One Fine Day

Just a few sentences from me before I give you another Africa post from Michelle! I'm about to start my 4th week of work, which is still kind of unbelievable. I've been enjoying it for the most part, and I really like almost all of the people I work with. I have some entertaining stories I wish I could share with you all, but I hesitate to do so in such a public place because they involve specific individuals (ask me some other time and I'd be happy to tell); I also can't talk in much detail about the nature of my cases. However, I will say that I went for 2 weeks and 2 days without wearing the same pair of shoes to work, and due to the wonder of billable hours, I now think about my life in 6 minute increments.

Ok, on to Africa. PS formatting this from gmail took foreeeever, so I hope you all enjoy.

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Hello friends!

I've been woefully remiss in updating you on my Africa adventures - I actually wrote this update twice a few days ago, but my BB deleted it both times as I tried to send. Since then, I've been in Zambia and Botswana with no internet access - no data signal up there, and the power went out both nights that I was in Zambia. So Amar, if you're reading, I meant to text you when I arrived, but I couldn't! I'm alive though, sitting in the JoBurg airport and gnawing on some biltong.

So the strategy that Amar and I had decided on for our posts is that he would give broad strokes, while I would provide the detail. My trip is nearly over now, and I'll do more when I have a proper keyboard, but I just wanted to tell you all about one fantastic day we had.

After Cape Town, we flew to Durban, then decided to travel south to the Wild Coast - specifically, Coffee Bay. It's a beautiful, undeveloped stretch of coastline along the Indian Ocean. We decided that it would be the perfect place to learn how to surf. We woke up at 8, met our dreadlocked instructor Rayno, and headed to the waves. After what seemed like 2 minutes of instructions, Rayno tossed us out to sea. Amid many belly flops and nose dives, we each managed to stand up a few times - it was exhilarating when we did. Exhausting too!

Afterwards, we headed back to the hostel and met up with a group to hike to the Hole in the Wall. It's only 9km, but going up, down, and around hills that plunge into the sea stretched the hike to 4 hours. We saw whales and dolphins breaching, rock hyraxes, waterfalls, cows, pebbled beaches, and a handful of local children fishing.

I'd like to digress briefly to mention our tour guide, Joseph. Joseph was born and bred in Coffee Bay, and was awesome for the following reasons: 1) he did the hike barefoot, 2) he was funny and gregarious, and 3) he had the best repertoire of signature sayings ever! Every speech was precluded with a booming "GOOD PEOPLE!" and concluded with a satisfied "sweet!" (pronounced "sa-WEET!"). However, his (and our) favorite by far was "GET IN THERE!" It's a versatile phrase, used for such purposes as encouraging soccer players to score, telling people to drink, and shouting at kids to get out of the way of an oncoming car (modified to "GET OUT THERE!").

We finally made it to the Hole in the Wall, where we devoured grilled cheese and tomato sandwiches toasted over a fire. The hole itself is a hole (duh) that runs through a mountain that juts out of the water just off the coast. Wow, most poorly constructed sentence ever. Anyway, the waves come crashing through and are amplified - it's really a wondrous sight. After a bit, Amar, Abhay, and I decided that we had to do the jump - hardly anyone else in our group dared. We swam out, climbed up on a rock ledge at the top of the hole, and at Joseph's signal ("GET IN THERE!"), leapt out and plunged the 3 or 4 meters into the sea. I was terrified, but so glad that I did it.

At night, we visited the local village's headman. The Xhosa people of the area live in round green huts with thatched grass roofs, and his was the largest. Kids met us on the road and chatted with us as we walked, and we all settled in for an evening of food and dancing. Amar and Abhay sat on chairs, but I had to sit on the floor because I'm a woman (I endured some ribbing for this - more discussion at a later time). Girls performed traditional dances while other children sang and clapped. We ate samp and beans, mealie pap (for those of you who have been to The Shebeen, it's not quite cheesy grits), and soup with cabbage. We washed it all down with shared buckets of maize beer – it was called something like ung(click)oboti. There are so many different clicks, and Westerners can't really hear the difference, but I'm proud to say that I attempted to repeat the word while in Botswana and I was understood! Woo.

It was a fun evening - one of the village dogs came and plopped into my lap, we exchanged questions about culture with the villagers (typical dowry is 10 heads of cattle), and at Joseph's urging ("GET IN THERE! SHAKE THAT BODY!"), joined the villagers in dancing. Later, when we had left, the three of us went stargazing and marveled at the shooting stars and the unfamiliar southern sky.

Whew! Third time's the charm, hopefully this goes through. I have many, many more things to tell you all, but hopefully this will tide you over until I get home to a proper keyboard (typing a long email on a BB is hard enough, but I also haven't been able to cut my nails in nearly 3 weeks!). I'd love to see you all when I get home on Tuesday!

P.S. I met a TJ girl in Cape Town and a UVA kid in Zambia. Small world!