Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in eh_aye's LiveJournal:

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Tuesday, August 31st, 2010
8:58 am	Drinking, diving and swimming So in the past couple of days Amanda and I have done a wine taxing and got free wine glasses. The desert wine and the red were my favourites. We went cage diving yesterday and to our great disappointment we didn't see any sharks. There was one in the area but it would not come over. We did see lots of dolphins some whales and tons of cape fur seals though. We also went for a swim at boulders beachwith the penguins. I was in the water for ages. Did I mention that the water is freezing cold? I did however get within a foot of a penguin in the water. Cool! (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Sunday, August 29th, 2010
9:02 pm	On driving and tomorrow!!! So we have had the car for 2 days now. I managed to, on my first day to hit the curb hard enough to scratch the rim. It is harder to drive on the left side of the street then I thought. I have twice tried to turn into the wrong lane. I have remembered though. Being in traffic is easier then being without other cars because the cars on the road tell you where to go.  Driving at the moment sort of feels like I am 17 again re-learning how to drive. We had some parking marshela laughing at my attempts.  Amanda's new favorite catch phrase is holy shit watch the curb. I personally feel that I a doing an excellent job! I really miss having Marian, Kevin and Bernie driving me everywhere though! Tomorrow Amanda and I are going cage diving and penguin swimming. Cameras are being charged as we speak! (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Saturday, August 28th, 2010
6:29 pm	Some general observations   As we all know I love kookie things whilst abroad. And while I may not yet have eaten a giant bug like Peter did in china I have been trying things here. For example, did you know that you can buy flavored milk here in a wide variety of flaavoura? These are, so fR what I have seen, toffee, marshmallow ( these two I have tried. Thy were not as sweet as I expected. They were both good), strawberry, banana, bubblegum, chocolate, cream soda, raspberry, chai latte, and chocolate mint. According to Kiki and Alanna the chai and choco-mint are both good.  During the night hike at closing the we called us cream sodas. We thought it was a weird thing to call us, but bing the good Canadian ambassadors that we are we mailed and nodded. What we later realized is that why we were being called cream sodas is due to the bizarre colour which their cream soda is bit is green here. As part of our welcome package ray person was given some contingent wear, this consists of a dark green hoody and a red long sleeved t-shirt. At the end of the night hike it was cold in the morning so all of the contingent was wearing the hoody. (Comment on this)
6:26 pm	Wednesday - our last full day together :'( I woke up feeling much better. We woke up to something very exciting. There are actual signs of weather. We had clouds outside today. The weather in Welkom was always sunny with no clouds.  At the grocery store I bought the best chocolate bar ever!! More on this below.  I had great fun creeping up behind Kiki Alanna Tom Brandon and all sorts of others asking if they wanted a threesome. I would get some confused looks. I would then produce the chocolate bar I had just bought called a threesome - twice refined, twice the pleasure!!!  Outside the grocery store while some people were at an Internet cafe I tried to teach Kiki a lesson. She likes to wear her insecure camera case behind her. So I stole the camera and took a picture of a sign I made that said "Kiki you should keep your camera and money in the front". It was pretty good, apparently Kevin has been after her for the same thing for a while.  Am now sitting in the room that I share with Alanna and Kiki sharing a threesome with them and the other people who drop by like Brandon Tom Kevin and Brenna. It is a very yummy chocolate bar. It's bottom layer is milk chocolate, the middle layer white and the top dark chocolate Alanna to Tom : I can hear your singing from down the hall.  Caroline to Alanna: is that what you call it? Tom to Caroline: here is a trifecta with my two middle fingers and you to complete it (Comment on this)
