21 July 2007
July 18 was Nelson Mandela's Birthday....the great man of this country turned 89!
Happy Birthday Madiba!
July 19, 2007
Our time here in South Africa is growing ever shorter. Finally though, the strike is over, so at least we are back at work! We also just finished up our last school holiday. The first week was spent in Pretoria, attending our Close of Service conference. It was one last time to hang out with all of our Peace Corps friends, and learn about the ‘right way’ to wrap up your Peace Corps service. We had a great time, spending a few days with friends at a nice lodge just outside of Pretoria. Many people, including ourselves, have applied to finish our term early, and some have even already finished and returned to the US. After the conference finished, we headed to Mozambique! What a beautiful country!! We had a fantastic time there – walking on the beach, playing in the ocean, and eating wonderful, fresh seafood every day. Our first stop was the capital city, Maputo. We wandered the city and ate delicious pastries (something you can’t find in South Africa!) and took a ferry ride across the estuary to a small fishing village on the other side. Our second night there, we wandered over to the fish market with a few friends. Here you can pick out fresh fish, prawns, mussels, crabs or anything else that swims or crawls in the ocean for you dinner, and then wander next door to an outdoor square full of small restaurants, where for a small fee they will cook it up for you with some rice and salad.
Our next stop was the small beach town of Tofo, and what a beach they have! This area is known for its unusually high concentrations of whale sharks and manta rays – two of the sea’s biggest creatures. We were eager to have a chance to see them, so the first day we headed out on an ‘ocean safari’. Eight of us piled into an inflatable boat with snorkeling gear and headed out to sea. One man sits up high on a tall chair and serves as the spotter. We first came across a pod of dolphins that were swimming all around the boat – clearly visible in the clear waters. Then our first whale shark was spotted. We were told to put on our masks and fins as they positioned the boat in its path and then we slipped quietly into the water. You can’t miss a whale shark! Immediately upon putting my face into the water and looking down, there it was – a 7.5m (23 feet) long shark! Not as scary as it sounds though, as they eat only tiny plankton, hence the whale part of their name. The whale shark swam along – a uniform grey with distinctive white spots – completely unbothered by our presence. We stayed with it for a half an hour, just swimming alongside it as it fed near the surface of the water. It was an awesome experience to be dwarfed by this gigantic fish. I noticed then that the other people were starting to head back to the boat, so I took one last look, turned around, and came face to face with another whale shark! It had been swimming along behind the first one, I guess, unbeknownst to me, and I actually had to back peddle just to get away from its big mouth. It gave me quite a shock! Back on the boat, we set off again and shortly found another whale shark. Adam and the others got back in, but I was feeling a bit seasick at this point so decided to stay on board. This one wasn’t quite as friendly though, because as soon as they spotted it, it dove down into the depths of the ocean and away from the pesky people.
Back on shore, we only had an hour to rest before setting out for our first scuba dive. We did a somewhat shallow dive first, to get re-acclimated to diving, as it was the first time we had done it since we learned back in December. We went out to a reef called The Salon and had a fantastic dive – our first in tropical waters. I’m still not to the point where I can totally enjoy myself down there – I spend most of my time reminding myself to relax and breathe, and trying to get my buoyancy correct so that you just float neutrally in the water and don’t sink or rise. But we saw a huge moray eel, some lobsters and tons of colorful fish – it was a good dive! Adam sucked up all his air super fast though, so we had to cut it a little shorter than the others. We surfaced with one of the guides, and I rose way too fast because I forgot to deflate my vest first. It was ok though because we weren’t diving very deep, so no, I didn’t get the bends! It was also good that I rose fast because the effects of my day on the ocean were starting to catch up to me and as soon as I hit the surface I had to feed the fish. Not fun, but seeing the reef in those clear waters was well worth it. We were supposed to do a deep dive the next morning, but a storm came in that night a churned up the ocean, making it too rough to launch the boat. So we took a day to relax and the next day headed farther north to Vilanculos – a bigger village, also spectacularly located on the beach. (On a side note, they launch the boats – inflatables with engines on the back – right from the beach. You all have to push it out into the surf until it’s floating, then jump on and the skipper picks the right moment to cruise over the cresting waves. Then on the return, they drive the boat as fast as possible right at the shore, not cutting the engine until the very last minute, when the boat beaches itself on the sand and comes to a full stop. It was a tad frightening the first time, heading full throttle right at the beach, but was a source of excitement once you knew what to expect.)
