At the same time

This post was uploaded at may 25th. 

Taxis. After this weekend I don’t like them that much anymore. Thursday may 17^th, the drivers of the taxi busses decided to strike without making any announcement. Please note that they were still driving in the morning and started striking around 12. Now you can imagine that lots of people, young women and children as well, couldn’t think of a way to get home after their obligations. It was hectic in town. Hundreds of people weren’t able to get home. Luckily they went back to work the next morning, but this wasn’t for long. Around 12 they started striking again, this time with lots of violence in town. The shops closed because they got attacked and rubber had been shot by the police. Everyone was in panic and people were running and screaming around. This day took the lives of six people. The reason for the strike? Taxi drivers complained that eThekwini's metro police were targeting them when issuing traffic fines. They want every ticket to be written in Zulu, that every current warrant should be cancelled and that there shouldn’t be any traffic enforcement during the morning and afternoon peak. They also believe that Indian and white people shouldn’t be allowed to write tickets, because the taxi drivers can’t speak any English. The strike on itself shouldn’t have to be a big problem, as long as your view on the situation is clear and realistic and that no innocent people will get harmed. And that is exactly what happened here..

Saturday afternoon I went to visit a soccer game together with Vukani, Caroline, Friut and Lolly. Vukani invited us to come and so we did. When I heard that the game was sold out (Moses Mabhiba stadium, 62.000 people) I was wondering what the game was about and this feeling got stronger when we approached the stadium and everybody was dancing and hooting on their vuvuzelas. If you thought that the vuvuzelas were only for the WC, you’re wrong. The vuvuzelas are still everywhere in the stadium and they make lots of noise. Some vuvuzelanists (they really deserve a title) were blowing their instrument so hard and long that they sometimes needed to sit down to not pass out. We were on the Pirates side and they were playing against the Golden Arrows for some cup. I asked my neighbour where the guest supporters had to sit. It took me thirty minutes to explain what I meant. They don’t have anything like that in South Africa. You support the team you want to support and so you can sit wherever you want to sit. I said as a joke that I was for the winning team, but that’s actually not a weird thing to say here. You’re here to party and to have a good time so you actually do support the winning team! Luckily, my team really won. Vukani was still supporting the Golden Arrows at half time, but after 90 minutes (4-2) he turned into a Pirates supporter. Right before the end of the game, the security was surrounding the field and I asked Vukani how they would ever be able to stop the fans for running on the field. “haha They won’t” and he was right. After the signal the first people started to run to the field which was so funny. Security was trying to catch some of them but because of their creative fakes they didn’t succeed. After five minutes the field was full of fans and a huge party got started. Finally when almost everyone had left the field, there was this one fanatic fan that took off all of his clothes and ran for his minute of fame... What a party, I never experienced anything like this in my life and I loved it!

Last Friday I moved to a place across the street. I’m still at Tekweni every day, but my new accommodation is lovely. I have my own bed- and bathroom and the landlady and her two Jack Russels are very nice. The cleaning ladies do my laundry so you might understand that I adore them. The Jack Russels don’t listen to anything at all, also not to me. They will come when I have some meat in my hands, but according to the landlady that doesn’t count. Yesterday when I came from work she was chasing the two monsters. When she finally caught them she said: “Please have them for dinner! Bbq them or something!”

On Sunday I went for lunch with Tara, Shannon, Friut and Lolly and I took the amazing Crab Curry. The food is so hot and spicy here and every time I try to act cool and tough and not to sweat and cry while I’m eating. After that we made the Tekweni visitors cry because of our amazing karaoke afternoon. A lovely weekend!

When I got to Tekweni on Tuesday Wati asked me if I wanted to taste his soup, of course. It was pretty good, looked like a bouillon, until he told me that it was cow stomach soup. It is very unacceptable here to nag and swear at food so he gave me the ‘food is food’ talk. He was right though. Yesterday when I came in I could smell this strong, not very nice scent. Luckily I didn’t say anything about it, because it came from the kitchen and I had to taste it because it was a real South African dish. It looked a bit like a mixture of broccoli and seaweed, but because Lolly didn’t want to tell me what it was until I tasted it,  I knew it must be a body part of some animal. It was a bit leathery and it tasted a bit boring and salty. And of course an explosion of spiciness. Guess what? The actual cow stomach.

