A few days ago....

Going anywhere off campus here is hard. We are so far away from real life, grabbing a beer means driving about an hour to any bar. We bought some wine, but the next trip to the market there will be beer purchased.

Sara came by the apartment to pick us up to go watch the quarterfinals of the soccer games and John and Pam decided to stay in and continue our super lazy Saturday (we woke up at noon and stayed in bet till 3pm). So Sara and I headed out to a bar…again in a mall…to watch the games.

We ended up in a very authentic South African restaurant called Sahara…a Middle Eastern joint…so not South African at all…well, not Middle Eastern either if you read the name. Last I checked, the Sahara was in Africa, not the Middle East….

Shooters are a big thing here, you order a beer and a shot of something tasty…like a honeysuckle (honey liquor and Kahula) for example. Her definition of a good shot was called a Killer Tequila which was basically Tequila and gasoline. The gasoline part was really 80 proof (160% alcohol) rum called Stolthrum. The waiter poured it on a plate, lit the rum on fire, we sucked it up and then took a shot of tequila….typically tequila is supposed to put hair on your chest, this shot took all of mine right off.

Then she thought it would be a good idea to order another one for her boyfriend Tobi (pronounced “to be”) who was on his way.

Tobi is a great guy. We’ve hung out several times and he is very friendly and insightful on all things South Africa and music. See, he is a local, underground hip hop rapper who really knows the ins and outs of getting around. He even knows how to make fake money, fake Adidas type clothing, and hot wire a car. You may be thinking that this guy is the type to stay away from, but actually he’s a good guy who did all this stuff as a kid in the townships during Apartheid. He said he didn’t want to give money back to the whites, so he stole from them by making his own things…

Anyways, let’s just say he got drunk off the one shot. He doesn’t drink much, so that did him in. I ended up cabbing back to the school at about 2 am after watching soccer and hanging out with Jo’burg locals.

On Sunday morning, John, Pam and I woke up preparing for a fun day watching Ziggy Marley in Soweto…it never happened. We ended up planning with Sara for this up coming week (which we are currently in). She put together an amazing recycling project for the kids here. See, the way the school is run is that it goes from 8:15am to 5:15pm on a normal school day. The kids are required to attend school on Saturdays and 2 out of 4 weeks per month of vacation. This is their 4^th week of vacation and they are required by LEAP to be here. So Sara planned something fun for them to do…I’ll get to that momentarily….

We planned for about 5 hours, we missed Ziggy Marley, and oh, by the way, Happy 4^th of July. It was my first Fourth of July out of the USA in a long time. I forgot that it means crap anywhere else. The three of us celebrated by exercising and running around the property 6 times…for you mathematicians out there…

high elevation + out of shapeness + burning lungs = only 6 laps.

For this week, my job is to help restore the barn, and find useful things to do with all the crap in the barn. I decided with all the tires, I am going to build several things:

Gardens in tires

Compost bins using steel drums and tires

Chicken coops with the excess scrap wood and wiring.

I figure all of this can be sustainable when I leave LEAP to come back to the States. They can use the garden to grow the lunched for the kids, and use the eggs from the chickens for breakfast/lunches as well. Since there is a barn of horses on the property too, the manure will work well in the compost and garden…see using available resources is cool! I’ll post pictures when I get a chance.

John is going to work with the composting crew and talk about all the science stuff and is also going to have the kids paint a mural of Alexendra on the wall too. This mural will be used for several reasons. First, to pinpoint the main areas in the township where garbage collects and regions where students have attempted to remedy the situation through various strategies.

Pam is working with the writing crew which is paired with the photojournalism crew who will go into Alexandra and take pictures of the regions with the most trash and then Pam will have them write about the pictures and create a book of sorts about their findings for distribution throughout Alexandra.