Drakensberg and Lesotho

Part 1

Whenever I asked people what I should do or where I should go in South Africa, Drakensburg was a place that was said by many people. I had heard that the mountains were beautiful and a great spot for hiking, something that I love to do. So when the girls in our exchange group decided that we wanted to have a girls weekend, Drakensberg was number one on the list. I was pleasantly surprised that this hiking and mountainous area was on the top of the lists of all the other girls of Sophie, Emma, Marion and Gaelle.

So Drakensberg for the weekend it was!

Again trying to spend as little time at Uni as we could, we hired a car and left for Drakensberg on Thursday afternoon. A few hours before we were about to leave, Joburg was hit with one of the biggest storms I had seen. The thunder was so loud that it sounded like it was on top of us, the hail was like snow and the lightening was massive. Fortunately the storm settled down a bit so we could drive the 4 and a bit hours to Drakensberg.

Emma took the driver's seat first, with Sophie as co-pilot. They navigated the wet roads of Joburg city very well, and the highway with ease. Unfortunately we had forgotten to buy an AUX cord which allows you to play your ipod through the car radio, but we had a solution. I had speakers from good old Kathmandu and I plugged my ipod into them so we could still listen to my sweet tunes. I was DJ so everyone was forced to listen to Missy Higgins, Paul Kelly, Bon Iver, Fleet Foxes, Ben Howard etc..but I didn't hear many complaints...or everyone had fallen asleep to my easy listening music..

After a few hours Marion took the wheel and I became her co-pilot. For those who don't know, Marion is from France and therefore normally drives on the right hand side of the road. I had to remind her as we left the petrol station that she had to go right rather than left onto the Highway, but she was already onto it so we were sweet.

Marion mastered the Highway driving, going at about 130km which is probably slow compared to what they drive in France. However, after about 30 minutes of driving from Marion we turned onto one of the worse roads I've ever seen, and at this point the sun was setting so I could hardly even see the road. It had no street lights, was 80 per cent gravel, lines that could barely be seen, many potholes and was only one lane. Marion ended up driving on the right side of the road because there was no left lane, ironic hey! Oh and did I mention that we didn't have any high beam lights? This made for difficult driving.

As co-pilot I had to navigate Marion around all the potholes, patches of gravel and to direct her to which way the road was going. Sometime I was a bit slow with my direction and we all jumped a few inches of our seats as we hit a pothole. I would let out a little yelp as this happened which freaked out Soph, Emma and Gaelle, but this yelp was one more of excitement than being scared. This road went for about 50km, and it took us about an hour to do that, so you can imagine how bad the road actually was. But we made it through and onto the other side to a paved and lined road, but still no street lights. Then it was about another 20 minutes until our backpackers.

We arrived at the Amphitheatre Backpackers and Travellers Lodge at about 9pm and as soon as we walked into the reception we knew that this was one cool place. The light shade at the front desk looked like it had come from Nepal, the wallpaper was old beer and food labels and there were traditional ornaments randomly placed in the room. It was hands down one of the coolest places I'd ever stayed at, possibly the coolest!

We hadn't really organised anything past the backpackers but we knew that we wanted to go on a hike in Drakensberg and go to Lesotho, the country that is within South Africa (sort of like Canberra, but not). Lucky for us, this amazing backpackers had it all organised! They ran walks to the Amphitheatre Mountains as well as day trips to Lesotho so we were set! The lovely receptionist showed us what the walk would look like and told us all about it. It looked amazing, so as a team we decided that it was a must! And who doesn't want to visit a country within a country? We do, and decided that we would!

If we thought that this backpackers couldn't get any cooler, we thought wrong.

We arrived at our room to find that it was in fact an old silo that had been converted into an 8-bed dorm, complete with a thatch roof and a toilet. It was very cute! Sophie and I got to share the double bed which was up a little ladder, in the roof of the room. The ladder was a bit hazardous, especially if either of us needed to go to the toilet in the dark during the night, but we survived the 3 night stay with all bones intact.

Our thatch roof silo

As we arrived quite late on Thursday night, we decided that Friday would be a relaxing day where we could hang out at the hostel and see the sights of the surrounding towns. We had a very lazy morning consisting of sleeping, reading, eating and exploring our awesome backpackers. In the afternoon, it was arranged that we would go to the local town, check out the local medical clinic, meet a traditional healer, taste some locally brewed beer and visit an orphanage. We weren't expecting too much from the afternoon but I can say, and I think the other girls would agree that it was such a worthwhile experience where we felt that we had actually arrived in Africa rather than being a little bit caged up at Monash. I learnt more in the 2 hours of meeting and talking to people than I had in the past 2 months of being here. That's not to say that I haven't learnt some amazing things, it's just the knowledge from the people we met was so interesting and insightful.

At the medical clinic we visited, a lovely Sister showed us around and told us the things that they can do there. It is a free clinic for everyone who needs assistance. It's not a hospital but more of a consultation clinic. The Sister was telling us that her and the other sisters (nurses) can administer, such as checking someone's BP, heart rate, give injections for infants, children and adults, try and fix ailments that patients come in for as well as being able to deliver babies. It seemed like such a well-run clinic, and especially because it was free. We were pretty impressed that you could get free health care in a rural part of South Africa, and from such lovely nurses!

Gaelle getting her blood pressure checked, it was normal. 