Today I visited another charity with Jacqui. Her mother works here. It is like a care home where people can stay at their last stage of life, both elderly people as children, both cancer- as AIDS patients. They organized a little cloth market for the charity. They promised me brand clothing, but Mr. Price didn’t really meet my Guess and Prada expectations. This was of course logical, I know. It must me so hard and sad to work here, especially with the children. They also have something like the make a wish foundation and they often visit this hospice to fulfill their last wish. In Holland the children will wish for a meet & greet with their idol or a helicopter flight. Not here. One little girl around the age of 7 just broke my heart with her last wish: “I would like to wish for my own pillow”…

It was another hectic and double week with lots of good things and lovely people, but this week showed me again that this country definitely has two sides more than any country in the world.

Thank you so much for your time! Appreciate it!

Love, Esther

A long way to go

This post was uploaded at may 18th

The longer I’m here, the more I wonder how I really feel about this country. I really don’t know. I don’t want to leave this place anytime soon, I’m enjoying every single day and everything is so beautiful. Then you hear how the politics really work, how the top brass destroyed the wonderful work that Nelson Mandela did, how lots of children don’t know how to get the most out of their lives (how can you blame the parents) and how ‘positive’ people slowly start losing their faith to improve this country.

KwaMashu

Last Tuesday I visited one of the OVSA schools in KwaMashu with Wilma (Be More) and the two facilitators Lindiwe and Nothile to attend two workshops. OneVoice teaches Grade 8 learners which is the first grade of high school. The ages differ from 13 to 19 years. This is because children always start school at grade 1 whether you’re 6 or 11 years old.  The hallways of the schools are all outside but covered and there is a "lawn" between the courses. The quotes are because of the amount of trash and waste that the lawn seemed more like a garbage dump. All windows are open and children without any shame throw all their waste out of the windows. Quite bizarre. 

Problem Solving workshop by Lindiwe

We first went to the office of the L.O. teachers (life orientation) who were chilling here. It was raining, so you obviously can’t teach any sports. After five minutes they brought the children back to a classroom, what else could they do? After escaping the netball coach, who was desperate to add me and Wilma to her team, we went to one of the classrooms. There are only children at this school who have been disadvantaged in the previous regime and mostly girls were pretty nervous when they saw us, white women. They would hold each other and giggle. When we entered the classroom, most of the children were laughing and they were pretty impressed and excited about our camera’s. At first they were hiding for the pictures, but later on you can see some kids secretly posing. The first workshop was about problem solving. The class (60 learners) was divided in four groups and each group received a problem that one of the group members had to read in front of the class and together they would think of solutions for that specific problem. For example: Pregnancy under very bad circumstances; who are you going to tell about this and how? ; You have an STD; Are you going to tell this to your girlfriend/boyfriend and how are you going to take the step to do some tests? It was very interesting to see how serious the children handle these kinds of subjects at this age.

Suddenly they all started to scream, laugh, sing and dance and I asked one of the girls who was sitting next to me: “What’s happening?” She replied: “ARE YOU CRAZY!? IT’S LUNCHBREAK!!”  The second workshop was about TB and how this disease relates to HIV. It was mainly in Zulu so I couldn’t understand everything but the kids were so focused and they asked lots of questions about this subject. Afterwards, a little boy asked the facilitators if it was okay if he would shake our hands. I shook his hand and everybody started to scream and laugh. Then the rest followed and they were all waving. So sweet. It was an amazing experience and I hope to visit another school anytime soon!

