Kruger National Park

-
Nomsa naNjabulo savakashela eKruger National Park futsi sabona tilwane kakhulu!!

KNP - Malelane Gate 
Two weekends ago Njabulo and I went on a a day-long game drive in Kruger National Park. We used Echo Africa and our driver was Elsa, who was an excellent guide. What an awesome day! It was raining at 5:15AM when we were picked up from the backpacker's (in fact, we'd had a truly spectacular thunderstorm the night before, storms are awe-inspiring here!), but by the time we were in the park it was just misting and the rain eventually stopped. Drives are taken in nine passenger open-sided safari vehicles, but we only picked up one other passenger, a nice gentleman from Portugal, so we basically had an almost private tour. At first, we didn't see many animals, but later in the morning, we saw a wide variety of animals all over the park, and very close-up, too! I think the only animals we missed seeing were the leopard and the wild dogs – must save something for next time, though!

Lichen covered "balancing" rock. Amazing geology here!
Njabulo took a lot of good photos – but we only have about half of them on our computer right now, because our camera battery died around lunchtime and we used the guide's camera for the rest of the day. She's promised to leave a CD of the photos at the backpacker's we stay at, so hopefully we'll have them next weekend. Njabulo also has some video he's promised to edit – we can upload that when we're at the backpacker's, too. For now, these photos speak for themselves. 

I've posted my favorites, I'll upload the rest to Picasa next weekend!

- Elizabeth

For me the most amazing part of the trip was being 15 meters away from a pair of white rhinos munching contentedly on the grass. Rhinos have a reputation for being belligerent, but these two were quite mellow. Which is good, because rhinos are huge, muscular, and run very fast!
- Perry
White rhino. We have video, too, stay tuned! 
Crocodile.
Baboon troop. Saw many baboons.
Gnu and impala. Impala are ubiquitous.
Hippos.
"Zebra" millipede crossing the road. Usually all black - guide stated "zebras" are one in a thousand.
Dozing lion. Could literally have reached out and touched him.
Vervet monkeys and baby. A-dor-able!
Tawny eagle.
Adult and baby warthog. Babies have wide whiskers that emulate tusks.
Southern giraffe. We saw quite a few of them!
Zebra.
Elephant and baby. We should be getting a lot more elephant photos on the CD!
Lunch stop, last photo with our camera!
That's all for now, more soon! 



Comments

  1. MaryNovember 3, 2012 at 11:08 PM

    May I steal a zebra photo for my net cancer awareness day icon? -Mary

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Scrabble Dash!

-
Image
Today I took a few photos of my Dash girls (a couple of boys come to play occasionally, but mostly it's these girls :)). They are hooked on Scrabble Dash! This game is played with three decks of cards. Dark green cards are consonants, light green cards are vowels, and red cards are instructional. Players hold seven cards at a time, just like regular Scrabble, and are initially dealt five consonants and two vowels. When a word is successfully played, players select new cards equal to the number of letters in the word played – either consonants, vowels, or a mix. Dash Girls! To begin, the first player flips a red card over and everyone scrambles to put down an English word. Red cards contain instructions such as “Verb,” “Four Letter Word,” “Three Letter Word,” “Has a ____,” and “Starts with ____.” So, if a red card that says “Has a ____” is turned over, the player who turned the card over must name a letter. Then the first person to place a correctly spelled English word
Read more

Teaching English

-
Image
Where we're from.. Although I wasn't quite sure I'd enjoy teaching English (I'm certified as an elementary education and middle level science teacher), I really had a blast with it! There I am, on the right of the photo, with four of my students: Two from Mexico, one from Somalia, and one from Hong Kong. I also had students in my class from mainland China, Taiwan, India, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Algeria, The Congo, and El Salvador. Working with such a diverse group kept things interesting but also posed certain challenges, not the least of which was trying to accommodate a vast range of proficiency levels. I hope I did right by my students and that I helped them to navigate the English language with a bit more ease! They taught me a lot about how -- and how not -- to teach English effectively.  - by Elizabeth
Read more

Odds and Ends

-
Image
Wow. We aren't good bloggers. Sorry about that. I'm going to try and catch you up with 2014 so far, but honestly, I don't quite know where to begin. I guess I'll start with photos of my number one science learner and Team Tiger's -- I had two science classes last year, Team Tiger and the Kaiser Chiefs -- most improved learner. Xolani (Wise) #1! Lifa, Team Tiger's Most Improved Part I: School I was pretty excited about 2014. I'd no longer have my own class, for one thing. While I very much enjoyed the teaching part of having my own class, I certainly did not enjoy the paperwork and record keeping aspects. In South Africa, each teacher is required to keep a physical portfolio, and each portfolio must contain the prescribed information in a prescribed format with prescribed components. Off the top of my head, each must have an index (TOC), a work schedule (essentially, a pacing guide), lesson plans (in the required format), assessments, memos (key
Read more