6:25 pm	Tuesday - white rhinos, stomach bugs and sleep I woke up really early today. My tummy is not at all happy with me. There has been a nasty stomach bug through the contingent. It is either that or food poisoning. My vote is on food poisoning as the beef and chicken were fairly luke warm and we did arrive 2 hours later then expected.  We had some breakfast, I had a little bit of oatmeal and some tea. This did not agree with my system at all. I briefly considered not going on the game drive, but how often are you going to be in africa at a national park doing a game drive looking for the big 5. The big 5 are not the biggest or most popular animals, it apparently refers to the 5 most dangerous animals to hunt.  Some pills later I decided to go. It is he first time that we as a group have been in any vehicle that is not our combies. I am glad I went. We saw some lions, rhinos, wildebeests, pumbas (warthogs), zebras, kudu, waterbok, springbok, some-other-boks, hippos and a crocodile. Did you know that zebras and wildebeests are friends? The wildebeests like medium to short grass and the zebras like long grass. So the zebras trim the grass so the wildebeest can graze easier. Also he zebras sense of smell and  hearing are much better then that of a wildebeest. So the zebras will warn everyone so they can all run away.  After the game drive it was lunch time. After a very light lunch for me, everyone was given a option of what to do, there were some hiking trails and a pool at the resort entrance. I was still feeling pretty crummy so I opted to sleep in the car.  About 3:30 everyone returned to the car and we were jo'burg bound. I slept a little in the car but not much as I had just slept for 3 hours. The drive to jo'burg was uneventful but long. We witnessed a massive controlled burn of the land. The weird thing is that there didn't seem to be anyone watching the kilometers long fire.  We arrived into jo'burg along the N1 and since our car had the cellphone I called Gavin our contacted. He was driving really slowly. We eventually found him and he pulled in front of our combie and led us the rest of the way.  We dropped our stuff off at the gilwell centre and went to I pick up food. I had wonton soup and a little bit of rice. I was freezing so I opened up one of my hotpaws curled up in my sleeping bag and went to sleep.  I am getting really excited about cape town and seeing amanda but am trying to not think about it so I can stay with the moments here with this group.  (Comment on this)
6:22 pm	Food for Life - the scout program The food for life program that our water tanks are being used to support is a program where rural scouts based out of schools and communities plant community food gardens. N the first stage it used for the school and community. In the second stage it is used to sell to raise money for the school and community.  To get the first two badges scouts have to build the planting beds, make the soil and grow plants to completion. The final stage, gold is to have a large enough garden to be able to sell what has been grown.  It's a pretty cool concept.  (Comment on this)
6:18 pm	Monday - sieges and engines Monday morning I woke up to the sunrise over the african plains it was very beautiful but the winds had picked up and were making me cold. So instead of freezing to death I made myself a really nice wind break out of some extra mattresses. The sleep last night was fantastic. I love sleeping outside. There are basically no bugs and no snakes during winter here. So I am perfectly safe. Yeah! At 8:30 after breakfast of toast cooked over the gas stove and cereal we met with someone who does programming for he scene center. We got a tour of the grounds and saw a scouting monument. It was then time to hop in the car to head to the museum in town.  The museum was an interesting place. There was a huge room devoted solely to the siege. Because of my involvement in scout in a commonwealth nation there was never any notion that bp wasn't the great hero of Mafikeng. Certainly to the british he was. He is nit as fondly thought of in Mafikeng is the sense I was getting from the museum today. It was interesting to see another view point.  After the museum we went to the bank and then to the local scout shop. I was a little disappointed that I couldn't buy any badges that said Mafikeng on it. The scene center did not even have any. :(. I had to make due with just northwest district badge.    After shopping we headed to wimpy for lunch. It is one of the main chain restaurants here. I have only seen one McDonalds.  We tried to buy some arts and crafts after lunch but the people were on lunch. So we headed back and packed the combies. We headed to the park beside the scene center that specialized in white rhinos.  We took a drive through the park and saw some rhinos, various deer like creatures, warthogs or as we like to call them some Pumbas ( lion king reference).  When we were finished our tour we headed over to pillanesburg national park. I helped to navigate on the way there. I am an excellent sign finder! We had kfc on the way blarg!  On the way between kfc and the park and even at the entrance to the park the vast majority of people lost it. They just couldn't stop laughing and there wasn't really anything to laugh at. I blame a combination of tiredness and something in the chicken! We arrived at the park 2 hours later then expected as someone had told us it is 2 hours to the park and 3 hours from there to jo'burg.  They got th mixed up. It is 3 hours to the park and 2 hours to jo'burg after that.  The place we stayed at at the manyae gate was nice. We arrived and the center had prepared some food for us ( we actually I think it was dinner leftovers ) and this I think is where my problem started.  Most people basically collapsed after a shower. The showers at this facility are not temperature controllable. They stream scalding water ouch!  You had to do a limbo bend to avoid the scalding water on your back. Fun! (Comment on this)
