Our First Road Trip

Our First Road Trip

Last weekend, both ALA and Nova Pioneer had their mid-term breaks, so we could took advantage of the break to explore outside of Johannesburg.  We found a small village, named Machadodorp (after a Portuguese general), with an Airbnb that we used as our base to do some hiking in the area. 

On our way out, we detoured to visit Pretoria.  In spring, in South Africa, the jacaranda tree is in full bloom and, apparently, Pretoria has an abundance of jacarandas.  On the ride in, I randomly looked on TripAdvisor for "jacaranda viewing."  One post suggested that the view from the Union Buildings affords a great place to see the purple of the flowers, so I plugged it in. We navigated through Pretoria, interested in see another city in South Africa, then made our way to the Union Buildings -- which seemed a huge historic site (to our surprise).  We parked, then asked the always helpful parking guy -- can we visit inside?  Oh no, he laughed -- that is for President Zuma!  But, don't worry, he's not here since it's the weekend!

In our complete ignorance, we had driven up to what is comparable to the White House, and just wondered -- can we come in??  Well, now we know better!  We had a brief, but very helpful, lesson of the different branches of SA government and some cool photo ops.

Overlooking the city of Pretoria

The Union Buildings, working place of the President

Nelson Mandela and Hans

The jacaranda trees in front of the US embassay
(NB: illegal photo!)

Beautiful purple blossoms of the jacaranda

The next day, we went hiking.  Rather than state/national parks, the hiking here is often on private farms and you pay the owners a fee to hike on their land.  The trails are actually maintained quite well and offer facilities too.  Looking on-line, many of the hikes are two-five day hikes with huts in between -- we'll definitely try that the next time.

Here are some pictures of our first day of hiking;

We hiked up a ravine, then down to this waterfall --- beautiful.

The second day, we were more out in the open, on a working farm (cattle and game).  And -- another waterfall to hike to! The only problem with both hikes is that some of the signs were ONLY in Afrikaans.  Which we don't speak.  We honestly just hoped that there was no pertinent information that remained untranslated...

We also visited a cute town called Dullstrom.  A bookstore/smoking store with a shelf for 

"Woman Weepies."

Now we're back at work -- and back into our regular routines, which feels pretty good, too!

Fun events at Nova Pioneer and ALA

We have now reached the mid-term break-- halfway through our first term here!  We've been so busy with our new jobs, the time has just flown by.

However, in addition to all the work involved in starting a new job, there have also been some fun events.

At my school, Nova Pioneer, we had Sports Day last Friday.  Lots of fun races and the last event was a tug of war --- and my Grade R out-tugged the Grade 1s!  As you can imagine, the kids were pretty happy....Here's a few pictures:

We also had spirit week this week -- so Monday was crazy socks day, Tuesday was twin day, Wednesday was Disney character and Thursday (my personal favorite) was pajama day.  Of course, the kids were pretty stinkin' cute in their outfits! Here are some twin day photos (or triplet as the case may be!):

Last weekend, at ALA, there was an all-school event called the Battle of the Axe.  It was the boys' halls competing against each other in events like egg toss, wheelbarrow race, etc.  I actually didn't stay for the whole thing because the Michigan game was on (must keep priorities straight, even in ZA!) and I didn't take any pictures because all the events were in the dark -- which especially made the egg toss challenging...

But the girls' halls were there, too, to cheer on their boy hall counterpart.  Since my hall, Keza Hall, is new, we had to decide what shirt color to choose.  Most of colors suggested were already being used by other halls, so I said -- what about tie-dye?  Then we can make our own shirts (just a little of my Ann Arbor hippie coming out...).  And that's what we did!  It was actually a really fun event and, even though I don't have a ton of experience with tie-dying, the shirts came out pretty cool.  Here's a few pictures of that:

It's mid-term break for both Nova Pioneer and ALA, so Hans, Nate and I will be heading off on our first adventure!  We're going to Loskop Dam Nature Preserve and do some hiking over the weekend.  We're excited to have a chance to explore outside the city a bit -- I'll be sure to take pictures to share our trip.

Notes from Hans

Driving in South Africa

Being able to drive in Africa is wonderful.  After having no choice but to take all sorts of taxis/buses for three years in Cameroon (and Susan in the Central African Republic for two), many wedged in like a sardine between other brave travellers - including one time a big mommie on one side and  a goat on the other -  it’s pure freedom to have a car!  

We lived our first two weeks in SA in a fairly posh gated community that ALA housed us in called Jackal Creek Golf Estates.  It’s about 3 miles from ALA so it’s a quick taxi trip.   Not all people have cars and public transportation is quite spotty.  As such, lots of people walk here and there’s a neat energy, particularly in the morning and early evening, as people hustle or simply mosey to whatever destination the day calls for.   Despite this significant human foot traffic, I’ve seen only one or two white people walking.  You’d expect 1 in 5 to be white considering whites are 20% of SA’s population, but that’s not the case and it’s yet another noticeable example of inequity in this nation:  whites rarely don’t have cars.

