before someone motivated to leave. I would've happily slept there and woken up for buffet #2, but it was not meant to be.

The next day was not very well planned, and what was supposed to be a day in wine country ended up being an hour at one winery. But, to its credit, it was a nice winery that belongs to Ernie Els, who is apparently a golf player that people-in-the-know know. Golfing dads, eat your hearts out. The wine and cheese dish we partook in was delicious, and what we got to see of the area was beautiful. Fields of vineyards set against a background of huge, rocky mountains. What a life! We rushed outta there to return Ed's car to him in town, and we spent more time shopping (this time refraining from buying. It helped that most of the stores closed before we could get to them) and having coffee. That night we cooked Ed a well deserved dinner and then headed out to Sobar (sp?) and danced/drank the night away (to super fun music, this time!).

Well folks, that's all for now. Stay tuned for part 3 of the saga when Allison's bit is posted. Seeing as she's been waiting on me to get my act together and write this, it shouldn't be too long now ...

Congrats to all you law grads out there. Party hard and drink some beers for us cuz we're thinking of you and are with you in spirit!

Luv Laura

Three words: CAPE TOWN ROCKS

2006-04-23T12:06:00.000+02:00

Partying at Tiger Tiger
Originally uploaded by axlinafrica.

Hello! Sorry for the long silence, but we are finally ready to tackle the mammoth task of sorting through over 600 photos and describing 12 awesome days for all of your viewing enjoyment…good thing there’s three of us! I, Christina, will be taking on the first four days: April 6th-10th. So without further ado…

We took off on the Thursday before the week-long semester/Easter break, landing in the mid-afternoon into the welcoming arms of Laura’s long-lost summer camp buddy, Edward Pickup. We got a little foreshadow of what was to come when we found out that Ed had asked his sister drive all the way out to the airport too, just in case we had too much luggage for our week-long stay to fit into one car. The Hospitality Extravaganza then continued with a welcome dinner at Ed’s parents house, where thankfully he lives at the moment, because let me tell you this was no frat house! Almost the entire lovely Pickup family was there: Mom (Marlene), Dad (Peter), Sister (Linzi), twin Brother (Rowland), and Rowland’s girlfriend Natalie. I can’t even begin to tell you how wonderful it was to find ourselves guests at a family table in a beautiful home, eating delicious food and polishing off 6 bottles of some very nice local white wine. Ed had even vacated his loft room for us because it had space for three, and so after a brainstorming session in which the family generated an entire foolscap sheet full off suggestions on what to do during our visit (after about ten great ideas I felt I actually needed to grab a pen and start taking notes), we went to bed full of home-cooked goodness.

The next morning Marlene dropped us off at the Waterfront, which turned out to definitely be the place to start our lesson in Cape Town Appreciation. The Waterfront is a series of shops, restaurants, and condos all located along piers and docks behind a breakwater, with Table Mountain towering in the background. It made for some spectacular shots which you will find in our album ‘just now’ (i.e. nobody knows how long it’s going to take to get these pictures online, but definitely don’t hold your breath!). We had breakfast on the water at a restaurant which turned out to be conveniently located right next to the ticket centre and dock for boats to Robben Island, on which you may already know Nelson Mandela and other political opponents of the apartheid regime were imprisoned. We booked our tickets and then went to ‘kill time’ at the huge craft barns along the waterfront area. Let’s just say time wasn’t the only casualty of that excursion…but at least I can now report that after leaving everything for safekeeping back in Canada, my earring collection is back up to speed! Hoorah! In fact, I think we all got off pretty lightly considering all the super cool stuff there was in there, from yummy jellies to crystal mobiles to Zulu-hut shaped oil incense burners to wire crocheted necklaces to full-sized African drums (on which we caught Allison having a sneak practice session with the salesman).

I’ll admit, we had to tear ourselves away, which was accomplished mostly by lying to ourselves in self-convincing voices about how we would come back for sure. But Robben Island was not to be missed. While I starred fixedly at the horizon in a valiant effort to keep my lunch in my stomach, Laura and Allison enjoyed the view of Cape Town from the deck of the boat that took us across to the island in about 20 minutes. Because I needed to take a few minutes to say a little prayer of thanks to the solid ground beneath my feet on the other side, we ended up in the last group made up of fellow stragglers, but this turned out to be a blessing because the tour guide that we got for the walk-through of the prison was awesome. His name was Modise (pronounced moh-DEE-say) and he had been brought to the island as a prisoner (as have all the prison guides) when he was just sixteen years old. He took us through explaining how things were run and let us browse the series of tiny individual cells which have been set up with an original artifact and a letter posted on the wall by a person who had occupied that cell. He then sat us down in a common area which had been a room full of bunk beds in which he had been placed. He told us truly horrifying stories about how he had been interrogated and tortured. He spoke of the hatred that this had inspired, and how he had eventually been convinced away from the path of violent retaliation. The experience was made even more interesting by the presence of a group of white South Africans who, Modise told Laura privately as we were walking around, exhibited a family dynamic that he saw there quite often: two teenaged kids trying to see for themselves this place they’ve read about in school, dragging with them a reluctant and closed-faced father who looked pointedly off into the middle distance every time Modise tried to engage him with eye-contact. That became particularly interesting in retrospect when we learned that although it is now a regular excursion for local school groups at the government’s expense, many if not most South Africans our age and older have never made the trip. I guess that goes some way towards answering the question of why someone who was imprisoned on the island for five years would go back there and give tours reliving the experience day after day, to be part of the process of changing that.

Needless to say, we could all probably go on to describe this experience for quite some time, as evidenced by the fact that the above paragraph is huge and I haven’t even mentioned the bus tour that took us past the leper’s graveyard and the quarry where political prisoners were forced to turn limestone to gravel by hand day after day in the blazing sun, causing lasting lung and eye damage to all of them. Even we felt we hadn’t heard enough by the end of two hours, so I won’t even try. But Laura, aka Networking Queen, managed to get Modise’s contact information to meet for lunch the following week so that we’d have a chance to ask a few more questions and generally follow up on the experience. But I’ve got a whole weekend to describe here first, so more on that from Laura later.

Come to think of it, I really should pick up the pace because if I describe all the cool stuff we did in this kind of detail we’re going to be here all week! So, with a bit more brevity (feel free to post comments or send emails for further info ): that (Friday) night we started getting geared up to go out, but the double dose of Gravol I took in order to survive the boat trip home had left me totally brain-dead so I had to bow out of a visit to Ed’s eldest sister’s house…you’ll have to see picture descriptions or one of the other gal’s blogs for more on that, but I hear it was fun. Thankfully, I did manage to get it together just in time for our first night out in Cape Town at the now infamous Tiger Tiger. Ed’s friends were cool, and it did make for a cute picture and a really fun game of Disco (where you give each other activities to pantomime while disco-dancing). But the music was brutal (like, ACDC and the Beach Boys brutal) and by the end of the night, we resisted being dragged into a club full of teenagers only to return to Tiger Tiger where Laura ended up slapping the South African (lightweight, but still) cage-fighting champion full in the face! Apparently cage fighting makes you a little bit too comfortable with grabbing strangers. For some reason, it took Laura, Allison, a bartender and a manager to get him removed, but eventually he was gone. And so were we. Oh well, we met some cool “ou’s” (pronounced ‘ohs’, meaning dudes), had fun dancing, and there were many nights still to come…

Saturday saw a predictably bright and bushy start around noon to head off for a locally-guided tour of the Cape Peninsula by none other than our new best friend Ed and his friend Carlo. We managed to get the entire top half of the peninsula in before somebody mentioned cocktails and the party was relocated from the car to the Brass Bell, the gorgeous covered patio of which features in a few lovely, slantily-lit seaside shots. That evening was the finals of the Symphony of Fire featuring Spain, South Africa and…Canada! We pulled up a piece of embankment and had a great time watching the gorgeous display of some of the coolest fireworks I’ve ever seen. A little exhausted, we opted for movie rental that night (Mean Creek = lame), so we were nice and fresh the next morning for Laura to go surfing with Linzi before we resumed our peninsula tour. We had another delicious meal on the water, including huge veggie sandwiches and my first of the many plates of mussels I was to have on this trip, including some fresh, homebaked mussels handpicked by Marlene and Peter themselves that very night at our second fabulous hosted meal. We went and checked out a real live wild penguin colony at Boulder Beach, where for $4 you can actually go down to the water and swim alongside any penguins you happen to find. The water was frigid, but you bet I was in there (Laura had had enough that morning, Ed’s a local and Allison’s one of those ‘I hate cold water’ people. Phht! Come on! Penguins people, penguins!). Then that night we had a real good time at La Med, a sweet beach-front bar which is widely known as The place to go if you want to party but it unfortunately happens to be Sunday. For the second and not the last time the dancing went on until the wee hours of the morning, with good times being had by all.