Our next stop was the traditional healer called a Sangoma. She was the cutest, most interesting and energetic old lady I had ever met. She told us the story of how she became a Sangoma in Zulu, which was translated to us by our guide. The story of becoming a Sangoma is relatively the same for each one. They are born a sickly child, never fully healthy and always needing medical attention. In one point of their lives they will get very sick where they will require help that no one can give them. For the Sangoma that we met, her name was Beauty, she became sick at 15. She went to the doctors who couldn't do anything, she went to a traditional healer and they didn't know what to do. She was so sick that people thought that she was going to die. At last she went to a Sangoma that knew what her problem was. She was being called by the ancestors to become a Sangoma herself. The sickness was a sign that she could have the power and connection with her ancestors to be able to heal sick people. It was now the job of the Sangoma that has recognised her illness as a calling so taught Beauty what she had to do to become a traditional healer.

Traditional Sangoma Beauty in her traditional get-up (with a Springbok jersey underneath, classic!)

When Beauty was telling us her story, I couldn't help but think of Indigenous Australians and their connection to their ancestors and how they use this connection as a source of power and healing. Some people call this magic or sorcery, but to me it's culture at its finest. We European Australians are so pragmatic when it comes to culture that in a way we are lacking so much. Our history is so immediate and short, we don't seem to have a connection to something bigger than ourselves (the Monarchy doesn't count). I suppose you could call religion our ancestors, but for Beauty her ancestors could give her so much more than religion could. They could tell her what natural medicine to give to a patient, whether something good was about or happen, or whether she should avoid something because only bad things would come of it. One example she gave was when she wanted to go to the shops to buy something, but all of a sudden her legs started to cramp up and she couldn't move. The ancestors did not want her to go to the shops for some reason. She resigned to the fact that she was not going to the shops that day. After that her legs were no longer cramped and she could move.

Despite the medical clinic just up the road, people do still come and see the Sangoma because western medicine can't fix everything. As much as people would love to believe that it can, and believe you me, western medicine has done some wonderful things and the power of technology is amazing, sometimes a simple pill or injections just won't help you. That's where a Sangoma comes in. She is able to help people with epilepsy, TB, chronic pain etc with natural medicines that she makes up herself. Oh and did I mention that she is also a mother of 8 children? All in a day's work for this Sangoma!

After that lovely visit, we headed off down the road to taste some local beer called Umqombothi, which comes for the Xhosa language. When you pronounced the name of the beer, it has a click sound in the middle of it because when you say a q in Xhosa  you have to click. Every time our guide pronounced it I would give a little gasp at how awesome it sounded! The beer was quite nice and tasted more like cider than beer. It is made out of corn, maize malt, sorghum malt, yeast, water, and a very small amount of alcohol, only about 2 per cent.

Tasting some local beer, yummo!

We then visited a lovely church which had been built by the locals, as well as an orphanage which had been set up by and funded by Belgium people. Then, unfortunately it was time for our amazing afternoon to end, and we made our way back to our awesome hostel. Our first day in Drakensberg had been amazing, and was capped off with a lovely Madagascan style dinner thanks to Gaelle, which was made up of spinach, duck and rice, as well as cocktails by the bar and a dip in the spa!

We needed a relaxing night for the big day that was to follow; hiking up a mountain in the snow. That is Part 2 of our Drakensberg/Lesotho adventures! Click here to read it!

Durban

Let's go to the beach....beach

Following the trend of trying to get away from Monash each weekend, myself, Sophie, her friend Jarred and his friend Daniel headed, a couple of weekends ago, to Shaka's Beach, about an hour's drive from Durban, seven hours from Johannesburg.

We headed down on Thursday afternoon (we all had 4-day weekends!), into the glorious afternoon sun and made our way to the Indian Ocean.

Living by the beach at home, I was very excited to be able to put my feet into some salt water once more, smell the salt in the air and feel the warm sea breeze on my face. This is something that I have missed living in Johannesburg, but the salt plains nearby sometimes give a false sense that you are near the beach.

We arrived at Shaka's Beach at about 10.30pm, after Jarred and Daniel drove for over seven hours, going at about 130km most of the time. As soon as we got near the beach there was a distinctively different smell to that of Joburg. It was more humid yet somehow fresher. We were getting close to the ocean and we could feel it!  

The view from our apartment, the Indian Ocean

When we woke up in the morning we were greeted with a lovely view from our apartment balcony of the Indian Ocean, ready to be swam in. The sun shining down like a normal summer's day, although it was actually spring. It would have been over 30 degrees, perfect beach weather!

On the way to our swimming spot (in between the flags), I was looking out to sea and kept seeing these massive splashes about 800m out to sea. At first I thought it was the waves hitting rocks, but then I realised it was in fact a WHALE!! I couldn't believe it! I'd never seen a whale in real life (IRL) and it was sooooo cool to see this one jumping up and landing on its back, making lots of splashes. I kept watching it for about 15 minutes, so impressed that it was able to lift all its body weight out of the water then spectacularly falling back into it. It seemed like he/she was having a blast!  

Shaka's Bay

Our time in Shaka's Bay consisted of driving, sleeping, reading, running, watching movies, swimming and relaxing. We also took some rad underwater pictures in the swimming pool at the apartment complex. It's great having a waterproof camera!

