I don’t have a knife but I have two spoons…

So what am I eating?  I’m trying to self-cater at least a little bit, but this gets old fast when you move every few days and carry all your food along with you.

Luckily for me, everywhere in Africa the following seem to be readily available; bananas, peanuts and bread in some form.

In East Africa fruits are abundant – mangoes, oranges, papaya, watermelon, and my favorite, pineapple.  Having a pineapple just seems to make everything better.  We’ve also encountered a fair amount of cassava and plantains, which take May back to her days growing up in the Dominican Republic.  It’s easy to find fried cassava and plantain chips for sale at local groceries – both of which are delicious.

Most days I buy a real meal for dinner, either when we go out as a group or at whichever place we happen to be staying.  In Dar es Salaam, Zanzibar and Nairobi we went out to eat a few times, sampling Swahili, Indian and Chinese at reasonably priced restauarants.  The Indian food has been especially good especially in Dar, and at the home of our friend Krupa’s parents in Nairobi, where we were invited one day for lunch.

If I had to choose one food item that seems to dominate our lives it would have to be the cashew nut.  Or cashew nuts, to be precise, as you never eat just one!  After discovering that we could buy a 1 kg bag for less than $5 at the market in Dar, they quickly became an integral part of our diet.  We’ve each eaten at least 1-2 kgs of cashews since we arrived in Dar the first time and we’re still eating them.  It’s gotten so bad we all joke about how many cashews we eat and how we can never eat them again (after we finish our current supplies of course), yet we still do, everyday.    

Goodbye South Africa!

Well it looks like my time in Peace Corps South Africa has finally come to an end – about one month ago to be exact (or approximate…) It was an interesting and eventful experience as regular blog readers and friends already know!

Moving away from Durban was physically pretty easy (not including a few more trips to my favorite place – the post office) . I managed not to amass too much crap, and there were plenty of takers for all of the things I gave away. Which was nice. I hate throwing away stuff if there’s someone somewhere who can use it.

Emotionally moving wasn’t quite as easy.  I guess I really realized how well I’d gotten to know people and how close some relationships became when it got down to the point of saying goodbye for who knows how long?

I do hope to return to South Africa one day, although at this point I don’t know when.  What I do know is that I’ll miss my friends.

Chuck Norris Facts

A South African friend told me about this website…here are some of the highlights:

There is no theory of evolution, just a list of creatures Chuck Norris has allowed to live.

Chuck Norris’ tears cure cancer. Too bad he has never cried.

Guns don’t kill people, Chuck Norris kills people.

When the Boogeyman goes to sleep every night he checks his closet for Chuck Norris.

Chuck Norris is the reason why Waldo is hiding.

Chuck Norris does not play the lottery. It doesn’t have nearly enough balls.

They were going to release a Chuck Norris edition of Clue, but the answer always turns out to be “Chuck Norris. In The Library. With a Roundhouse Kick.”

Chuck Norris likes his ice like he likes his skulls: crushed.

Industrial logging isn’t the cause of deforestation. Chuck Norris needs toothpicks.

As President Roosevelt said: “We have nothing to fear but fear itself. And Chuck Norris.”

Kenny G is allowed to live because Chuck Norris doesn’t kill women.

There are no disabled people. Only people who have met Chuck Norris.

There is no chin behind Chuck Norris’ beard. There is only another fist.

Chuck Norris never goes to the dentist because his teeth are unbreakable. His enemies never go to the dentist because they have no teeth.

Chuck Norris is currently suing NBC, claiming Law and Order are trademarked names for his left and right legs.

The quickest way to a man’s heart is with Chuck Norris’ fist.

On the 7th day, God rested…. Chuck Norris took over.

Chuck Norris doesn’t throw up if he drinks too much. Chuck Norris throws down!

Chuck Norris grinds his coffee with his teeth and boils the water with his own rage.

Chuck Norris doesn’t believe in Germany.

One time while sparring with Wolverine, Chuck Norris accidentally lost his left testicle. You might be familiar with it to this very day by its technical term: Jupiter

Chuck Norris once went skydiving, but promised never to do it again. One Grand Canyon is enough.

In a fight between Batman and Darth Vader, the winner would be Chuck Norris.