Alrighty, Laura’s poised to take over for the next four days of our epic (thanks for the word, Jonno ) voyage. I will just conclude by saying out loud, in case it isn’t coming through loud and clear already, that this was definitely a highlight of our trip, due in no small part to the efforts of our hosts. Stay tuned for Part II of Cape Town Rocks!

Love,
Christina

Bungee-Jumping!!!!

2006-04-20T11:23:00.000+02:00

Hello All,

(EDITED NOTE: Thanks to Maya's wonderful instructions on embedding videos for dummies, I did successfully manage to have the videos right in the middle of the post. However, this seemed to upset the great god of templates, because the links on the side of the screen were shunted to the bottom of our (very long) blog. So, as I go along, I'll refer to the links on the side of the screen which correspond to that bit of the story. Check them out...)

I know we haven't been on here in awhile, and there are LOTS of stories to share, but I couldn't resist writing a short blog entry about one of the highlights of the drive home from Cape Town to Durban. On our second day of driving, we stopped at a place called Storm's River to check out the highest bungee jump in the world (according to the Guinness Book of World Records). It's set 216 m up off the ground on a bridge that spans a river that leads into the ocean. Once I heard it was the highest bungee jump in the world, I knew that I had to do it. I also knew that I couldn't let myself think about it too much, or else I might cop out. After waiting for a group of jumpers to assemble themselves, and waiting for the group of jumpers on the bridge to get off, we were finally set to go. I was hoping I'd get to go first, but I was relegated to second. I tried to avoid watching the first guy jump, but part of me couldn't stop peering down over the edge of the bridge to the river so many meters below. I was so high that it was impossible to get a sense of the distance. Next thing I know, my name is called! [See Installment #1]. So off I go to get tied in. [Installment #2]

The team wraps a couple of padded things around my legs, ties me in with some carabineers (which I make sure are locked), and then gets me to hop over to the jump spot. All this time Allison is filming me (video clips courtesy of her), and I give her one last look as I realise what I am about to do. [Installment #3] But at this point, you're so far along that you can't stop the process. You have two guys standing right behind you, music is blaring, the countdown begins 5 ... 4 ... 3 ... 2 ... 1 ... JUMP! And next thing you know, you're flying through the air![Installment #4: The Jump!] It was only once I jumped off the bridge that I had the presence of mind to wonder what the hell I was doing. My stomach jumped up into my throat (or fell down into it, as I was plummeting head first towards the ground) as I washed the earth rush up towards me. And then the rope pulled taut and I realized the worst ( i.e. the best!) was over and I could simply enjoy the slow rebounds of the bungee cord. I fell between 160 and 180 m on the first jump, and then I rebounded 4 or 5 times before I got pulled up. The world looked so cool upside down! I loved it and will definitely do it again someday! Much to my parents' chagrin, I'm sure :) [Installment #5]

A hiking we will go [set to music], a hiking we will go … well, kinda.

2006-04-05T16:04:00.000+02:00

I’m going to give you a not-so-quick update on what we’ve been up to in the past week, so as not to bombard you with too much info next time we chat. We’re heading out of Durban tomorrow for 8 days in Cape Town followed by a 3 day road trip back along the south coast of the country. So we’ll have a gong show worth of stuff to tell you about in a couple weeks time.

Last Thursday Roxie took to the road once again, this time heading to the southern Drakensberg. Our plans included a slightly elaborate trip for Saturday just across the border into the Sehlabathebe National Park in Lesotho. It involved a 14 km hike up to Bushman’s Nek and hiring mules to pack our stuff to the top, where we were to discover a rustic self-catering lodge (the only accommodation in the park) with fireplaces in every room. It gets way cold up there (okay, cold for Africa … we’ve become so wimpy that soon we'll be donning turtlenecks and jeans in 23 degree weather, just like the Durbanites). So we tried to pack accordingly, and I was super stoked to at last have a reason to wear my blue puffy vest, which I carted all the way from Canada with this sort of thing in mind. But alas, this amazing trek was not to be. We showed up at the border, but the mules didn’t. Bummer. And the lodge had no phone, so we were SOL.

But the journey was not wasted. It was awesome to once again get out of the city and into some peace and relative solitude. We spent a couple of nights in a fantastic hostel about 30km outside of a deceptively quaint town. Let’s just say the village boys are gangsta-wannabes and we hauled a$$ out of town when things started getting a little too rowdy for our taste (yes, parents, we haven’t ‘forgotten where we are’). But back to the hostel – clean, quiet (well, save for the Chatty Cathies from Denmark), and set amongst rolling green hills and a ridge we hiked the day we arrived (the trampoline photos are from a playground nearby ... Big Brother would NEVER let us have playgrounds with trampolines in Canada, would he?). The highlight of the place, particularly for Laura and I, had to be the outdoor shower. Yep, a hot overhead shower under trees and a perfectly clear night sky filled with a billion stars is about as luxurious as you can get. It had been a really long time since I had seen so many stars, and it was funny to see Orion's Belt sitting practically right on top of the horizon. I’m convinced more now than ever that I’ve GOT to have one of these babies in my house someday.

But the absolute highlight of our trip was the drive up the Sani Pass (originally a bridle trail for pack animals) to a mountain plateau and village in the kingdom of Lesotho somewhere over 9000 feet above sea level. We made the trek via a trusty old Land Rover circa 1985 up a zig-zagging (and beyond bumpy) mountain road (we couldn’t believe what that truck could do!).

The scenery was breathtaking (saw our first pack of baboons) and the people so interesting looking (I don’t think I’ve ever encountered people who live a life so completely different than mine). We wish the photos did a better job of capturing the sheer vastness and splendour of it all to give you a feel for what we’ve seen, but our old-school digitals just ain’t up to the task unfortunately. Up there there's no electricity (and therefore no television, which means their culture remains largely untouched) and no running water, basically just huts and pasture land (mainly sheep, cattle, and goats – they’re famous for their mohair). But, while it’s one of the poorest countries in Africa, we were told that the people are happy living so simply. We had an opportunity to look inside one woman's home and taste her home-brew (deliciously sweet). We also got versed in Lesotho etiquette - apparently one should never make eye contact for more than a second, or you come across as aggressive. Hmmm, another story worth noting: apparently Lesotho is the biggest supplier of weed on the continent (not sure how that works … Lesotho doesn’t appear to have a climate that would lend itself to successful grow-ops). And who’d have thunk we’d come across dealers 9000 feet up??? Huddling for warmth in wool blankets and touques (pardon, beanies) no less?

On the way down we managed to squeeze in a visit to the highest pub in Africa, which served incredible bread (ahh, we love our bread). I also sipped a glass of hot sweet wine from Lesotho called gluhwein (too sweet for my taste). The chalet was quite impressive, and I couldn’t believe how extensive the menu was considering everything has to be imported by trucks taking those crazy a$$ roads.

