Lovely Mauritius

 
 
 
 

My school schedule for the year!

Hello, I thought I'd post the schedule for my school year, so those of you who are thinking "hey, I'd like to come visit!" can do so knowing when I am more available. So here it is.

First Term
September 3rd Start of first term
October 15-19 Mid-term holiday
December 17 End of first term

Second Term
January 11 Start of second term
February 6-7 ALA Grand Opening Celebration
February 19-22 Mid-term holiday
March 26 End of second term

Third Team
April 5 Start of third term
May 14-18 Mid-term holiday
June 25 End of school year

Video of my house!

Hi everyone! Thanks to Ben, I was able to upload my house video for you all to see. I started it last night at around 7pm and when I checked in on it this morning at almost 8am, it wasn't quite done, but did finish around 8:30am!!! That is a long time, so I hope you enjoy it! The video is about 8:30 minutes long-- enjoy!!

Pics of my house-- finally!!

Well, I finally have some pics of my fabulous house to put up! I still can't get the video to load (Veuve, I tried youtubing it-- no go!) so we're going with pics instead. Hopefully after you've viewed the pics you will get right on the internet and book a flight down here to spend some time in South Africa, luxuriating in my awesome thatched house!!

I have no confidence that if I spend the time to write the text to match each picture, it will all match up. So I'm just going to list the pics the right now with brief commentary:

#1- view of my house from the gate. Owners are rethatching the roof before they move to Australia, so the color will be more of a yellow, then gradually get darker in color.

#2- front door, from inside

#3- view from kitchen into living room. What initially drew me to the house was open floor plan and lots of natural light.

#4- living room

#5- this could be a spare bedroom, though the current owners have it as a work room/play room (they have two small boys)

#6- PART of the backyard-- it's massive! i'm going to get a zebra or two to graze and keep the grass trimmed.

#7- guest room (where ya'll will be staying, right?)

#8- kitchen view and loft above, leading up to master suite

#9- master bedroom. Has a large walk in closet and bathroom

#10- balcony off of master bedroom

#11- view from balcony of PART of backyard (did I tell you it's massive??)

#12- carport area

#13- one last view! Don't you love it!

I can't wait to move in on September 27th!!

A few pics of life at ALA

Welcome to the latest edition of my blog! There hasn't been a whole lot of activity the past week or so, in terms of getting out and about around Joburg. However, school starts in just over a week, so we're all working furiously to get everything prepared for our students' arrivals! We're all excited for our 98 students from 29 African nations to come and let the school year get underway.

I thought I'd post some pics and text to give you a slice of life at African Leadership Academy. Hopefully the pictures won't get all screwed up with the accompanying text, because when I type this all up, it matches-- then when I go to post, it gets all screwy. So we'll see how it goes!

Picture 1-- The three male teaching fellows: Samburu from Kenya, teaching African Studies, geography section; Eugene from Ghana also teaching African Studies, geography; David from USA (Tennessee) teaching Biology


Picture 2-- Michael and Scott in their dorm room before everyone moved off campus! Can you imagine returning to a dorm room as an adult and sharing with another person, whom you didn't know prior!, for a full month?? That's how we roll here! Michael is from Ghana and teaching chemistry. Scott is from USA (Texas) and teaching math and physics. Scott's wife, Leni, is from Kenya and their two boys are the two most gorgeous humans I've ever seen!




Picture 3-- The Dean in the background and Sani, my first roommate and I at a fundraising dinner. Sani is from Nigeria and teaching physics and also computer technology. Sani is quite a character and I really enjoyed living with him! We got along fabulously and he has quite the stories from his life. In one of our first conversations as roommates, Sani bet me that the actor (Gary Sinise) that played Lt. Dan from "Forrest Gump" actually had his legs surgically removed and then reattached in order to play an amputee! Easiest 20 Rand I ever made!



Picture 4-- Three female fellows: Dinah, from Ghana, running student businesses and co-teaching the entrepreneurship and leadership classes with Jess and myself; Jordan, from USA (Virginia), teaching writing; Rhobhi, from Tanzania, teaching African studies, economics section.
Picture 5-- Tanya, from South Africa, teaching French. Tanya most recently lived and taught in Saudi Arabia and has fascinating stories of life there that make me really want to go visit! Jordan and Samburu.