Jarred, Sophie and Daniel

On Saturday the weather was not so nice, more like a winter's day in Melbourne, so we decided to venture into Durban, about an hour's drive away. When we got there we had a walk around on the city, mostly along the foreshore. We stopped for some lunch at a nice Indian restaurant, but the food was so so spicy that I didn't eat too much, just lots of naan! There wasn't too much to see in Durban so after lunch we headed back to Shaka's Bay for our afternoon naps or reading sessions. 

Of what we saw of Durban, it felt like we had been transported back in time to the 1970s. Most of the builidings were big concrete buildings, painted a salmon and grey colour, some were rundown and only a few looked like they had been built in the last 10 years. It seemed like a strange city but we only spent a few hours there so I'm sure there are nicer parts. 

Durban: still living in the 1970s

Sunday was another perfect day in paradise, with the temperate probably about 27 degrees. Jarred and I went on a 5km in the morning, which was tough but so great to be running along the beach again! Shaka's Bay and surrounding areas is quite hilly so it was hard running up and down all the hills but we both felt pretty good by the end of it. We then all headed to the beach, bathed ourselves in nice warm sun and ventured into the rough seas of the Indian ocean. I always forget how rough the ocean is. The waves have the ability to throw you around like a rag doll in a baby's hand, even when they look so calm. On a few occasions I nearly lost my bathers which was a bit awkward, but I was able to hold onto them so the waves didn't take them out to sea! Again when I saw sitting on the beach another whale came to show off his/her splashing skills, this time with its tail rather than its body. It was about 500m out to sea and I think there could have been more than one because there were a lot of tails flying around the water. I was again so impressed and instantly fell in love with all whales! I couldn't believe that I was seeing a whale and kept exclaiming this to Sophie, Jarred and Daniel.

Dusk at Shaka's Bay 

Unfortunately on Monday morning we had to make the long drive back to Joburg and leave the loveliness that was Shaka's Bay! It was so great to be able to rekindle myself with the beach and the glorious sea breeze that goes with it. It was also great to relax, read a book or two, watch some hilarious TV and movies and just relax. Thanks to Jarred (and your uncle) for letting us stay in the apartment and for a very fun weekend! Sophie and Daniel you were great company too :)

Next up is our girls weekend in Drakensburg and Lesotho, so much fun!

AFL in Capetown

AFL: African Style 

I could have been in Melbourne if I closed my eyes and listened to the pattering of rain on the grass, like it does on so many winter days. I could have been walking out onto any suburban footy ground ready to start the afternoon match that is the highlight of so many people’s weekends, including my own.

But alas when I opened my ears and my eyes, I was certainly not in Melbourne. The jumpers were the same, Pies vs Blues, the ball was the same, red and made of leather, and to some extent the ground was the same. But the sound of African singing and dancing as a warm up exercise definitely told me I wasn't in Melbourne. I was in Capetown, South Africa, about to help umpire my first African game of AFL.

Here goes..

To my pleasant surprise, the players knew what they were doing. The ruckman jumped for the ball, the rovers gathered it and bodies were flying, this was footy the way I love it. One small difference was that the traditional 'BALL' was only heard approximately twice a quarter, rather than the twice a minute back at home. But I wasn't complaining about that, nor were the other umpires, all of which were female! Cleo and Lerato were the main field umpires with 6 other females making up the boundaries and goals, two of which had travelled down from Joburg with me on the plane, Charmine and Brigitte as well as Lerato.  Another slight difference was the ground. It had 4 goal posts at each end- that was all in order, and you could just make out the marking on the field. But what you don't get on Melbourne grounds is your very own rain system by way of sprinklers that won't turn off. But a job is a job and you work with what you have. So we had 9 umpires, 36 players, a ball, a field and some extra water...certainly enough to play a football game.

Lerato and Cleo

All the umpires 

From my sources within AFL South Africa, I have heard that the players can sometimes treat the umpires not so nicely, but that was not going to happen on my watch. After having a pre-game meeting with the umpires, to make sure everyone knew what they were doing, it was time to tell the players to do what I wanted them to do. The list was simple. Be nice, don't swear, don't get angry at us (the umpires), your teammates or other players and we won't get angry at you, play fair, play by the rules and try and have fun!  

There are the goal posts!

So off we went. Up went the ball, splat went the players, splash went the ball on the wet ground and splish went the water from the non-stop rain/sprinkler system in the middle of the ground. Oh and not to mention the actual rain that was falling on this extremely chilly winter's day in Capetown. 

My job during the game was to try and teach my 6 and a bit years of umpiring knowledge to umpires that are relatively new to the game. The first quarter was about feeling my way through what AFL in South Africa actually means, so I could translate this into Melbourne footy then translate it back into African footy. Obviously the players and the umpires are not as exposed to AFL as I have been, where it is your face, on your TV screens and possibly splattered about my house (carn catters!), so their feel for the game was a bit different. Nonetheless it was a great brand of footy. Daring, fast-paced, hard, at times clumsy but above all there to give it a red hot go! As umpires we had to be right on it. There for the holding the ball when a player decided to be a bit too daring, or for the high tackle when a player went in a bit too hard. And we had to run our socks off to keep up with the running, side-stepping and long kicks that are involved with AFL in SA.

Being the photographer during the game

Once I was not quite quick enough and got a ball smack bang in the knoggin..I think I blacked out for a second, but after a couple of minutes of running around with vision in only one eye I was all good to continue being the umpiring teacher. As the game wore on I could see the confidence in Cleo and Lerato grow tremendously. Their whistles became louder, their calls stronger and positioning more effective. I felt like a proud mother sending her children off to big school for the first time.