We spent our last (donkey-less) day just enjoying our surroundings. We all set out together to do a day hike, but early on Laura took an accidental dip in the second river we had to cross. So while she turned back in her soggy shoes, Christina and I proceeded on to hike through some swampy grassland and beautiful valleys. I turned back about an hour ahead of Christina to join Laura for some R’n’R at an amazing waterfall right on the Lesotho-SA border. Going back alone was done much to my chagrin because (I didn’t tell you this Christina) I was convinced that on my way back I would encounter at least one of the 24 species of snake found in the area, which tend to bite hikers “scrambling up grassy knolls” (including a hooded one that looks like a cobra … what the eff?!?) … um, but I didn’t (note to Laura and Christina: I probably shouldn’t be permitted to read about the “species to watch out for” before we hike … just kidding, you HAVE to let me, or I'll just die!!). Christina will have to fill you in on any adventures she may have had on her solitary trek. Back at the falls, where Laura was studying in style (see photo), the water was freezing but made for a terrific swim on a hot day. The falls offered a fun (but rough) ride – the photo of Christina and I was taken just before we collided (she was spooning me for about 5 solid seconds). It was a perfect end to a great trip (the falls, I mean, not the spooning).

So we turned back Saturday and made a somewhat perilous journey home (featuring a leaky tire and no headlights … we improvised with the lights with the use of, um, a towel and, well, we pretty much ignored the tire). That night there was a big Varsity (university) party called the Jamaican Jam. Laura and Christina can tell you all about it because I bailed. The highlight of my Saturday evening was cornering our resident evil, which Roger confirmed for us was a GIGANTUAN cockroach (or cock-a-roach, as he called it). I, all alone to confront this monstrosity of a bug, couldn’t bear the thought of trapping it and having it suffocate to death; so, of course, I solicited someone else to do the dirty deed (go Roger, go Roger, go, go, go Roger!!!). It was well worth the sacrifice of our Durban Dining Guide, but it took a brutal slaying and some muscle to conquer that thing.

Well, on that jolly note, hope all is alive and kickin’ back home. We are definitely feeling homesick. Thank goodness we’ll have Cape Town to distract us ….

As they say in Lesotho, Khotso, Pula, Nala (Peace, Rain, & Prosperity)! Okay, the west-coasters could probably do without the best wishes for rain …. A happy break to all!

Allison

Christina's Volunteer EXPLOSION!

2006-03-29T12:52:00.000+02:00

Yes, it's a well-known fact that I'm squeemish with kiddies, and now thanks to this blog it's international news. :) Well boys and girls, it's time to check the weather forecast for Hell because this last Monday I marched right into that children's home, sat down and started colouring. I only lasted about an hour, most of which I spent doing the kids' exercises for them, but I went. Whether I go back or not, time will tell...

But that, of course, does not qualify as an 'explosion', nor does it merrit this whole big blog entry. The big news is that on that same day, I went back one more time to pester the director of the Campus Legal Clinic about getting involved with the HIV/AIDS Project. A sample from the brochure: "This project aims to increase access to jusitce for PLWHAs thorugh the provision of legal services to PLWHAs in the human rights context. Some of the challenging issues the project is concerned with are: testing without consent; discrimination at various levels (such as the workplace, banks, insurance companies, etc.); access to treatment and medical care; ethical concerns around vaccine trials."

Sound interesting, no? I thought so too, so I guess I must have come accross as really enthusiastic, and trustworthy, and competent, because next thing I know the director is handing me the keys to the former project manager's office without seeing a resume or even asking my surname. ?!? Okey dokey, so apparently they'd really appreciate it if I could figure out why their outreach projects haven't been bringing in as many clients as they'd like, identify new sites, set up some new clinics, and get the project to be used by this year's Clinical Law class (which I was not allowed to take for lack of qualifications :) together in my spare time.

In all seriousness though, I really couldn't be happier about this new development. The courseload is manageable, and this is exactly the sort of position I would have created for myself if I was coming accross to volunteer, so really I figure I'm getting both an internship and the last semester of my law degree out of the same plane ticket. In fact, everyone around here refers to me as an intern because I guess they sometimes have students come over from New York for a semester to do exactly this kind of thing. Plus I get an office complete with this online desktop computer at school, located right in the law building! Altruism pays off once again ;).

In other news, we have another great trip planned for this weekend out to the mountains, this time crossing over into Lesotho, which I'm extra excited about having 'studied' Lesotho in Brownies.:) Stay tuned for more breathtaking pics! If it isn't raining the whole time of course...fingers crossed.

Love,
Christina

Hiking in the Drakensberg

2006-03-27T10:33:00.000+02:00

This weekend was AMAZING! Christina and I (Laura) ventured into the wilderness that is the Drakensberg mountain range. Drakensberg is Afrikaans for "dragon's tooth" and this range forms the border between the South African province of KwaZulu-Natal (where we currently live) and the "mountain kingdom" that is the country of Lesotho.

We hit the road on saturday afternoon, heading for the Central part of the Drakensberg range because we'd been recommended a hostel out there by a random woman who we'd met rock-climbing. The closer we got to our destination, the more apparent it became that the weather was working against us. Neither of us mentioned it, but we were both definitely praying for sunshine the next day because running shoes and rain jackets are the extent of our hiking gear. When we got to the hostel, the weather forecast was bleak: we found out that it had been raining for the past 6 days straight, and that rain was predicted for the next week. Our brilliant plan: keep our fingers crossed. That night the sky opened up and DUMPED rain all over the valley. Lightning lit up the entire sky and one bolt landed pretty much in the hostel's backyard. A few hours later, I was shaken awake by Christina imploring me to come outside and look at the sky. It was breath-taking. There were stars EVERYWHERE. That night was the first time since we've arrived that we've been able to see the stars! We even found the Southern Cross and Orion's Belt. Which leads us to put a question out to any and all astrophysicists who might read this blog: why can we see Orion's Belt from down here and from up there? Let the comments begin :)

Dawn broke with the mountains all around us being finally visible and glowing pink. Our excursion had somehow managed to coincide with the only sunny day the area was expecting for 2 weeks. With a breakfast of sausages, toast, maize and eggs with pineapple (don't try that at home - or anywhere else) provided by the hostel, we set out to conquer the mountains. Well, not so much conquer as get kind of close to the beginning of where some of them start to jut straight up. Actual conquering would have required more than our running shoes could handle, as the photos will attest to.

We spent a few hours hiking up the mountain until we found ourselves on a plateau covered in green meadow. This meadow stretched all the way to the bases of the peaks in front of us, which rose up green until they turned to sheer rock faces at the top. It was very Sound-of-Music-eque, and I must admit that it prompted us to belt out "the HILLS are aliiiiive with the sound of muuuuusiiiic". (You may think that we're dorks, but I'll bet you would've done the same thing. It was like we were IN the movie! The mountains might have well have started shaking.) We got near the base of the mountain in front of us, but rather than continue on to a lookout point 4 km away, we opted to hike the loop that would take us to some pools where we could go swimming.

Little did we know, that loop would be killer! It seemed like we were hiking down FOREVER, which, in the blazing sun, was difficult at best. When we got to a split in the trail where we could either head up to check out another waterfall or go straight down to the pools, Christina opted for the pools while I headed out to the waterfall. Right before the waterfall, the path suddenly split into a bunch of smaller paths. Figuring that they all ended up in the same place, I picked my way towards the sound of the falls. However, once I got there, I couldn't remember my way back. It seemed that while all the paths led me TO the waterfalls, they did not all lead me back to where I had come from. Luckily, on take 3 I ran in to a couple that pointed me in the right direction. Suddenly invigorated with new energy, I ran the 20 minutes down the path to find Christina at the pools.

Having never been to the pools before, we hadn't made an exact meeting spot. I guess we just figured that we would find each other there. As I was hiking down, I came upon one turn-off to the pools, but when I peeked over there I couldn't see Christina, so I continued on to the second turn-off. I hiked all the way to the bottom to where the second pool was located, but Christina was still nowhere to be found. At this point I decided to stay put while I waited for her to show up, so I got to swimming around. I waded out into the river and 'lo and behold, I see Christina's red Nalgene bottle floating amongst some weeds, all by itself. It looked so sinister, just floating there in all its redness, that my mind immediately jumped to the conclusion that she had either washed downstream (which at that point in the river was pretty much impossible), been captured by baboons, or been kidnapped by a rogue gang (of which none exist in the Drakensberg). Funnily enough, just as I got out of the water to start hiking back up the trail to find her, down she comes from the first pool! I was SO happy to see her, and she was SO happy to see her Nalgene bottle! Funny how things work out sometimes.

