I’ve spent my first week in
Kimberley and am so far loving it. Its very flat, dry and dusty city with not a
ton to do, but has a lot of character. A little background on Kimberley; it’s
the capital of the Northern Cape province with a population of 185,000 and used
to be a large diamond mining town that is now completely shut down. The climate
is similar to a desert with the weather being hot and dry during the day and
then the temperature dropping drastically at night. Right now it’s the end of winter
with the high usually being 65 and the low 30. The Kimtern house has pretty
much no insulation, so it gets chilly at night. The house is split into two
parts, one side with the kitchen, living room, Nick’s room and a bathroom. The
other side is my room and another bathroom. To get from one side to the other
you need to go outdoors. My side is also called ‘the cave’, because it gets
much colder since not as much light gets in. Growing up in freezing state of
Vermont has definitely helped me in dealing with the cave. By summertime I know
I’ll be very happy to be on the colder side since I melt at any temp higher
than 80.
So
far we’ve done some cool things in Kimberley. Nick and I are lucky enough to
have Nora (’12-’13) intern to show us the ropes around town. We went to the
mall where there is a great pizza joint called Panoratti’s that has a deal on
Thursday night for all you can eat pizza for 60R (=$6). It was like pizza dim
sum with waiters and waitresses bringing all these different kinds of pizza by and
you picking and choosing what you want, very awesome. In honor of the PGA
finals we went to the Big Hole driving range where we hit a few golf balls and
grabbed a beer. Unfortunately they were not showing the tournament much to
everyone’s disbelief. I’ve also
been learning how to drive stick in our car the condor. I went on the roads for
the first time today, and it was terrifying but also exhilarating. I really can’t
wait till I’ve gotten accustomed to it because right now I have 20 things going
through my brain at once. My shoulders were tensed the entire time I was behind
the wheel. It also doesn’t help that they drive on the left side of the road
which definitely adds to the mental work put in.
The best thing we’ve done has
definitely been going to Lilydale. Lilydale is part of Mokala National Park.
Its about a 30 minute drive from where we live with lots of wild animals and a
beautiful river. We hung out by the river for the day tanning on the rocks and
soaking in how gorgeous Lilydale is. Nick was brave enough to take a dip in the
water which was way too cold for my taste, Nora and I were happy to sucking up
some rays. On the drive we saw a ton of animals including kuru, warthogs,
ostriches, zebra and some type of musk ox. There were a few other little
critters but I really don’t know any of their names. I’m definitely planning on
making a lot of trips to Lilydale in the future.
Tomorrow will be the first day of
work in the GRS and I’m so pumped to get started. We went by the office last
week and had some introductions to the staff and I’m excited to work with all
of them and to meet the coaches.
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