Contrary to popular belief, America is not a democracy – its a Chucktatorship.

http://www.chucknorrisfacts.com/

Jo-burg to Nairobi Itinerary

Actually if you want to get technical it’s really Durban – Nairobi, since I’m leaving Durban once and for all on September 30, 2007. My next stop is good old Pretoria where I have to finish-up things with PC officially – this includes closing out my SA bank account and a lengthy medical exam that requires three consecutive samples of my POOP. PC, it is all yours. 🙂

Joburg is a good starting point for any overland trip, as it’s a big regional transportation hub. It also works out well for my PC friends/travel companions and I since Joburg is only about 30 minutes from PC-HQ in Pretoria.

As I related in the previous post – I’ve been extremely bored at work lately. This been good in a way, as its inspired/forced me to do some planning and come up with an itinerary for my trip after PC. I’m hoping to set out on October 6, 2007 and travel for a little over 3 months.

THE ITINERARY
Botswana, October 6-15

Gaborone, Palapye (to visit Emily B!), Okavango Delta, Rhino Park

I should probably tell Emily I’m coming.

Zambia, October 15-20

Victoria Falls, Lusaka

Sadly we’re going to go through Zam as quickly as possible and might not see much there other than Vic Falls.

Malawi, October 20-31

Lilongwe, Nkhata Bay, Likoma Island, Livingstonia, Manchewe Falls, Mzuzu

I’m really excited to get to the Lake, but nervous about The Lake Worm, Malaria and Dengue… I have read about some of the spots in Southern Malawi that are supposed to be really nice (Mt. Mulanje, Monkey Bay) and depending on time maybe we can make it to that part of the country.

Tanzania, November 1-14; 21-28

Dar es Salaam, Zanzibar, Serengeti National Park, Ngorogoro Crater, Kilamanjaro/Moshi

Yea Tanzania! There is so much to see and do there, the biggest drawback is that the park fees (to get into Serengeti, etc) are so expensive! To climb Mt. Kilamanjaro for example it can cost around $750. Supposedly it can be done for cheaper (like $550) but then you’re either risking your safety or skimping on your guide’s (required) salary. So climbing the actual mountain is sadly not on the itinerary; hiking around the park, however, is. I’m also pysched for Scuba on Zanzibar.

Rwanda, November 14-21

Kigali, Parc National des Volcans (Mt. Gorillas!)

Don’t worry Mom, it’s safe! Rwanda is very peaceful now and you have a better chance of tracking down the mountain gorillas in the Rwandan park than in the Ugandan one nearby.

Kenya, November 28 – December 14

Nairobi, Masai Mara Reserve, Mt. Kenya, Lake Bogoria National Park

Two of my traveling companions are shipping out on or around December 14th, so I’ve been looking at how to fill my time between Dec 14 and Dec 27th. Any suggestions?

I’ve looked into going to the Seychelles or the Maldives, but those are are pretty expense options since they cater for the resort crowd, with resort budgets. The flights aren’t cheap either despite already being on this side of the world. I’ve also looked at going to Lamu, which is a Kenyan beach town.

India, December 27 – January 12

More on that later.

5 Weeks and Counting

That’s right folks, my time in SA is coming to an end, less than 5 weeks now. My last day in Durban is on September 30th. I’m finding it very hard to stay busy at work lately, mostly because no one is giving me anything to do! I guess they figure since I’m going soon I won’t have time to finish new projects. They should know me better than that by now!

So for the past two weeks, I’ve been sitting in my office doing my best not to become bored out of my mind! Luckily today Precious took Heather and I down to the Workshop. I bought a new hat and sunglasses with bling. 🙂

Behold:

Blog Guilt

So it’s been over a month since I’ve posted anything here on my blog, and I’m feeling rather bad about it. I just don’t like posting things if I think they’ll be boring and uninteresting to read. It’s not like I havent been up to stuff in the past month, I’ve actually been kind of busy. Here’s a rundown in no particular order:
Went to Jo-burg twice. Unfortunately I don’t have anything particularly interesting to post about E’Goli (or the city of Gold as Johannesburg is also known) since when I’m there pretty much all I do is drink.
Said goodbye to my good friends Brooke, Tom and Alison who left SA for America. Tear ;(.

Spent about two weeks newly arrived group of US volunteers in the Northwest Province training village. I stayed with the Queen of Motswedi who made kick-ass samp.

Saw the light at the end of the tunnel. Only about 6 weeks left now for me in SA; I’m getting ready to say goodbye myself and having lots of mixed feelings. Erg :\.
Discovered that it’s easier to pick weevils out of rice while soaking the rice in a bowl of water. They float right to the top.

