Lebanon Pictures

http://picasaweb.google.com/jade.lamb/Lebanon

The 10 Best-Documented Days of My Life (Namibia Pictures)

Never in my life have I taken so many pictures in such a short time as in Namibia. Here are just a fraction:

http://picasaweb.google.com/Jade.Lamb/Namibia03

Great Zimbabwe Pictures

http://picasaweb.google.com/Jade.Lamb/GreatZimbabwe#

The Great Zimbabwe Nightmare/Awesomeness

A travel tip: when you intend to travel during the Easter holiday in Southern Africa, don't wait until the day before you want to leave to buy your bus ticket, even when peer pressure is exerted. (Corollary tip: know when the Easter holiday is.)

Yes. Well. Instead of about five days, I spent 24 hours in Zimbabwe. The only available ticket to Masvingo was so close to when I was scheduled to fly to Windhoek that it barely seemed worth it--but I've found that when my other option is two more nights in Pretoria, I sometimes make extreme decisions. So I got onto a bus Monday night with two other volunteers and sixteen hours later (four hours behind schedule) I arrived in Masvingo.

Getting from Masvingo to Great Zimbabwe, 27 k away, was complicated but not difficult, unless you consider the fact that I was carrying everything I own on my back, and that it turns out my possessions are compact but heavy. Basically, we convinced the bus driver to let us off in town instead of the Shell Garage stop, then walked oto the University of Great Zimbabwe to catch a combi to Great Zimbabwe. We arrived in the early afternoon at the Great Zimbabwe Hotel, where the front desk very graciously agreed to store my luggage and charge my phone (which is also my only remaining timepiece). From there, we walked 700 m to Great Zimbabwe itself, a UNESCO World Heritage site. Basically, Great Zimbabwe is the ruins of an 11th-13th century civilization in Southern Zimbabwe, for which the modern country is named. I needed to see it all in one afternoon, so I asked for a guide and got a fantastic one who spent about 3 hours showing me around. Photos are forthcoming.

When, exhausted, we finished around five, I had nearly 7 hours to kill before my bus was scheduled to arrive. I retrieved my bags and went to the hotel restaurant. I had arranged with the taxi driver who had taken us to the park to pick me up, but he never showed up, so the hotel helped me find another way back to the bus stop. The hotel found a guy who was about to go into town with his girlfriend and greed to take me, too, at what seemed at inflated rate considering I'd only paid $2 to get there (and by the way, it's very strange to use USD after so long on rand). They turned out to be very nice, and like everybody else I'd met in Zimbabwe, had a lot of complaining to do about their government. I think Zimbabwe might be my favorite country--it's beautiful, friendly, safe, and well-educated.

I waited at Wimpy Burger for a few hours for my bus, spending most of the time sipping Coke Light in order not to fall asleep in the restaurant and worrying that the bus would be late, whidch would in turn make me late for my flight to Winhoek. A four-hour delay like the trip up would mean that I would arrive in Pretoria, which is about 45-minutes from the airport, 2 hours after my flight's departure. This was not the plan when I bought the ticket, but the cost to change it was exorbitant. Miraculously, I arrived in Pretoria exactly on time, and despite multiple misdirections (because ORT does not believe in labels), I arrived at my gate with 10 minutes to spare before it closed. And proceeded to fall asleep before the plane even took off, waking up only when my delicious and extremely large mid-afternoon meal was served on my two-hour flight. I hear you now have to pay just for peanuts in America--true?

Today I'm leaving Windhoek--pictures and more forthcoming.

Salani Kahle, Mzanzi!

I meant to write this a week and a half ago, when the poignancy and disbelief of leaving were still fresh--but life happens. I have plenty of what's happened since to share, but I will try to stay on topic.

I left.


Well, what more is there to say? Doesn't that simple statement encompass everything? Wouldn't any detail of emotion or uncertainty pale in the face of the simple statement of fact?