In Vilanculos, we wandered the town and the big market there on the first day. Adam had a pair of pants made by a tailor in a tiny stall at the market who used an old pedal powered Singer sewing machine. To buy the fabric and have the pants made cost around $10! The next day we set off on a dhow (traditional sail boat) trip to the Bazaruto Islands National Park, about 15km offshore. We traveled with four South African guys, a British couple, and two local guides. The first night we camped on the beach on one of the islands, and then the next day got to explore the island and go snorkeling on a reef just near the beach. The current was super strong that day, so all you had to do was get in the water next to the reef wall and just let it carry you along. It was some of the best snorkeling I have ever done. The water was quite cold that day but the number and variety of fish was amazing. I saw colors of fish I had never imagined – almost glowing with orange, purple and blue - it was quite spectacular. We sailed back to the mainland in the afternoon and spent one more night in Vilanculos before beginning to work our way (slowly) back to South Africa. That night we ate at a nice resturaunt overlooking the ocean. Adam and I both ordered fresh fish, which came with rice, fries, salad and fresh bread and cost around 200 meticas – about $9. Adam pointed out that this fantastic meal (including a local beer!) cost about the same as a Fillet-o-fish value meal at McDonalds! I’ll take Mozambique any day!
We stopped again in Tofo for two more nights, and arranged for one more dive. This time a deep one, to a reef called The Office, where there is a manta ray cleaning station. (The dive instructors had a good time of it, joking ‘oh, just another day at the office!’) This time we would be going to 25m (75 ft) and would be with an instructor the whole time to get our deep diver certification. The water was absolutely clear this day – from the surface you could see all the way down to the reef. It was amazing. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get my ears to equalize (you have to keep popping your ears all the way down to keep the pressure in your head the same as the water) and therefore couldn’t complete the dive. I tried for 10 minutes and then had to return to the boat. Adam was successful however, and had a good dive in amazingly clear water and got his deep diver certification. There was a manta ray cleaning station at this reef – meaning a place where the rays come to be cleaned by tons of little fish – but unfortunately there weren’t any rays in the area for the dive. They eluded us this trip, so maybe we’ll have to go back sometime to try again. We stayed one more night in Maputo and then made our way back to South Africa. I stayed with Adam in Pretoria for two days before heading back to the village. Adam stayed for another few days to have a dentist appointment as he cracked his front tooth while eating a salad at our Peace Corps conference!
Now we’re both back in the village and back at work. The teacher unions finally came to an agreement with the government for a 7.5% pay raise after striking for 4 weeks. The original government offer was 6% so teachers stayed away from school for four weeks for a 1.5% raise. Not worth it if you ask me! But our teachers were really starting to get frustrated about the strike too and I think they’re all glad to be back at work. As I said before our time here is beginning to run out. We will be leaving the village around the 4th of September, so only have 7 weeks left. I can’t believe it! Looking back, I think two years has gone by pretty fast, and this next month and a half is going to absolutely fly. Many people have been asking about our post Peace Corps plans, so here they are. Starting September 17 we are taking a month long field guide training course in Kruger National Park. Adam and I have both loved the time that we have spent seeing animals in the national parks here, so we signed up to take a month long class where we will go on game drives and walks every day, attend lectures about the plants, animals, and environment, and live in a bush camp in the park. It is the first level towards becoming a certified South African field guide, but lots of people take it for fun too and for me at least, it will look interesting on the resume. After that is finished in October, we are going to once again hit the road. We both feel that we don’t really have too many responsibilities in our lives right now, which is a unique situation, and that we should take full advantage of that fact. So we are going to travel for a while around southern Africa, starting in Namibia and heading east, then north, and if time and money allows, hit Southeast Asia on the way back to the States. At this point we don’t know how long we will travel for, so you’ll just have to stay tuned. Yes, we want to avoid the real world for as long as possible! After the travels are complete and we are just about broke, our life remains up in the air. I am currently studying to take the GRE (on September 7th!) and am going to apply to a number of graduate schools for a Masters in environmental education or environmental studies. If I am accepted, then back to school I go (starting fall 2008) and Adam looks for a job wherever we land. If the grad school idea doesn’t pan out, then Adam looks for a good job that is to his liking somewhere in the US and I tag along and find something wherever we land. We are really looking forward to finishing up our time in Peace Corps and starting the next big adventure. Yes, we miss all of you back home, but we just can’t pass up this opportunity to see a part of the world that we may not come back to. We’ll keep the blog up and running and update it as we can on the road.
For the time being though, we are focused on wrapping up our projects here, and trying to make everyone understand that we will soon be leaving. It is going to go so fast, I just know it, and although we are ready to leave it will be sad to go. I hope that all of you are well and happy back there in the states. Until next time…
Andrea
Happy Birthday Madiba!