Though the Jackal Creek to ALA walk sounds like it might be a nice walk now and then, we’ve been advised by on multiple fronts that it’s not that safe to walk around, even in the daytime.

Before we started driving, we used Taxify, an outfit out of Estonia that is developing a strong presence in the Joburg area, and is a rival to Uber.  We loved Taxify.  Taxify cars have to be 2012 or newer and the drivers are friendly.  From our experience around 50% of the drivers were from SA with the balance coming from “Zim” (Zimbabwe) or elsewhere.  All sorts of personalities but for the most part all very friendly and talkative and, as it turned out, our early mode of transportation to ALA, the market, restuarants, and the like.  They were also my primary source of information on buying a car in SA.

You can find all kinds of cars here but three things should be considered:  what’s the petro mileage like (~$4/gallon here), how “hot” a car is it for thieves, and how easy is it to find parts?  Turns out the ones for which you can always easily find parts are Toyota, Ford, VW, and Nissan.  All the others - Jaguar, Puegot, Nissan, Honda, Chevy, Opal, Audi, BMW and some brands we’d never heard of  - are on the roads but not as many, thus influencing how many spare parts are in country.  At least according to my Taxify driver buddies.

We bought a 1994 Toyota Tazz with 63,000 miles on it (odometer read 101,000 km).  Low mileage was important to us and this car was clean and owned by an older lady who only put just over 2500 miles/year on the car.  It’s nothing glamorous, has power nothing, no evidence of ever having even a radio, but it’s paid off and it’s ours.  

Our first two weeks with it were interesting as it was without a front passenger seat which I’d asked the dealership to fix (couldn’t be adjusted, so they took it out and told me to come back).  This made for interesting looks from others whenever I’d pick up Susan or she’d pick me up.  Whoever got picked up had to sit in the back.  Not sure what was going through the locals mind, but I wouldn’t be surprised if some were asking themselves, “so, in their country the guy (or girl) isn’t allowed to sit in the front??”.  Funny stuff but it was great to get the seat installed and return to the same plane.

If they’d only put the steering wheel on the right side of the car and if we didn’t have to drive on the wrong side of road, we’d be all set.   Shifting with the left hand and having the turn signal on the right side of the steering column (seems odd... isn’t it?) forced us  to resort back to actually thinking while we drive.  Now I just need to pay attention to the robots (traffic lights), roll up the windows at robots (vigilance against thieves - has the advice been too overzealous?), and remember to stay in the left lane when on the freeway so the speedsters can pass us on the right, we’ll be all set.  Whatever the case, it’s great driving in Africa!  

This one goes to my FUMCN co-teachers

At the school where I teach, Nova Pioneer, the students get finished early on Fridays.  The staff have a meeting, then professional development for the rest of the afternoon.  It's a good chance for us to focus on perfecting the craft of teaching, rather than just doing it.

This Friday, however, was meant to be a staff meeting, then team building.  We had completed the meeting part and were outside playing a game (meaning to keep a ball in the air using teamwork and communication, only mildly successful in the attempt) when there was a loud crash near the building.  A young man, who had just been climbing a ladder to fix the roof, had fallen off.  At first, from our distance, it just looked like a bad fall until I heard him cry out, "My leg is dead."

A small aside -- each year at FUMCN, all of us teachers did CPR/First Aid training together.  I always thought, I sure hope I'M not the one at an emergency.  I'll never remember what to do.  And, I always felt vaguely ridiculous acting out the steps.  Run to the "victim," (maybe Tonja on the ground), turn to a colleague (Ms. Juli) and say, "call 911."  Then through the other steps....who actually does that?

Well, it turns out, I do.  I ran to the guy (his colleague was not doing anything), took one look at his leg and realized -- not good. I was pretty sure it was a compound fracture from the way it was bent.  There was also some blood.  I turned to our school admin and said, "call the ambulance right away."  Then realized that blood was coming from the young guy's hand so I asked for a first aid kit.  I wrapped the hand, introduced myself and explained -- you probably have a command fracture, whatever you do, don't move.  Then thought, "what else can I do?"  I remembered from the first aid class (who would have thought I could remember this stuff??), treat for shock!  So, we got every available towel, coat and pillow to support him.  And, then we waited.

And, waited.  For the Americans at the school, it seemed unacceptably long.  For the South Africans, they were actually impressed it wasn't longer.  For the young man, it probably felt way too long.  But, me and another teacher stayed by his side, keeping him warm and talking to him, waiting for the ambulance to arrive.

When it did, it was with a big sigh of relief as they administered pain medication, then carted him away.  The rest of us retired to to the staff room where our head of school did a good debrief.  Then, she opened the bottle of wine that had been meant for the "team building" portion of the afternoon (that's how they do it in ZA).   I honestly was shaking after the experience and so thankful for the CPR/First Aid classes I had done with my FUMCN teachers. Who knew that it would ever come into use? And, I hope I don't need it again anytime soon.  

Here's the team (or most of it):