Rekaofela

This weekend was work filled. On Saturday we had two programs running at resorts a little ways out of Kimberley. We worked at Warrenton and Barkly West with kids who are just about to matric (graduate high school).  I talked previously about these camps that have been housing these kids since August in another blog post. We had wanted to complete HCT’s but the Department of Education did not allow us to bring testers to the sites. Fortunately we are now allowed to go and complete our programs at these camps. Unfortunately this means that our next few Saturdays are devoted to GRS.

            Our day started off with Nick and I leaving the intern house and picking up two of our coaches from Platfontein, a small township about 20 minutes from us. It is a really beautiful place. The poverty is still present like in all the townships in South Africa, with people living in shacks, but the landscape is breathtaking. I swear it looks like a lion could creep up on you at any moment from the long blonde grass and trees sporadically growing here and there that surrounds Platfontein. It’s so close to Kimberley but at the same time it looks completely different to me.

Morning in Platfontein

            Anyway we brought them and our PC, Thembi, to the office where the Department of Education brought two bus taxis to transport our coaches the sites. Both taxis went straight to Warrenton which really made zero sense for the coaches that needed to go to Barkly West. Warrenton is 100km away from Kim and Barkly West is not in the same direction. We arrived at 9:30 at Warrenton and had to wait until 12 until a taxi was free to bring us to Barkly West, another hour drive. Safe to say I was already tired and frustrated with the lack of organization from the Department of Education. We had told the school at Barkly West we would start at 11, we didn’t arrive until 1 due to the Department of Education’s lack of urgency.

            We crossed the gate into the camp at Barkly West where the sign showed it was named Rekaofela. This is a perfect place for us to work at because we say ‘Rekaofela’ all the time during our practices. It’s our way to make sure the participants are listening by say ‘rekaofela’ and the participants answering with ‘rimoho’. It means ‘we are together’. Rekaofela is a really beautiful resort with a river running next to it and some nice green fields. There were even goats munching on the grass right next to the classrooms. What was even better was the enthusiasm of the girls. They’re all grade 12 so around 18 years old. I was happily surprised that most of them were participating instead of thinking they were too old for the games and information we wanted to share with them. It was a great way to bump me out of my funk from the morning. I can’t wait to go back next Saturday. I’m really interested to see how our coaches handle the issue of pregnancy with these girls because many were obviously pregnant as well as many shared that they had children already. Just in the class I sat in of about 30 girls I counted 3 that I could tell were pregnant. In Skillz Street curriculum a major point we try to teach the girl participants is to abstain or make sure they commit to having safe sex so they won’t get pregnant as well as not contract an STI. So much talk about avoiding pregnancy in order to reach your goals seems like a little too late slash also might offend these girls. I can’t wait to see how our coaches will approach this subject.

Goats at Rekaofela

Closing circle

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            After that Saturday, Sunday was completely devoted to vegging out. I did not even leave the compound. Just watched movies and read my book. If you haven’t read Cutting for Stone I would definitely recommend it, especially if you have any interest in the medical field. In the evening I watched the UVM women’s soccer team play UNH. Go Cats Go! Big cheers for all the seniors!

Biggest Cats fan in Africa!

So Many Tents

The past two weeks have been soooo much fun. First we had the Joburg interns come to visit Kimberley. We unfortunately have very little space for people to crash at our house so we set up our tent as extra space. Here’s a quick vine of building the tent for the Joburg interns when they came to visit.

A huge international skate competition happens in Kimberley every year called the Diamond Cup. Skaters from all over the world go to compete and luckily for us the skate park is about a 15 minute walk from our house. We had a full Saturday in Kimberley. We kicked it off by first going to the Big Hole. The Big Hole is just that…a giant hole in the ground, so big in fact that it is the largest man made hole on the planet. It used to be a functional diamond mine made by the De Beers company. A museum is attached as well as a small theater that depicted the history of Kimberley when it was a bustling city full of diamond prospectors. Afterwards we went back to the house and had a braai and then went out to the Maloof Skate Park.

We get there in time for the big air competition, which is completely insane to me. Traveling down a three story ramp into a half pipe is just screaming of ‘I want to see my head crack open like a watermelon being crushed by a mallot!’ Even more insane was a 12 year old kid competing in the event. Another competitor was a fellow New Englander from New Hampshire. I got very excited once that fact was announced and for the rest of the competition yelled “Live free, or die!” whenever it was his turn.  A very fitting slogan for big air competitors.

        

            After another week of work Nick and I took a bus to Cape Town. We got on the bus at 10pm Thursday night and arrived in Cape Town at 9:30am Friday. I was surprised by how easy the trip was. We both passed out for most of the trip. After grabbing lunch with a few of the Capeterns Nick, Claire and I grabbed a rental car and went to Cloof Wine Estate where the music festival, Rocking the Daisies, was being held. The drive is amazing! Rolling green hills everywhere you look with mountains in the background, very different then the desert of Kimberley.

            We parked in a field with thousands of other people and luckily for us our Spark lite car made it through the damp field, other cars were getting stuck all over the place. We then had to search for open tent space, not an easy task, especially when you need to find space for two tents. Right when I started to give up hope and was trying to spot the least creepy hippie to crash with, Nick ran into a friend and she led us to an open spot.  That night we saw a few shows including Good Luck and Jack Parow! This was already the second time we’ve seen Mr. Parow and his shows are awesome. He was in a tiger onesie with his signature hat (see my previous post to know what I’m talking about). The next day the Capetern ladies arrived with dope hats and so much energy, which helped push us out of our hangovered states. List of shows we saw are Al Bairre, Matthew Gold, Dirty Skirts, the Hives and ALT-J! All were incredible and Breezeblocks live gave me goosebumps.

Selfie time at rocking the daisies

View from one of the intern houses in Cape Town

Sunset in Northern Cape

            After such an incredible weekend Nick and I had to drive back to Kimberley. The landscape changed so drastically every hour. It started off with Cape Town’s beautiful Table mountain and green hills, to the wine country, to these jagged brown mountains, to plateaus in the desert, to the flat red sand of Kimberley. The sunset was incredible when we reached the Northern Cape.

           

Now that I’m back in Kimberley I’m excited to take it easy and recover from the past two weekends of awesomeness. I can’t wait to see everyone again in a few weeks in Joburg for the Soweto Derby/ Haloween get together.

I’m missing the fall in Vermont especially after my dad sent me this photo from a walk they took the past weekend at Shelburne Farms. Love and miss everyone at home!