Swaziland and playing with Elephants

Last Thursday Erin came to visit us in South Africa!  It's been incredible having her here, exploring another country with your best friend is a rare (and exciting) occurrence.  Erin was a good reminder of how much I miss home and everyone there!  It also was great to have a familiar face in such a foreign setting.  We picked Erin up from the airport on Thursday afternoon around 6pm and took it easy her first night since she'd just experienced such a long flight.

We woke up early Friday morning and set off on a drive to Swaziland.  It was about a 3 and a half hour drive to the Oshoek border from Joburg, then it took around an hour and a half to get to our hostel.  We stayed at Sondzela's Backpacker's Lodge which was on the Mlilwane Game Reserve right outside of Mbabane, which is one of the capitols of Swaziland.  We heard Zebras our first night yipping away.  We also stayed in a hut, which definitely added to the experience of living on a game reserve for the weekend!  

On Saturday, we went on a horseback ride through the game reserve for 2 hours.  I wasn't at all accustomed to riding a horse because it's been so many years since I have, but I caught on pretty quickly.  Usually riding a horse through the game reserve allows you to get closer to the animals since they generally see you as another animal instead of a human.  My horse, Baloo, was actually notoriously stubborn and slow.  I had to keep giving him a little kick to get him moving.  He was holding up the entire line.  He also really liked to eat every time we stopped, silly guy. We saw almost all of the different types of animals that live on the Mlilwane Game Reserve, including a great deal of Zebras, crocodiles, and hippos.  We got very close to the Zebras and Erin took some incredible pictures!  After the horseback ride, we at lunch at the Hippo Haunt Restaurant, where they used to feed hippos who lived on the game reserve.  Erin and I tried Wildebeest and Impala.  The Wildebeest was very juicy, and prepared almost like a sausage - I liked the impala much better.  Saturday night, we decided to explore some of the bars outside of the game reserve, so we went to have a drink at Malandela's.  We tried a Swazi lager, Sibebe, that was delicious!  I even saved one of the bottle caps to put with my Belikin bottle cap from Belize. 

We also had a chance to meet many locals.  We were sitting by the make-shift heating unit outside the bar so it attracted a couple who had just finished dinner.  We started speaking to them and realized that the husband was the Director of Treatment for the National AIDS Council of Swaziland from 2002-2008.  I honestly feel like this was a serendipitous moment, and that Erin and I were meant to speak with him.  What are the chances of having the opportunity to speak to an integral person in Swaziland's fight against HIV/AIDS?  He was telling us about the programs he implemented while in office, ranging from making Anti-retrovirals (ART - treatment for HIV) available to the majority of the population (from 6,000 people on ART to 16,000 in just a couple of years) to reducing mother-to-child transmission by 99%.  Swaziland has the highest prevalence of HIV - at 26% - so it was incredible to hear his perspective on how important it was to develop adequate treatment plans to address the growing epidemic.  We also spoke with a crazy family who kept trying to marry me off to their son.  His father even called me Makote (daughter-in-law in the local Swazi language) the whole night. 

The main living room of the hostel

Our hut for the weekend

Executioner's rock, where they used to execute criminals in Swaziland

Our bushman's basket lunch including impala and Wildebeest

On Sunday, we drove an hour and a half to the Mkhaya Endangered Species game reserve for a day game drive.  In the park, they have giraffes, zebras, white rhinos, black rhinos, leopards, many kinds of deer, buffalo, and elephants.  We luckily saw dozens of white rhinos, some giraffes, and zebras.  Our guides name was Africa, and he was incredibly knowledgeable about animal dung and what made it that way.  He was also knowledgeable about the animals, of course. :)  The difference between white and black rhinos actually isn't really their color.  White rhinos are generally a little bit lighter grey than black rhinos, however, both types could change color depending on their diet.  The real difference is in the mouth, black rhinos have a pointed mouth and usually feed on twigs and branches from trees, while white rhinos have a flat mouth designed to graze on grass.  We had lunch on the game reserve and it was so delicious: Hake fish (which is a very common white fish found off the coast of South Africa), rice, veggies, and impala.  The game reserve was beautiful, where we had lunch felt like a little oasis in the middle of a forest.  Erin took some really incredible pictures!