In the last quarter I let Cleo and Lerato control the game themselves, where I only stepped in one or two times to pay a free kick. With my down jacket on, rain ceasing (apart from the sprinklers of course), I was able to be a semi-spectator in the middle of the ground. I think this is why I love umpiring so much. Each weekend I get to be a semi-spectator in an incredibly spectator friendly sport. I am of course doing my job, looking out for free kicks and keeping control of the game, but every now and then you become a spectator. Whether it be for an amazing mark a player just took on someone else's back, a desperate tackle, an incredible goal or a beautiful kick, I'm there, in the middle, whistle in hand, watching the excitement and joy that is footy.

Cleo and I after the game

In the fourth quarter I was able to see the little kids that had huddled under shelters or behind walls to watch the game out of the wind and rain, whether they really knew what they were watching or not. I was able to see the coach, in an Essendon tracksuit yelling out instructions just like I hear every Saturday. I was able to see the celebration of a goal, the goal where the team knew they were safe from defeat. I was able to see the colourful shanty homes of the township that surrounded the ground. This was South Africa and I was watching Australian football, and I was loving it. 

Western Cape celebrating their win in the rooms

In the end it was Western Cape (Capetown) that came home with the 4 points (if they play for 4 points) over Gauteng (Johannesburg) by about 25 points.  It was an awesome first experience of AFL in South Africa and I really hope I have many many more in the months to follow. There is such a passion for the game and you can tell that people just want to share it. I hope I can be part of that sharing experience. A massive thank you to Phindi and the team at AFL SA for giving me the opportunity to be able to experience this. And to Neville Nash, for sending that email many months ago. The wheels are a moving and the AFL train is a chugging. 

Rwanda

Rwanda: a little country in the middle of Africa full of big-hearted people

A couple of weeks ago I went to Rwanda for five days to visit my brother who has been working there for the past 6 months. I hadn't seen David for nearly a year so I was pretty pumped to see him for the first time in a long time!

I had no idea what to expect from Rwanda. The only image I had in my head of what it could be like was from the movie Hotel Rwanda, which I don't think was even filmed in Rwanda, and off photos that David has been sending us. The main story I had of Rwanda was one of violence, genocide and suffering, and although I knew that the country wasn't like that anymore, it is still hard to get that image out of your head.

Before I could fly into Kigali, the capital of Rwanda, the Captain told us that we were by passing a place that I thought was called Bugambura, but turned out I was stopping in Bujumbura in Burundi, a country just next door to Rwanda. So after a 30 minute lay-over in Bujumbura, we set off again for the 25 minute flight across Burundi and into Rwanda.

Flying over Rwanda to get into Kigali, you realise just how hilly the country is. They call it the country of a thousand hills, but there are many many more! Just from flying over it I realised that this was indeed a very beautiful country, that had unfortunately seen so much horror. I landed 45 minutes early, which is very unusual for Africa since everything seems to run on African time, where everything is delayed.

I hoped off the plane and was greeted shortly after arriving by David and his friends Gilbert and Carine. It was so lovely to see David and give him a massive hug! I was greeted much the same way by Gilbert and Carine, and even though I had just met them, I felt like I had already known them for ages. Maybe it's all the times David has spoken about them on Skype.

Now I won't give you a complete minute by minute run down of what I did while in Rwanda (you'd get bored), but I'll give you the basic outline of some of the cool things I did, amazing people I met and just how amazing Rwanda is.

When I first arrived on Friday night, David and myself went to dinner with Noel who David works with.
David's friend Noel is one of the nicest people I have ever met. As soon as I met him, I had felt like I had known him for years. He just made me feel so comfortable to be Rwanda and to be sharing his country with him for a few days! Noel was 12 when the genocide happened. Most of his family were killed by the Hutus and he was forced to hide for many days to survive. David told me that while he was hiding, it took him 2 days to crawl 400 metres. Noel can talk about the genocide. You can see that it's not easy for him, but he wants people to know about it and for people to know exactly what happened rather than just know the Hollywoodised version of the story.

Although the genocide isn't openly talking about that much in Rwanda, it is always there, in the background of conversations, lurking, like a marker of time in Rwanda. It's almost like you can't talk about Rwanda now, without talking about the genocide. I think this is an extremely important thing to do. The country won't be able to move forward without tackling it head on, which I think is what they have done, and you can really see this with the way the country is today. I highly suggest that people read, We wish to inform you that tomorrow we will be killed with our families, by Philip Gourevitch. It is an amazing book about the genocide and how it came about. I read the 400-page book in about 5 days, it's that compelling.

On Saturday morning, David dragged myself and Carine to go horseriding. For all those who know David, you'd know that he loves horseriding, like loves it! I'm not the biggest fan of horseriding and Carine had never done it before so one could say that we gave David the reins for most of the time. The journey to horseriding was an interesting one. The main way that people get around in Kigali is by moto, a taxi service via motorbikes. You literally hop onto a motorbike, the ones where the drivers are wearing vests and have an extra helmet for you and away you go. I had my first moto experience about 1 hour after arriving in Kigali. I'd never really been on a motorbike before but it was so much fun, and I looked forward to the next time I got to ride on one!

No hands- my first moto experience!