Another hour of hiking brought us to the end of our adventure, which both of us were pretty happy about considering neither one of us could really use our legs anymore. With good tunes in the stereo and a beautiful sun setting behind us, we headed home to Durban. But not before getting some good pictures of the South African countryside, so be sure to check out the latest photo album! Hope you all had wonderful weekends and best of luck to you guys who are studying.

Much love,
Laura

Branching out

2006-03-17T10:17:00.000+02:00

Yesterday proved to be an emotional day. Laura and I have begun volunteering at a children's home in the city. Laura has been assigned to a group of either 4-6 or 7-10 year olds, but to whom she hasn't yet been introduced (there was a scheduling mishap). Meanwhile, my afternoon was incredible. I've fallen in love with all 12 or 13 of the little tots I've been assigned, the "tweenies" as they are called (the 2-4 year olds). The mistress to this bunch seems pretty cold thus far, though it may be a "chicken and the egg" sort of thing, I don't know .... But as soon as I arrived, welcomed by their smiles and eager waves, and one boy pumelling/hugging me, I knew it was going to be really hard to go wrong with these kids. After introducing myself (I've been branded "Auntie Allison"), I was treated to a never-ending rendition of "Teensey Weensey Spider, Old Macdonald, Johnny Appleseed, Row, Row, Row Your Boat, Twinkle, Twinkle ...." Just my smiles, eye-contact, and general interest (including my sad attempts to mimic their hand dances) were enough to delight them.

After this, I was pretty much left to my own devices, which normally would make me nervous (my experience with kids, as most of you know, is very limited - hi Ceili!!). But the reality is (and I quickly caught on to this) that all these kids want is some individual attention, usually in the form of hugs and snuggles. And WOW, do these kids ever know how to hug! They latch on and don't want to let go, though it can be a struggle, as they often have to contend with the others pulling at their ankles, eager for a turn. I would be lying if I said I didn't think it was darling. I've already mastered balancing one toddler on one hip, and a second on the other. They are remarkably light! I even had to overcome my irrational disgust of bathrooms, finding myself during bathtime on the tile floor entertaining 7 or more kids on my lap (some freshly washed, some still grubby), all wanting to touch my face and play with my hair (they are fascinated by the jewellry in my nose and ears, and one boy looked like he could stroke my hair for days). Normally this would be a nightmare for me, but ... well, it just wasn't.

On a sadder note, they of course all have tragic stories, which I'm sure you can gather - it's probably fortunate that we aren't given the details of the individual kids. It's fairly obvious once you've interacted with them, however, that a few have experienced more than their share of the darker side of life. One little kid has to drag herself around with her upper body to get anywhere, as there's no mobility in the lower extremities (due to what, I'm not sure). Yet there was no wheelchair or crutches to be seen. As long as you wait, though, she's happy (she just hates being the last one in/out from playtime).

After arriving home, I couldn't stop thinking about the tweenies. I missed them. This morning I still miss them - I wish I were with them this very second. *Sigh* And their toys ... their sad little toys - everything (not that there's much) is falling apart. Usually they play with something that once was a piece of some unidentifiable toy, but now is just a piece of plastic. I realize I can't show up every week with a shiny new toy, but I'm going to do what I can, whether it's just bringing some sidewalk chalk or dresses for their dolls. I don't doubt it will help at least a little.

Laura and I will keep you posted on this new aspect of our lives here in Durban. I think we are both relieved to at last be making some sort of contribution to this place, being as lucky to be here as we are. Christina too may enlist herself to tutor some of the older girls, as there is a real need for that as well. She'll happily leave playtime to Laura and me, and we'll happily leave the homework to her!

Peace and love,

Allison

Bug Poop

2006-03-16T18:08:00.000+02:00

That's right. You read it correctly. One day you think you're living in a normal city, like any other city in the world. Then the next day you come into the kitchen and find your roommate paralyzed with fear because she's just seen a cockroach/beetle/monster the size of a small rodent on her mango in her cupboard. But you think she's exaggerating. But then your OTHER roommate looks into the cupboard under the kitchen sink and deduces that the bug is so big that it poops. We can SEE it's poop. It poops poop bigger than mouse poop! Holy crap! (Pun totally intended) But our landlord told us to rest assured that these bugs are not a sign of general uncleanliness. Oh no. They just fly in from outside. Thanks man, that really made us feel a lot better.

Wish us luck. If we don't get rid of it, Christina may never go into her food cupboard again.

Defying death while making new friends!

2006-03-13T20:05:00.000+02:00

Allison's turn
Originally uploaded by axlinafrica.

To what lengths will we go to endear ourselves to locals? Well, apparently we'll slowly lower our bottoms off of 15 meter-high cliffs, entrusting our lives to a rope calling itself a 'brake line'...at least that's how we hope you spell brake(/break) in this context. Sounds sketchy, I know, but thanks to our trusty new South African friend Steve, and Laura's previous expertise, our rock climbing trip turned out to be one of our best adventures yet! See the new set in our photo album for a play-by-play, as well as our best efforts to bring you a glimpse of the gorgeous scenery.

In other news, we've become regulars at the Friday 'coffee joll' (joll=party, spelling unsure) mentioned in our last post (at which we met Steve), and of course have already started trying to siphon venue control away from the joll's original origanizer (another very sweet fellow by the name of Roger). We also checked out Tsotsi, of Academy Award fame (Best Foreign Film). You would have thought that the local audience would have been the best crowd to see that kind of super-intense film with, but between the snoring guy (Allison got to live out her fantasy of chucking a wad of paper at some dude snoozing in the back) and the highly inappropriate gigglers, it seemed we were the only people in the room that found that movie to be really hard-hitting and well-done. We highly recommend it.

Hmm, what else...Master's classes are ticking along. The South African constitutional class is really great, as they're starting at square one and going into great detail, and our professor was one of the negotiators at the provincial level for KwaZulu-Natal, which we're coming to understand is kind of like South Africa's version of Quebec. Still trying to hunt down volunteer opportunities, and we must say it's pretty surprising how much of a challenge that is proving to be. But we're hot on the heels of a few leads now (Amnesty International, the Gender and Human Rights Commission, the Legal Aid clinic's HIV/AIDS awareness program, and a children's hostel to be specific). Hopefully something will pan out for us soon.

But in the meantime, we've got big plans for hiking in the mountains and visitng Lesotho at the end of this month, as well as a slowly-forming but very exciting trip to Cape Town planned for April. We also met some really inspiring folks out climbing (funny how in the outdoors you can pretty much rest assured that the people you meet are going to be interesting), one of whom is a British gentleman who has been climing for 56 years all over the world (including Squamish), and the other who, in addition to travelling around Western Canada on her own at the age of 47 picking apples when she needed money, spent most of her life as a Ranger/Mountain guide in the Drakensburg. She has hooked us up with a great contact in Sanni Pass (which takes you over to Lesotho from here) for our trip to the mountains and has also offered to drive us out there for a day hike sometime. Donkeys and mountain-top pubs here we come!

So, enjoy the pics, and thanks for continuing to check this page out despite the fact that we can't seem to get around to updating it more than once a week.:) Hope everyone is well!

Peace out,
:)Christina, Laura and Allison

Drumming, Jazz, Capoeira and Surfing. Could the weekend get any better?

2006-03-07T16:49:00.000+02:00

Where we prefer to study
Originally uploaded by axlinafrica.

Hello!

Just a quick update...you'll see us here studying at our new favourite hangout, Bean Bag Bohemia. Check out the photos we've uploaded from our last week or so (in the new set called "first week of March"...real creative we know :) for more new pics!

Let's see, what have we be up to...well, we're still battling to get our schedules finalized, but Allison has been attending a Pollution Control Master's class for a couple of weeks now, and Laura and Christina had our first session of Human Rights and Constitutional Litigation which is going to take us through the South African Bill of Rights. We will all be SUPER stoked if we can get these classes to fly.

