New Year's

For New Year's, Becca, Alicia, (the two closest volunteers) and I travelled to visit some friends in the Northwest Province. Some highlights:

-We spent a whole day travelling each way. The Northwest has landscape that reminds me of home with green, irrigated fields, silos, and holsteins. The only thing that reminded me that we were in South Africa were the occasional thorn bush fields, the cramped, hot taxi, and villages composed of corrogated steel shacks.

-Lalo made delicious refried beans and spanish rice for us. We helped with fresh guacomole and flour tortillas.

-In Kimberly, we had to wake up early in order to travel to meet up with the other volunteers. We couldn't find the night watchmen for our hotel, and we ended up climbing over a fence in order to get out. Kinda felt like a prison escape. . . Alicia is laughing up high with Lalo reaching to help her down. Becca is in the lower right of the picture.

-On the train from Kimberly to Hartswater there were men walking the aisles selling beer, cold drink (soda), hats, toys, and chips. There were also a pair of men singing accompanied by an accordian. None of the men were employees of the train, but sold things in order to pay for their ticket and hopefully make a profit. On the seat next to us were five or six drunk men (normally I'd be surprised to find people drinking at 9 AM but to completely wasted is another story). Sometimes they would start to yell at each other or slouch down next to the toilet to smoke.

-New Year's itself was a lot of fun. There was alcohol, friends, card games, and dancing at an Afrikaner bar. Just before we went to sleep, we raced shopping carts down a hill. I held my own with the lighter person and a bright red cart.

-The adjustment to being alone and in my village was really hard. For four whole days I was completely happy and then I returned to nothing.