Summer holiday and back to work

I don’t think I could have asked for a better holiday. With three weeks off from my NGO, I had many plans to entertain myself. I spent the first week in the village. Two relatives of my host mother came to stay with us, a little boy and girl, who were good kids and I had fun hanging out with. The little boy fixed my bicycle in a matter of ten minutes, after having it sit in the garage for 9 months broken. This week was extremely hot and pretty much all we could do was sit on the porch and read.



The second week I took a taxi down to Durban. I met up with some other Peace Corps Volunteers to spend a week in the city, feeling like a regular person again. We went to the beach, uShaka Marine World to see the dolphin show and aquarium, Victoria Street Market, the Workshop, the casino and movie theater, the Essenwood Market, Botanical Gardens and even to the theater to see Shear Madness “with a South African twist,” or so the advertisement said. I spent my first ever Christmas away from home at the beach and movies/casino. We ate at many great restaurants, which is something I have really missed since coming to Africa. Some may say that it is tacky to go to a casino on Christmas, but honestly, it did not feel like Christmas for a number of reasons. Not only was it hot, not the right season at all, but very few South Africans that I know celebrate the holiday and almost all the stores were open. There were no Christmas decorations, no parties to attend, no gifts to give and none of my mom’s homemade Christmas candy.


After a week in Durban, I parted ways with my fellow volunteers, and flew to Capetown to meet up with another volunteer. I had an amazing time in Capetown, from the friends I made, the activities, the nightlife, the food and the scenery, I couldn’t have planned a better trip. My friend Nathan and I made friends with many of the other travelers in the backpacker, and thus every day we had many people to hang out with and many activities to chose from. I can say, the only down side of the trip was my overestimating my ability to climb Table Mountain, only a few minutes into the climb, I knew it was a bad idea and I had a horrible time making my way to the top many many hours later. The view on the way up and at the top of the mountain were amazing, but next time, I will take the cable car! Other than Table Mountain, we saw the Victoria and Albert Waterfront, Long Street, Green Square Market, the South African Museum, Robben Island, the Cape Pennisula, Cape of Good Hope, the District Six Museum and the Botanical Gardens. We went on a wine tour and a tour of the Cape Peninsula. Despite scheduling the vacation in order to see the Minstrel Parade, the city decided to change the date and thus we did not see costumes and dancing. I spend New Year’s Eve with some fellow travelers from the backpackers on Long Street. I had a great holiday and I can’t wait for another trip to Capetown.


Back at Mpilonhle, we started the year off with a three week training session reminiscent of my days in Pre-Service Training. I don’t sit well through training session and thus was glad to be back in the office and get back to work. We have a lot of plans for this year to reach as many community members with health services and computer classes as we can.

My one-year Peace Corps anniversary passed with a day at the beach with the other volunteers at my site. We spent the day swimming, eating and watching crocodiles and hippos, in addition to getting burned in the hot hot sun.