Also, on Friday Laura hooked us up with a really cool group of guys. You'll all be happy to read that we have friends...almost. But they've agreed to two further invitations since, which we figure is a good sign. And yes Maya, some of them are cute boys :)

Allison had a real rager on Friday, which was a good thing because then she had to spend the WHOLE weekend studying her a** off. Well, she did manage to sneak in a few (really bad) DVD's and a drumming lesson, but she definitely gets the Most Time Spent at the Library So Far award.

The best day of the weekend for Laura and Christina was definitely Sunday. Laura started it off with an 8:30am surf lesson. She caught a few waves, although admittedly one really huge one kicked the crap out of her because she paddled out further than the instructor had suggested. She came home just in time to catch Christina leaving for what was billed as an afternoon of jazz and cheap beer out in Pinetown. We had heard of Pinetown, but neither of us could remember why. Turns out it's because it is a really, really run down area of town that happens to have a lot of cool stuff, including an as-yet unexplored place called Fruit and Veg City (high up on the hit-list) and this jazz cafe which was apparently a hotspot for the anti-apartheid movement and the only openly integrated venue in this formerly white neighbourhood. It was rad. Laura is currently struggling to get you some videos online, but until then, the pics in our photoalbum from this place are a must-see.

Laura managed to sneak in a late-afternoon trip to the beachfront to play capoeira (a Brazilian martial art) with her new group which offers beginner lessons Tuesdays and Thursdays at the school for dirt cheap. Then the three of us met back up to polish off the day with what is becoming a weekly event: drumming lessons at the Stables Market. We're going back there Wednesday to check it out when the whole thing is open because it looks like it would be a really cool little market place.

One last vingette: at Stables market, there is a little cafe that was still open and sold us the most delicious iced coffees yet. The owner directed us to a place called A&S on Sydney Road. We found it on a map and decided to drive it end-to-end. We figured it was a sign when it turned out to be on the corner of Sydney and Canada roads! But we couldn't see a door and we were in the middle of a warehouse district. So we phoned the number on the side of the building. We think it was the accents that got them to buzz open the huge gate and let us traipse through their shipping department where they were in the middle of loading their trucks! It was hillarious, but worth it...now we can feed our addiction in the comfort of our own home.

Okay, that's it for now folks! Until next time...
:)Allison, Christina and Laura

Random update by Christina (+experiment with font colours...hope you like lavendar!)

2006-03-02T16:50:00.000+02:00

Hello all,

In the interests of keeping the posts small and frequent, I ('X'tina) have decided to jump on and give you, dear reader, a little update. I also noticed that we haven't really given much insight into what we do with a normal day. Not that yesterday was that normal...it was a public holliday, Election Day, when everybody gets the whole day off so they can vote. Or, in our case, so we can have even less class time and more play-time.:) But it was an awesome day worth writing about. So here goes:

It all started with a hangover. Apparently my late teens did not sufficiently impress upon me the important lesson that one should never do a shot of anything, even if you see it poured, without asking what the heck the stuff is. In this case, it turned out to be a lovely little substance called 'straw rum', which would be illegal in most civilized countries on account of it being EIGHTY PERCENT ALCOHOL PER VOLUME. Ack! Now I know what it feels like to have a tracheotomy without anasthetic. Thankfully, Laura was driving, because even though I only had one beer before that disgusting shot I was definitely not operating on all four cylinders for the rest of the night. And the next morning wasn't pretty either, despite consuming a full litre of water before bed and another when I got up! Laura wasn't at her best either that morning, having taken her Sporty Spice designation to new heights with a 1.5 hour trip to the gym, a full day of class and a two hour capoeira workout (with which she was VERY pleased, but I'm sure she'll tell you all about it herself).

If you had asked either of our bodies, they probably would have recommended Allison's course of action, which was to spend another three hours sleeping and then have a lovely afternoon of daydreaming and ironing clothes. But Laura and I decided instead to take up a friend's offer (yes! we have friends now! well, kind of :) to organize a kayak tour of the south coast. With an odd local fastfood breakfast of a veggie burger with pineapple and hashbrowns to sustain me, we made it to the surfshop just in time to be informed that there was a whole troop of dolphins swimming around just off the shore! We grabbed flippers and snorkel masks and motorred out as fast as we could. We got out about halfway to China without spotting them, and were just becoming discouraged when Laura noticed that if you put your ears in the water you could hear them whistling to each other! It was really neat to hear with your own ears all around you like that. And then we saw them as they started coming up to the surface to breathe, not even 10 meters away! We then made a strategic decision to head back in and hook ourselves up with the kayak tour which was about to start, because those dolphins were impossible to keep up with on flipper ;).

Laura and I shared a two-person kayak and we were pleased that the group decided to make heading out for the dolphins the number one priority. Once we got out to them, from the boats you could see that there were lots and lots of them, like about 20 or so, including a couple of the cutest little baby dolphins ever! They were surfacing in graceful arks all around us, sometimes alone or in pairs and sometimes in groups of six or more. Of course, they wouldn't let us get too close, but they didn't seem to mind us obsessively paddling after them whichever direction they went. They were able to get up to quite a clip when they wanted to and so I'm sure they could have lost us easily if we had really started to annoy them. Ergo, I'm going to conclude that they liked us, and I challenge any of you to convince me otherwise :).

Those who know me well will probably be wondering at this point how I survived out in rocking surf on a tiny little boat for any length of time without tossing my veggie burger back overboard. Well, the answer is, I didn't: after an hour or so, even two doses of gravol couldn't stand up to the waves + hangover double-whamy, and we had to head back to shore. But thankfully Laura wasn't too bothered because she got to trade in the boat for a surfboard and, while I hugged the blessedly immobile beach, caught a bunch of waves standing up on the board and everything.

Then we got free salad bars from a restaurant with the absolute worst service yet (hence not having to pay, or more accurately, hence us getting fed up and leaving before our main meals arrived, or more accurately still, before our meals would have arrived if they hadn't totally screwed everything up and actually lost one of our meals. An aside on South African customer service: although they've heard of it, they really don't seem to get it. Take for example the manager of the fast food restaurant I got my veggie burger at. He was SCREAMING at all of his employees about how it was paramount that he be serving the customer who was standing across the counter from him looking very embarrassed, and of course, not getting served at all. Or there was the time that the restaurant we were at ran out of lettuce, but for some reason it took them an HOUR to come tell us that and ask us if we would like to wait longer for the lettuce to arrive from their supplier (it was, as usual, coming 'now'). The fact that we had our drinks covered, plus the fact that about six seperate members of the staff, including the chef, came out to appologize to us, definitely made up for it, but you still have to wonder how they found themselves into that position in the first place. Which further reminds me of a job we meant to put on our top ten list: waitron. They claim it is a gender-neutral way of referring to waiters/waitresses, but we are starting to suspect it is really a kind of robot which they have yet to figure out how to program properly to make them actually any good at waiting tables).

Phew, that was a really long paranthetical. Anywho, to continue: We came home to discover that the lady who we thought was only going to change our bedding once a week actually provides a full maid service and had done an amazing job of cleaning, dusting and polishing the whole apartment (including our dishes! Included in our rent of $300/month each!). She's also really nice and is easier to feel comfortable around than I was anticipating. The house, by the way, is really coming together, and soon we'll be able to take some more shots of our rooms and so forth which are now starting to look really nice (making me feel a little guilty for making fun of our landlord's taste :). We then did a quick grocery shop, which I only mention because it involved me buying a mango which I ate this morning and can report with 100% scientific quantitative accuracy that it was the best mango ever. And then Laura and I hunted down a yoga class which was a little slower than either of us usually like it, but with very high quality instruction and for only $3. It felt so amazing to get back into yoga, especially on such a nice warm evenning when you can go outside and just keep feeling so happy and relaxed. Then we made butter chicken with a spice purchased at a local Indian food specialty shop, which was not bad for our first try but we obviously have a lot to learn before we can start competing with the quality of some of the curries we've found around here (much to my delight :). Finally, we jetted over to the local cheap theatre ($3 tickets) to see Paradise Now, a flick about Palestinian suicide bombers which I would definitely recommend despite it being a bit on the heavy-handed/obvious side. At 10:30 we were all ready for bed, but very content. It was another great day in Durban.