Horseriding was at the top of Mt Kigali, so we had to moto it up to the top of a mountain, on quite bumpy, narrow, steep roads where at times I felt like I might fall off but luckily the bikes have little handle at the back that you can hold onto, so I held on. The view at the top of the mountain was beautiful and definitely worth seeing. We rode around the pit at the horseriding place for about an hour and a half, David riding for about half of that and Carine and I sharing the rest. We were riding one of about 4 horses in the whole of Rwanda, trust David to be able to find it!

The view of the hills in Rwanda

Me on the horse

David, Carine and the owner David

David and his beloved horse

After our horseriding experience, we met up with Gilbert and went to lunch in the centre of Kigali and had  some delicious veggie burgers (David makes me feel bad eating meat when I'm in his presence). Then we walked around the lovely, clean, orderly streets of Kigali and headed back to David's apartment. That night David and I went for a lovely all body massage which nearly made me fall asleep. They used a hell of a lot of oil but it was so relaxing and something that I needed after sleeping in a not so great uni bed for the past 3 weeks!

On Sunday night we were invited to a housewarming party for a friend called Sam that David works with who had just got married. It was a lovely night as I got to meet some more of David's lovely friends, to hear stories about what David and his friends have been up to and to just have fun. Everyone I met was so nice and welcomed me into their lives with such ease. I thank David for making such lovely friends and for being a pretty cool person that makes me being there very easy! 

Sam and I

David and I showing off our denim shorts

David, Sam, Sam's wife and JC

Carine, Noel and I

Genocide Museum 

 On Tuesday I went to the genocide museum. It is an incredible museum that is hard to put into words. The museum itself is situated on a hill that looks out onto parts of Kigali and where you can see the main CBD. Inside the museum, it is peaceful but obviously sombre. It is made up of sections to explain how the genocide came about, what happened during the genocide and what happened and is happening after the genocide. You follow the museum around like a labyrinth, where on the outer section there is information and pictures before, during and after the genocide. Then you go into the inner labyrinth of the museum where there are pictures of those people who were killed, the clothes and mementos from those killed and skulls and bones of about 200 people that were killed. It was definitely confronting to see 200 skulls and 400-plus bones in one place, and to know that they had been brutally killed by another human being. But what struck me was how much the skulls all looked the same in one way or another.

This is not to say that the skulls all looked like Tutsi skulls, but they all looked like human skulls, like my skull or your skull. I don't know if this is a morbid thing to think, but in the end we are all similar. We all have a skull, two arms, to legs and a body. Why did there need to be a distinction between who was who in Rwanda? Why did there need to be Hutu and Tutsi people? I obviously know that everyone is different with different religions, ethnicities, values and beliefs, but when you get down to the crux of it, we are all the same. We are all human. The Rwandan Genocide was an extremely horrific 100 days in Rwandan history, but also in the history of humanity. How can we as bystanders let a group of human beings kill another group of human beings and do very little to stop it or even make it worst? What degrades people in such a way that makes it ok for a neighbour to kill a neighbour, a friend to kill a friend or even a relative to kill a relative all because they are labelled Hutu and Tutsi? How do some people not know that this happened, or even deny that this occurred? We said in 1948 that the Holocaust or something similar would never happened again, but a little under 50 years later it did, where nearly 1 million Tutsi's were killed in the space of 100 days. 

The Genocide Museum

I had an incredible time in Rwanda and want to go back there right away. The people and the country were so incredibly lovely that it is hard to see that something awful happened not very long ago. The only physical remnants you can see of any conflict occurring is on the side of the Parliament House in Kigali, where there are bullet and mortar holes from fighting between Hutu rebels and Tutsi rebels. Other than that, you wouldn't know. I don't know exactly how the country has come to seem so harmonious in the 18 years since the genocide occurred. I'm sure that there are divisions, anger, hurt and every other emotion under the sun still being felt by Rwandans and will still be felt for probably their whole lives, but it seems such a peaceful and extremely safe place. I'm so glad that I got to spend my time in Rwanda with my brother and was able to see what is he doing and how respected he is by the people he works with. I definitely hope I can go back very soon to hang out with the amazing, lovely and generous people that I met. Thanks for making my time in Kigali so awesome.


Next up I'm off to Capetown to umpire AFL for AFL South Africa! I'll let you know how it all went very soon.

Love to you all,
Love all that you are,
And all those around you.








 

What to do when you don't have class..

Sophie and Emma having a jump

As some of you know or may not know, I am indeed studying in South Africa at the Monash University here. It is in Joburg, but it's approximately 45 minutes from the centre of town, 2 hours with bad traffic.

That's a good and a bad thing.

It means that we're not near the extremely 'dangerous' parts of Joburg, where apparently crime is a part of everyday life. So Mum and Dad don't stress too much,I'm pretty safe. But that also means that there is not much around the University, and the only way you can go anywhere is by 'taxis' which are essentially people who don't mind waiting out the front of our Uni to give us lifts places, and we pay them.

Where I live is called Ruimsig, pronounced Roomzig, or Roym-zig, depending on who you talk to. But when you say it you must put a bit of a harder sound on the R, making it sound like you've got a bit of flem in the back of your throat. Have a go, it's pretty fun to say! And just to give you a sense of how lively Ruimsig is, one South African friend told us that Ruimsig is known as a place of retirement, for people to leave the hustle and bussle of the city for a quieter, more serene part of the world.

I live at the top left of the map!