6:16 pm	Sunday - the drive We had an emotional morning. We had closing with all ofthe many scouts who slept over last night and all of the south Africans who have helped us in the past couple of weeks. Rodger, Lawrence, Gee, Doctor and Tutu were all invested as part of our contingent and given one of our green neckers. We were also invested into the local service team called the Gilgold troop. A couple more presentations were done including signed copies of a group photo we took yesterday and a beautiful scout symbol with a Canadian flag painted on one side and a south African flag on the other.  Several hugs were passes around and some tears flowed. Lawrence's little boy who is 7 was in tears. He didn't want us to leave.  The plan for the rest of our time together is to do some touring and relaxing before going back to reality. Mafikeng, a national park and jo'burg are all on for the next couple of days. I suspect lots of sitting.  12:03 I am now sitting in the car. There is an amazing dust storm going on. It almost looks like it is really foggy. There is a sheet of white covering everything in the distance. When we were just leaving Welkom it was so bad that it looked like a snow white out.   One if the things that I find weird here is that they refer to distance as kilos. We usually reserve kilos for weight and use kilometers or clicks fir distance. It took me a couple of times hearing kilos for me to figure out what they were talking about.  1:10 we have just left bothaville and nearly towards Orkney. Kaa....somethingorother is on our right. It is an interesting combination of places names. Some are very British like Orkney and port Elizabeth. Some are Afrikaans which is based off dutch.  What I have noticed is that there are not many sidewalks. There are a lot of empty fields though. People have cut through these fields so often that they have created a series of pathways.  3:30 south Africans are exceedingly polite whole driving bid you are trying to pass on a road, the other car will move onto the shoulder and drive along the shoulder until you are pass them. This includes huge transports.  We arrived into Mafikeng around 5 pm. On the way into the park we saw some rhinos and a giraffe. In Mafikeng we got some gas and headed to Nandos chicken for dinner.  After dinner we got to the scene center. We had some hot chocolate and played some cards. Brandon has gotten me started on a new book. Oh I heard a cool sounding book on the radio on the way called zoo city. I want to check it out in cape town.  A bunch of people decided to sleep outside. I was really excited because there were outside mattresses that we could use on the ground. So about 10 of us slept outside under the stars. It was a beautiful warm night.  Alanna was wearing her panda toque and I was wearing my wolf toque. So I asked who would win in a fight a panda or a wolf. Most people said panda so I had to demonstrate how the wolf would win. So I chased her around the mattresses. The wolf obviously won as the panda chickened out.  After that we played a rousing game of steal the moshy (bean pillow). It was a good game. Eventually the moshy was returned. The next game was called steamroller wrestling. All good fun before bed.  The main problem with sleeping outside last night is the giant night light that shone all night. The full moon was very bright, and it was hard to sleep. Unfortunately it was too bright to see many stars :'(.  (Comment on this)
Sunday, August 22nd, 2010
9:14 am	Saturday - the hordes have arrived Saturday is a planned special day for the groups in the are to come and be with the canadians. We were given a huge scare when they said upwards of 300 kids would be here. Yikes!!  The scout center is not hugely large. Marian thinks that the property is an acre. It's a house about the same size as my upstairs and main floor are together in one floor with a very large yard.  We were told that they would not be spending the night. It appears that scout time is a universal concept, as we were meant to start at 9 am, however with only one group here by then we ended up starting at 10:30. The turnout was not what was expected, only about 80 kids showed up. It was still a good day though. Everyone had a lot of fun.  I came up with one of the stations, carnival games. We bowled, played toss the frisbee in the bucket and the water in a spoon to the cup game. All went really well. All the kids had lots of fun.  