Interning at CLP

So a lot has happened since I last posted...  I finally sat down and started playing some of the Lord of the Rings soundtrack and wrote this...

 Here is a picture of Lewis Gordon who came to Pietermaritzburg and spoke at CLP and the University of KwaZulu Natal.  He is an awesome speaker and had some really good stuff.  Google him if you are curious :)

 The next day was a reflection day and we talked about water.  Here are a few pictures that are great examples of what we talked about and they were just right down the road.  This is a secondary agriculture processing plant of some sort and an electric facility, both right by the river for specific reasons.  And there doesn't seem to be a whole lot stopping factories an such from dumping directly into the river water. 

 Turning to the right a little bit you can see the back side of a black township.   Seeing how the city does not provide garbage removal, it kinda just rolls down the hill and into the river. 

  And if you look to the right a little more, you can see the landfill and a few gum trees.  The gum trees are significant because there are many tree plantations in the area and as they suck up the ground water, as the factories do, a problem occurs.  There is less and less water.   Oh and on the other side of this landfill is another river.  There doesn't seem to be any leeches in the water but there's probably some leeching... going on in the water.

So you can kind of see there is a problem with what is going on by, and on into, the rivers.

 I drove by my first banana plantation this week when in South Coast.

 We (Nomusa (left) and I (holding the camera)) drove to South Coast to basically help some people get their gardens going.  The soil was very sandy so they needed to dig  into the ground then refill the holes with layers of things (Maize stalks, bones, tins, dried grasses, compost, top soil, and repeat (something along those lines)) and make them into raised beds.  So we spent about 5 hours digging, filling, and raising to make 3 raised beds. 

 So the land that the raised beds are on, is owned by a church (you can see the old church building in the top corner of the picture) and they are letting these people plant gardens on it.  As you can tell from the picture it is a fairly large area on the side of a hill.

This is a trench that the Bishop gave them two weeks to dig so a pump could be put into the pond (next picture), by a different NGO, since it is a long walk and the people doing the gardening are older.  It has now been 3 years and nothing but promises have been made.  

This is the inside of the old church.  The closed the church and removed the roof, among other things, since they did not have enough people attending.   I am not sure where the church moved to, I just know they relocated else where. 

 I ended my time in South Coast with a beautiful sunrise (and 3 hours in the car).

Why I Like Home And My Job

A "Normal" Week

It just so happened that we couldn't meet this Tuesday so that means I was not able to post on my blog until today! I was finally crazy enough to take my camera on the walk to work and take some photos of the office.  

And this is the front of the building the office is in! (Don't mind the rain. Everyday occurrence.)

 This is the back side where I walk in every day.

 Here is a picture of the kitchen from the doorway (sorry, you can basically only see cabinets) but, yeah, this is where I make hot chocolate and tea to sip on and keep me awake during the day! I am one of those persons who sleeps whenever possible, so Garrett, Breanna, and Lizzy have quite a few pictures of me sleeping in various houses. 

 This is the office I spend my time in during the quiet days at work.  Nice comfy chair and a big desk :) though the chair does squeak when I move, so half of the time I'm focused on trying not to move haha

 Here is the lounge area where I can chill when I feel like I'm making too much noise with the chair.

I actually do not have much to say about work yet.  I've been to a couple meetings, which I thoroughly enjoyed, but other than that it has been very quiet with a lot of people out of the office.  So I have been learning about CLP and non government organizations (NGOs) and grassroot movements and different awesome people such as Amilcar Cabral, and Steve Biko, and the list goes on! 

 So back at home things get interesting... One night I woke up at about midnight and heard runner water, so I got up to investigate and I find this going on in the living room!  Justin was testing out and tweaking his new pond for some fish, in the lounge!  (It is now outside) 

Also, on the Monday when we made the zwieback and cookies below, Justin appeared with boxes of silkworms and thoroughly freaked Breanna out.

On Mondays Breanna, Lizzy, and I have work off (for some reason Garrett has Wednesdays off) so we did some baking.  We made some cookies but we kinda poured a little bit too much brown sugar in...by about half a cup... and, yeah, they didn't turn out so well. They were royally stuck to the pan. Butttt!  We (mainly Lizzy...she's brilliant) made some zwieback rolls and they were amazing.  For some reason I only took a picture of our failure, haha.

