The last week has been a world wind in South Africa! I will start with
Wednesday, August 8th. This was the day that Bradley, one of the
guys working with our program, set up a time for me to go to a local public
high school to sample the 11th and 12th graders for my
study. Many of these students are well over the age of 18 because they were
held back many times throughout their education. We started our day at 10am at Cowen High
School, a primarily black public school. First, we went into an 11th
grade classroom; the teacher did not show up today and the students were all
there, alone, working on their school. I
was amazed that they were not climbing from the rafters! WOW! This wouldn’t happen in the states!
Bradley decided that we would read the survey to them just in case they had
questions, we could address them as a group. I started off reading and he
quickly stopped me because of the reaction from the students. My nasal accent was a bit much for them and
made my English sound not so English to
them! Ha! So he took over and read for me. After done, we moved to a 12th
grade class room and repeated this routine. I ended with 60 surveys! Awesome!
Thursday, August 9th, we traveled as a
group to two safaris! Oh my! So much fun! First we went to Addo Elephant Park
(see www.sanparks.org).
This was a self guided drive through the National Park. We stopped halfway and
had lunch, overlooking all the wildlife.
We saw so many elephants, lions, zebra, kudu, and other African
antelope. Note the wind in all the photos!
After the Addo adventure, we
headed over to Schotia Safaris Tours (see www.schotia.com).
OMG! I loved SCHOTIA! I told Aaron that I want to change our wedding
destination from Mexico to South Africa, just so that we could get married on
this park reserve. Probably won’t
happen, but I will explain why it was so amazing. First, we met our driver Scott, whom
immediately was friendly and excited to take us into the forest to see the
wild. After about five minutes into the tour, he stops the car and tells us to
get out. What?!? We all follow him,
trusting that all is well; he asks us to tell him what we see around us; well
it was hard because of all the trees, some people said trees, others said
rocks, dirt, flowers, etc. Scott told us that we forgot to mention the lions
right over there, as he points to the lions about 500 meters from us!!!!!! Then
instructs us not to react; wow, there stood 5 female lions grazing on a zebra
that they captured and killed the day before. They were so consumed with their
food, that they didn’t even notice us. We got back into the land cruiser and
drove closer. I had one rule on this
trip, and it was not to get eaten by a lion! I was staying in the car! So we
drove up and spent a few minutes learning about lions and how they capture
their prey (see photos).
It was such an unbelievable start to this trip! This really set the stage for
what was to come.
After about an hour through the forest, Scott points
to me and says, “Hey Stellina, I want you to be our tracker. Go ahead and hop
out of the land cruiser!” I said, Scott, I really don’t want to get eaten by a
lion! He reassured all of us that lions were not in this area (we had just gone
through an electric gated area) because there were rhino and other endangered
animals that they wanted keep away from the lions. I felt better and got out of
the vehicle. He had me sit on the roof of the truck and be the “wildlife
spotter” aka “tracker.” I sat on the roof and looked ahead for animals, only finding
carcass of past animals that remained after suffering as prey to another. Scott
stopped the car and said it was time for a snack. He trots over to a termite
pile like a kid in a candy store, rips off a mound of dirt and starts placing
termites in his mouth. OMG! Then he tells us to do it; without hesitation, many people just started eating the mites!
Of course, I was dumbfounded as to why this was so
desirable. Since Scott liked to pick on
me, he forced me to eat a termite! Yikes! At least I can say I did it! We
continued on into the forest spotting tons of wildlife, including rhinos,
monkeys, African antelope, zebras, ostrich, and giraffes.
After the sun began to set, we headed to an
old stable for tea and roosterbread (amazing SA bread!). Some of us climbed a
tree,
then headed off to see the hippos and crocodiles at nightfall and then to
dinner. To our surprise, we hear this
loud roar over the sound of our engine. It was loud enough to startle Scott, so
he gets on his 2 way radio to another nearby tour guide. They inform him that a
male lion is on the prowl and isn’t too far from us! Scott gets excited because
this doesn’t always happen with tours. So we head over to where the lion is
supposed to be and WOWOWOWOW! Not more than 10 meters from us roams this huge,
male lion, roaring to his family (the females we saw earlier). We travel
alongside the lion for a few kilometers; he often glared over at us, it this
was perfect timing for my camera to die. Wonderful! I guess I took too many pictures
of zebra and didn’t save my battery for the unexpected. Luckily, I was able to obtain a few good
pictures from other students. After we had enough of the lion (which was about
an hour), we headed to dinner! It was freezing cold, each of us wrapped in a
wool blanket, poncho, and tons of layers. Our dinner was amazing and we even
had Mava Pudding for dessert! Please Google this South African dessert! It is
to die for! After dinner, we headed back to our land cruisers, and Scott shared
his knowledge of the stars and the galaxy; we saw the Milky Way and a ton of
star formations. It was beautiful; the sky is so clear in South Africa, not
damaged with pollution like we have here in the states. After the stars, we
headed back to the front where we saw the lions at the beginning; the male
joined back up with his ladies, grazing on the zebra. It was a great day at
Schotia! I was one with nature, literally, and had an amazing time! I told
Aaron we must return and stay on the reserve in the bungalows; they looked
absolutely stunning on the hillside, overlooking the wildlife.
GrassRoots: On Friday, I went to GrassRoots to
collect data. GrassRoots is an American
organization that uses Soccer to educate school children about HIV and
AIDS. This is a longitudinal, three year
study, that looks at how their program contributes to the rise or fall of HIV
contraction among the youth. The folks
at GrassRoots were very kind and helpful with my research, as fellow
researchers often help one another out, since data collection can be
challenging at time. I was grateful for their support!
On Saturday, a few of us headed out to a place in
Port Elizabeth called SeaView; this is a wildlife reserve that allows you to
come in and play with the lions, tigers, leopards, hyenas, etc. I’m no fool; I don’t play with dangerous
animals, so I opted to hang outside their cages, watching all the others risk
their lives. I took photos through the fences and still had an amazing time. I called Aaron while I was there, asking him
if I was being silly for not going into the cages, and he said something along
the lines of, no and he really wanted me to come home, so I knew I made a
rational decision! (see
photos)
On Sunday, another group of us took a bus about 3
hours to a city known as Titsikamma; here you can bungee jump off the tallest
bungee site in the world; zipline through the forest, spotting wildlife along
the way; or ride/handout with the elephants.
I opted for the elephants (see www.elephantsanctuary.co.za)!
It was amazing. Since it was so windy, no surprise there, we weren’t able to
ride the elephants, but we were able to walk hand in trunk with them. It was
amazing! (see photos)
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