I got a chance to talk to some of the cubs that were here. I told them that they are  my favourites and that the scouts are smelly :). They appear to have a program similar to the Americans where each age level works on a separate badge.   In the afternoon I helped Mitch with the drilling station. One of the little girls was fruit to touch my hair without me noticing. I turned around and told her she could play with it if she wanted. So she and another little girl put half my hair in a high ponytail, with the other half down. If my hair wasn't such a wreck it would have looked really nice.  I remembered Amanda saying that the people liked to touch her hair as white peoples hair is much different the black peoples hair. It must be a bit of a novelty to them to be a able to touch it.  She also talked about the kids touching her skin. I have seen a little bit of it, but not much. The younger kids do I find like to touch my arms and have extra long handshakes.  Tonight we will have a huge campfire with all the groups who have gathered here. It should be really fun. The campfires here are a lot different then the ones at home. They are much more like recitals where every group contributes a song or a sketch or a cheer or a musical poem. I have examples of musical poems filmed that I will post someplace.  He songs that are sung aren't really songs that the rear join in with. It seemed more like a performance. It was still cool though. Our contribution was land of the silver birch.  Tonight is also our last night here in Welkom. It will be sad to leave here. We have all fallen into a really comfortable rhythm. Wake up, eat breakfast, go to work, come home, go to grocery store to buy junk food, eat dinner, play cards and eat junk food. It's an easy life here for us.  We are moving to Mafikeng today. I do not know what the Internet situation will be until I arrive in cape town. So this may be the last entry for a while! Mostly a sit in the car day after a closing ceremony, which I expect will be emotional.  (Comment on this)
Friday, August 20th, 2010
9:00 pm	Our last Friday as a group :'( Lawrence came in with bad news about 8:15 this morning. We are not allowed to go to the last school. Police are advising people not to send their kids to school. They are also advising that everyone stays away from schools as they are potentially dangerous. It totally sucks that we have come all this way to nit finish the project. The local scouts who have helped us with the first 7 schools will have to finish the last school when the insanity settles down. Grrr * angry face!! * This morning we went and cleaned up a small stretch if land that is on the way to the ok foods grocery store.  We lunch of burgers which was a nice change from the pb and j we have been having if we have lunch at home. During lunch the reporter from the magazine brought her kids to meet us. She wanted to show them that kids there age are making a difference.  What ever bug I have is wiping me out. After lunch I passed out and woke up about 445, or just before the crowd of people came back.  The reporter volunteers at a place where the abandoned aids babies get dropped off.  I do not remember if I have written about this yet but sometimes when a mother knows she is HIV positive she abandons her baby right away. They find these babies and bring them to this place. Some of the contingent went over to the center to help out for the afternoon they played and cuddled the babies. You will have to read scinwelkom.blogspot.com for details.  I unfortunately was passed out at he time. Even if i wasn't asleep I wouldn't have gone.  The sore throat is driving me crazy and zapping my energy levels. I do not know if it sick or dry air. I think maybe a bit of both. More lemon and honey for me! In other news, you can pre-order my moms book at pjkwong.com (Comment on this)
Thursday, August 19th, 2010
9:56 pm	Thursday - the rest of *** note: I do not know what is being shown in the media about the strike here in south Africa. We have not seen or heard of any violence. Out local guides and leaders are keeping a very close eye on the situation and will not let us get even remotely closet danger. So not to worry!! *** 10 am rolled around We had been doing some light cores around the scout center like trimming trees and bushes, raking etc. Rodger had not heard anything from Edgar, but didn't feel that we should proceed with the planned school for the day.  Instead we headed over to morning star. The HIV/aids orphanage / school we visited last week to buy more things from their arts and crafts department. Lots of people dropped lots of money for the charity. It works out well for all parties. The charity gets the money and we get homemade crafts for a very reasonable price. After shopping moat people got a chance to go and play with the kids again. I decided that it would be a much better idea if I quarantined myself. I had chills the night before ( I think from heat stroke ) and I felt hot he next morning. My throat is pretty sore and ssinf think that my potential germs would be appreciated by the infected children.  