All right, so I haven't processed it yet. I'm still focused on plans--what visa I'm getting, if I'll miss the flight to Windhoek (ETA: I didn't), how to fill out a FAFSA (off topic: I heard Duke made it to the final four last weekend!)--that the reality of Peace Corps being over is far away. I'm still in a happy delusion that hanging out at the Masvingo Wimpy Burger waiting for the midnight Greyhound is just another holiday (where I am writing this longhand), and that any discussion of Durham real estate is just as purely speculative as any previous trip to Craigslist has been (don't mock, it's a low-megabyte hobby). I still refer to Peace Corps in the present and schizophrenically seesaw between listing America and South Africa as my country of residence on visa forms. I've burned my Peace Corps manuals in a glorious bonfire and passed on my Khanimamba portfolio to our staff, yet still I worry I've forgotten an obligation.

Ah yes. The last days. I burned my Peace Corps manuals, as I said, in addition to countless other accumulated trash (why did I savfe all those half-done crosswords?), and handed things at Khanimamba over to the trainers and administrators. My room went through various permutations ranging from complete cleanliness to embarassingly improbable clutter as I sorted through what I wanted to keep, burn, or give away. In the end, I ended up with two backpacks full, a feat undermined by the generosity of those I've known here (a traditional straw mat is currently residing in the sleeping mat compartment of my backpack; let's not talk about certain baskets) but nonetheless accomplished. Work was not accomplished in the quantities I had expected, but nonetheless the _project_ succeeded--the trainers have begun to run the course without me.

And goodbyes were said. I never felt like I knew so many people until it became time to tell people I was leaving. Beyond the obvious--coworkers, family, neighbors--people grow to expect your presence: taxi drivers, the women who work at Roman's (a pizza place), security guards. Word spread quickly: weeks before it was planned, people I didn't know asked me when the farewell function would be. In the end it was a small affair, a braai with coworkers, family, and neighbors, but it was a wonderful opportunity to exchange thank you's and final thoughts.

That's all I have for now. I really do think that I expect, at the end of this trip, to return to Giyani and Mapayeni and all their accompanying frustrations and reqards. I doubt that will change until I return to America.

So a question for all of you: what will shock me most when I return?

Pictures from my last months can be found here: http://picasaweb.google.com/Jade.Lamb/FebMar201004#

Stay well, South Africa!

Pictures from the College

Giyani College, where Khanimamba, my organization, has its offices, is
near a nature reserve. Consequently, there are lots of little monkeys
that like to hang out next to our office (see first picture). The
zebras usually hang out at the defunct golf course a few minutes away.

The college also hosts a number of other organisations, including a
creche (a preschool; see its playground in the second picture). This
creche is the nicest, best-funded one in the Giyani area.

Picture: Chicken and Pap

If you've wanted to know what one of the most common meals in South
Africa is, here it is, a plate of chicken and pap, also known in my
area as huku na vuswa.

Picture: Children Selling Tomatoes

I don't really have much to report these days--things are canceled,
there's lots of officework--so I am posting pictures when I get the
chance over the next 2 1/2 weeks...after which I will no longer be
blogging from the village of Mapayeni.

Mangoes Mangoes Mangoes

Yum yum yum. We grow them at our house, a veritable grove, but last year there weren't any due to poor rains. This year the crop is better!

Peach Apricot Cool Time

Best flavor innovation since Diet Vanilla Coke.

Roadblocks in Botswana

We were stopped in Botswana:

• to be waved through: about 5x
• to find that there was no guard at the checkpoint: about 3x
• to dip our shoes in a hoof-and-mouth disease-killing solution: 3x
• to greet the guard/police officer stopping us: 3x
• to show a driver's license: 1x
• to get out of the car and pick up a safety pamphlet: 1x
• to change Rand into Pula for an officer: 1x

Let's not talk about all the cow crossings.

Jade in Botswana

I don't think I've mentioned this yet, but we camped through Botswana. That's right, three of us in a teeeeeny little three-person tent and a car that wasn't much bigger, largely because there aren't as many backpackers in Botswana as in South Africa. Our first night setting up the tent was at the Khama Rhino Sanctuary, where we camped at an actual campsite (not just on the lawn of a backpackers). The tent itself was no problem, once we found a rock to beat the stakes in with. Looking around, though, we realized that though our tent was eminently appropriate to either 1) camping in the actual woods on an actual backpacking trip or 2) setting up on the lawn of a backpackers, we were not nearly as hardcore as the majority of people who set up camp at the adjacent campsites. Most people had SUVs, trailers, rooftop tents, grills and stoves that folded out of their trailers, chairs and tables…basically portable, collapsible houses on wheels. It was a little intimidating.