Signing off for now. Keep those comments coming...we love them!
:)Christina

Skwatta Kamp concert - Party Extraordinaire!

2006-02-27T12:18:00.000+02:00

When we were shopping for some South African hip hop, we were introduced to a group called Skwatta Kamp, who are apparently South Africa's foremost hip hop artists. Then one day as we're driving along, we see a poster for a Skwatta Kamp concert with a phone number on it. So we dial it up and buy some tickets over the phone. To our credit, we had no idea where the concert was when we bought the tickets :) It did not even occur to us that it might not be in Durban. But when we called the cab company, we found out it was a $30 cab ride away! Gulp. So we debated whether someone would be DD (i.e. Laura or Christina 'cause Allison can't drive stick), and it was decided that we'd rather just spring for the cab rides and all get to party. We weren't even sure if they sold booze at the concert, but we figured we'd take our chances. Also, we didn't know if it was assigned seating or a free for all or what. We all just pictured a packed, grungy club somewhere in the city. Lemme tell ya, our expectations were WAY off.

So we get to this concert, and to our surprise, it's being held in a super swank club at this really nice casino. When we go to pick up our tickets, we see that we are three of about 15 people who bought tickets over the phone and the venue is totally empty. It's still a bit early, so we go hunt down a bar and get this: highballs are $1. Boy were we glad we decided to take a cab! After about 20 minutes we hear the concert start up, so we cruise in to the venue (we couldn't bring our drinks in, but you could go in and out as much as you pleased). There are (maybe) 15 people on the dance floor! So down to the floor we go. We start dancing, and we are the only white people in the place. We're on the dance floor with all these black girls, and they're loving it! And these girls are SO excited about Skwatta Kamp. They keep going up on stage and touching them, and taking quick pics with them. Basically, anyone can do whatever they want since there are only 15 of us around the group at any one time. At one point, one member of the group starts speaking Zulu, and then he pauses and says, "It looks like we're gonna have to translate cause there's some white folks in the audience." And that was us! They even pointed at us and said "Yes, we see you there." It was hilarious. We started cheering and screaming!

The show was absolutely amazing. We danced the ENTIRE time. At the end of the show, a DJ started spinning and the guys from the group came down and we were all dancing together (now there were about 25 people on the dance floor). The best part of all this was that they played again the night after, and that show was completely sold out. So we TOTALLY lucked out!

Schoolin'

2006-02-27T12:01:00.000+02:00

So the strike has ended and school has FINALLY begun. We've just started week 2 and all in all it's been a very different experience then what we're used to at UVic. First of all, classes occur in blocks of 45 minutes. Can you believe it? That's shorter than high school classes! The really long classes are 1.5 hours long, but don't worry because the profs will usually give you a ten minute break in the middle if that's the case. And if they don't, the class will start calling out "break! break!" until they're let out. It's hilarious. But, we're not really complaining, because the slow pace of the classes means less work for us. We're still not even sure if we're supposed to be reading anything to supplement our notes, but seeing as we're being spoonfed information, it's looking unlikely that we will. Hooray for law being these kids' first undergraduate degree!

Here are some choice quotes from some of our profs:

"Your general knowledge is very extremely poor. It is extremely very poor. I will use ungrammatical terms to tell you how poor your general knowledge is."
"Normally, we say the means do not justify the ends. But in due process we turn that around and say the ends do not justify the means."
"Rule #3: If you want a drink of water, you must put up your hand." (Our Int'l Law prof is a real winner. )

TOP TEN most coveted jobs in Durban, SA

2006-02-27T11:54:00.000+02:00

We've noticed that they seem to be taking the term 'odd job' to a whole new level around here. To be fair, this is probably in part due to a noble effort to keep the rampant unemployment levels down to a somewhat-dull-roar. But in case any of you are thinking of a career change and (based on our fabulous blog, of course) are considering making Durban your home, we bring you a short description of ten of our favourite options so far:

Highway Sweeper: Must have agility with giant dried banana tree leaves.
Library book Liner-upper: Must have a good eye for straight lines. No rulers provided.
Middle of busy intersection clothes hanger and garbage bag Salesperson: Must be able to dodge oncoming traffic as you peddle your wares. Remember your motto: "You never know when someone driving their car will need clothes hangers or garbage bags on the way to work."
Human drive-thru-window Operators: Must be willing to walk up to each car in the drive thru line at McDonalds and physically take orders, deliver those orders to a person inside the restaurant, collect people's money and deliver that money to a different person inside the restaurant. No need to know that technology exists.
No-seat Driver: Must be able to stand annoyingly close to people's cars and direct perfectly good drivers out of huge spots when there is no traffic around for miles. Remember to remind the driver to pay you for this service as (believe it or not) some of them think your job is unnecessary.
Receptionist at UKZN Faculty of Law: Must be proficient at passing the buck and saying "I don't know, I don't do that" in at least 3 official languages.
Movie Info Line Operator: Human being that answers the phone when people call to find out movie times. We give them the choise of pressing 1 for "information" and 2 for "general inquiries". You must know the difference.
Music Categorizer/Clerk: Must be able to assist clients who are looking for music that is "Afrikaans/Gospel", "Male" or "Female". Must also be able to come up with other creative categories. Some recent successes have been "Human" and "Artists over 5 feet tall".
Turnstile Guard: Must be able to defeat the purpose of the turnstile by sitting and staring into space instead of monitoring who goes through.
Grocery store Clerk: Must direct people with confidence to either the Health & Beauty or Meat sections when they ask for tofu. Must have no idea what tofu is.

Fort Knox - WE'RE IN!

2006-02-27T11:31:00.000+02:00

Fort Knox
Originally uploaded by axlinafrica.

That's right, we're finally into our new pad! I know it looks pretty nasty from the outside, but that's apparently a good thing around here. It's not finished inside either, but if you visit our album and scroll down to the 'our house' set, you'll see that we at least have a great kitchen and a FANTASTIC view. AND a troop of monkeys visits us! Okay, they've only popped by once so far, but we have high hopes for the future.

We've got the whole top floor, and there are three super nice girls downstairs, all international students, two from Zimbabwe and one from Uganda. The girls from 'Zim' have already offered to show us around Victoria Falls when we go there in June. Sa-weet!

The Hippo Hide was nice and all, but we're really happy to have a place to call home, with our own rooms, our own closets, and our own personal standing fans in front of which we spend most of our time. Yet another AXL success story :).

Laura's Piece - From bad bloggers to bloggin' all over the place

2006-02-27T11:21:00.000+02:00

Hiking through the nature reserve
Originally uploaded by axlinafrica.

Well, hope some of you are still checking this thing now that it's finally been updated! And I hope you know how to figure out the photo albums, 'cause I sure don't. But I think Alli will be posting instructions for the blog-impaired some time soon. The pics are worth hunting down, that's for sure!

Christina's entry did a GREAT job at capturing some of the first impressions we experienced in this crazy country. One so different that you have no choice but to completely revamp your sense of reality in order to make things seem less strange. Although I must admit to driving on the wrong side of the street until informed of such by Christina. Thank goodness for backseat driving. I have yet to try driving in Durban proper because people are maniacs on the road and my instincts tell me to do everything backwards. But we just got insurance, so I have no excuses anymore ...

So at this point in the blog's development (does anyone else think they could have come up with a better word for this thing than "blog"?), I thought I'd fill you all in on a few stories from the first couple of weeks in more detail than the other ladies got to.

With the jet lag behind us and Allison finally staying up past 8 pm, we were ready to get into the groove. And not a moment too soon either, because at our orientation we found out that we are expected to start classes at 7:45 AM. But that just means that surf's up at 6 AM! I'm almost totally outfitted for it, and am determined to get Christina in there with me. Allison's pretty much there, but Christina needs to be eased in with some bodyboarding. But she'll come around, right Cgod? I also intend to look into kite-boarding, kayaking, African drumming and capoeira at school. I guess getting up for 7:45 classes will be a good thing cause I'll need the other hours of the day to fit in all the playing I intend to do. I must say that after living on the freezing cold Pacific Ocean for 2.5 years, it's pretty sweet to take a plunge into the Indian Ocean in just a mere bathing suit! Or, in my case, a bathing suit, surf shorts, and an SPF 50 long sleeve shirt. You can't be too careful out here! And as for the sunburn pics, regardless of WHAT Alli claims to have, I know that I've got the best one on my own personal disposable camera. For posterity (props to Xtina for that pun).