For me, having not much to do is something that I'm not familiar with. Back in Melbourne I was a very busy beaver trying to fit as much into the day as possible, be it work, uni, umpiring and the like. However, down in Ruimsig town it's a bit of a different story. I only have 7 hours of Uni a week, which can go down to 6 depending on how chatty the lectures are. This 7 hours is split up between two days. Monday 8-10am and Wednesday 10-12pm, 12-1pm and 4-6pm. So as you might imagine I have quite a lot of spare time, or at least that's what it seems like. Spare time to do lots of Uni work, get organised for the semester and start assignments early. Well, this is what I try to do, but sometime I'm not as successful as I'd hope to be.

So here's a little list of the things that I, along with roomies (Sophie, Emma and Gaelle) and the other exchange kids (Marion, Rachel, Oli, Tom, Matt, Owen and Hilmi) like to do when we don't have class.

Activity 1: Paintball!
The boys in the group discovered after a few days of being here that there is in fact a paintball place about a 5 minute tax ridi from the Uni! How awesome is that!? So of course we had to try it. The boys went first to give it a go and came back with a few bruises but mostly raving about how great it was. So a bigger group went the next time, but at night time for a bit of mortal combat by night by paintball. We got our overalls on, our masks at the ready and our guns ready to fire and off we went for a 2-3 hour battle of paintball! We split into teams and tried hard not to get hit but hit as many people as you could in the mini games that we played. We each bought between 200-400 paintballs so that meant that people would be hit quite a lot. And all this for about AU$20! Nothing like the $100 or more it can cost to do it in Melbourne! By the end of the night I had only been hit a few times, one in the head (I'm going to get you back whoever did that!) and in the legs a few times, but all that only resulted in one bruise..winning at paintball! Some others didn't fair so lucky but all in all we survived shooting paintballs at each other and will definitely be venturing back there soon!

Most of the gang at paintball!

Activity 2: Featherbrooke 
The local shopping complex is about a 10 minute walk down the road and is called Featherbrooke. It is home to pretty much everything we need. You've got the local supermarket called Pick N Pay, the local fast food eateries of KFC, Wimpy's and Steers, the FNB Bank (where we spent many an hour trying to set up a bank account), the Bottle-o, the local cafe of Mugg and Bean, the more upmarket supermarket of Woolworths (the sponsor Masterchef SA, yes they have it here too) and the famous Stones bar slash nightclub, but I'll talk about that in more detail later.

We venture down to Featherbrooke between once and four times a week depending on how good our 'big' shop is at the start of the week. The boys tend to venture down there a bit more as they enjoy the taste of Wimpy's and KFC (affectionately known as the Dirty Bird). It's a pretty extensive little shopping area and serves our simple needs of living on res, cooking for ourselves and sometimes having a class of red vino and cheese to top it all off. Mugg and Bean also do a steller ice coffee that we've only tasted once but I feel that another tasting needs to happen soon!

Activity 3: Soccer 
As I only have 7 hours of Uni a week, I decided that I needed something stable to fill in my time and to prevent me from suffering severe boredom. Unfortunately there is no AFL team at Monash SA, therefore no team for me to umpire, so the next best thing was what I used to do for many a year- soccer. So in the first week of semester I went down to the soccer oval to see if there was a team for me to join. As it turned out I was the only girl that turned up for training that day, but the coach reassured me that more girls would turn up and that there was indeed a women's soccer team. So on this first day I trained with the boys, which was a little intimidating and I think I only got one or two touches.

I was told by my coach that soccer training was everyday, so the next day I turned up and one other girl was also there, the captain. This was slightly promising. I just kicked the ball around with Si (the captain) for about an hour while watching the boys train then returned home. So this pattern has been as following for the past 2 weeks. However training has increased, where we run five laps of the oval (the other girls aren't happy about this), kicking the ball around, playing little games and shooting for goal. At the moment the highest number of people we have had at training has been 5. But I am told that we do in fact have enough people for the team.

Our first game was meant to be on Tuesday, but due to the snow, yes you saw right, it snowed here on Tuesday, in Africa, in Joburg..we couldn't play the game. We were suppose to be playing in Pretoria which is about an hour and a half away, but there was too much snow on the field so we didn't venture out there. I was a little relieved as it was about 1 degree and the temperature only would have got colder, but also a little bit disappointed as it would have been cool to play in the snow and throw snowballs at the opposition. Maybe next time. So that is what I do pretty much every afternoon from about 4.15pm to 5.30pm.

Activity 4: Stones
Stones is the local nightly hangout for mostly Monash people and a few randoms who want to let their hair down, shake their badonkadonks (bottoms) and also play pool if they so desire. It's at Featherbrooke so is very easy to get to. We have been twice, the first time the week before Uni started which meant that it was rather dead and we were one of very few people there for most of the night. The second time was a lot busier and we realised that the later you arrive the better it is.

The dancefloor is where it is at at Stones. It can be described as a glitterbox. The walls are plated top to tail in shiny little mirrors that make it looks like it's glittering. And the music is pretty swell too. I'll have to admit that I did go rather crazy when 'Starships' by Nicki Minaj came on. Maxees you may know what I'm talking about! Such a good song! I had a good jive to that, and lucky for me I have friends here that are willing to dance as crazily as I do. Thanks Soph and Susant :)

Tom and I on the d-floor!

