Des pays et des gares...

Nthabi, always smiling! Who could resist? Well, I finally have enough distance to write this post. Not gonna lie, adjusting to life stateside has been rough. Miss South Africa in many ways.  As difficult as our service was at times, it came with some pretty sweet rewards. Our learners. My supportive and ever curious counterpart, Mr. Bobet Motha. Perry's HOD, soft-spoken and kind Mr. Stanley Simbini. Our truly wonderful and fast friends, Sarah and Guiomar. Guiomar's parents, Chris and Maria. The ebullient children who lived at our house, especially little Nokuphila and Nthabiseng. John Dougherty, our comrade-in-arms. I could easily go on. Ms. Thoko, Mr. Nyambi, Mrs. Busi, Mr. Chokwe.... So, so many people touched our lives and left an indelible impression. Suffice to say, the people -- and the relationships we forged -- were hard to say goodbye to. Tears were shed. Many tears.  Since we've returned to the States, a lot of people have asked us about our experience. Ma

Mmmm, pizza! I'm cleaning off the camera today. :) Two posts in one day! Every month, we spend our weekend away at Hhusha Hhusha Guesthouse , run by our now good friends, Sarah and Guiomar. We saved half of the American pepperoni that my mom brought in March for a final American style pizza party at Hhusha.  I made three pepperoni pizzas and one mushroom/thyme pizza. We ate a LOT of pizza, drank way too much, played the hilarious game 30 Seconds , and had a blast!  We'll really miss Sarah and Guiomar when we leave. They treated us like family and saved our sanity at times. Two of the nicest people around! Making pizza   Guiomar, Perry, and me Cheers! PS I totally forgot to mention -- those are peanut butter Girl Scout Cookies you see there for dessert! - Elizabeth

Mom by our tent at Tamboti Camp Better late than never! We had a great time with my mom last March. We bookended her visit with stays at the Pretoria Sheraton (Club Level - ooh la la!). In between, we camped inside Kruger at the Tamboti Tented Camp  and spent some time in Nelspruit relaxing at Francolin Lodge.  My favorite was Tamboti. This picturesque tent camp is situated along the Timbavati River. Since it had been raining (a lot!) the river was running (but alas, the same rain filled the swimming pool at Orpen with mud). At night, we could heard lions roaring and calling. Very cool. We also had tent "guests" -- vervet monkeys and baboons! After we arrived, we put all of our food in our food cage and went out. When we returned, the camp host, frowning, escorted us back to our site so we could see that vervet monkeys could, in fact, reach their little hands and skinny arms through the cage bars. They ate a lot of our food! While we were cleaning up, my mom placed ou

Perry and I took our GRS Student Leaders out for pizza last weekend. We had a blast! Our friend and fellow volunteer, Sipho, joined us. We had three pizzas: one topped with the American pepperoni my mom brought over, one topped with steak and feta, and the last mushroom and peppadews. It turns out that this was the first time either of these kids had ever tried pizza! Sadly, we were so busy eating that we didn't get any pictures of the pizza. Afterwards, we played Uno…Philile won by a landslide! Nice group shot by Sipho Waiting for our pizza!   Playing Uno Elections I forgot to mention the big election…mostly because nothing very exciting happened! Our village's election center was our school and the presiding official was our principal, Mrs. Busi. Everything was orderly, the ballot boxes seemed well-secured, and there were no toi-tois. Despite "appropriating" 208 or so million of taxpayer rand for "upgrades" to his presidential abode

Student leader Nkosingiphile On May 27 , 2014, team Super Strikers had their Grassroot Soccer/PC Skillz graduation celebration. Fifteen learners earned a certificate of achievement by attending eight or more GRS practices. Additionally, two learners (who graduated from the program last year) became certified student leaders! Grassroot Soccer, for those who missed  my previous post about it, is a soccer-themed curriculum that teaches kids about HIV/AIDS. It's also a lot of fun! The Super Strikers put together a schedule of events for our celebration: Welcome to Super Strikers' Graduation! Mini-Practice a. Energizer (one coffee, two sugar) b. HIV Limbo c. Kilos (coca-cola kilo, NJ kilo, and kilo kilo) d. Drama (skit about gender-based violence) Awards Ceremony Celebration! Bobet, my counterpart, helps explain GRS "One coffee!" First, we described to our guests (we had a great turnout, including a few