We met hippos lazing in the water on our way out of the Mlilwane Game Reserve (where we stayed for the weekend) on Sunday

He was kind of (pretty much) interested in charging our safari truck

On Monday before trekking back to Joburg, we decided to explore some of the local craft markets.  We found a boutique called Baobab Batik that is famous for their tapestries and goods (website: http://www.baobab-batik.com/).  We visited the headquarters and they described the entire process to us, they use wax to dye the cloth so that different colors show through.  Their work was beautiful.  We also went to a famous glass blowing company from Swaziland, Ngwenya Glass, and I even found a glass penguin!  We could watch the workers blowing glass beside the shop, they also had some beautiful work!  Erin has better pictures of these shops on her blog post.

On Tuesday, it was back to work.  We are conducting a research study to see how women in Tembisa feel about circumcision, how and what they have heard about it, and how they would like to be involved if their partner has a circumcision.  We are currently waiting on ethical approval to conduct the research, but we piloted our survey last week to see how the questions go, if women are understanding what we are asking, and how long the survey is.  We won't be using any of the answers to these surveys for research, but piloting them helps strengthen our survey before we actually begin the study.  We conducted 15 surveys on Wednesday and Thursday.  I loved finally getting the opportunity to engage with women at the clinic and to hear more about how they would like to be involved.  I also met some pretty incredible women, who very strongly supported circumcision and/or had partners who had a traditional circumcision years ago. Many of the cultures of South Africa support traditional circumcision, where boys are taken when they're around 12 or 13 by a cultural leader up onto the mountain to be circumcised and learn how to be a man.  So being circumcised is generally associated with masculinity.  However, boys who are circumcised on the mountain have the procedure without anesthetic, anything to control the bleeding, or sterile knives or equipment.  In fact, most of the time the circumcisions are performed on all of the boys with the same knife.  It's now pretty well known that some traditional circumcisions can lead to death here, and it was interesting to hear how women in Tembisa felt about traditional circumcision (most of them did not support it and were bringing their sons to the clinic to have the procedure done).  Erin also came with us to work on Wednesday and had a chance to see how the clinic runs.  She was also really impressed with how organized the clinic is and how much it can accomplish in such a short period of time.

 

Tembisa, the township where the clinic is located



A busy day in the clinic, these women and boys are waiting to get into the clinic for the day

A fruit stand in Tembisa

On Thursday night we went to a comedy show and chocolate and coffee expo at Monte Casino, a local Casino in Sandton where Michelle and I live.  There were comedians from all over the world - the UK, South Africa, and even the US.  We had a chance to meet the US comedian, Griff, after the show.  He was hilarious, he basically pointed out all of the things we have been noticing while living here - people crossing busy highways randomly and casually and people selling bumpers at every intersection. 

The inside of Monte Casino

At the comedy show!

On Friday, we didn't have anything left to work on at the clinic, so we just worked from home and I took Erin sightseeing in the afternoon.  This Friday, July 18th, was Nelson Mandela's birthday, so it's Nelson Mandela day in South Africa.  Erin and I went to Soweto, ate local food there, and visited Nelson Mandela's house.  Soweto was packed with people trying to learn more about the history of South Africa and Nelson Mandela.  After Soweto, I took Erin to Liliesleaf Farm (see a past blog for all of the information about this historical site).

On Saturday, we went to a museum called Maropeng in the Cradle of Humankind highlighting how important Africa and South Africa in particular were in the origin of humans.  The museum was very interactive.  The reviews of the museum raved about this underwater boat ride.  The boat ride was meant to show the formation of the earth billions of years ago - it was pretty cool!  After the museum, we ate at the Tumulus Restaurant and had one of the best buffets I've eaten while here, it had more Hake fish, beef, delicious veggies, and a huge salad bar.


Maropeng

After the museum, we went to an Elephant Sanctuary in Hartbeespoort, a place that Michelle and I can never pronounce correctly.  It honestly made me a little sad, because it seemed like the elephants were still confined.  But I do have to remember that elephants are large, wild animals, and there has to be some way to control them.  The sanctuary generally saves the elephants from adverse zoo situations, so it's a much better place for them than in an abused zoo.  First, we had a chance to interact two on one with an elephant and see how they interact with their trainer.  Although their skin looks really rough, it's actually very smooth!  Then, we got to feed an elephant.  The elephant we fed was huge and fully grown, but he was missing a tusk - the sanctuary had rescued him from a surrounding zoo.  Lastly, we got to walk trunk in hand with the elephants.  They used to do this part through the bush surrounding the sanctuary so that the elephants could roam free, but the elephants got too old to adequately control without harming them, so they now do this part in the elephants pen.  Basically, I got to hold hands with an elephant and got a good handful of juicy snot. :)

Feeding the big man

This weekend we are taking our third and final trip to Cape Town.  I'm excited because I get to visit one of my good friends who grad school who is working there! More to come later.  Also read Erin's blog post too for additional updates, pictures, and details about our week :).