There are also many pool tables at Stones that have had my name on them. Although I'm not very good at pool, I do enjoy a good game. And a good game I had the other night. I was down and out to the master player Owen, but somehow I manage to scramble my way back into the game. We were suppose to be playing in partners, mine being Sophie, Owen's being Susant, but the other two seemingly forgot that we were playing an intense game of pool so it was up to us to finish it. Owen skipped out to a lead of pretty much sinking all but two or three balls plus the black one while I had about six more to down. Somehow I got about 3 in a row, then Owen missed his and I got another two. The final shot was mine to sink, the black ball, and I got it in, but the white ball went in as well. I don't exactly know the rules of pool but I think that means I lose..but gentleman Owen awarded me the win. I think I was pretty much the only one in the place that thought our game was extraordinarily epic. Maybe it's my warped sense of pool that made it so, but I still enjoyed having a play! So that is Stones, pronounced Stooones, with a posh accent, just because it's a cool thing to do.

Activity 5: TravellingHaving two days of Uni a week leaves a bit of time for exploring. And having Thursday and Friday off makes it even better. Therefore, this weekend I am going to Rwanda (to visit my brother David) for 5 days while the rest of the gang goes to Oppikoppi, a music festival about 3 hours from here. They have hired two cars, packed full with food, clothes and the like and have just made it to the festival. For some reason the festival was giving away free tickets to anyone that holds a valid Australian passport, so that meant pretty much all of the group bar 2-3 got free tickets. So random yet so perfect. I leave for Rwanda tomorrow morning and fly 5 and a bit hours to see my lovely brother for the first time in a long time. I'm very excited to see him and I know we're going to have a great time catching up, seeing the sights of Rwanda and doing whatever David has in store for us.

I'll update you guys on my Rwandan travels in the next blog, as well as what I got up to on my birthday..oh yeah I'm 21 now, how cray!

Lots of love xox

This is Africa: Soweto

Wow, how time flies! I can't believe I've been in South Africa for almost two weeks. It feels like yesterday that I was saying goodbye to family and friends and jumping on the plane to come here. But alas, that was 14 days ago.

The last two weeks have been very exciting, interesting and fun! It has been awesome to meet new people, experience Uni life and see the sights of Joburg.

Two days after I arrived, we exchange kids (8 Aussies, 2 French, 1 American and 1 Malaysian) became tourists and went on a 5-hour bike ride through the township of Soweto. Soweto is where Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu have lived and continue to live. It is a black township about 20 minutes from Monash Uni, which is believed to be home to about 4.5million people, according to our guide. Soweto is sometimes referred to an 'informal settlement' which means that it is illegal, but I'm not sure if all of the settlement is illegal or only parts of it.

We headed off on our bike ride from a backpackers within Soweto, along with about 20 other tourists from all of the world. There were people from the Netherlands, America, France and another bunch of Australians.

Emma and Sophie all set to go! 

Throughout the ride our guides taught us some interesting things about Soweto, as well as a bit of Zulu. We learnt how to say hello to one person, sawubona, pronounced, sow-bona, and to more than one person, sanibonani, pronounced how it is spelt, sa-ne-bow-na-ni. So as we all rode along the streets of Soweto we tried to say hello to the locals in Zulu, sometimes confusing the single version of hello with the plural, but I think we got away with it. We also learnt how to say hello in Soweto slang. It was similar to Hola, but was more like Wola Wola, and had to be said with some 'fresh' moves. These moves can include crossing your arms in a 'cool' fashion, or simply being swagger which is probably the best way I can describe it. Our guide was definitely swagger and pulled off the wola wola very well. We, on the other hand were not so swagger and stuck to the traditional way of saying hello.

Our guide NK, (with his hand up) which is short for 'freedom' in Zulu

The ride was very interesting and led us through the very different areas of Soweto. Some areas were very nice, with high fences, barbed wire and electric fences. Others were not so nice, where rubbish lined the road, but the people were just as friendly, or even more friendly and said hello to us when we attempted to say hello in Zulu. 

One of our stops was in the not-so-nice looking part of Soweto where we tasted 3 different types of beers that had been brewed there. Some locals came to join us in this beer tasting experience which included the men going first to try the beer and to let out an 'AHH' or a 'UGH' if they liked or didn't like the beer. The men had to kneel down on a straw mat whilst tasting the beer. Then it was the women's turn, but we didn't have to kneel down or exclaim whether we liked the beer or not. The beers tasted very different. One was a very milky one, another one was a sweet beer and another was quite thick. The sweet was tasted the nicest and went down the smoothest. 

The three beers we tasted

Matt (the American) keeling down to taste the beer

As part of the beer tasting, dancing and singing was required to celebrate our visit to this part of Soweto. The locals came and showed us how to do a dance where you lift up one leg, jump and then slam it on the ground again. I think it's known as the gumboot dance. We also sung some South African songs which were very beautiful. 

Susant trying out the gumboot dance, getting owned by a local

Our next stop was a memorial known as the Hector Pieterson memorial which was dedicated to the students who died after the government cracked down on protests that were occurring in Soweto. In 1976 approximately 15,000 students gathered in a part of Soweto to protest the apartheid measures within the education system in South Africa. Within these protests, 600 people were killed when the government troops opened fire on the protesters. Hector Pieterson, a 13-year old boy partaking in the protest was one of the first and youngest people killed within these protests. It was a moving memorial, with many symbolist things within the memorial including a water feature to represent the blood of those students who had died.  

