25 August 2007

24 August 2007

Well, that’s it. Two years have slipped away (and sometimes dragged by!) and our work in these four, small, rural primary schools has come to a close. All in all the week was quite anti-climactic. We’ve said our farewells to the teachers, and sadly didn’t get to say them to most of the kids. But I have found that saying goodbye rarely happens the way I imagine and you just have to take what you get. I felt sad, riding away from those villages for the last time, and am happy to know that in general, my memories of these years will be good ones. The schools have gathered their resources to get us a going away present. One day our Ma came home and asked if it would be ok if the school bought us a refrigerator! No? What about a computer, or a cow?! We thankfully were able to let her know that we wouldn’t be able to take those kind of things home on the plane (much less carry them around Africa for 5 months!), and made the suggestion of a gift of traditional clothes instead. So today we will be measured for our traditional outfits which will be made by a lady in the village. Photos to follow…

These last three or four weeks have been spent mainly on getting the libraries organized in the schools, and holding workshops to teach the teachers how to use books in their lessons and how to manage their new libraries. I want to say one more big “THANK YOU” to those of you who sent books to support this project. We really couldn’t have made it happen without you. I was very excited to get them all into the schools and they were met with excitement from the teachers and students when they arrived. I am confident that these books will be utilized and something learned from them.

It’s hard to look back and judge the work that we have done here. Definitely we have been disappointed with the lack of ambition and drive that some of the teachers have shown and we feel that we haven’t been used to the capacity that we potentially could have been. But I do think we have made some kind of impact here, though it is hard to put into concrete words. This last week and a half will be bittersweet. We are ready to go, but it’s going to be sad to leave this wonderful family behind. I feel a bit guilty about coming here, changing their lives, and then leaving again. Adam and I will go on to something new and exciting, but they will just carry on in their normal village lives, just without us! We don’t know how to say thank you to them, and I don’t think there is an appropriate way, but we will try! We also have the big task ahead of sorting through all the stuff we have accumulated and finding proper ways to dispose of it. Most things we will be giving away, which will be fun. We will take only a backpack each, and then be on our way!

We probably won’t write again until we hit Pretoria, where we will be subjected to all kinds of strange medical tests, and closing interviews. So keep us in your thoughts on the 5th as we leave behind two years of our life and a family that we have grown to be a part of, and as we set off to write the next chapter. Thanks for reading these simple accounts of our time here – we hope you have enjoyed it and learned something from it! Thanks also for the support all of you have given us. We are looking forward to seeing you again in a couple of months. Stay tuned for updates as we travel around the globe…

Go Siame,
Lerato

p.s. this next entry is one that I wrote a while ago, but didn’t ever post. Enjoy!!

BUGS!!!!!!!!!!

A long time ago in a magical place called Madison, Wisconsin, I saw a friend for the last time before making the long journey to South Africa. As we said our goodbyes, surrounded by the carnival-like atmosphere of the Art Fair on the Square, she had one last parting request. She had heard tales of the gigantic bugs that roamed around Africa and she wanted some photos of them. Two years later this request is still in my mind and over our time here I have collected a few of these pictures. I’m sure some other folks out there are also fascinated by giant bugs so I thought I’d post them for all to see.
So Heidi, this one’s for you… It’s the Big Bug Blog!! Enjoy!!

Andrea

WARNING: the following images may not be suitable for the squeamish…


My foot for size, but there’s also a close up for effect! Some kind of heavily armored cricket, I would guess.

Somehow it doesn’t seem like those teeny wings could get that fat body off the ground!

Adam, enjoying the cuisine that nature has to offer.

This little guy found his way into my backpack, which I discovered when trying to pack for our very first vacation.

I have no idea what this is. Maybe an ant on steroids. All I know is that it was huge and made angry hissing noises at me when getting this photograph.

Giant millipedes of the Kalahari Desert.

No African bug collection would be complete without dung beetles! They sound like airplanes when they fly by your head!

18 August 2007

17 August 2007
Well, we have 5 days of "work" left. I still am uncertain if I can ever have a real job again because "working" more than 8 hours a week seems impossible to me!!! Things are winding down. And are host mother is becoming sadder by the day as things will become quit quite when we leave.
Two weekends ago, we went to the next village over to our mother’s mother’s house (can you do that…two words with apostrophes in a row?!?!) The old lady (as she is affectionately known as turned 91. And she is still sharp as a tack and has a great sense of humor! I hope I am that funny when I am 91!!
Some excitement last week for us. Last Thursday was a holiday called Woman’s Day. [****WARNING A FUNNY JOKE IS COMING…MAYBE EVEN A LITTLE SHOVENISTIC but what can you do********] A day everyone should celebrate this ONCE A YEAR!!! (just joking ladies!!!) But anyways, Wednesday night I was told of the mission I was going to be assisting on with the host father and brother. We were going to the local farm to buy a sheep (for eating! as some family was coming to visit for the long weekend). So bright and early on Woman’s Day we head out to the farm in the new taxi (Our host father is back in business now. After giving his piece of crap car to the government for a R50,000 deposit on a new taxi, he finally received the new one. It is much BIGGER. He went from having a small van that can hold 15 passengers comfortably (20 uncomfortably) to having a 21 passenger bus that he can load with standing people and carry at least 30 people!) to buy the sheep. No luck though as the farmer had no small ones in our price range. So as we pull back into the yard, with the new bigger vehicle, we must avoid a tree. Papa then says to me, "we must cut that tree down!" By the time I returned 10 minutes later, one of the tree trunks of the tree was already down. So no slaughtering but I did get to chop down a tree on Woman’s Day! Friday was an uneventful day but there was promise for Saturday and a sheep. The sheep was delivered Friday night and we set out at 8 am to make meat. The sheep was for a small celebration for many things on Saturday. One was for the new taxi our father got, another was the little baby was turning 2 years old the following week, three most of the family was in visiting, and four it was a ‘last supper’ for us! We probably won’t see a lot of those people again. So it was a nice evening sitting around a fire and eating fresh sheep.
What a Woman's Day weekend, cutting down a treat and slaughtering a sheep!!!!
This week we have been working on assembling and teaching our school about the libraries that we were starting with you’alls help. (THANKS AGAIN) We delivered and taught some ideas on how to use the books to all four schools! It was exciting to see the things get set in place and we hope the learners will learn to be more literate and enjoy reading more!

I think that is all here.
Stay well
Adam