Was checked for lice by Meghan and PC Close of Service Conference. Thankfully I was clean.

Plannin my trips. More on that later.

Hot Water Bottle: My New Best Friend

I’m totally spoiled after living in Kwa-zulu Natal for 2 years.  I seriously cannot handle the cold, which considering the fact that the next time I’m going to be in North America  will be The Dead of Winter, is not a good thing at all.

The coldest it gets here in Durban is probably between 35-40 degrees.  I’ve started to react to these lows as if they were arctic temps; with layers of warm clothes, blankets and of course my hot water bottle at night.

I also live in what is basically a very pretty concrete box that has concrete walls and tile floors (imagine living in an above- ground basement).  As a consequence my apartment’s ability to retain heat is somewhat limited and I would guess that during the day its actually colder inside than outside.

On a recent trip to Joburg – where its freakin freezing – I fully felt the beneficial effects of the hot water bottle for the first time.   I had to go out and purchase my own.  Not just for sick people and little old ladies anymore!  Not when you’re freezing your ass off in your concrete box.

Why I’m slowly creeping closer to the EDGE of SANITY….

Unnecessarily Long and Pointless Meetings where little, if anything, is accomplished. I attend at least one of these per week. It will drag on for 2-3 hours. My colleagues (and sometimes myself) will argue endlessly about insignificant crap – which is why the meetings take so long.

Despite wasting 2-3 hours of everyone’s time nothing substantial is EVER accomplished. A meeting chair will be chosen, however, this person will do nothing to keep us on time or to regulate the length of comments, as this would be considered rude. If a productive discussion does happen to occur or a decision as to a way to proceed reached – everyone will promptly forget the entire thing happened immediately upon leaving the room.

No matter how pointless and ridiculous the meeting, we will always cheerily thank each other for coming, and schedule ANOTHER follow-up meeting. Sometimes we’re asked to give feedback as to the effectiveness and content of meetings. When the nature of anyone’s (my) truthful comments on the meetings are preceived as anything other than ringing, positive endorsements, that person (me) is considered rude.

Particularly Intrusive Violations of my Personal Space (PIVPS). I’m quite accustomed at this point to small or smoothly executed violations of my personal space and they don’t really bother me. Like the getting sat on by large women on the taxi – I mean there’s just no where else for that gigantic booty to go, some of it is going to have to come into my “area”.

Here is an example of a PIVPS; I am walking in the crowded mall. A person is approaching from the opposite direction – very slowly – and without question SEES ME walking, yet will not alter their path even an inch so that I can walk by, causing me to stop walking almost completely to avoid a collision.

Today I went to The Post Office to mail a wedding to gift to a friend getting married in a few weeks. The South African post office does not sell boxes. Well actually that’s a lie, they do sell one that’s the size and shape of a shoe box, which is convienient if you’re mailing a pair of shoes. I wasn’t.

SO the postman sends me down to the “office supply” store called CNA – I still have no idea what the letters stand for – where I was able to procure a box from their trash pile, but it was still a tad too big. Had CNA sold styrofoam peanuts or bubble wrap I would have purchased some to fill the excess space. Nor does The Post Office sell these items, as I learned after walking the length of the mall to return there from my box-hunting trip. When I got back to the Post Office I had the following conversation with the PostGirl on duty part of which proceeded as follows:

Me: So you don’t sell styrofoam peanuts, paper-crinklies or bubble wrap that I can stuff in this box?

Postgirl: (peering into my large, half-empty box and holding up bubble wrap lined ENVELOPE) No, but we sell these.

Me: No thanks, I just walked all the way down to CNA to find this BOX.

Postgirl: You could go downstairs to Pick and Pay and see if they have any boxes.

Me: No I’d rather just mail this now, I don’t have alot of time. Do you maybe have any old newspapers lying around back there?

Postgirl: (dull, blank stare).

Me: Any old papers or anything in the recycling bin? Just something I can stuff in this box to fill up the empty space.

Postgirl: (dull, blank stare continues for a few more seconds)…No, I don’t think so.

Me: Ok, nevermind. I’ll just send it like this.

Postgirl: You can go to CNA and see if they sell any of that brown paper to cover the box with.

Me: Do I need to cover the box to send it?

