BARAKA VILLAGE SCHOOL

One day we took a little day trip out to a village school for San children. There are a handful of these village schools around Tsumkwe that help prepare San children for the primary school in town. My favorite part of the visit was playing soccer with the students during their break. It was girls versus boys, and after the boys went up a few goals, Jonah and I joined the girl’s team and helped even the score a little bit…

TSUMKWE SOCCER

Not only did Phil and Jonah and I get a teaching gig at the high school, but we were also recruited to help coach the soccer team. The team doesn’t really play many matches, maybe a couple every year, but in a few weeks they were going to be competing in a huge national tournament sponsored by Coca Cola. The soccer field was rough, and a few of the guys played barefoot. Some played in socks or slippers, and some shared one of their shoes with a friend. Here’s a little video...

TSUMKWE SECONDARY SCHOOL

Phil is a teacher and will soon be starting a doctorate program in the fall. And I taught English last year in Thailand. After Phil walked into Tsumkwe Secondary School to see if he could interview some teachers about the local school system, he walked out with a weeklong job for us teaching 11th and 12th grade English. Jonah helped out too. Sadly, they didn’t have any fulltime teachers filling those positions. The classrooms were in bad shape, broken windows, crumbling concrete floors, and walls that were worn and scuffed. The school itself was shit, but the students were wonderful! Making it to the 11th and 12th grade is quite a challenge in that part of the world, so the students were all very dedicated and serious about their schoolwork. The teachers and students were very thankful that we were there, and we were very happy to be able to help.

BOTSWANA

The border of Botswana is fifty kilometers east of Tsumkwe, and the town of Dobe is just five kilometers past that. Phil spent some time there eleven years ago with his mother helping her conduct research, so we decided to go back and check it out. On the way out of town we saw our friend Steve who was a translator for Laura and Rhea during their interviews. He decided to join us last minute. Having Steve along was great. Without him we wouldn’t have been able to sit down and chat with the villagers. I have to say, I’m pretty bad at learning languages, but having lived in Southeast Asia for a while I guess I’ve kind of gained an ear for tonal languages. But man, these click languages! Now that’s something else! I love the way they sound. Anyways, here’s a video of our day trip to Botswana…

SHEBEEN

A shebeen is an unlicensed drinking establishment. There are quite a few scattered around Tsumkwe, which isn’t actually a good thing for the community. A few can be found right off the main road; they play loud music, sell big bottles of beer, and may even have a TV or a pool table. Then there are the ones that are a little more off the beaten path, off the grid and out in the bush. These don’t sell bottled beer, but instead make and sell their own concoctions. One afternoon Phil, Jonah, Lucah, and I (all sons of anthropologists) went out to get a taste of something local. We found a dark shebeen, lit only by a small candle, and came out with a bottle of something… well, not too tasty, but it didn’t kill us…

BRAAI

The word for barbeque here is ‘braai’, and in celebration of the World Cup final we decided to have one. Just our luck, word around town had it that there had been a cow slaughtered that morning. Here’s a little video about the making of our tasty feast.

SEVEN

Here are some more pictures that I took one afternoon while I was out on some interviews with Laura and Rhea. The name of the village in this picture is Seven. It’s made up of twelve government built houses and the families that live here were some of the wealthiest families interviewed.

RESEARCH IN TSUMKWE

Laura and Rhea just graduated from the University of Toronto and came to Tsumkwe to conduct research with Richard Lee. Every day they wandered around to different villages and talked to people about everything from food to health to income. They did about three or four interviews a day, and occasionally I would tag along. Here are a few pictures from the first interview I went to. The family was very poor. The picture on the bottom left is of the little cluster of makeshift tents where they lived. They were made of sticks and blankets and tarps, with no water or electricity, and they slept on thin mats with blankets on the dirt. Here I am in a café typing on my laptop and drinking a beer.

