Holiday adventures

It has been far too long since I last updated this blog! Since my last post, life has been a whirlwind. December was a crazy month filled with many successful GRS events. From coordinating another SKILLZ Street holiday program, which was a great success, to hosting (and playing in) an HIV Counseling and Testing tournament at which we tested over 200 participants, to successfully recruiting and transporting nearly 100 youth from Khayelitsha, Gugulethu, Nyanga, and Langa (all townships outside of Cape Town) to the International Conference on AIDS and STIs in Africa (ICASA), which was hosted here in Cape Town and attracted the best and brightest figures in the field from all over the world, it has been pretty hectic and really fun.

The successful ICASA conference wrapped up the 2013 working year for me, and at 4am the next morning, I headed off on the adventure of a lifetime. I began my trip traveling on my own, which was my first solo travel experience. I was very excited to have the opportunity to push myself to meet new people and be completley self-reliant in getting myself around Southern Africa. My adventures took me from Cape Town to the Okavango Delta in Botswana, to Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania, and then on a 10-hour bus ride across the beautiful Tanzanian countryside to Moshi, Tanzania, where I met up with a group of friends to climb Kilimanjaro. After a Christmas morning summit of the highest peak in Africa and an epic two-day safari to the Ngorongoro Crater with Matt, I returned to Cape Town just in time to meet my mom, my dad, and my sister who came to visit for two weeks. We had an amazing time exploring Cape Town and the Garden Route, followed by an unforgettable safari in Kruger. After my family departed warm sunny South Africa for the polar vortex (despite my best attempts to get them to stay), I dove right back into work in Khayelitsha.

Things at work have been busy as ever in 2014. Since coming back to work after the long holiday, we have recruited, interviewed, and hired a new class of GRS "coaches," who are the young community leaders/role models that implement GRS curricula and we are currently in the process of training these new facilitators. Welcoming these new faces into the GRS family has been an absolute blast, and a good reminder of what GRS is all about. The preparation and effort that goes into these trainings (which last for 3 weeks!) is immense, but the payoff is huge as we have the chance to watch our new recruits transform into talented facilitators.

Anyway, since it would take forever for me to write about all the things that have happened since my last post, I figured it would be better for both myself and the handful of people that actually read this thing (i.e. my family) to relay my latest adventures through pictures, so here goes!

SKILLZ Street participants celebrate after scoring a goal during our December holiday program. In South Africa, soccer is a male-dominated sport with limited opportunities for girls to play soccer. SKILLZ Street is a program that seeks to educate young girls about HIV/AIDS, gender-based violence, and sexual health. It also incorporates free-play soccer into each session, giving girls a way to break gender norms by playing soccer.

SKILLZ Street participants in Site B, Khayelitsha

In December, the world lost one of it most influential and inspiring leaders, South Africa's own Nelson Mandela. His life was a powerful example of the human spirit's ability to persevere, overcome adversity, and perhaps most remarkably, choose reconciliation over retribution. I felt extremely fortunate to be in South Africa and to experience the way that the nation reacted to its beloved leader's passing and participate in the celebrations of his life (the above photo is from a Nelson Mandela memorial in the Cape Town World Cup stadium that I attended with fellow GRS interns). Mandela's passing serves as a reminder for us to uphold and build upon his legacy, so let us remember his words: "For to be free is not merely to cast off one's chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others." Rest in peace, Tata Madiba, and thank you for all that you did for South Africa!

On vacation: my first sunset in the Okavango Delta, taken from outside my tent!

Solo travel adventures: I was certainly not expecting to be the only guest on my camping safari in the Delta, but it was pretty cool that I got to have a private safari and that everything I got to do was on my own terms! The 3 nights I spent in the bush with my 6 guides (pictured above), was a blast. From hearing roaring lions and laughing hyenas from inside my tent at night, to learning how to navigate a mokoro (wooden canoe that you steer using a pole), and having the opportunity to ask the guides all the questions I could think of, it was certainly an unforgettable experience. To top it off, on one of my sunset mokoro cruises, as we were passing under a fish eagle (the national bird of Botswana) that was perched on a branch hanging over the water, the eagle let loose a very large and very warm poop right onto my leg. I can now say that I have been pooped on by an eagle--an accomplishment I don't think many others can boast!

Next stop: Dar Es Salaam! To escape the heat of this crowded and swelteringly hot city, I took a 30 minute ferry to Bongoyo Island (pictured above). I spent the day snorkeling and enjoying the warm Indian Ocean waters from this island paradise, but the real highlight occurred while I was snorkeling and was joined by a pod of dolphins. It was incredible!!