Still, we did our best. We bought some charcoal and firelighters and built up a fire in the braai area, on which we "cooked" pasta (it never really ended up cooked in the edible sense of the word) and
roasted marshmallows that we are pretty sure were made of asbestos, since they wouldn't catch on fire. The s'mores were delicious, if inauthentic—we replaced graham crackers with tennis biscuits, which I maintain are far better than graham crackers. The Rhino Sanctuary itself was cool—the best part was when a rhino came to drink out of the pool and frolic in the mud made by the sprinklers on the lawn.

Next we headed to Maun. On the way, we had an exciting petrol adventure. We'd certainly heard the warnings that you should fuel up every time you pass a filling station, and let me warn any of you headed to Botswana on a road trip to heed these warnings! Our map had petrol stations marked on it, so as we drove on a back road from Serowe to Maun and passed a filling station with most of our tank still full, we decided to skip it because the map said there was another one in about 60 km. Well, it turned out the map didn't qualify this very well. The filling station was deep inside a village and perpetually out of petrol. The next one was in Maun, quite a ways away. We gamely headed back onto the road to see if we could make it. About 80 km from Maun, our gas light started flickering on and we were pretty sure that gliding into Maun with our remaining fuel was a pipe dream. Fortunately we had just hit the last village before the main highway (there were maybe five or six villages between Maun and Serowe), so we stopped in a tuck shop to ask if anyone knew anyone that could sell us a few liters of petrol. Indeed someone did—a young woman pointed us in the direction of the butchery, where a man who worked there sold us 5 liters of petrol from a jerry can, which we poured into our tank using a cut off cold drink bottle as a funnel. That 5 liters got us just far enough, and at the next filling station we learned the exact price of a full tank of fuel.

In Maun, which we eventually made it to, we signed up for a two-day mokoro (traditional canoe) trip through the Okavango Delta. The delta was very beautiful, and I enjoyed our bush walks in the area. Just as in Khama, I think we won the prize for the least equipment taken on the journey. We fit all of our personal items into one person's backpack, and then also had a shopping bag of food, three sleeping bags, ten liters of water, and a tent—it could have fit in one of the canoes with a full contingent of people. We spent some time watching a hippo, which Becky was convinced would, at any moment, come charging onto shore and kill us. This did not happen.

The next day we went basket weaving. If you go to my photos of this trip (see previous entry) and look at the picture that looks suspiciously like a lopsided button, you will see the fruit of two hours' labor. It's definitely never going to become a basket.

After Maun, we went whitewater rafting. It was the coolest activity of the trip, even better than elephant riding. I managed not to fall out of our raft, though it was a near run thing and I spent a large percentage of our time in the rapids clinging on for dear life. I suppose it's part of the standard safety thing, but the guides definitely made us nervous beforehand as they described the rapids—one supposedly had a ten foot drop, which sounded to me like we were going over a small waterfall (we did not), and they all carried names like "Descent into Hell" and "The Rapid Where You Die" (I don't remember the actual rapid names right now).

We did a game drive through Chobe National Park. Chobe is a major national park in Botswana and has tens of thousands of elephants. How many did we see? Two. They run the game drives in the morning because the likelihood of seeing cats increases, though the odds of that are pretty low in the summertime anyway, even though most elephants and other large game don't come out to frolic in the water until afternoon. Since Chobe is 4wd-accessible only, we weren't able to come back in the afternoon. Still, we saw a dead impala in a tree, and some bok fighting with each other, so there were other consolations to the trip.

Our final major stop was in Nata, where we went to visit the baobabs and the saltpans. The saltpans were pretty extraordinary: suddenly, the savannah stops, and there is a dry, grassless, empty area where the salt has killed everything. During the rainy season, we can't drive out onto it, but even standing on the precipice was amazing.

Pictures from Botswana

I'm back! Work resumes soon--I'm in the home stretch, less than three months to go--but until then, here are some of my photos from vacation:

http://picasaweb.google.com/Jade.Lamb/Botswana#

More coming soon.