IVORY

Emma is a veterinarian from Toronto. She came to Africa for the World Cup and decided to do some volunteer work and research while she was here. One day I decided to tag along with her on a visit to the Department of Environment and Tourism. The guy in charge of the branch in Tsumkwe is this rugged dude named Drieze. What a character. He’s a tall and confident, broad-shouldered guy, who wore khaki shorts that were almost too short, and hiking boots that came up to just below his calves. With his army green jacket, scruffy face, dirty blonde hair, and tan skin, he was like a Crocodile Dundee of the Kalahari. A day at the office for him may involve such a task as taking down a ravaging elephant that has just rampaged a village. He had some stories to tell and I felt like he had Discovery Channel written all over him. After hanging out in his office for a bit he took us out back to this green shed where they kept their ivory. The outside of the shed was lined with the skulls from animals that had died of natural causes, and locked up inside they kept the elephant tusks. There weren’t very many at the time, I guess they had just emptied it out, but apparently it gets waist high. And considering the ivory goes for 2,000 American dollars per kilogram, that shed can become quite a treasure chest. White gold! I picked up one of the tusks, it was a heavy 78.5 pounds, and it wasn’t even that big. In the back corner of the shed – you can see it in the picture - I noticed that there was a toilet built into the concrete. Apparently the Department of Environment and Tourism has the authority to practice a little bit of law enforcement when it comes to poaching, and the ivory shed used to act as a holding cell for those that broke the law. I’m not going to go into detail about the torture tactics that he said they used, but let’s just say that it re-enforced my image of him as the Kalahari Dundee. I was too scared to take a picture of him. Just kidding, but not really…

HEALING DANCE

One night as we were sitting around the campfire we heard the sound of singing off in the distance. Richard thought it sounded like a traditional healing dance, so we ventured off into the bush to see what we could find. The song and dance took place around a very dim fire and we gathered around for a while to observe. We only stayed for a half hour or so, but the healing dance carried on late into the night. It was really dark out, so this is more like a song recording with a video introduction…

THE SAN

The San make up a small percentage of Southern Africa’s diverse ethnic groups. With only about 100,000 left, most of them live in Namibia and Botswana with the town of Tsumkwe falling somewhere in the middle. They have been the focus of Richard Lee’s research since the 1960s; however, most of the world was exposed to the San, or Bushmen, when the movie The Gods Must Be Crazy came out in the early 80s. They’re not the same loincloth-wearing people that were portrayed in the film, but they still hold onto a lot of the hunter-gatherer culture that came to define them. Unfortunately they remain rather marginalized and poor, struggling to find a place in modern African society.

TSUMKWE

At the end of June I left South Africa and the World Cup to go on a trip to Namibia with my friend Phil and his brother Jonah. After a couple of nights in Windhoek, where we rendezvoused with the anthropologist Richard Lee and a group of researchers, we hit the road north towards Tsumkwe and the Kalahari Desert. Tsumkwe is a small town in northeastern Namibia about fifty kilometers from the border of Botswana, and has been the hub from which Richard Lee has been conducting his research over the last few decades. It was an eight hour drive from Windhoek with the last 250 kilometers being on a dirt road, and I'm pretty sure that the one paved intersection in 'town' was the only one for hundreds of kilometers in each direction. Tsumkwe's electricity comes from a generator that runs from 5 AM to 10 PM, and also cuts off for a few hours in between lunch and dinner. It gets really dark after the power cuts out at night, but man alive is the star gazing amazing - no light pollution! It's a very small town, surrounded by a lot of desert, but it didn't take me long to realize that there were a lot of things to do....

USA vs. ALGERIA

Here's a little video of the USA vs. Algeria match. Holy shit was it amazing! It may not seem like it in the video, but the game was extremely tense. At half time we found out that England was beating Slovenia and that if we couldn't pull off a victory we would be eliminated from the World Cup! We had a lot of chances in the second half, and even had a goal called back on a crappy offsides call, but we just couldn't seem to score. Regulation time expired and four minutes of injury time were added on, and with only seconds left on the clock Landon Donovan put one in the back of the net! The stadium erupted! Our section was especially rowdy, with beer spraying all about and people falling over the seats! It was one of the most joyous moments of my life. I cried. But don't tell anyone... Next up is Ghana!

USA vs. SLOVENIA

What a match! This was a real fun game with a 2 - 2 comeback tie against Slovenia. I captured the third US goal on video, but for reasons unknown to anyone on the entire planet, the ref called it back! Luckily England also tied against Algeria later that night, giving us high hopes for an advancement to the next round! The stadium was really loud, so I'm sorry if the audio kind of stinks...

SPAIN vs. SWITZERLAND IN DURBAN

We took a long day trip to Durban to watch Spain versus Switzerland. It was nice to get out of Joburg, even if it was only for a day. The drive down was beautiful and when we arrived we were greeted with the much warmer coastal climate of Durban! Durban was great, unlike Joburg the city is very walkable. After lunch we walked down to the beach and strolled along the water to the stadium. The new Moses Mabhida Stadium is awesome! The game was a shocker with the favored team Spain losing 1 - 0 despite dominating the play and having an all-star lineup. I think I'll try and get back to Durban again at some point, it seemed like a cool place.

USA vs. ENGLAND

The US kicked off the World Cup with an exciting 1 -1 draw against England! US fans were psyched! England fans were bummed. Here's a video of us having fun at the game...