7/9/14-7/21/14 Erin's Visit!

Hey guys! It's Erin. I've stolen Haylea's blog for a bit. I'm going to make one large summary of my visit from 7/9 to 7/21. This will be helpful for me to pass on to family members and hopefully will give all of Haylea's friends and family an interesting perspective on where she lives and works! Bear with me as I have boat-loads of photos. This also will probably not be anywhere near as elequent as Haylea's posts (Most of the history that I learned during this trip came from my lovely tour guide Haylea Hannah, some of you might know her, so I probably will not have much in the way of new history information to add). Here we go! Hold on tight! Fasten your seat-belts for turbulence!

Wednesday, July 9th- Thursday, July 10th
I flew Wednesday from RDU to Atlanta and then only 3 hours later from Atlanta to Johannesburg, South Africa. If you did not know, the flight from Atlanta to Johannesburg is now officially the longest flight you can purchase. There used to be another one that was longer, but they have now officially broken it up into two flights. Apparently 16 hour is the limit. I left Atlanta at 7:12pm and landed in Joburg at 5pm and was picked up by Haylea and Michelle who were, to my relief, waiting as close as they could get to me as possible. I received the best present ever: Haylea hugs! They really are the best. I said good-bye to my newly-found airplane friends (2 twenty year old guys going to South Africa to work with the Kaiser Chiefs, a big soccer club in South Africa) and we headed to the car.

I was immediately thrown off by the whole driving on the left-side of the road thing. I know that America is the only place that does drive on the right side, and Haylea had fully prepared me for this, but it is still something to get used to. It was already dark by this time and it was a beautiful sight to see all the lights of the city: reds, greens, blues. Haylea and Michelle informed me that they lived outside of Joburg in an area called Sandton which is where the more affluent population lives. Their apartment is definitely a step-up from where Haylea and I stayed in college. It is still very shocking to see barbed wire and electrical fences surrounding all houses. I know that it is a security measure, but it is hard for me to get past the aesthetic nature. We hauled my bags inside their apartment and we ate dinner and got ready for bed because we were driving to Swaziland in the morning! Haylea and I had to snuggle with her hot water bottle all night because the heater in their apartment does not function normally and it gets close to 30 degrees at night!

Haylea's Apartment on the top right. Friday, 7/11/14

Haylea's complex, surrounding by electrical fence

Youth Day, Monkeys, Caves, and the Drakensberg Mountains

Sorry again to get so behind on blogging, but I'll try to run through everything major that has happened since the last blog!  Work has picked up a bit, so we are going into the clinic regularly or working from home during the week.  We have also made several friends in the city, so we have had a chance to explore Joburg much more.  Two weekends ago, we went to something called Arts on Main, which is a cool district in downtown Joburg that is being built up right now.  In an old warehouse, there were tons of food stalls with deserts, drinks, and food from all over the world.  They also had a rooftop bar next to the warehouse that had salsa dancing all afternoon - it was so much fun!  We also experienced the first big rain we have seen in Joburg since we got here, but we just kept salsa dancing in the rain.

On June 16th, we decided to visit the monkey sanctuary with a fellow Tar Heel we found here, Paul, who was studying abroad at Wits University in Joburg.  The sanctuary focuses on saving monkeys that are adopted by humans and abandoned when humans can't cope with taking care of a full grown monkey.  Usually, when monkeys are babies, they are cute and cuddly, but as they reach sexual maturity, they become more and more aggressive and are prone to biting.  The sanctuary is a place these monkeys can go as they are grown, and it's many acres spreading through a forest and up into the mountains. Even the walkway through the sanctuary was made of wood and rocks so that it blended in with the natural surroundings.  Monkeys also walked all around us through our tour - it was fun!

Pensive monkey man

We climbed a swinging bridge

Some monkeys in the sanctuary are used to warmer and wetter climates, so they lose their fur from the dry African sun. But they usually have no safe, open place to roam without the sanctuary. 