Another quiet special experience was our visit to home affairs to extend my visa. I came here on a tourist visa which is valid for three months. In the plane, I indicated that I’m here on vacation, because they are very strict when it comes to work and internships. Yesterday, Marlijn picked me up at 07:45 and at 08:00 I wrote my name on the list. The man pointed us to a bench where we had to sit down, because there were several employees for different visas. Okay fine. After about 45 minutes I found it all very strange that anyone but us was moving so I asked again if we really didn’t have to sit in the cue just to be sure. “Why didn’t you get in the cue?!” was his answer.  “But many people came after me”, “I know.. there’s nothing I can do about that I’m sorry.” Okay great! Thank you! In the room were three benches which work the same way as the cues at rollercoasters. The only things missing are the expected waiting time boards. One of the benches wasn’t joining our smooth lovely cue and this cue wasn’t moving at all. These people were waiting even longer than I was and after a long time a guy came in and shouted: “ZIMBABWE” and they all stood up and walked in. Maybe you should’ve been there but I thought it was very funny. After an hour and a half it was finally my turn and prepared as I was the man told me that I needed to do a medical test including x-rays and all and why I didn’t do it in Holland. I never heard of this before and after 10 minutes he thought it would be better to just extend my tourist visa, because then I only had to write a motivation letter. So I wrote a letter about how beautiful this country is and that I still want to visit lots of places and that I need more time to do that. It should be all sorted in 6 to 8 weeks from now so until then I’m allowed to stay here so at least I’m a legal citizen for the next period of time. 

As you know, I’m traveling by taxi busses. Yesterday after work, I was waiting for a taxi to come for more than 30 minutes. I called Marlijn and she was luckily able to pick me up and it turned out that the taxi drivers were striking. That happens here without any announcement which is a disaster; because they dropped people everywhere in the morning but they refused to bring them back home. I only have to travel for 3 kilometers but some people have to travel for 2 hours. People were fighting in town and the shops had to close. Some people even died. Unbelievable..

Marlijn took me to her boyfriend’s house to have dinner with them. His name is Sjorn and since he is from South Africa he could tell me lots of stories about the history of this country and its politics. In his opinion, the country would’ve been way better off if Nelson Mandela had been president for another 8 years and I think I have to agree with that. Marlijn told me that one day the government promised that houses would be build for everyone. That is of course a mission impossible, but when the ‘black’ people ran the country a part of this population truly believed that they could just take over the white people’s houses. People have been knocking on Marlijn’s door, because they were promised a house so here they were! You can imagine that it was a huge disappointment for these people. The country’s politics are not always transparent and without conflict our suspicion and there are a lot of stories and opinions about what really happens within the government, for example the rape of the HIV-positive woman by the current president Jacob Zuma. When I hear and read about this (whether they’re true or false, whatever happened there isn’t right anyway) I catch myself on shaking my head. At these moments I ask myself how this nation should develop and change into a prosperous community and I can imagine that this hope gets lost sometimes. I believe that I’m blessed about working with Marlijn who shows me that there can be start when you start at the beginning and that is the children. If your parents never taught you that you have to throw your waste into the bin, how should you know? And that’s where we come in. I got to experience it myself and I am convinced that OneVoice South Africa and her facilitators really can make that difference.

It’s another long story isn’t it?! I should go and get myself some lunch and I will move to a Bed & Breakfast this afternoon right across the street. Now I can still hang out with my friend at Tekweni and have some more time for school. Sounds wise huh? (Now it seems as if this choice is made voluntarily, clever as I am). I’ve been teaching my colleagues some proper Dutch already and they’re doing a good job I must say!

Thank you all for reading!! I miss my friends and family a lot but as you may understand now, I like the fact that I still have some months left here…

Hakuna Matata!

What a weekend! I’ve seen SO many things in Hluhluwe Imfolozi Game Reserve that I have to write a special blog about it. Every picture I’ve made has a story.

I was told that I would be picked up at Tekweni on Friday between 12 and 13 (13:30 was pretty close) by Camron who would be our guide for the weekend. Together with three other Dutch girls I listened to Camron’s South African stories during the three hour drive. You see lots of lifting people at the side of the road and they make several signs to clarify where they want to go. One man was making wave moves with his arm and I asked Camron in what kind of car the guy would like to travel (he wanted to lift to the beach) and he shook his head: ‘Oh you blondie’. I also noticed the amount of waste here in South Africa. Sometimes you see these fields full of waste and trash. The other day when I was waiting for a taxi, a car pulled over opened his door and threw all his trash out. Camron explained that South African people have the weird habit to just drop everything on the ground. Even when they’re next to a bin, they will just drop it right next to it. 