July 19, 2007
Our time here in South Africa is growing ever shorter. Finally though, the strike is over, so at least we are back at work! We also just finished up our last school holiday. The first week was spent in Pretoria, attending our Close of Service conference. It was one last time to hang out with all of our Peace Corps friends, and learn about the ‘right way’ to wrap up your Peace Corps service. We had a great time, spending a few days with friends at a nice lodge just outside of Pretoria. Many people, including ourselves, have applied to finish our term early, and some have even already finished and returned to the US. After the conference finished, we headed to Mozambique! What a beautiful country!! We had a fantastic time there – walking on the beach, playing in the ocean, and eating wonderful, fresh seafood every day. Our first stop was the capital city, Maputo. We wandered the city and ate delicious pastries (something you can’t find in South Africa!) and took a ferry ride across the estuary to a small fishing village on the other side. Our second night there, we wandered over to the fish market with a few friends. Here you can pick out fresh fish, prawns, mussels, crabs or anything else that swims or crawls in the ocean for you dinner, and then wander next door to an outdoor square full of small restaurants, where for a small fee they will cook it up for you with some rice and salad.
Our next stop was the small beach town of Tofo, and what a beach they have! This area is known for its unusually high concentrations of whale sharks and manta rays – two of the sea’s biggest creatures. We were eager to have a chance to see them, so the first day we headed out on an ‘ocean safari’. Eight of us piled into an inflatable boat with snorkeling gear and headed out to sea. One man sits up high on a tall chair and serves as the spotter. We first came across a pod of dolphins that were swimming all around the boat – clearly visible in the clear waters. Then our first whale shark was spotted. We were told to put on our masks and fins as they positioned the boat in its path and then we slipped quietly into the water. You can’t miss a whale shark! Immediately upon putting my face into the water and looking down, there it was – a 7.5m (23 feet) long shark! Not as scary as it sounds though, as they eat only tiny plankton, hence the whale part of their name. The whale shark swam along – a uniform grey with distinctive white spots – completely unbothered by our presence. We stayed with it for a half an hour, just swimming alongside it as it fed near the surface of the water. It was an awesome experience to be dwarfed by this gigantic fish. I noticed then that the other people were starting to head back to the boat, so I took one last look, turned around, and came face to face with another whale shark! It had been swimming along behind the first one, I guess, unbeknownst to me, and I actually had to back peddle just to get away from its big mouth. It gave me quite a shock! Back on the boat, we set off again and shortly found another whale shark. Adam and the others got back in, but I was feeling a bit seasick at this point so decided to stay on board. This one wasn’t quite as friendly though, because as soon as they spotted it, it dove down into the depths of the ocean and away from the pesky people.
Back on shore, we only had an hour to rest before setting out for our first scuba dive. We did a somewhat shallow dive first, to get re-acclimated to diving, as it was the first time we had done it since we learned back in December. We went out to a reef called The Salon and had a fantastic dive – our first in tropical waters. I’m still not to the point where I can totally enjoy myself down there – I spend most of my time reminding myself to relax and breathe, and trying to get my buoyancy correct so that you just float neutrally in the water and don’t sink or rise. But we saw a huge moray eel, some lobsters and tons of colorful fish – it was a good dive! Adam sucked up all his air super fast though, so we had to cut it a little shorter than the others. We surfaced with one of the guides, and I rose way too fast because I forgot to deflate my vest first. It was ok though because we weren’t diving very deep, so no, I didn’t get the bends! It was also good that I rose fast because the effects of my day on the ocean were starting to catch up to me and as soon as I hit the surface I had to feed the fish. Not fun, but seeing the reef in those clear waters was well worth it. We were supposed to do a deep dive the next morning, but a storm came in that night a churned up the ocean, making it too rough to launch the boat. So we took a day to relax and the next day headed farther north to Vilanculos – a bigger village, also spectacularly located on the beach. (On a side note, they launch the boats – inflatables with engines on the back – right from the beach. You all have to push it out into the surf until it’s floating, then jump on and the skipper picks the right moment to cruise over the cresting waves. Then on the return, they drive the boat as fast as possible right at the shore, not cutting the engine until the very last minute, when the boat beaches itself on the sand and comes to a full stop. It was a tad frightening the first time, heading full throttle right at the beach, but was a source of excitement once you knew what to expect.)