After the monkey sanctuary, we met our friends from Emory who are living in Joburg in Soweto for Youth Day celebrations.  In 1976, students held a peaceful protest against the apartheid government because the government had just mandated that all students must learn Afrikaans in schools.  Students saw this as getting rid of their own unique African cultures, so they held a peaceful protest in Soweto.  The government violently tried to stop the protest, and ended up killing many young students.  One of the youngest was Hector Peterson, who was just 12 years old.  There is a famous picture from June 16, 1976 of a young man carrying Hector Peterson's body through Soweto while Hector's sister trails behind, devastated.  We went to Hector Peterson square first, and saw the Hector Peterson Museum, which had free admission on Youth Day.  The square and museum were packed with everyone trying to learn about the history of the Apartheid and Youth Day.  It was incredible to be at that historic site during Youth Day, and to learn more about how much power and strength young men and women have in standing up for what's right.  At the end of the museum, they had bricks for many known youth that resisted the government and passed away during this time, it was eerie and sad to walk through those bricks and see so many incredible lives taken early because of racism and hatred.  We then went to a concert in Soweto called the Young n' Free concert to celebrate Youth Day.  They had DJs from around South Africa so everyone was just dancing and enjoying the music.  We also someone got into the VIP MTN (a cell phone company) tent and were treated to hand massages, free temporary tattoos, and swag.  It was a really good time!

Hector Peterson memorial

The only type of weapon the students had on June 16th was rocks to throw at their oppressors, while the government had guns.

A mixture of our fun times at the concert

We decided to pretend to be the Big Five (well... Six) African Animals.  I'm a buffalo, that's obviously a buffalo face.

The next weekend (literally I haven't blogged in forever), we went through Sterkfontein Caves in the Cradle of Humankind.  The area is called the Cradle of Humankind because it's where they have found some of the first Hominid fossils, which are believed to be the species that Homo Sapiens originated from.  In the Sterkfontein Caves, scientists found one of the oldest known, most complete, Hominids, 'little foot', which is 3.3 million years old.  Isn't that incredible?  They named the fossil 'little foot' because the foot is much smaller than our feet today, even though little foot was an adult, and before they found the rest of the foot and ankle, it appeared abnormally small.  They found it at the bottom of one of the natural openings of the cave, so scientists believe that the Hominid fell into the cave and likely broke major bones so was unable to move and died there.  We had the chance to walk through the cave, which is 20 million years old, and see just one of the 20 lakes that exist in the cave.  They actually don't know how deep the lake is or how long it goes into the cave.  A group of scientists went into the lake in the 1980s to try to see how long it went.  Once they realized they had gotten to far to safely return, two scientists decided to turn back, but one wanted to keep going.  They found his body a few weeks later with messages to his family and wife carved into the cave.  Since then, they have forbidden anyone from going into the lake because it is too dangerous.  It is so incredible and awe-inspiring to see what nature can create.  They also had a museum that we were able to go through at the end that showed the origins of humankind.  

The area where they found 'Little Foot'

One of the 20 natural lakes inside the cave.

This past weekend, I went on two of the hardest, most incredible hikes of my life in the Northern Drakensberg Mountains.  We drove around 4 hours to the Northern Drakensberg and stayed in a local hostel, the Amphitheatre Backpacker's Lodge that had the best view of the Amphitheatre (which is just a large amphitheatre shaped section of the Drakensberg Montains).  I had never stayed in a hostel before, but we met the most incredible, adventurous people.  In a hostel, you explore by day, and socialize and hang out by night.  The backpacker's lodge hosted several more advanced hiking trips that would be difficult to do on your own, and after doing a lot of reading of reviews of the lodge on google, we decided to join them on the hike up the Amphitheatre.  Honestly, this was one of the most incredible things I have ever done in my life.  We rode with a group of about 9 people from the lodge in a bus about 2 hours up the mountain.  And let me tell you, these roads are far from paved or even well structured.  Driving into the lodge, we went down this terrible road for about 8 miles that was half paved half dirt that had potholes galore, you could barely go 20 mph without worrying if you were going to tear up your tires and car.  The roads up the mountain were far worse, and for far longer.  I doubt our tiny rented Hyundai would have made it.  Usually, it takes around 3 days to hike up the Amphitheatre from the bottom, but they have a point you can hike up after driving up the mountain around 2,500 meters.  