The Hector Pieterson Memorial 

Following the memorial we stopped off at a restaurant for lunch to have a famous Soweto Burger. It was a delicious burger made up of bread, hot chips, cheese, an egg, tomato, some funky looking salami and ham, topped off with tomato sauce. But we all needed such a big burger after a few hours of cycling around Soweto.

After lunch we headed back to the backpackers via the road that is home to two Noble Laureates, Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu. We rode past Mandela's home which he grew up in but doesn't live in anymore, and Tutu's home that is still owned and lived in by his family. It was amazing to see where these two great men of South Africa had grown up and lived and to see where their great ideas and actions had come from.

Riding around Soweto was a great way to see everything, smell everything, hear everything and just take in the surrounds of the township. It was great to be able to say hi to the locals in their language and not feel so much like a tourist. (Although for the large part I did, but sometimes you can't help that)

And for those who hear the name Soweto and think danger, fear not, there was not one moment during this bike ride where I felt I was in danger. Not even when we were riding on the road with taxi hurling past us. It was a great experience where we got to say hi to the beautiful little kids that live there, highfive-ing them as we rode past, and to see the kids running to the school fence to catch a glimpse of the tourists riding past their school.

So if you're ever in Soweto, give the Soweto Bike Tour a go, it's really fun and your bum isn't that sore by the end of it :)

Soweto

   

Joburg and its many many compounds!

In one word.

Wow.

The last week and half of my life has been incredible, crazy, hectic, exhausting, exciting, sad, exhilarating, full of dancing, smiling, crying and wonder.

After spending a week with 60 of the most amazing people I've ever met, I had just over 24 hours to pack my life away into one backpack weighing approximately 19kg. I had to decide what clothes I wanted to wear for the next 6 months of my life, what were my favourite t-shirts, jumpers that must come with me and shoes that I couldn't live without. If you're wondering, all my Parks and Recreation t-shirts made the cut of course, I certainly can't live without them! My (actually my sister's, but shh) giraffe jumper made the cut as well as my favourite woollen spotty jumper.

As I dedicated very little time to packing and more time to sleeping, I was all packed with a little over 6 hours until departure time...plenty of time, and spent about 2 hours actually deciding what it was I should pack. Looking back now I could have brought more things and have probably forgotten many more things, but hey, living simply is the best way!

Saturday afternoon and Sunday before departure were filled with sleep, tears, goodbyes, food, massages, family fun, more tears, more goodbyes, checking my plane ticket about 30 times to make sure I hadn't missed it, more sleep and me just being downright exhausted. But as the day wore on, it dawned on me that I was in fact leaving extremely soon, leaving my life for 6 months to experience and new and different one half way across the world. Woah Nelly!

Being a studious traveller, I had checked in online, meaning that all I had to do was drop my bag par se with the lovely lady at the counter of Qatar Airways and then make my way to the departure gate, very slowly..stopping off for a hot chocolate with the family to pass the time and to spend some quality time with them for the last time for a little while. It was a pretty good hot chocolate for an airport cafe and being at about 9.30pm.

Slowly, I walked to the departure gate with Mum, Dad, Sarah and Rachel. It was time for me to pass through the gates, get on a plane, sleep, and get to South Africa. But this didn't happen without more tears, mostly from me, and lots of hugs, about 30 all up, and then with a final look behind, and a final wave, I was through the gates, on my way to the Rainbow Country.

Luckily on the plane no one was sitting right next to me so I could put my legs up on the seat and sleep. Score! Normally I don't sleep that well on planes but I was oh so exhausted that I think I fell asleep within 10 minutes of take off, hmm sleep is soo good! Unfortunately after a few hours of sleep, I woke up with quite a stiff neck. They really should attempt to make plane seats more adaptable for sleep, no one really sleeps upright do they now? And I also have to agree with my sister, plane food is really small...it's like a miniature meal, a bit cute! The plane trip from Melbourne to Doha was pretty uneventful and I think I watched one or two movies and tried to sleep for most of the 14 hour journey.

After that plane ride I hopped on another plane from Doha for the approximately 8 hour journey to Johannesburg. This flight was quite uneventful too, I slept a bit, watched a few movies, watched some Community (woo!) and fretted a bit that maybe no one would be there to pick me up at the airport!

At 2.15pm Johannesburg time (10.15pm Melbourne time) I arrived in the great city of Johannesburg and breezed through customs in about 10 minutes, they didn't even look at my visa! However, following that easy process, I had to wait anxiously for about an hour and a half for my ride to come and take me to Monash Uni South Africa. It was a very anxious wait as I was not entirely sure if anyone was there or was going to pick me up. After a few texts to Mum and Dad back at home they informed me that indeed some one was coming to get me. Phew! At 4.30pm, Laurence arrived with a placard saying 'Monash University- Libby Toovey'. A great sigh of relief passed through me.

We jumped into Laurence's Toyota hatchback and made the journey through peak-hour traffic to Monash Uni, normally about 30 mins from the city but took us just over an hour. I've never seen so much traffic lined up and for so long. And I thought Melbourne traffic was bad. One funny observation is that people do not stick to the speed limits, not that my driver would know as the speedo didn't work but was stuck on zero the whole time. At least we had a full tank of petrol!

After more than 24 hours of travelling from one side of the earth to the other, I arrived at Monash University at about 5.30pm, where I was greeted by a beautiful sunset and hugs from my fellow aussie room mates.

Ah I made it, bitchez be crazy!

Day 1 complete.