0 Lesson no 3

 

Load shedding

 

Load shedding is one of many words that I had never heard before I came to South Africa. But after living here for almost ten months now I had more than enough chances to experience it myself!

As electricity in South Africa is always scarce, from time to time it may happen that it doesn’t suffice to meet the country’s demand. In these cases the electricity supply in certain changing areas is interrupted to avoid a national black-out that would have much worse consequences. And that’s called load shedding. Unfortunately load shedding often occurs in the evening hours when it’s not only dark and cold, but also when people want to cook. But as South Africans are very creative there are already lots of load shedding recipes available on the internet!

There also is scheduled load shedding that’s announced in advance. In summer people said there would be a lot of load shedding now to save electricity for the winter, but actually I feel like the load shedding got more and more since I came here and gets even worse now that it is winter. For me that’s not even such a big problem, because as I live at work and I’ve got the big luxury that we have an emergency generator. But normal households don’t and even many facilities where you would expect it don’t. So it regularly happens to me that I arrive at the gym motivated to hit the treadmill and suddenly it just stops moving under my feet. But that’s a comparably small problem. I have much more pity with all those people that are sitting in their cold and dark houses without any electricity and even the batteries of cell phones and laptops are slowly dying – and that sometimes several days a week!

0 Baking cupcakes at St Mary's

This Monday was a school holiday and I could finally fulfil the promise that I made to the St Mary's children to come and bake with them. During the normal school weeks it is always difficult because there wouldn't be enough time between coming from school, eating and doing homework. So when I arrived on Monday morning everybody was happy about the extra program because normally the children are often bored and don't know what to do on free days. They were even happier when I showed them what I had brought for decorating our cupcakes and I think that actually was the part that they enjoyed most of our baking session. In the end our results looked quite good even though I had to stop my assistants from burrying the cupcakes under a thick layer of colourful decor.

I also had my personal photographers that captured every step in pictures - sometimes maybe a bit blurred, but it's the memory that counts!

0 Lesson no 2

Weather

 

South Africa is situated in the southern subtropical zone, but due to varying elevation and the influence of the Indian and Atlantic Ocean it has a wide variety of climates. The Eastern coast for example is especially in winter the warmest part of the country thanks to the warm Agulhas Current. The climate at the western coast and also many parts of the country’s interior is much colder. Johannesburg on the other hand is situated at an altitude of more than 1700 metres above sea level. I need to drive only an hour to Pretoria which is less elevated and where the temperatures can be about 5 or 6 degrees Celsius warmer. 

So far here in Joburg the temperatures were quite enjoyable – even in summer. Most of the time they were between 25 and 30 degrees, on some rare days also up to 35 degrees. But because of the high elevation it’s very easy to get sunburned – especially for me with my rather sensitive skin – so that I sometimes only had to stay in the sun for 15 minutes until I started to turn red…In late spring and summer it was also raining almost every day. But not that long lasting gentle drizzling rain that I was used to from Germany. Instead it normally only rained in the evenings and most of the time only for less than an hour but so heavy that the streets seemed to turn into dirty rivers. Now that it is winter we haven’t had any rain for at least two months. That’s why it is very dry and bushfires are developing everywhere. Besides the winter temperatures for the moment are very cold! With up to 20 degrees during the day of course it is still quite warm compared to German winter, but at night the temperatures are almost dropping to freezing point. As our building is very badly isolated, my windows don’t shut completely and I only have a tiny little heater in my room I feel like living very close to the South Pole!

But what I really love about the South African weather is that no matter what season it is the sun is actually always shining. So even if it is cold for the moment you just need to go out into the sun to heat up - so it’s not comparable to the dark and uncomfortable German winter days.

0 Lesson no 1

 As I promised today I am starting with my "South African lessons" beginning with quite a serious topic.

 

 

Xenophobia

 

In the last months South Africa was making lots of headlines in the international press because of the increasing xenophobic violence against foreign nationals which already caused deaths and many more injured since the beginning of this year. Also in the previous years there have been xenophobic riots again and again that seem not to fit the picture of the united South African “rainbow nation”.

This year it all started in Soweto, Johannesburg’s most popular township very close to my place, when a Somali shop owner shot a 14-year-old boy trying to rob his shop. This incident caused a series of attacks and looting of Somali, Pakistani, Ethiopian and Bangladeshi owned shops all over Soweto. It was even reported that the police played an active role in the attacks and helped the attackers raiding the shops. 

In March the violence spread to Limpopo, a province in the north of Johannesburg, where many more shops were looted and their owners violently pushed out of their villages. When on the 21^st of March Zulu King Goodwill Zwelithini publicly said that foreigner should go back to their home countries instead of enjoying the wealth that should have been for local people many foreign nationals became scared because of his big influence under the Zulus.