We hiked up the Northern Buttress of the Amphitheatre and would be 

looking out at the Eastern Buttress and what they call the "Devil's Tooth" when we got to the top.  All in all, it was a 12 km hike that went 600 meters up in elevation.  When you started the hike, you zigzagged up the mountain until you got to the point where you scaled rocks for 45 minutes and about 250 meters straight up.  I'm telling you guys, from both the elevation and the climbing, I was incredibly out of breath.  But once you got to the top, it was so, so worth it.    

Climbing up the 250m incline

Zig-zagging up the moutain

We got the best seat in the house

After we got to the top of the Northern Buttress, we went around the Amphitheatre to Tugela Falls, which is the second largest water fall in the world.  The only source of water for the falls is rain water, and during winter, South Africa is pretty dry and cold.  So unfortunately the falls weren't running when we visited.  We did find some ice pockets on the falls though!  

Walking to the falls 

Ice skating on a waterfall

Tugela Falls

 After we went to Tugela Falls, we began our descent down the mountain.  To get down, you have to go down two ladders that scale the mountain.  The first one is 8m down and the second is around 25m.  The first ladder was far more terrifying, probably just because it was the first time I have ever done something like that.  The ladders had rings around them that hugged the mountain face, so it actually wasn't that shaky at all.  The hike all in all took around 5 hours and we were exhausted after.  We went back and took a nap then hung out with everyone staying at the hostel.

Climbing down the 25m ladder

The second night in the hostel, we met two really cool dutch guys who were traveling around South Africa for a month and we ended up going on a hike with them the next day at Royal Natal National Park.  We drove ourselves to the park, which was only about 20 minutes away, and went on two hikes, one was a short hike to the bushman rock art, which is 800 years old, and the other was a much longer hike (the longest/hardest day hike in Royal Natal National Park) to the Gorge.  We did the bushman hike first and had the most knowledgeable guide, Elijah, who lived in the village right beside the park.  He told us about a program he had where he trained people from his village and taught them about the park and the art so that they could also give tours and contribute to the tourist economy.  He also told us the origins of Kwazulu-Natal Province, where the park was located.  We live in Johannesburg, which is in Guateng Province.  Kwazulu literally means "land of the Zulu" and the province is where the Zulu kingdom reigned many years ago.  The Zulu are famous for being the only African tribe to defeat the British army and their guns with just spears and shields.  They had a unique fighting strategy where they would run up to their opponent with their shields and when they got close enough, they would spear them right under the shield.  Elijah was Zulu.  He also told us the history of the rock art.  The bushman got their name from people settling Africa, but they really preferred to be called the sand men.  The only rock paintings you will ever see today are on sandstone, because it preserves the paintings the best of any other rock source because the sand absorbs the water pigment well. Bushmen would use half of an ostrich egg to mix other types of broken down stone and clay with water to make white, red, and grey pigment for their paintings.  

The paintings are to the right of Michelle's shoulder and above that

800 year old paintings

After we saw the bushman paintings, we started on the Gorge hike, which was supposed to take around 5 and half hours, but we stopped and enjoyed the sights a lot and climbed many boulders throughout the hike so it took closer to 7 or so.  The hike overall was around 15 km.  The guys we were with kept challenging each other (and us) to scale large rocks along the hike.  One of them that Michelle and I also eventually got up on was really high and steep (it's in the picture below).  I was incredibly terrified about getting down, because you had to basically slide down the rock until you could jump off.  I eventually survived though - it was a lot of fun!  The field is charred in the picture because they regularly burn parts of the park to encourage new growth.  As I said, you see fires regularly along the highway in South Africa.  At one point, we thought that the hike ended, but we noticed a trail hiding among the dried up river bed of the Tugela River.  We followed the trail and man am I glad we did, the hike continued for about another hour and a half and we ended at one of the peaks of the Gorge.  You could barely hang over the rock face enough to see the bottom of it, it was very deep.  We couldn't even take a proper picture of it because we were too worried about hanging our cameras down.  It was beautiful!

This is the rock that Stefan convinced us all to climb up and I was terrified to climb down from

Standing in a very dried up Tugula River

A beautiful view near the top

Climbing up to the Gorge

How dirty our feet were after trailing through charred fields and scaling rocks

That's all folks!  If you actually made it to the end of this ridiculously long blog, high five!  If you just perused through and looked at the pictures, I don't blame you - they're beautiful (although they truly don't even begin to do the real scenery justice).