Bush babies!

We arrived at a backpackers at 16:00. It was extremely out of the way, literally in the jungle. Camron prepared the most delicious spaghetti for us with marshmallow for desert. Somewhere around 19:00 the Bush babies appeared. In my opinion, it’s kind of a mix between a koala bear and a guinea-pig. Very funny creatures. Furthermore, there were lots of geckos in the bathrooms and I also had my first African spider experience. Unbelievable how huge, disgusting and scary these things are!

On Saturday we had to leave at 05:30 as the park opens at 06:00 and at this time you still have the chance to see some of the nocturnal animals. Luckily it was a bit cloudy and not that hot so the animals might not necessarily hide in the shades. The first animal we saw was a Warthog. There was also a baby, but even this one wasn’t really cute or good-looking. Further down the road a scent entered the car. The scent of a dead animal. A hyena came to have a look at the ‘crime scene’ but he was too late. Hyenas seem to eat the remaining parts of animals including bones. 

After this our real big 5 (rhino, elephant, buffalo, leopard, lion) expedition begun and we saw a group/pack/crowd whatever of buffalo’s real soon. These were unfortunately still pretty far away just as the elephants we saw on top of the hill. This is why we were pretty shocked when we were just watching these animals with our binoculars and suddenly an elephant appeared right behind us. I’ve seen elephants before in the zoo, but maybe it is an idea to place an information board which says that the wild elephants are like 4 times that size. Wauw! Camron told us that we were very lucky with the amount of elephants we’ve seen at such a close distance. I think we saw elephants crossing our road for five times. They came running towards us for three times and all three times I got really scared. Camron tried to reassure us by explaining that elephants are not aggressive animals, but they just want to make clear that you have to get out of their way. Ehmm yeah.. 

When we saw our first nyalas we were really impressed. Nyalas are quite similar to impala’s but nyalas have white stripes. I think we saw over 200 nyalas and impalas during the weekend. We had breakfast at 09:00. According to Camron, a woman’s love goes through the stomach and if that’s true his wife must be madly in love cause this man can cook! Delicious! There was also a river viewing point at this place where we could see a crocodile in the distance. A huge one! When I went to the ladies here a gecko fell out when I pulled the toilet paper. Not funny! I still get the shivers when I think of that moment. Nasty!!

I think we saw zebras after this experience. They were pretty close to the road and are not really scared. All animals come pretty close to the road actually, but this is because they don’t associate cars with people. This is why you’re not allowed to get out of your car, but you can open your windows to take some pictures. This is all a bit funny, because at the viewing points you are allowed to get out of the car while the animals can also get there. We also saw a baby zebra. The legs of these babies or of the same length as their mother’s so they can camouflage themselves in dangerous situations. Funny right? In the afternoon we had our first giraffe sight. Very impressive again while they’re so enormous! We saw something special here, because two male giraffes were fighting with each other (again at a very close distance). They were leaning against each other with their full body weight, after which they would swing their necks to hit the other with their ‘horns’ very hard. It was sad to see and sometimes I caught myself moaning as if I was feeling the pain myself. Haha ridiculous.

Around 14:00 we arrived at the camp where we would spend the night. We had the chance to catch a few minutes of sleep before a late afternoon drive to see if some of the predators already have woken up. Secretly I was hoping all day to see lions so I was very excited to go. I think around 16:30 the moment was there. Next to the car a lion was haunting an impala. Oh gosh we were so lucky! She was sneaking and chasing the animal but was eventually to lazy to catch it. Also a bit of a relieve though.. On the other side of the road we saw another four female lions and three babies. After a second attempt for a warthog the lions gave up. It started to get dark already so we were driving back to the camp where the adventure continued. We were having this lovely barbeque in front of our houses and a pack/group/crowd of impalas was chilling right next to us. Camron told us that hyenas may appear because of the smell of meat, but we didn’t have to be scared because they’re scared of people. (This didn’t really help after he told us a story that afternoon about a child that took some food with him in his tent. A hyena took the food together with some pieces of the kid’s face. The nine-year old was in the hospital for six months). We would be able to see the hyena coming because of the impala’s behaviour and so we did. Camron thought it would be funny to throw some bones veeeeery close to me and the hyena came towards me. I think I have never been so scared in my entire life. Such a huge scary ugly animal so freaking close! Luckily he left right after he found the bones. What an amazing and exciting day! 