Picture 6-- Me and Eugene explaining our concept behind "Rent-a-friend" that we came up with during Entrepreneur day. Very fun and very innovative! And yes, not only do I look chunky, but I am chunky! I've had to contend with that infamous "Freshman 15" but it's a whole different game at 34, then at 18!
Picture 7-- Fred Swaniker (l) and Chris Bradford (r)-- two of the co-founders of ALA. It was Fred's initial vision to form ALA after he concluded that so many African parents send their kids to British or American boarding schools (and spend a lot of money along the way) and then these kids don't come back. So he worked out a business plan at Stanford while getting his MBA, which is where he met Chris. So when the doors open on September 3rd, it will be the culmination of 4 years of work! Fred is from Ghana, and also grew up in Botswana and Zimbabwe. Chris is from the USA, Michigan.

Peacocks!

I can't seem to get my pictures lined up with the text-- sorry! I know that last post was all crazy but you'll figure it out!

Here are some pics of our feathered friends on campus. In addition to the peacocks, there are several variety of birds that are quite fun to have. I know one of them to be guinea fowl, I'm not sure of the rest, but they're much cooler than pigeons and sparrows!

Soweto

As you've probably figured out, I can't get the video of my house to load onto my blog. I've spoken with a few people who know how to blog and everyone seems to agree that the size of my video is too big to load with the amount of bandwidth available. We have a temporary computer lab set up on campus with a pretty slow internet connection and my video keeps timing out before it can load, so my apologies that you can't take my house tour yet. But when the connection is permanent and quicker, I'll try it again. It's worth waiting for though!



So, we toured the township of Soweto on Wednesday and it was quite interesting. Our guide, Mandy, is a resident of Soweto and had a lot to tell our group about it, which made for a very informative tour. The population of Soweto is 4.5 million people, but it's estimated that up to 7 million people live there. The population of Johannesburg is 3.5 million in comparison, but Soweto is part of Joburg, so it's confusing. Soweto started as a place for miners to live and grew from there, but the name Soweto wasn't officially given until the early 1960's. Soweto is mostly comprised of black Africans and all 11 official languages of South Africa are spoken in the township.

Picture 1:
Rhobhi (l) and Mandy (r)-- our fun and informative guide. She wants to set me up with Winnie Mandela!






Mandy told us that Soweto stands for SOuthWEst of TOwn, but I've also heard it's from SOuth WEstern TOwnship. At any rate, one fascinating thing about Soweto is the largest hospital in the world (in terms of beds) is here, called Baragwanath, with about 3,800 beds and plans to increase it to 7000 beds. It's quite a diverse area, with some neighborhoods of nice homes that are considered rich, and very poor areas as well.

Picture 2:
left to right- Maria (works in ALA office and sets up our awesome tours!), Samburu, Dinah, Soweto resident walking by!, Michael, me, Alison, Sani, Beatrice





Picture 3: Soweto shacks













Also in Soweto is Mandela square, named after Nelson Mandela, of course! It was in this spot in Soweto that several members of the African National Congress (ANC) created the Freedom Charter, similar to the US Constitution, that was a document outlining what the ANC wanted for all South Africans. In this picture is the one for education, which starts off at the top as "The Doors of Learning and Culture Shall Be Opened!" It's quite an amazing, inspiring, and beautiful monument that houses the Freedom Charter.

Picture 4: Freedom Charter








Mandela Square is home to a market where vendors sell their goods. The man in this picture was selling herbs, among other things, and he wanted us to buy his products. One was an herbal viagra and the other was for tightening the vagina! Everyone wins!

Picture 5: Mandela Square vendor







We also visited Hector Pieterson Memorial Site, which commemorate the 1976 student uprising of black Africans against imposing the learning of Afrikaans in school. The students were demonstrating peacefully when police opened fire and Hector was the first to die at age 12. He is the one being held in the picture. Figures differ, but somewhere between 200-600 people were killed, mostly school children, and thousands wounded. One of the member of the kitchen staff, Thami, was in 3rd grade and was part of it.


Picture 6: Hector Pieterson Memorial Site
















Our tour concluded with several hours at the Apartheid Museum. We spent three hours there and it was nowhere near enough time to take it all in. Very powerful. Very informative. Very emotional. The Steve Biko exhibit was incredibly done and so interesting. I taught Biko this past fall in World History, so it was of particular interest to me. The picture is of Gavin entering the musuem through doors that were prominent throughout apartheid.

Picture 7: Apartheid Museum entrance

We also saw Nelson Mandela's house, Desmond Tutu's house, and where Winnie Mandela still lives.
We had lunch at a wonderful restaurant called Wandy's that if any of you visit, I am going to take you there-- one of the best meals I've ever had in my life. All in all, it was a very powerful and informative day.