In Vilanculos, we wandered the town and the big market there on the first day. Adam had a pair of pants made by a tailor in a tiny stall at the market who used an old pedal powered Singer sewing machine. To buy the fabric and have the pants made cost around $10! The next day we set off on a dhow (traditional sail boat) trip to the Bazaruto Islands National Park, about 15km offshore. We traveled with four South African guys, a British couple, and two local guides. The first night we camped on the beach on one of the islands, and then the next day got to explore the island and go snorkeling on a reef just near the beach. The current was super strong that day, so all you had to do was get in the water next to the reef wall and just let it carry you along. It was some of the best snorkeling I have ever done. The water was quite cold that day but the number and variety of fish was amazing. I saw colors of fish I had never imagined – almost glowing with orange, purple and blue - it was quite spectacular. We sailed back to the mainland in the afternoon and spent one more night in Vilanculos before beginning to work our way (slowly) back to South Africa. That night we ate at a nice resturaunt overlooking the ocean. Adam and I both ordered fresh fish, which came with rice, fries, salad and fresh bread and cost around 200 meticas – about $9. Adam pointed out that this fantastic meal (including a local beer!) cost about the same as a Fillet-o-fish value meal at McDonalds! I’ll take Mozambique any day!
We stopped again in Tofo for two more nights, and arranged for one more dive. This time a deep one, to a reef called The Office, where there is a manta ray cleaning station. (The dive instructors had a good time of it, joking ‘oh, just another day at the office!’) This time we would be going to 25m (75 ft) and would be with an instructor the whole time to get our deep diver certification. The water was absolutely clear this day – from the surface you could see all the way down to the reef. It was amazing. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get my ears to equalize (you have to keep popping your ears all the way down to keep the pressure in your head the same as the water) and therefore couldn’t complete the dive. I tried for 10 minutes and then had to return to the boat. Adam was successful however, and had a good dive in amazingly clear water and got his deep diver certification. There was a manta ray cleaning station at this reef – meaning a place where the rays come to be cleaned by tons of little fish – but unfortunately there weren’t any rays in the area for the dive. They eluded us this trip, so maybe we’ll have to go back sometime to try again. We stayed one more night in Maputo and then made our way back to South Africa. I stayed with Adam in Pretoria for two days before heading back to the village. Adam stayed for another few days to have a dentist appointment as he cracked his front tooth while eating a salad at our Peace Corps conference!
Now we’re both back in the village and back at work. The teacher unions finally came to an agreement with the government for a 7.5% pay raise after striking for 4 weeks. The original government offer was 6% so teachers stayed away from school for four weeks for a 1.5% raise. Not worth it if you ask me! But our teachers were really starting to get frustrated about the strike too and I think they’re all glad to be back at work. As I said before our time here is beginning to run out. We will be leaving the village around the 4th of September, so only have 7 weeks left. I can’t believe it! Looking back, I think two years has gone by pretty fast, and this next month and a half is going to absolutely fly. Many people have been asking about our post Peace Corps plans, so here they are. Starting September 17 we are taking a month long field guide training course in Kruger National Park. Adam and I have both loved the time that we have spent seeing animals in the national parks here, so we signed up to take a month long class where we will go on game drives and walks every day, attend lectures about the plants, animals, and environment, and live in a bush camp in the park. It is the first level towards becoming a certified South African field guide, but lots of people take it for fun too and for me at least, it will look interesting on the resume. After that is finished in October, we are going to once again hit the road. We both feel that we don’t really have too many responsibilities in our lives right now, which is a unique situation, and that we should take full advantage of that fact. So we are going to travel for a while around southern Africa, starting in Namibia and heading east, then north, and if time and money allows, hit Southeast Asia on the way back to the States. At this point we don’t know how long we will travel for, so you’ll just have to stay tuned. Yes, we want to avoid the real world for as long as possible! After the travels are complete and we are just about broke, our life remains up in the air. I am currently studying to take the GRE (on September 7th!) and am going to apply to a number of graduate schools for a Masters in environmental education or environmental studies. If I am accepted, then back to school I go (starting fall 2008) and Adam looks for a job wherever we land. If the grad school idea doesn’t pan out, then Adam looks for a good job that is to his liking somewhere in the US and I tag along and find something wherever we land. We are really looking forward to finishing up our time in Peace Corps and starting the next big adventure. Yes, we miss all of you back home, but we just can’t pass up this opportunity to see a part of the world that we may not come back to. We’ll keep the blog up and running and update it as we can on the road.
For the time being though, we are focused on wrapping up our projects here, and trying to make everyone understand that we will soon be leaving. It is going to go so fast, I just know it, and although we are ready to leave it will be sad to go. I hope that all of you are well and happy back there in the states. Until next time…
Andrea
Playing in the sand!!!
At the fish market
The Dhow
posted by aliberatinsa at 1:11 AM
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