The next morning we left again at 05:30 to see some more lions and, our last one of the big 5, a leopard. We saw a group of five female lions really quick on the side of the road. Unbelievable! Because we were so early we were the only car there and we just sat there to watch the lions for half an hour. Unfortunately we didn’t see a leopard. In total we saw lions five times which is incredible and which doesn’t happen quite often. I was still hoping to see a male lion (I just loooove the lion king) and so my dream came true!  Around 06:00/07:00 in the morning we were driving across this open spot and there he was. Musafa in real life! This is without a doubt the most beautiful animal I’ve ever seen in my life. I can’t describe how it is to see an animal like that in his own environment. 

On our way back we saw lots of zebras, giraffes, impalas and buffalos. Oh!! I can’t believe I forgot about the rhinos!! We saw these ones too very close and these animals are enormous! I saw a rhino baby as well, very cute. Rhinos produce by far the most disgusting and stinking stool of all animals! I also saw three types of monkeys, the cute white ones, baboons and the ones with the blue balls. I love monkeys! Unfortunately, there are no gorilla’s and chimpanzees here. I also saw spiders which still give me the shivers when I think about them. Huuuuge!

Camron told us that we could tell our friends and family that we saw the big 5 anyway. This because when we drove back we saw a cheetah. A cheetah is quite similar to a leopard, but a cheetah has no claws like cats so they can’t climb in trees. He is also a bit lighter and smaller than other predators that’s why he haunts during daytime. 

What a weekend! Definitely one of the best experiences in my life! I’m still impressed about everything that I saw and fascinated about Camron’s stories. If you ever have the opportunity to come to Africa you really need to go on a safari, because even if you won’t see the big 5 it’s so wonderful. Just the sunrise alone is already worth it..

Thank you again for reading!

Hakuna Matata!

"Short Story"

Please note: This post was uploaded at April 30th.

Hello everybody!

Time flies, unbelievable! I was asked a few times this weekend to upload a new story and I thought to myself: “my god, I just did!” It has been ten days already! Not that I didn’t experience lots of things!

Firstly, Puck and Brienne left last Thursday. So sad! They are irreplaceable and I really miss them. Veetje (Vukani) is here to replace them when it comes to cooking, because he also doesn’t know how to cook eggs and rice. He also doesn’t know that you should turn off the gas cooker when you’ve finished ‘cooking’. I sometimes still listen to Love on Top from Beyonce, despite hearing it over 22933 times thanks to Puck. Last Sunday I visited Umlazi with them for the last time and there I was recognized because of my djembe-act in Cool Runnings. I think I should definitely stay here. I’m becoming famous.

Second, my Iphone. It is a long stupid story so I’ll save you guys that one. It’s gone anyway. There are definitely worse things than that. I just learned that you have to be careful about whom you trust and that you should always make sure you’re stuff is in a safe place. Yes I know you warned me, but I like to learn the hard way;)

Green squad!

Despite the fact that my two lovely roomies left I did have another great weekend. On Thursday, we had an OneVoice teambuilding day at the Botanic Garden. I put some of the photos on my facebook, which you may have seen already. I had a great time! Every round was about teambuilding and believing in yourself as a part of that team. In the first round we had to play a board game. Our team was definitely the best team, but it turned out that the bests don’t always win;) After that we made some sort of painting with all different types of materials. The theme of the painting was Teamwork. Some pictures are made off this painting, but I will upload them later because I don’t have them on my computer yet. As I’m not the handiest person, I worked on painting the letters and getting a tan. Got to know your talents here.. After this round we had a quiz about general knowledge. Probably general knowledge in South Africa is about knowing how long a snail can sleep, how many taste buds a pig has and how fast a dolphin can swim. We had so much fun and I learned a lot haha. In another round we had to fix this puzzle and build a brancard afterwards to run a track with. After this we did the blindfolding game and some shooting with bow and arrow. Thank god I wasn’t born as a man in prehistory, because I would’ve definitely starved my family. After all, I had a great day and got to know everyone a little bit better! I would love you guys to meet my colleagues because they are all amazing people!

