Sani Pass Adventure

Don't Jump!

On the Flip Side

So my adventures really began when I convinced Valentin, a 19-year old German volunteer to take me hiking in the Drakensberg Mountains. I rented a car and was planning on driving the 3-hour journey myself, but the car was a standard and I haven't driven a standard in 10 years. So after stalling out about 10 times in front of a somewhat impatient audience, I handed the keys to Valentin and we were on our way.

Fast forward through being lost in an African city for two hours in the "wrong side" of town...(Picture this: the street was packed with people, so many we couldn't even move at times. We were the only private car, and now it's starting to get dark.

We finally find our way out of the scariness and have been on the road for a few more hours. Whew! We are now in the mountains and we turn onto a dirt road, when it begins to drizzle.

So we are driving along this dirt road, in the mountains, in the drizzle, and Valentin hits a rock or a hole or maybe a small mountain cat, who knows. He swerves back and forth across the road and essentially loses control of the vehicle. We take a sharp turn off the road and are bumping/bouncing along the unknown landscape in the pitch black.

Then I feel a weightless sensation and realize we're airborne. At this point, it felt as though we were moving in slow motion, gracefully even, but then suddenly the car flipped over and crashed into the earth. It felt as though a giant grabbed the car and thrust it as hard as they could straight into the ground.

Being upside down in a car is quite a surreal experience. I was hanging there in my safety belt, generally unharmed, with Valentin hanging next to me (also unharmed, but at this point was speaking only in German).

Getting out of my safety belt was not a very graceful process. There is this thing called gravity that you don't really think about in moments like these. I hit the ceiling, covered in glass from the windshield. We were able to crawl out one of the back doors (the only door we could get to open). Then we climbed out of the ditch onto the road, covered in thick reddish mud.

So at this point I realize, as I look up at the most beautiful night sky I have ever seen, I am stranded on an African dirt road, in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of the night, with a German teenager, with no cell phone signal and no form of protection from wild mountain
animals or robbers or rapists. I can honestly say that I have never felt so helpless and vulnerable in my life.

But we were lucky enough to have a policeman randomly drive by about 30 minutes later and the end of the story is happy. We were picked up by the mountain lodge staff and escorted to the police station and everyone we came in contact with was abundantly kind. We made it to the lodge, where I was able to take a shower. As the thick layers of red mud washed away, I discovered a few minor scrapes and a couple significant bruises that I didn't notice before. But the shower was hot, and we were alive.

In the end, I can honestly say that I don't regret the experience, and if you must be in a rollover car crash somewhere, you may as well have an adventure to tell along with it.

Golden Moments

My volunteer job at GGA consists of working with the "Creche," which includes all of the children under five years' old. I usually work the morning shift (7:30am-2:00pm) with another German volunteer named Falk.

At 7:30, when I round the corner to walk towards the Creche house, sometimes I am greeted with a little brown round face popped out the window asking, "you workin da creche?!"

We dress them, get them to breakfast, snack and lunch, and put them down for naps, when the late shift comes. Somewhere in between all of that is a lot of playtime and a lot of potty training. The eight "crechies" are quite a handful, but are completely adorable.

A few of my favorite moments:

• a sunset soccer match on the beautiful backdrop of the African Hills
• toddlers singing songs in Zulu (you have no idea how cute this is!)
• a still moment with a quiet breeze, laying in the grass under the shade of a tree with baby Nocipo asleep on my chest

Human Canvas

One of the volunteers from Norway came up with the fantastic idea to bring facepaints!

Mbali, a 3-year-old "Crechie" was so delicate and intentional while painting my face.

Mandla, 4-years-old, wanted to be Spiderman!

Snxello is a sweet 11-year-old who has cerebral palsy. His name is fun to say
because the "nx" comes out like a little click in the Zulu language.

I was literally covered in graffiti from head to toe.

Amanda "tricked" me and drew a beard on my face. It took more than a two hours
to scrub all the paint off my face, shoulders, neck, etc. Good clean fun.

Halala ngosuku lokuzalwa

Halala ngosuku lokuzalwa is Zulu for "Happy Birthday!" Each month the staff and volunteers throw a mass birthday party for all the children who have birthdays in that particular month. They decorate and have cake, pizza and games. The children constantly look forward to the party (and ask about it constantly, too).

Asanda, age 3

Cindy, age 7

Green Golden Acres

God's Golden Acre (aka GGA) is located in the province of Kwa Zulu-Natal in the Valley of 1000 Hills and provides a home for 70 children. Overall this is a happy place, and I have had a very positive experience here so far. The children seem happy, healthy and intelligent. Zulu is their first language, but that all speak English very well. Zulu, one of the eleven official languages of South Africa, is a beautiful language with a depth of sounds including all sorts of clicks, clacks and clocks.

Five of the seventy children living here have been diagnosed HIV positive. They take medication on a strict schedule, but other than that, you cannot tell any difference between them and the other children.

The rate for HIV/AIDS in this region is the highest in the world (estimated at 50 percent). It also has the most orphans as a result of the disease (two million). However, I don't think I've fully felt the magnitude of the AIDS crisis in this country firsthand.

The other volunteers stay here for much longer time commitments (usually six months to a year). Many are German, doing a required year of civil service. Others come from England, Norway, Ireland and the United States.

The scenery here is beautiful; the photos don't do it justice. The photo below was taken from the playground at GGA.

Out of Africa

I arrived in Africa aboard an "airbus" after a fifteen hour flight across the ocean. The airbus had some major airflow problems, which made sleeping nearly impossible.

At one point when everyone was asleep (or at least silent) I lifted the window shade expecting to only see the black of the Atlantic below, but to my amazement I found an endless horizon glittered with thousands, maybe millions, of silvery white pinpoints, like little granules of sugar sprinkled across the sky. Calling it a canvas of stars fails to describe the sight because there were so many more dimensions to this breathtaking view. I have never seen a starscape like this, not even in West Texas.

I finally drifted to sleep, thanks to the mesmerizing effect of the stars, the coolness of the window on my cheek and probably the 4:30am packing job from the night before.

After a harder than expected slumber, I staggered off the plane in "Joburg" (Johannesburg) only to gather my luggage, register my passport and pass through customs before getting on the third airplane within 24 hours.

I was either compromised by my luggage markings or the dazed look on my face because a luggage porter made a beeline for me, smack dab in the middle of the mass exodus occurring around me. Without a hint of hesitation, he assumed my luggage and informed me that the domestic terminal was "dis way."

We exchanged remarks somewhat successfully, even with his thick Zulu accent. When I told him I had a five hour layover he whisked me to a ticket counter (skipping a line of 15 other patrons), put my bags on the conveyor belt and gave me a ticket for a flight departing in 20 minutes.

After the comparatively shot plane ride to Durban, a handsome, quiet young German picked me up and dove me to God's Golden Acre. The landscape of Africa was still unknown to me, as night had fallen. Volker, the beautiful German boy, gave me an old skeleton key and directed me toward the girls' volunteer quarters. The room was the dirtiest bedroom I have ever seen, but did have a bit of rustic charm, especially with the mosquito nets.