After morning star we headed home and then walked over tithe grocery store. We have a small grocery store about a 3 minute walk from our house. We get treats there every day. Today Kiki Alanna and Kevin and I shared a marshmallow pie. It was good but not as good as I had hoped. I took a picture of it. It sort of tastes like cheesecake. A very light cheese cake.  We had an unexpected lunch here and then to work fixing up the scout centre. I with some help from one of the south Africans TF polished the black crude from the brass sign nit now looks amazingly shiny and new.  The scout shop got opened again and I got to buy some more scout badges. I should really stop going to these places.  We went to the mall to buy some post cards. My hand is getting pretty sore from writing.  What I find most bizarre about south Africa so far and I don't know if it is just this town because it is so small or if it is just the way that things are done here is that all the shops are basically closed by 6 pm. The town is dead. The odd fast food place is opened but even the grocery store is closed!!! Living in the city I am used to 24 7 grocery stores and having places to go being opened later the 6 pm.  We are hopefully going to get a chance tomorrow to finish off the project. Please keep your fingers crossed.  (1 Comment |Comment on this)
9:25 am	Thursday morning so far - Danger Will Robinson! So at about 8:25 ( that is about 5 minutes before we were set to leave) Rodger called a group meeting. This is a rare occurrence round here. There has been, since our first Monday here, a teachers strike ( just pike being at home, only not).  This has not caused us a problem until today.  Rodger had been given a heads up by the AC of he district Edgar that the strike was progressing to picketing at schools. As a result of this we are going to wait until 9:30 to see how the situation is progressing to re-evaluate the situation.  He had also been called by his daughter who lives in the eastern cape that the picketing had moved to the private schools which are not unionized to try to stop the rich kids  the kids of high ranking government officials' education.  Now picketing at home while annoying is not the same as it is here. At home picketers stand in a line and make a nuisance of themselves. Here in south Africa they throw stones at people, cars and property. This sounds like an excellent reason to stay home to me.  While we are not teachers and and are quite obviously not involved in this issue, you can never be sure what will happen with a mob mentality. Bernie our trip leader is nothing if not highly cautious with our safety and security. Rodger keeping an ear to the ground locally and is making sure we will stay safe. The little neighborhood we are living in does not have any schools within seeing distance from here. All is quiet from scout hq. No loud noises or disruptions. We will just have to sit tight.  We always have tomorrow which was set aside as a day to fix up all remaining problems at the school. We have always completed all projects so if worst does come to worst we can always do the 7th school tomorrow. If things don't settle down by tomorrow then we will just have to leave here with the project unfinished.  (Comment on this)
Wednesday, August 18th, 2010
9:33 pm	Wednesday - second last school  Wednesday dawned like the rest. Breakfast was home made cinnamon rolls, yum, yum.  We arrived at the school, it was not a big job today. Just redirecting the downspout. I got to play with the local scouts some. I have learned lots of new games.  After a tea break at the school we headed to the market that we were going to visit yesterday. We wandered around for a bit. I bought gifts for Princie and Pete. I had wanted to try some of the street meat but thought better of it, after seeing the sausages just sitting there cooked and the fried Chicken just hanging out on a table. I do not think that my system would enjoy it lots. There were curious bags filled with raw meat just sitting in plastic bags in the sun. I hope we didn't eat any for dinner ;) Arriving home Rodger had set up a condensed version of the program they have here for the scouts. It is a program to raise awareness about HIV/AIDS. The program includes information about sex and STIs, myths and preconceptions about it, how it is transmitted, the various stages and an exercise that showed what really having 30% of the population having HIV/AIDS looks like. Out of the 30 or so of us in the room, it would be like having the whole front row of the room being infected. It's scary stuff. As terrible as having it at home where there are relatively few people infected is, it is insane to have so many people infected. Someone was reading that around 80% of the poor black population is infected. Rodger was saying that whole villages are infected. That mothers pass it to the children and so on.  