Red squad!

Hard work! 

Friday I had the day off because of Freedom day. It celebrates freedom and commemorates the first post-apartheid elections held on that day in 1994. They were the first national elections in South Africa in which the franchise did not depend upon race. This is quite a formal day and not a good excuse to get drunk like our Queensday back in Holland. That’s why I went to a Cricket tournament with the team which was also staying at Tekweni. It was about time to get to know the game as it is one of the major sports in South Africa. The first game was still a bit confusing to me but after a while I really started to like it. After two games I got so enthusiastic, I got back on the sideline on Saturday. Honestly, this was not the only reason for me to come back. The team is really amazing and they’re all very nice guys. I want to thank all of them for being so kind and generous during their staying in Durban. Actually every single one of you deserves a shout out here, but that would take way to long. Thanks guys for the amazing weekend! I miss you already.

On Saturday I went to an Indian Party with some people from Tekweni. We went there by truck. On our way there the guys helped us girls very gently to climb in but on our way back it was the other way around. Wati didn’t need any help to get off though... The party was in Cuba at the stadium and we had a blast! The music was great just as the crowd!

Another difference compared to Holland is the money and with that I mean the notes. R10 is around €1 and most of the time when I’m winning money I obtain R1000. That’s 10 notes of R100 because R100 is the highest note they have. Can you imagine that the ten euro note would be the highest note we had? I told Veetje that we even have €500 notes and he almost fainted. R5000 notes!? How can you ever give change then!? Ehmm.. with €200 or €50 maybe? He shook his head: I’m from a stupid country..

It could be a stupid country but some things around here are really stupid to me too. Even at the busiest roads you can cross the streets here with the ‘help’ of traffic lights. Just as in Holland you press the button and then the red man will switch to green. The sign that you don’t have to watch out for the cars anymore and you can just easily cross the streets. At least, that’s what I thought. This little green man actually needs to tell you that no cars will drive straight on anymore, but all the other cars will drive on! After lots of hooting, I’m watching out very carefully now.

Today I finally did what I was postponing for 10 days, namely visit the hospital. About two weeks ago I bumped my knee in the swimming pool, nothing to worry about. Puck and Brienne both had a very bad infection after a similar accident, but that won’t happen to me was what I thought. Luckily they left their Dettol here, because my knee started to look like a fly agaric. It started to hurt more and more and it didn’t look very well. I will spare you the details. I took a cab to the hospital and had an appointment at 11:10 with dr. Roberts. I was prepared to wait, because when Brienne went to the hospital she had to wait for 3,5 hours. Luckily I only had to wait till 11:30 and my doctor was a young Indian girl. She said she could see it was infected, because it was red and infected (Are you kidding me?). That was it. Next up, pharmacy to get the antibiotics. When I got there I was the first one up but I left after another 7 clients. When I was waiting, this elderly tiny man came in. He came to pick up medicines but these medicines weren’t there for the second time. He had to come back the next day. He asked if he could spend the night in the hospital. “What’s wrong sir? Are you not feeling well?” “No I’m fine, but I can’t afford another taxi ride tomorrow. I can walk but that means that I won’t be able to earn money”.

After another excuse he was sent back home. By foot. I could feel the tears burning in my eyes and gave the man some money. This was the first time I gave someone money, but this man spent all his money on medicines and now there was this chance that he wouldn’t pick those up because he might not be able to get there. He said to me that he was so grateful, because of me his daughter would get better and because he didn’t have to walk tomorrow he would have more time to earn money. Imagine... all these beautiful words for less than two Euros...

As you can see, lots of things have happened again! I thought this would be a short story but apparently not! I’m sorry! I hope you are all doing well and I hope you guys enjoyed reading my new experiences! I’m looking forward to your responses again. Be well everyone!

Lots of love Esther

P.s. I can’t wait till Juli because that’s when Michelle’s coming over! Can’t wait honey we will have a greeeeat time!!