Postgirl: Or you could try Pick and Pay.

Me: Can I send the box without wrapping it in paper? Is it required that the box be wrapped?

Postgirl: (dull, blank stare)

Me: Do I HAVE to WRAP the BOX to SEND it???

Postgirl: No, you don’t.

Me: Ok. (I start taping up the box with tape that I actually had the presence of mind to buy at CNA. Postgirl helped me, which was nice).

Postgirl: What city?

Me: Harrisburg.

Postgirl: How do you spell it?

Me: H-A-R-R-I-S-B-U-R-G

Postgirl: Sorry, I didn’t get it, could you start again…

Me: H—-A—-R—-R—I—S—

Postgirl: Harris?

Me: No, -Burg, Harris-BURG.

Postgirl: Have you written the address on the box?

Me: No, can I borrow your marker.

Postgirl then searched the entire post office for a marker, this took a full 2-3 minutes, thankfully the Post Office is on the small side. By this time quite a long line had formed behind me (there were only a total of 2 windows open) and I could feel the eyes of all the people in line staring at my back thinking, “why is this idiot taking so long?” I know, seriously, what was I thinking trying to mail a PACKAGE at the POST OFFICE.

NOT Chiggers

 

So I had these weird bug bites on my ankle region for almost two weeks. The bug got me while I was standing outside of the office one night waiting for a lift to this work-related function. It burned and itched badly afterwards, but when that stopped I pretty much forgot about them.

That was until I noticed that they were not going away as quickly as would a normal bug bite. Also around this time I was visiting Leanne (see below) and we discussed the possible sources of the bites. In this photo they do look alot like ringworm, however, this was quickly ruled out since due to prior experience I can confidently say that this isn’t that. Then somehow the subject of chiggers came up.

When I was younger my Mom used to warn me about chiggers – that if you layed in the grass for too long they could bite you and then crawl under your skin and itch like hell. Having never seen a chigger nor heard anyone else other than my Mother mention them since, somewhere along the line I decided that she just made them up. I figured she thought it would a good way to stop me from rolling around in the grass and getting my clothes dirty. Leanne agreed with this hypothesis and the matter was temporarily closed; although we never did manage to come up with a solid explanation for the source of the bites.

Then a few days later Leanne informed me that chiggers do in fact exist – right here in SA. According to the PC SA Medical Handbook chiggers are little “beasties” that live in sandy soil and burrow under the skin of one’s feet where they lay their eggs. Eggs which then multiply.

The Handbook is conspicuously silent as to what happens next or about how to get rid of them. Once mature, do the chigger larvae burst out and run off into the night? Or do they dig deeper and deeper into your body until you get really sick or worse? These details became of the utmost importance to me because as soon as I learned that chiggers really exist, I became immediately convinced that I had dozens of them reproducing just above my left foot. And everytime I thought about chigger eggs growing under my skin I started to feel just a little nauseous…

Obviously this couldn’t go on, so I was prompted to do what must be done in such extreme situations. Call the PC for help and guidance – a step which I usually avoid at all costs since at least in SA, the PC is rarely helpful. Surprisingly enough, after only 2 phone calls I had the PC Doc on the line, and I explained my situation. She quickly ruled out chiggers as the bug bite culprit since they don’t actually live in Durban. Instead she said bird lice were likely responsible.

I was suspicious of this diagnosis at first, until I remembered that there is a bit of a pigeon infestation in eves of the office buildings near mine…making the likelihood of the ankle-biters being bird lice very strong indeed. Still disgusting – but better than chiggers!! She even gave me a prescription for some creme.

A Simian Sighting of Note

The other morning on my walk to the bus/taxi I saw a vervet monkey approaching on the sidewalk from the other direction. As the monkey and I got closer to each other we both slowed down a bit.

In my case I was trying to figure out how to best avoid any monkey-human contact. I decided that I would slowly, and in the most non-threatening way possible, abdicate the sidewalk to the monkey and walk in the street until we passed each other. The strategy worked perfectly and I think the monkey may have even been relieved that he didn’t have to bite me.

A burly Afrikaner man was standing across the street observing this course of events beside his parked bakkie. Our conversation proceeded as follows:

Man: You afraid of that little thing? (which incidentally was by no means little)

Me: I’m not afraid of monkeys. I’m afraid of monkey diseases.

Some things should just be obvious, even to burly Afrikaners.