In April the attacks also spread to KwaZulu-Natal, the easternmost province, and caused the first couple of deaths when people were trapped in their burning shops. In the following days clashes between looters, foreigners and the police erupted, mostly around Durban. Some country’s authorities already started repatriating their nationals and four refugee camps have been set up but luckily it looks like the situation calmed down a little bit in the last few weeks.

Even though I was not far away from the riots in Soweto I luckily didn’t see anything myself. But many friends told me that they saw people chasing foreigners or people looting shops. Furthermore the consequences can’t be overlooked as many shops only consist of burned ruins and other owners don’t dare to open their shops anymore. Also when I came back from my last holidays in April I was first a little bit chocked. We hadn’t heard about any news during our trip and then on our last evening before returning to Johannesburg we got a warning message from our AFS coordinator saying that a train full with Zulus was on their way from Durban to Johannesburg to chase foreigners. Without knowing what had been going on in the last weeks we were quite concerned because we didn’t know if we as foreigners could also be concerned – especially because our coordinator was talking about possible evacuation plans if the situation should become too bad. But back in Joburg we didn’t get into any trouble because the violence never was against white foreigners.

Last week I also met a woman that was in a shop during a looting and her face was completely disfigured by burn injuries. She will be marked by that event for the rest of her life and I think that there is no chance for her to be ever again able to walk around without everyone looking at her severe burns. Now I just hope that the riots finally came to an end, that there will be no more innocent people that will have to suffer like that and all the shop owners won’t have to live in anxiety anymore!

0 World Play Day

Today is World Play Day and at Cotlands that meant a whole day full of many playing children. Additionally to our own Early Learning Group children this morning about 60 more children, lots of other visitors and the press arrived at Cotlands and the whole building was turned into a big play house. In different rooms and at our two playgrounds there were many different playing stations set up for the children: inside they could do puzzles, play with blocks or Lego, dress up in our Fantasy Room and paint pictures with many different materials. Outside they could let off some steam at the playgrounds, jump on the trampoline, do rope skipping, sack races or egg-and-spoon races, play Twister or climb the jungle gym. Then when everyone was exhausted and hungry all the children got a goodbye lunch. All in all it was like a big birthday party and the children really had lots of fun, but see yourself!

0 Finally a sign of life from me again!

I’m very very sorry for writing so irregularly in the last weeks! I always have the best intentions to finally write a new post but then I just don’t find the time to actually do it … but I promise to be on the mend! That’s why I decided to write one “South African lesson” per week from now on. There are so many things here that already became completely normal for me so that I don’t even think about mentioning them in my posts. But I’m sure that for you many of these things wouldn’t be se self-evident and so they’re maybe worth their own posts.

To bring you up-to-date concerning my work at the moment I can tell you that quite some things changed for me. My project partner Stella, from who I wasn’t separated for more than one day in the last eight months, is already back in Germany since one week now. For me that means that I am living and working on my own now as the only international volunteer at Cotlands. After having done everything together for such a long time it is quite strange to be on my own now and of course it was much more fun together especially for enduring exhausting or also boring working days. But I will just see it as a challenge to do all this on my own now!

In my last posts I already complained a little bit about not having too much work to do at Cotlands for the moment but that also got better now as I am doing the same work on my own now so that I am quite busy now. I still do a lot of office work, in the last weeks I also had to help a lot with sorting store rooms and in the afternoons I still do the homework supervision at St Mary’s children’s home. Here I am now especially trying to help a 12-year-old boy that can’t read or write which was only recognized some weeks ago. Even the pronunciation of the single letters is still quite a challenge for him – and for me teaching him is actually quite a challenge too! For the moment I am making an own letter memory with him to introduce him to the alphabet and first words in a playful way.

Furthermore the children now plan to start a children’s home soccer team and want to play against other homes. So we are sometimes practising with everyone and playing some matches which is also for me a lot of fun because some of the children are quite good!

This week I also represented Cotlands at the “Citizen’s Golf Day”. Right next to hole 4 Louisa and me, luckily I was allowed to bring some help because otherwise I would have had to sit there on my own all day long, had our little Cotlands stand with a big box for donations and some prizes for our raffle. Everyone that wanted to play the hole had to – more or less voluntarily - listen to our Cotlands promotion and in the end we were quite satisfied with the collected donations and happy about our first caddy tour!

For now I think that’s all, but as I promised: You will hear from me soon!

0 Next stop Namibia

The second part of our holidays led us to beautiful Namibia with its deserts, mountains and small German influenced cities. Arriving in the capital Windhoek we could directly see and hear many of these influences: Not only the city’s architecture reminded me of German towns but also many signs were written both in German and English. Also when we went into shops it often happened that people would start to talk German with us as soon as they recognized our accent.