On the school front, although nothing can yet be said about classes, our campus is absolutely beautiful. Durban is super hilly, which makes for beautiful views, and our school is located on top of one of those hills. And, luckily for us, the law school is super rad (see the pic for proof). The equivalent of the lounge is an outdoor courtyard and I can't wait to chill and read there. Speaking of reading, the library is also really nice, and smells exactly like the library at UVic. Go figure. Some things never change, I guess.

With school totally explored (or at least a few of the buildings thoroughly explored. We ditched the rest of the tour cause it was WAY too hot to deal with), we ventured into downtown Durban. What a rush! It throbs to a whole different beat than the 'burbs, that's for sure. It's bustling and busy and pretty muh entirely black African. But strangely enough, none of us felt out of place. It was just so fun to be a part of! You're walking around like you've got somewhere to be to avoid looking like a tourist, but really you have no idea where you're going and you're totally gawking at the whole scene behind your sunglasses.

One of the best parts of going downtown was getting there and back. We rode on these things called kombis, which are these little mini buses that are packed full of people with blaring music that rip all over town. The routes are known only to those who have found out what they are from others who know. No joke. We were directed onto the one we wanted by our tour guide dude and then this pretty lady helped us get to where we were going. When you get on, you need to pay the driver for your ride, and to do so each row of passengers passes their money to the person at the end of the row, and that person sends it up to the driver and arranges the people in the row's change if they need any. And then you hopefuly get your money back. I'm not sure about that yet cause none of us ladies have ever needed change.

What with the temperature going above 40 degrees with a "discomfort factor" of 80 (your guess is as good as mine, although I would place the discomfort factor closer to 1,000,000 between the hours of 11 and 3), we have spent a lot of time in various malls. They sure do malls well around here! In fact, we were so overwhelmed on our first day here that we spent the whole day in the mall. And we had a great time, thank you very much. And we're all looking much cuter for it

OK, this is getting pretty long, and what with mine, Christina's and Allison's entries to read, you're all probably wishing we'd go back to being terrible bloggers! We'll stagger these a bit more from now on. Promise.

Much love to all!
LL

Christina's Two Cents

2006-02-27T11:17:00.000+02:00

Surveying the former colony over my cuppa tea
Originally uploaded by axlinafrica.

Hi all! Christina here, coming at you from an absolutely gigantic mall somewhere just north of Durban, SA. For details on what the heck we’ve gotten up to during the first bit of our trip, see the blog entry below…probably a good idea to read first if you’ve got the time. But since this is pretty much the first contact I’ve had with most of you since I left (except for the occasional brief apology for not being sorted out enough yet on the internet front to really communicate), I thought I’d add a little something in my own words.

Although it’s true that the internet access has been expensive and painfully slow, I’d say probably the primary reason we have all been a little delinquent on the contact front is because the last two and a half weeks have been so adventure-packed and crazy that sitting down to try and write about it all has felt increasingly daunting each time I’ve considered doing it. I hope these pictures help a little, but because we have to be so careful in places like downtown Durban where most of the really interesting scenery is, you are unfortunately getting a bit of a rarefied glimpse into what we’ve been surrounded with. Pretty hard to describe that's for sure, except to say that it's very different, hot and humid, colourful, exciting, and mostly beautiful though occassionally really delapidated. As for the safety concerns I heard so much about in the months leading up to the trip, I can honestly say I’ve only felt a little threatened twice: once when we came across some pretty nasty looking political protests in the middle of nowhere in Zululand, and another time when we walked through a kind of weird passage-way through the downtown Victoria Street market called “spice alley”…it was broad daylight, none of us had any valuables, and it was mostly just old women and piles of godknowswhat (Laura claims to have spotted a dried monkey), no one had anything better to do than stare and I’m pretty sure we were the only white people through there that day, if not that month. But mostly it has seemed that people had no interests in making tourists feel uncomfortable and so life goes on around us in all its vibrant and bustling glory.

Of course, true to my mother’s favourite piece of advice J, we’re trying not to be stupid. We leave money and cameras at home, clear everything into the trunk of the car, tip the guy in the uniform to watch it, and take cabs at night. We also ask a local before venturing into any new areas, and check the maps before we go to avoid having to whip them out in the middle of the street. So far so good. And we’ve just discovered that the license plate for the car (Roxie) indicates that it’s from a township out near the airport (which would explain why gas station attendants and security guards always get a good laugh making us explain that no, actually we’re from Canada). So we figure this helps us out at least a little on the car-jacking and break-in front.

But because we’ve been totally transplanted into a very, very different environment, changing all these things about the way we operate hasn’t felt like as much of a hassle as you might think. It’s just another part of a totally new reality, where we drive on the left hand side of the road, you phone taxi drivers directly after you’ve met them through their company, you write the tip on the bill before you give them your credit card, $30 is too much for a skirt, and even the cheapest apartments come with some level of maid service. Also, the language barrier is stronger than I anticipated. Some people just really don’t speak English at all, as the confusing or sometimes downright irrelevant responses to our questions have revealed. But even when your interlocutor speaks English quite well, there’s always a sense that something is just not coming across. For example, I tried to get one of our hostel hostesses to explain to me why no businesses anywhere, except the grocery stores, ever carry enough change for their customers. I tried to ask this question in various ways for about ten solid minutes, and yet to this day I still wonder if she thought I was asking her to go to the bank for me and get me some change. Or, one of Allison and Laura’s favourite stories because they know they lady I was dealing with at the time, there was the example of when I asked the hostess at the Hippo Hide (named Octavia) for directions to the mall. She nodded and replied, “I’ll tell you now”…and then slowly turned her head towards the television and spooned herself another mouthful of the cereal she was eating. I sat there for a while, eventually concluding I must have offended her somehow and removed myself back to my room to think it over. Turns out that ‘now’ doesn’t actually mean now, it means soon. ‘Now now’ means now, and (here’s the kicker) ‘just now’ means later. A bit confusing to say the least.

So perhaps you can begin to see how, when every little thing takes planning, concentration, and drastic changes of plan once the original plans turn out to be based on all sorts of things that just don’t obtain in this corner of the universe, time has flown by. Especially since, if I do say so myself, we’ve been doing a pretty good job of taking care of business, finding our way around and meeting the challenges that have thrown our way, all with distinctive AXL fun-loving flare. As I’m sure you can tell from the pictures, we’ve been have a GREAT time. We’ve managed to see and do quite a lot, and we’ve got high hopes for the months to follow: partying in Cape Town, hiking in the Drackensburg mountains, snorkeling in Mozambique, joining the weekly drum circle at a local arts centre, checking out more of the Durban attractions like marine world or the botanical gardens, and getting involved with the multitudinous sports clubs and student volunteer organizations that we were introduced to at orientation (once this strike business sorts itself out, of course). I can’t hardly wait. Oh yeah, and classes. Those too.;)

Well, this is turning out to be a really long one too. They’ll be much shorter once we get into the regular habit of killing time on the internet at school between classes when they begin. I’d also love to hear from you guys…if you don’t have an MSN login to leave a message, either consider signing up for one or send me an email. Hope you’re all doing great. Until next time!

Love,

Christina

(PS. I know that with the amount I go on about editting there's really no way for me to get away with a bunch of errors and typos. However, I'll just have to let my reputation suffer, because this internet really is crappy and expensive. Sorry to all those grammar and spelling buffs with whom I seem to surround myself :).

First Few Weeks - The Lowdown

2006-02-27T11:06:00.000+02:00

AXL on the estuary
Originally uploaded by axlinafrica.

What you've all been waiting for ... almost.

