I don't really know what to write anymore. After five weeks, the initial buzz of being in Africa and of having a blog has been scaled back to a more realistic proportions. Seemingly, with all that hot air went my ability to just sit down and tell you about my life and (mis)adventures.
I am still having a fantastic time; it's just that my tolerance has gone up. There's nothing more tragic than stale excitement, besides maybe stale cereal. Maybe if I write about what I've been doing I'll realize that I'm actually still soaring and maybe I'll even uncover whats got me feeling deflated.
So last week was the goals for girls, or G4G for short. It was kinda hectic, fun though. I didn't end up spending all that much time at the camp. I was running around all day doing all the behind the scenes kind for stuff that is necessary. I had to get water for everyone, pens, and snacks and print diplomas for graduation. You wouldn't think they'd be hard to find but believe me, in the township, they are. I was also responsible for chauffeuring Tiffany Roberts and Titie around the city to various institutions. Trying to get a south african with no passport and no birth certificate to the states in 4 weeks is a herculanean feat. As always, its all about friends in high places and lucky for us, for Titie, the coach of the team of American girls, Ian Oliver, is in with the folks at the embassy. The wind is at her back for sure because someone from Ubuntu also knows someone at the office of homeland affairs and will be able to minify the normal 6 week waiting period for passports. I'm gonna try to go to Titie's game at Hofstra. I say I am but really I'm not gonna have a minute of free time during soccer season. My courseload is gonna be crushing...there's no sunnier way to put it. Ive been thinking that soccer is not something I really want to do this year. It's great because it keeps you in shape and its fun but Im beginning to realize I'm not much of a competitive player. Just considering skills I'm not sure I have a starting spot on the team, even with all the spots opened by departing seniors. And with my fitness where it is, I'm not gonna be making up of lack of skills with exceptional speed or strength. I am also thinking I would like to enjoy what's left of the good weather and do all the things I have wished to to with friends from school. Do you believe Ive been in the Hudson Valley for 3 years now and I've never gone for hike in the catskills or explored all the nice little ponds and waterfalls in the area. Plus, because I spend so much time working, my social life and non-soccer friendships get moved to the back burner.
But on the other hand this is the last chance Ill get to play truly competitive 11v11 soccer on a beautiful pitch. And what better way is there to enjoy the last few days of summer and the fall than to be outside playing soccer? Being in shape has its obvious perks and playing sports always helps me manage my time and steer clear of bad habits. Plus I love the guys on the team. What do y'all think I should do? (stop being a dweeb and start training... and stop eating so much!) thanks, guys.
That was my coach's voice. Coach's voice is a key concept in GRS. Its a pretty simple concept but you have to remember the curriculum is designed for 12 to 14 year olds. THe idea is that everyone has life coach's who will give them good advice but the most important life coach is yourself and you have to learn to listen to your coach's voice. It's a concept that works best for kids who love sports.

I suppose I should stop apologizing for digressing because it seems to be what I do.
So I went on a Safari the other night. that was a trip. African elephants are HUGE!! I was arguing with someone as we left that an elephant would not be able to knock over the flatbed that we were all in. Is suppose a little background is in order. Citrus is banned form the park because it used to be a main component in the Elephants diet back in the seventies. THey used to dump a ton of oranges in one spot regularly to get a reliable herd of elephants for park visitors. Eventually some genius noticed that this unnatural food source was seriously disturbing the natural order among the 400 or so elephants. tHe elephants, usually scattered throughout the park in small groups stopped leaving the immediate vicinity of the orange dumping spot. They learned what the orange truck looked like so whenever they saw it there was a massive stampede of hundreds of elephants that wrecked havoc on the plant life and on the social structures within the herds. Elephants started exhibiting abnormal aggressive behavior in competition for the resource. Some started showing signs of serious stress. What kind of people were in charge of the park at that point, I wonder. So I was thinking about how great it would be if someone on the flatbed had accidentally brought along an juicy orange and herd of elephants got a whiff of it and started chasing us around the park. I said it would be worth being unseated when an elephant put a shoulder into the side of the flatbed to see the spectacle. She said that if an elephant had a mind to do it, it could topple the truck and trample us all to pulp. After I saw one I admitted being wrong.
We also saw about a zillion kudu, a bunch of eland (the biggest antelope in africa), some humping zebras, a bunch of pumbas (alas, no timones), some black backed jackals, some chubby little foxes, some scrub hairs (boring), a couple of paranoid porcupines, a springer, a spotted eagle owl (270 degrees of neck rotation!!), and we think we saw a black rhino in the distance. No cobras or lions but it was nice to see everyone from G4G one last time.
I went out in the township yesterday for the first time. Straight from the night safari, Kourtney, Tyler (another GRS field intern and friend of Kourtney from UVA) and I picked up Titie and went to a club called Eyethu in Zwide, just down the street from Ubuntu and the future site of the GRS headquarters. 5 rand (~75 cents) for guys and free for girls, not bad. The place was packed. it has a cool multilevel layout with two massive fires burning in open rectangular smoke stacks at the edge of the dancefloor. The place was massive; there were probably 400 people there last night and you could have squeezed 100 or so more. Strictly house all night long but good stuff. Everybody in the whole place was moving and more than half of the people were giving it all they had on the dance floor. dance circles are big here, really big. Its fun to test out all the different combinations of people or show everyone what you've got in a public forum but what happened to two people sharing a private moment on the dancefloor? The club had huge number of gays and guys in drag. There were a couple freaky 6 footer giving Tylerr a litle too much attention. In general we felt safe all night long, mostly because of Titie's relentless patrolling. There were only a few obnoxious drunks. It seemed like everyone was there to dance and believe you me, they knew what they were doing. I got schooled in the art of getting freaky. I think of myself as a pretty decent dancer when I'm feeling the music but I was humbled last night.
Tyler randomly bumped into an acquaintance from the bus ride down from Mussina, where he's working to get GRS established. This guy was a really interesting character. He was Zimbabwean and he and his three brothers were down seeing their mother. They are in the "imports and exports business" and apparently are doing quie wel for themselves. He invited me to a party he was throwing up in Zim in two weeks to celebrate his becoming a dollar millionaire. He's already a trillionaire in Zim. He kept flashing Benjamins all night as if I didn't believe him. It was pretty weird but I was glad we ran in to him because we'd been standing in the bar line for half-an-hour without moving when he told us to come have a seat while he sent someone to fetch us drinks, on him of course. A little shady but I had some funny conversations with his brothers and I felt safer that everyone saw they knew me. The only real problems we had all night were from drunk guys giving us too much attention because of our white skin. We were the only white people there that night and I don't think whites are a common sight there. The club is about a million times better than any white places on the upscale side of town.

Saw Die Hard 4.0 tonight. It was fantastic! at least it blew my expectations out of the water. Its so fun watching an aging Bruce Willis getting kicked here, exploded there, shot multiple times, and then finally utter the greatly anticipated phrase, Yippy-kye-yay motherfucker! some really good action sequence cinematography.
way passed my bedtime.
I also went down to cape recife, south of PE and climbed out onto the rocks where the absolutely massive waves were crashing. Found tons of nice shells. This coast, or what Ive seen of it between cape town and PE, is paradise and i hear the coast to the east, between PE and Durban, is even nicer.
I hope everyone is doing well. I feel a little out of touch.