Lots More Photos

It's long overdue, but I have finally posted lots more photos. The dearth of photos has been due to two things. One, forgetting my camera in Durban over Christmas vacation. And two, the slow upload speed over the cellphone connection. But both problems have been remedied at this point. Amazingly, I managed to recover my camera four months after I left it in a backpackers in Durban. As for the internet speed, I believe the local cellphone tower was upgraded, because now I get a 3G connection (which is amazing for a rural village anywhere in the world, much less Africa).

My parents came to visit in April, and we spent a little over two weeks traveling around the eastern part of South Africa. Just a brief overview of our trips:

• One night in my village, ga-Mathabatha, staying with Agnes (the head of my organization)
• Over to Graskop and Sabie
• A four night backpacking trip from Sabie over to Graskop (not really backpacking, as we got to stay in outstanding little huts along the way)
• Into Kruger, the amazing game park here
• South, around Swaziland (staying at a guesthouse on a pig farm along the way)
• Two nights in St. Lucia, an estuary game park along the coast
• One night in Durban, with a breathtaking view of the Indian Ocean from our room
• Up to the Drakensberg mountain range, where we stayed in the Royal Natal park
• And finally, returning to Pretoria before my parents headed off

My parents brought many books and other niceties for me to enjoy, but one of the best was my nicer camera, which I had originally decided to leave at home. So along the way, I was able to make up for the lack of photos and captured some of the beautiful places and things we saw. And I have selected a few the highlight places along our journey, and have posted 27 new photos! You can see them by going to:

Album: Traveling South Africa with my parents
http://picasaweb.google.com/nathanntg/TravelingSouthAfricaWithMyParents

Six Months

Just this week I realized that I have now been living in Africa for six months. It is amazing how quickly the time is going by here. First off, I figured it is a good excuse to post some long overdue photos:

http://picasaweb.google.com/nathanntg/PeaceCorpsSite

There are photos from when I walked to a hill that overlooks my village and a few showing my room, which I recently reorganized in an attempt to make it more personal and homey. That meant better organizing my stuff (so that everything wasn't sitting in piles on the floor) and getting a map and tablecloth.

The other day I was reminded of a fun story, which I had forgotten about. On the way to our first in-service training, back in December, I stopped by the site of another volunteer for a day. His site happens to be walking distance from a small-scale game reserve, so he and I headed over to the fence in hopes of seeing giraffes. Walking along the fence, we found a semblance of a gate (more like a place where you could crawl under the fence). My friend has been told by locals in the village that you could enter the game reserve there, so headed in. Maybe not the safest idea, in case there was some huge predators, but we walked along the dirt road and ended up seeing a huge family of ostriches (a male and a female, and about eight or nine little babies). So we sat a safe distance away and just watched as the meandered along, taking no notice of us, and picking through the grass for food. There was something very special about getting to sit and watch that.

Photos from Site

So I am well on my way to having my own internet access. I have at least gotten online at this point, and will eventually buy the little device I need so that I do not have to borrow one from my organization. But I did manage to post seven photos of my site.

This last weekend, I attended a ceremony celebrating the girls who completed initiation school. It was a week long program, where they camp out, sing songs and do other secret activities. Two of the photos are from that event, where there were about 450 girls wearing traditional outfits. Keep in mind that the event started at 7AM on a rainy Sunday, so a number of the girls were shivering. The poverty/wealth dichotomy was well represented, as some of the initiates were clearly underfed and otherwise unhealthy, while others were picked up in BMW SUVs.

Peace Corps Site