There is a large problem with the miners who stay in one community for a year or two, sleep around and either spread it or catch it. Due to he nature of transitory workers, especially from western Africa, the spread of other strains of HIV are being spread here. So instead of having to combat one or two strains they are having to battle  4 strains.  The most surprising thing is learned that the most infections occur from tainted blood and not from sex. Infact if you know that you are going in for an operation most people go and donate enough blood for their operation for themssoeves. He haopitals store your blood for you. There is also a huge problem of infected mothers dumping babies, less then a week old babies because the babies have it and they are not able to care for them.  With this heavy lesson this afternoon it has actually hit me, not that I didn't know, but it just didn't sink in that tomorrow is our last school. 7/8 schools done. A week and a day and the team gets broken up. The new friends have to part ways. I am already thinking about how to pack all my stuff and what I should leave behind (Comment on this)
9:28 pm	Sleeping arrangements Originally we were suposed to sleep outside in tents. We erected 12 x12 foot ginormous tents outside. Canvas, no floors. We put old carpets in the tents as a floor. We spent the first night there. It was chilly. We left the next night for the night hike. When we got back we were allowed to sleep inside so that we got one "warm" night sleep. Warm is a relative term as the building has no heating. We were all glad for the chance to sleep inside after a night under the stars. The next night it was really cold overnight and not seeing a huge issue with spending just one more night inside we continued to sleep in our cozy nest.  This was last week and the majority of the canadians are inside as it is much too comfortable not having wind blowing in from the sides of the tent. I almost feel I should sleep outside again. Just to get the full experience. Maybe tomorrow.   The couple of really cold nights the south africa. Scours joined us inside. They are back outside. They are much better scouts then we are! To describe where we are all sleeping: There is one "bedroom" with very cool bunk beds. They look like a closet. I will have to take a picture of them! The girls who chose to sleep inside from the beginning if he trip are there. Th boys sleep in the common room on the floor. We have the best room of all I think. Lots of room to spread out and leave our stuff where it lies. I/we sleep in the equipment store room. It gets nicely warmed overnight by our body heat. There are 6 of us on a regular basis. Two of the girls wanted to sleep outside. Alanna and Ivy sleep beside me on the other side of the door opening. Marian sleeps near my head, Brenna and Kiki sleep beside her.  Attached to our room through a doorless doorway is what we call the hole. It is the designated change space for us. It is around the corner from the door and is very useful.   I am at this point wishing I had been able to fit my thermarest in my bag as this very thin piece of foam is not making my foam is not making my back happy.  (Comment on this)
9:25 pm	Cemetery and burials Last week when we were building the cement molds we passed a cemetery. One of the locals with us was telling us that they burry people on  saturdays here. According to him it is partially a cultural thing and partially a connivence  thing. Most of these deaths are as a result of HIV/AIDS.  Funerals are a big thing here, where the entire family, cousins , aunts, uncles, friends, etc. They have a "beast" and kill it on the friday night for eating on the saturday. The beast can be a cow or a pig or something. The funerals cost a fortune as everyone who attends the funeral has to eat well.  (Comment on this)
9:24 pm	Tuesday - building, a history lesson and eating out Today was another building day, we had to demolish some eves troughs before we could install the new ones. On the way to work I asked lawrence if the small market area would be safe for us to stop and shop in. We were going to stop at the market today but no one had brought enough money. I think that we are stopping there tomorrow.  This market is in the middle of one of the nicer shanty towns. By nicer I mean the homes are made of bricks instead of corrugated metal. They are petty small though. I think they are around 20x10 feet. They are surrounded always by a wall of some sort, whether it is by more brick or wire. The yards of all of the places are immaculately clean. The people who live in these places sweep their front yards every day the brooms are bunches of green twigs, bundled at the top. They are about a meter long. All of the shanty towns or communities as they are known here have sewage systems. Some even have hydro (electricity for the non-canucks).  