First off, yes, we've arrived safe and sound. Second, yes, we have quickly become the worst blog keepers ever. In our defence, the internet access in this neck of the woods has been pretty much dump, and today is the first day we've been permitted to use the comp labs at the UKZN for any length of time, not that school has actually begun or anything (we'll explain below). So hopefully the following will make up for our neglect! Where oh where to begin?!? Well ....

When we arrived to Durbz we checked into a great hostel called the Hippo Hide near to central Durban. We were pleasantly surprised, got a great room with a queen and single bed. We've been very comfortable despite the long stay - we're onto day 11 in this place. On our first day we got a cell phone, and started looking into renting a flat. We scored the top floor of a great house near the school, in an upscale (read: safe) 'burb on a road serviced by kombis heading to the downtown markets and our nearby grocery stores. The plan is to move in on Monday, by which time we'll have been living in hostels for over three weeks. Ugh, we hate living out of our packs. We also "scored" a 1987 Toyota Conquest, and she has been christened "Roxie," "Foxie Roxie" on the weekends. Those first couple of weeks involved trips to the beach, a couple nights out, a multitude of shopping (downtown in the 'hood and of course in the malls - they love their malls here, and so do we ... thanks to the AC and Laura's addiction to freezaccinos).

As for school, registration was a, well, smallish nightmare. There's currently a couple of strikes going on on campus - staff and students separately. Wow, their strikes are nothing like ours - the strikers are in the buildings, out on the lawns, blaring music, singing, dancing, whistling, cheering as they are worked into a frenzie by whoever's got the mic. Anyways, last week we had our Registration Day, and we were told that our registration in particular couldn't be done because of some sort of "hold" on our fees - the same fees ($800US) that we each wired a month and a half ago, that the Student Fees Division proceeded to "lose," that we were told we wouldn't be able to register for classes without, and then that we found by combing through a binder of money transfers to the Uni. Geesh. I don't think they've even technically found Christina's yet. So, needless to say, last week involved a lot of being passed around from person to person, with most peeps in the UKZN general admin and ISO claiming they are not responsible for this or that. We've quickly realized that the key is to tell each person in admin that we will no longer tolerate being passed back and forth; so far, it's worked, with each person soon admitting they CAN do what we've asked them to. It's been a little embarrassing behaving as such harda$$es, but necessary all the same. Thank goodness for the folks in the law faculty - they've been very helpful and recognize how frustrating dealing with some of these people can be. But enough griping. The process is at last done (at least we THINK so), and school is set to begin as soon as the strikes get settled. I guess it'll be more beaching and shopping for us this week, to fill the time. Oh shucks, more $10 skirts and kicka$$ jewellry for us.

So anyways, with school not slated to begin until this week, we thought we'd take advantage of the down time and head out on the road to St. Lucia, a World Heritage Site three hours north of Durban on the Indian Ocean and a quaint resort town. Our hostel was dodgey, to say the least, just ask the dead cockroach there to greet us on our arrival to our room. Thank god for the AC! We got the eff out of there after a couple of days and checked into a sweet holiday pad with the full meal deal (kitchen, living room, two bedrooms, patio), for pretty much the same price. The one thing our crappy hostel WAS good for was hearing about good things to do in the area, including snorkelling areas and providing the equipment. So, off we headed to Cape Vidal. Along the way we spotted wild zebras, wart hogs, a million deer-like things, and so on. You know, African stuff. The reef offered somewhat murky waters, but very cool fish, all translucent like and, you know, African stuff. So, we had a great day at the beach and had the sunburns to prove it, including a nothing-but-glorious a$$ burn on Laura (we've got pics - don't let her tell you otherwise). I myself am proud to say I have the beginnings of what looks like a tan (okay, that may be generous). We spent my 26th birthday drinking (too much) sangria, and picking on our crappy waiter, Gerrfaaaaard (who cares how you spell it, right?), and looking VERY, VERY hard for some type of scene in that town. Yep, none, but a good time nonetheless. Oh yeah, the wine in this country is dang cheap at restaurants and bars, about $2 glass at even nice places. I LOVE that, being a poor student and all. I'm trying to convince Laura and Christina to jump on the wine wagon with me.

Also in St. Lucia, which contains 5 different ecosystems (marshland, sand dunes, estuary, coast, and savanna), we saw our first live and wild HIPPOS, people! These things were massive, pigs of the marsh with their oinking, yawning, and cuddling. Particulalry adorable was a calf, who'd once in a while pop its head up out of the water, give a snort, and disappear again. The two-hour boat ride was well worth the R120. Our tour guide knew absolutely everything and had the eyes of an eagle.

Hmmm, another interesting experience we had cruising down the highway on the way back to Durbz was running into what appeared to be a rather tense crowd of IFP'ers vs. ANC'ers that had flooded across the highway. Quite simply, we couldn't read the situation: the cars ahead of us appeared hesitant, one dude started approaching our car with his fist flailing in the air, it was a totally rural area, and we had all of our stuff with us. Christina made an executive decision and quickly turned the car around, and off we went in the opposite direction. The next day I was watching the news and heard about IFP and ANC supporters in Cape Town throwing bricks at one another, so I think we did the right thing. There's municipal elections happening across the country supposedly tomorrow, and we've seen a lot of campaigning - sometimes, it seems, in the middle of nowhere, as in the case of driving down the 102.

Anways, so our travels in the past couple of days took us to this hostel in the countryside, Inyezane, amongst field upon field of sugar cane and right on top of an old battle field between the Brits and Zulus (guess who won ... there's plenty of red-coat, gold-button clad remains to be found there, Bradley the hostel keeper told us). Breathtaking setting, ghosts or not. There, Laura and Christina enjoyed a mud bath (oh yeah, they stripped down to their skivvies and got dirty, all right). While they frolicked in the mud, I made some candied ginger, which Bradley, practically a witch doctor, told me would help with my bad reaction to our anti-malarials (I've had no appetite, haven't been able to keep food down, coming down with a slight case of anemia it appears). He also had me drink a mixture the night before of guava and absynnia(?) leaves, which was a lot less tasty than the ginger, but seemed to do the trick brilliantly. I'm thinking the no-antimalarial route may be the course I take in our future journies, but of course I will consult with a doc first. Christina and Laura have done fine on the Malarone, and have been enjoying many scrumptous-looking meals without me. Anyways, enough of my gastrointestinal dramas, and back to this crazy Brad dude. His stories about growing up in this country were enlightening, only half-believable they were so shocking and foreign to us. Everything from being a soldier in Angola to half-shrugging on hearing that a buddy of his just killed himself. Yeah, a really strange, but understandable attitude toward death, this guy. Currently he's involved in small-town hell x a trillion, embroiled in a crazy dispute between himself and his neighbours of a decade, who until only a month ago worked for him (and whose kids are at his house everyday). We're talking new employees getting beat up by the old ones, and shite like that. Anyways, a place worth returning to just to hang with that dude and breathe the fresh country air ....

Okay, so that was a lot to bombard you all with. It's been pretty daunting trying to cover an action-packed three weeks. As soon as we can download our photos to fill in the gaps for you, we will. It's been an adventure, and we're happy to share it with you all.

Lots of love,

Allison, Christina & Laura

First Class Lounge at TO airport: Where we belong!

2006-02-27T11:00:00.000+02:00

First Class Lounge at TO, where we belong!
Originally uploaded by axlinafrica.

~ Chillaxin' in luxury ~

I'm sitting here in Toronto typing away in the Maple Leaf Lounge on C's laptop. Laura so happens to have an Aerogold card, which got us into this little piece of paradise in the middle of Lester B. Pearson. We're feasting on free food and drink, stretching out in comfort, and hoarding free magazines as we await our departure for Frankfurt. Needless to say, we three looking-worse-for-wear girls stick out like sore thumbs amidst all the corporate types. But we are enjoying it nonetheless. Hmmm, since we're here, maybe we'll take advantage of the shower facilities .....okay, maybe that would be taking it a little too far.~a~P.S. We may be changing our blog site in the coming weeks so that people can post comments without registering, so keep an eye out for that.