In Windhoek we also had the chance to try a selection of local game meet. In a “typically German” arranged restaurant we all had to test the Bushmen’s Sosatie, a kebab with meat of springbok, kudu, zebra, crocodile and oryx, and they all tasted very good especially the kudu.

After Windhoek we went on to the Spitzkoppe, a strikingly shaped group of granite peaks standing out from the flat surrounding plains. Here we spent the night at the campsite that’s directly at the foot of the Spitzkoppe and for me it was the best camping location of the entire holidays. We were almost the only people camping there and as the campsites were quite spread we were completely undisturbed and could enjoy a beautiful sunset and sunrise behind the mountains. Furthermore as we were far away from any city and there were no clouds the starry sky was more beautiful than I’ve ever seen before. We could easily see the Milky Way and after the sunset we just lay around outside and watched the stars.

Then our way led us to the coast, to Swakopmund. On our way the landscape slowly but surely turned into dry desert until we reached Swakopmund where the desert’s sand dunes meet the Atlantic Ocean. In the city we could also recognize a lot of German influence and if we ignored the desert visible behind the last houses it almost looked like a small coastal town at the North Sea.

The day after we did a little detour to the north to explore the Skeleton Coast, an extremely dry section of the Namibian coast, which is known for its dense ocean fogs and its extremely inhospitable climate. The coast is characterised by lots of wrecks that stranded due to the feared Benguela current and many animal skeletons, especially those of whales. We also stopped at Cape Cross with its gigantic seal colony.

After that it was finally time to drive deep into the Namib! We pitched our tent close to the popular Sossusvlei, meaning as much as dead-end-marsh and being a combination of the Nama word Sossus (dead end) and the Afrikaans word Vlei (marsh), which is a salt and clay pan surrounded by some of the highest dunes in the world. Then of course it was time for our first desert hike. We had already climbed some smaller dunes in the days before, but for this day we had big plans: Dune 45 for sunrise, then Big Daddy and finally Elim Dune for sunset. Dune 45 was still comparably easy to climb and we reached the top perfectly on time for sunrise that bathed the red dunes into warm light. Then we went on to Big Daddy that is one of the world’s highest dunes with its 380 metres. Standing at the foot of the dune we couldn’t even believe that it should actually be 380 metres high but arriving at the top it felt like at least 1000 metres! Even though it was before eight o’clock when we started climbing Big Daddy it soon became unbearably hot (about 40°C), the top didn’t want to come closer and unfortunately we had left our water behind because we thought that it wouldn’t take too long. Foolishly we had also decided to go without shoes and the sand became hotter and hotter under our feet. But arriving at the top - even though we felt like just having run a marathon because climbing in the sand is a lot more exhausting than you can imagine - it was worth all the effort and we enjoyed a beautiful view over never-ending red dunes.

When we had made our way down - definitely the best part because running down the steep dunes feels almost like running in absence of gravity - with a little detour through the Deadvlei with its dead camel thorn trees we went back to our camp and allowed ourselves to rest a little bit at the pool because it was much too hot to move in any way. Then it was already time to climb the next and luckily last dune for sunset. To our great relief Elim Dune was not too high and after Big Daddy it seemed to be just a small sandy hill.

Then we went on southward, making a little stop in the Kokerboom forest near Keetmanshoop, which is a forest consisting of the quite rare quiver trees. After a short walk in the forest we continued to our last stop the Fish River Canyon. The canyon is the second largest in the world after the Grand Canyon and the viewpoint offered us a great view over the cragged canyon landscape.

The Fish River Canyon was already in the very south of Namibia what we unfortunately got to feel at night. Even the nights before it had often been quite cold compared to the high temperatures during the day, but this night I almost froze to death even though I had put on all of my warmest clothes since my sleeping bag was very thin and especially the ground was very cold - regrettably we didn’t have camping mats.

After a hot shower the next morning we made our long way back home to Johannesburg. And what we had already feared after the cold night at the canyon proved to be true: winter has come to Joburg! As long as the sun is shining the weather is still nice, but in the evenings it’s quickly getting cold now.

Even though we were all a little bit sad, that our holidays were over so quickly we all were relieved not to have to put up a tent before sleeping and to have real beds after sleeping on the plain floor for so long what our backs weren't really grateful for. It was also quite nice to have closed and illuminated rooms again because before we couldn’t do too much after the sunset as we often only had our little torches. But all in all I really enjoyed being almost isolated from everything without Wi-Fi and any luxury, especially in the Okavango Delta where we felt like on a survival camp. Also the very diverse nature that we saw was stunning and I can only recommend Botswana and Namibia as holiday destinations for everyone that likes the nature!


» part 1 of my holiday report - Being in Botswana