Week One

Justin raises and sells birds, and on Friday he bought 2 babies and their parents.  I got to help him feed them porridge with a spoon.  He has 4 pairs of birds now and he sells the babies.  Justin has 6 Ringneck parakeets, 3 cocktail, some Gold and Cichlid fish, and a turtle.  Some family from East London (South Africa) were at the house from Thursday till Monday.  Uncle Mark left for Capetown Monday shortly after they left so the house was very very full then almost completely empty!  They bought us a new flat screen TV when they first came.  Everyone was very excited as we mounted it on the wall and turned it on.

 Here's a picture of the parents.

  This is a picture from the house looking at the informal settlement (across the road behind the house) which I attempted to describe in my last post.

This is a picture from the driveway looking over the neighborhood.

So I have been going to work at CLP for two days now.  A few people are out of the office so it has been quiet; which has been nice since I have been doing lots of reading!  I have been enjoying reading some short papers/articles that CLP wrote.  Here's a link to them on their website:  http://www.churchland.org.za/?page_id=95

So, if you are wondering what CLP does and a little bit about what I will be doing, read the 'Occasional Papers.'  For the first bit, it looks like I will be learning some isiZulu by taking a class or two, and I will be reading to learn more about CLP.  After a few months or so of learning isiZulu, it looks like I will be participating a little bit with the program activists.  Something along those lines, but TIA (this is Africa), so we will see what happens!

Sorry my blog posts are slightly rushed, so they aren't exactly organized and there isn't much proofreading! (Editor's note: EXCUSE ME?!)

Home Sweet Home

 When you walk in, you walk into the lounge area.  It is small but comfy.

 This is the lounge area from the other side of the room.  To the right is a stand with a small tv.

From the lounge you walk into a hallway where you can go right into the kitchen or left down a hallway to the bedrooms and bathrooms. It's

kinda like a triangle.  This is the kitchen, small but comfy with a nice oven and a new microwave.

So down the hallway the bathroom is on the right.  The toilet has it's own little room then the sink and tub are right next to it.  Every morning I take a bucket bath in the tub.  There is no shower so we just put some water in a big bucket and use a large cup to pour water on ourselves.  It works quite well.  In the corner of the bathroom there is a very nice washer for doing laundry.  Driers are not very common since it is sunny during the day pretty much every day so there is no need for a drier.  (the rain comes in the afternoon)

Right next to the room with the toilet is my room.  I have a very big bed (twin bed) and a sewing machine with some bags of cloth next to it (sewing machine is covered).  The room is spacious and comfy. Strait out from my window, over the neighbors house, and across the road is an

informal settlement.  It spreads across a big hill and at night I can usually hear bunches of dogs barking, if i keep the window closed they aren't very loud though.

So far it has been nice and relaxing.  Uncle Mark (host dad) usually takes me and shows me around somewhere once a day.  He took me on the Kumbi (taxi) to show me the rout I will be taking every day to work.  I'm not sure when I start work Monday. I will be learning some Zulu and getting to know how CLP works.  Thursday the 2nd I will be doing a 'meet and greet.' We have gone to the mall, the market (several times for groceries), and he showed me a nice route to run.  I'm not sure how far one lap is, but my guess is around .8 miles.  The first day I only made it two laps... kind of disappointing, but the hills are massive and constant.  There is one huge hill and another large hill (all of the hills are bigger than the ones in Indiana), so it will take some getting used to.  The next morning I ran with Justin (host brother) and we did 2 slow laps, then I ran 3 fast ones, then the next day 4, so I'm getting used to it quickly :).  I would say my highlights are running.  If I don't wear a shirt, I get all kinds of cheering and yelling from the kids along the road which is fun.  But yeah, as I run most people I pass say something encouraging, which is nice.  Everyone has been very friendly.  On Sunday we went to church.  Uncle Mark is a pastor there, so we greeted most people as they came in.  The service was very different from the church services at Walnut Hill (which has been the case for every church I've been to since coming to South Africa, which was expected).  The church is a smaller church, probably about 50 people were there.   Only a few people drove to church--most road a bus.  Wednesday night, Rory (I think he's the youth pastor, though I am not sure) picked Justin and me up and took us to Malcolm's house (Justin's brother).  It was the youth group for BCI (Breakthrough Church International) church where Malcolm works and Justin attends with him every Sunday before going to work at the mall.  Youth group was nice; we played some games to get to know each other and listened to a song and prayed and had some snacks.  There were 9 of us including Malcolm and his wife (plus 3 little kids that played in the room next to us).