After work Rodger gave us a history lesson on the history of Welkom.  There is a gold crescent shape in south Africa Welkom was built in the 1940s to support the mines that the mining company was building the town was built to last 30 or so years, as the mine was only meant to last 25 years. Well that mine is still going, but the town is having a lot of problems with leaking pipes as the pipes were never designed to last this long. It is a huge problem for a town that gets no rainfall for 4-5 months in a go. The water that the town does use is piped in from 90 km away.  After the history lesson we did a little bit of work around scout hq. We built a little garden and re-varnished the front doors.  After that dindin time. We went off to Nando's for chicken covered i piri piri sauce. Yum! It was nice to get out of the house for dinner. It was a nice change.  (Comment on this)
Monday, August 16th, 2010
8:56 pm	Monday - just your average day The day has been pretty normal. They have it set up that the schools provide lunch for us. It is a sweet deal on two fronts, one is that it is nice to have a hot lunch that we don't have to make, the other is it gives us a chance to try some local foods today we got fried chicken, rice with tomatoy sauce, carrot salad and a tossed salad.  After work we went to the local mall to buy post cards. I have a lot to write tonight! It was my turn to make dinner so Bruce and I made shish kabobs, baked taters and a salad. I made a pretty scout emblem on a field of tomatoes out of cucumber with a circle of onions.  Found a new lion bruise! I am also hoping that the lion puncture wound on my arm will turn into nice scar. There are not many people who can say that they have a lion bite scar on their arm and have lived! I don't not know if I have posted this yet but there is a shared blog for the trip at Scinwelkom.blogspot.com (2 Comments |Comment on this)
6:50 pm	Another note to readers Our Internet has been down for almost a week so there will be a ton of posts below. (Comment on this)
Sunday, August 15th, 2010
8:57 pm	On closeness You don't know the meaning of closeness until you are here! In the past week we have become fairly close as a contingent. Hugs flow free from all members to all members. Friendships are developing between the new friends and strengthening  between developed friendships.  We are all continuing to keep a sense of humor and understanding  with each other, we have to. With the 2 toilets and 1 shower for the 23 of us. We have to be willing to share and do "I have to got to the bathroom dance" in the hallways.   Well actually it really isn't 2 toilets but 1 as the shower is in with one of the toilets which basically means that is off limits while someone is showering.  Mornings are a little strained with 23 people wanting a shower, brush teeth, wash faces or hair, use the facilities, fill water bottles and/or change, it is a very busy room! The showers are not what most North Americans would be used to. The shower is either scalding or freezing. Not much in-between. Showers have to be short and not hot as their is a very small water tank.  What an adventure! (Comment on this)
8:56 pm	Sunday - playing with itty bitty kitty cats.   Today we got to sleep in a little as we didn't have to leave the house until 930. We drove about an hour outside of Welkom to the game reserve. Were greeted with some nice fruit juice and south African style briushetta (?). It was some toast with tiny bits of bultong mixed with mayo , topped with a piece of bultong. Nomnomnom.   The safari started and we put best for first. The lions were first upon the tour. We saw the plain old lions. You could get a foot from them. I have some really good shots. Next up the white lions. Cute kitties! The part that happened next has been the highligh of the trip so far. The year old white itty bitty baby kitties (lion cubs) live in a cage by the owner of the places house. Kind of like a large nice dog run.  I thought we were just going to get to see them up close. Nope!  After the one rule of "if they bite you you must tap them sharply on their nose" he let loose the pack of 5 cubs to frolic with us.  yeah!!!!  I have a nice puncture wound on my inside arm, a scratch on  my side and a couple of scratches on my other arm. Not to worry, anti-bacterial stuff has been applied. They do eat alot of dead, raw meat. We got to play with the cubs for about 30 minutes. We pet and wrestled and watched while they wrestled each other. It was incredible to play with free roving wild lion cubs! We then drove around the property and saw. Bunch of other animals including various types of antelope some giraffes a couple of zebra and some ostriches. We really put the rental cars through their paces today.  My best quote for today: pointing out the window " oh look it's a bunny ... No never mind it's a stick. " - Caroline Kwong (1 Comment |Comment on this)