The lowlight: I left Dar Es Salaam on a bus bound for Moshi, Tanzania (a 10 hour trip). Despite considering myself a seasoned bus traveler after the many trips I made between Philly and NYC for my work last year, nothing could have prepared me for this ride. The bus started playing Christmas music as soon as we left the terminal, but to my dismay I realized only two songs were playing on repeat. Those two songs were Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and Oh Come All Ye Faithful. Somehow, no one else on the bus seemed to notice the music, and if they did, they were completely unfazed, whereas after about 30 minutes I was ready to pull out my hair... With the sunrise and onset of the staggering Tanzanian heat, in combination with the music selection, the bus became almost unbearable. However, to my great excitement, I spotted an AC vent above my head, but when I opened the vent, instead of cold air, about 100 dead bugs fell out onto my lap.  I managed to make due by opening the window as wide as I could and trying to lean my head out as much as possible. The countryside was beautiful and I was able to forget about the ever repeating verses of Rudolph and enjoy the beautiful countryside pictured above. All was well for about 5 hours, when I realized there was another more serious downfall of the bus: no bathroom. At this point I had to pee really badly and was starting to panic about what to do. As the only mzungu (Swahili for white person) on the bus, and unable to speak any Swahili except for the couple phrases I picked up from the Lion King, I was at a loss for what to do. Just as started to consider the option of wetting my pants, we swerved off the road and into a rest stop. I was the first person off the bus, which was especially amazing considering my seat was way in the back and I there were about 10 people sitting in the aisle.  Thankfully, I made it to the bathroom (which was a room with about 10 holes in the ground - no toilets, let alone privacy...), and the rest of the ride was uneventful and that afternoon I joined the rest of my friends (GRS interns + Matt) in Moshi and prepared for our trek up Kilimanjaro!

Sunset from the Barranco Camp at approximately 13,000 feet.

Group shot! From left to right: Matt, myself, Eric, Sandy, Caspar (head guide), SJ, Betsy, Claire, and Sarah

After four full days of hiking (15-25 km/day), we arrived at the Barafu Camp (15,000 ft), the final camp before the summit. After a quick dinner, that few of us were able to stomach due to a combination altitude and nerves, we caught a precious few hours of sleep. We woke up at 11:00pm to begin our midnight ascent up the final 5,000 feet to the summit. Despite our incredibly slow pace, after about 30 minutes of hiking, any talking ceased because all our energy had to be focused on just putting one foot after the other. After nearly 6 hours of hiking in the pitch dark and bitter cold (see picture above), the first rays of sunlight peaked over the horizon bringing hope and a new burst of energy to our whole group.

Sunrise tea on Christmas morning!

Spectacular Christmas Day sunrise from 19,000 feet

All smiles at the summit--about the only place in Africa where you can get a white Christmas :)

Never once thought about having to go back down the mountain. After about 10 minutes at the summit, our guides urged us to start hiking back down. After a grueling 3-4 hours back down to the Barafu Camp, we got to rest for one hour before continuing down to the next camp, which was 23 km away. It was a long and tiring descent and when we finally saw the campsite at around 6pm (nearly 18 hours since we began the midnight summit), we were relieved to finally get to rest (and experience more normal oxygen levels!!).  After one of the best sleeps of my life, we set off on our final descent, which was only a 3 hour hike to the gate where we piled back into the van and returned to civilization.

Tanzania safari: Herd of 100+ elephants cross the road in Tarangire National Park

Masaai tribesman and cattle on the rim of the Ngorongoro Crater

Cerval cat on the hunt - a rare and lucky sight!

Lions napping in the shade of our vehicle!!

Lionesses on the move in the Ngorongoro Crater

In the words of Toto: God bless the Raynes down in Africa!

Fam comes to work, Khayelitsha Football for Hope Centre

GRS family meets Rayne family :)

On the Garden Route: Parents getting up close and personal with some elies!

Safari time! Family dinner in the Kruger.

King of the Timbavati

Showing some teeth!

Finally found a leopard!

Unplanned excitement: This is the luxurious chalet that Jenny and I had the privilege of staying in. However, in the middle of the second night, Jenny and I woke up to a flash and a bang. I was in a deep sleep and was not about to be bothered by anything, but luckily Jenny's sense of danger is far superior to mine and she woke me up because she started smelling smoke. We got up to investigate and when we opened the door to the bathroom, smoke billowed out into our room. There was no obvious fire that we could see, but soon the smoke was overwhelming, so despite orders not to go outside at night with out a ranger (due to dangerous animals that come through the unfenced camp!), we opened our front door and hovered on the stoop - half exposed to the poisonous smoke, half exposed to the lions, elephants, buffalo, hyenas, hippos, etc. etc. and began blowing on our emergency horn (luckily each chalet was supplied with a horn!). After about half an hour of what started as tentative blowing, but became more urgent after we heard some loud shuffling and chomping noises only 25 feet away, our two rangers came to our rescue. We moved to the empty chalet next door and found out that a huge male hippo had been grazing right on the path outside our chalet (the source of the chomping noises, ahhh!) and that a massive centipede had chewed through some wires and caused a small electrical fire. In the safety of our new room, we chalked up the experience as an integral part of our time in the Kruger and even managed to get a few more hours of sleep before our sunrise game drive!

Needless to say, it has been an action packed couple of months and as usual, there are lots of exciting things on the horizon, including adopting a revised GRS global strategy for 2014 focused on improving the quality and impact of our programs, as well as incorporating more soccer into our activities (can't complain about that!).

Thanks for reading and hlala kakuhle until next time!

Anna