JUNE 11th

We made it back to Johannesburg from our road trip in one piece, and on Friday June 11th I parted ways with my friends and met my sister, Lindsey, Reg, and Ben at the airport. It was also the first day of the World Cup! That night we went to Nelson Mandela Square to get some dinner. Both games ended in a draw that day, so there were no victories to celebrate, but the atmosphere was still jubilant, people just wanted to party and share their national pride. Here's a little video...

MOZAMBIQUE

After a couple of days in Kruger National Park we headed east into Mozambique. We didn't have a solid plan, and no guide books to direct us, only suggestions from other travelers on where to go. Maputo is the capital city and it sits on a harbor in the southern tip of Mozambique. We thought we'd drive there and then head north up the coast in search of some beautiful beaches that we'd heard about through word of mouth. Crossing the border into Mozambique reminded me of crossing into Cambodia from Thailand, or even like going into Tijuana from San Diego, the change was drastic and there was a blatant increase in poverty.

The drive to Maputo was nice and easy, but once we reached the city things started to get a little hectic, and being a group of foreigners in a rental car from South Africa didn't help. On a crowded and slow moving road just outside of the city we got pulled over by the police for no apparent reason. Once we stopped the van an officer came over to the passenger seat window where I was sitting, and before we knew it the vehicle was surrounded by six or seven men armed with AK-47s. The officer started asking us what we were doing and where we were going, and after poking his head in the window he noticed that a few of the guys in the back weren't wearing seat belts. He demanded that we pay him 300 rand each - that's a lot of money in Mozambique - while meanwhile a truck passed by with about fifteen people crammed into the bed. If there is a seatbelt law in Mozambique it's obviously not enforced. The officer threatened to take us into the station if we didn't pay, and he seemed nervous as we scrambled to collect our money. We ended up talked him down from three hundred rand each to 1,000 rand altogether, paid up, and took off down the road. That wasn't the last time we were bribed by the police.
We had heard about this beach town a little north of Maputo, but after being stopped by the police and getting lost for a bit, we didn't arrive until after dark. The roads turned into sand as we drove towards the coast, and the roadside lighting was sparse and dim. After almost getting stuck a few times and realizing that we would need a four wheel drive vehicle to go any further, we decided to head back to Maputo for the night.

Once we got back to the city we found a place to eat and then went out to look for a hostel that we had heard about. On the way we got stopped by the police for the second time, another six or seven guys armed with AK-47s. This time we were all wearing seat belts and there was nothing they could pin on us, but they still wanted our money. They tried to tell us that Carlos was drunk, which he wasn't, and after explaining to them that their buddies took most of our money earlier that day, we quickly ended the conversation and took off for the hostel. We were all drained when we finally got to the hostel and very put off by our first day in Mozambique. That night we got drunk.

The next day we took a stroll around town and then drove along the coast outside of Maputo for a little ways. We stopped at a beach for a while, that's where I took the pictures above, and then jumped back into the van to head back to South Africa. It was a short visit, but we had had enough. And anyways, the World Cup was only a few days away...

SAFARI

Here's a little video of some stuff we saw in Kruger National Park...

KRUGER NATIONAL PARK

We spent a couple of days in Kruger National Park, it was amazing. Here's a picture of just a few of the animals we saw. Rhinos, giraffes, lions, zebras, hyenas, impalas, monkeys, buffalos, pretty much everything except for elephants. But I saw enough of those in Thailand last year...

ON THE ROAD

Here's a little glimpse of what our road trip was like. Good times...

ROAD TRIP

My sister and friends weren't getting into Johannesburg for another week after I arrived, so I was going to be on my own for a little while. I hadn't really figured out where I was going to stay when I got off the plane, and things were already starting to fill up for the World Cup, but luckily I was able to find a fun and festive hostel to stay in called Brown Sugar Backpackers. The crowd was very international and I ended up hanging out with these three Chilean guys and couple of Mexicans. Originally I had planned to head down to Cape Town until my sister arrived, but instead I decided to join my new friends on a road trip for a few days. After two nights at Brown Sugar we rented a van and headed east towards Kruger National Park. It was me, three Chileans, two Mexicans, and an Italian. The World Cup didn't start for another five or six days, but my new group of friends didn't hesitate to take every opportunity they could to flaunt their national pride. The car ride was full of chanting, horn honking and flag waving. And no one left the car with out their flag draped over their shoulders. Here's a picture I took on our second day after we got pulled over for speeding, the police totally busted us with a radar gun. But after the Chileans offered the police officers one of their flags, and after we posed for a few pictures, the cops let us off for for free and even shared a few laughs with us. Good times...

SOUTH AFRICA

It's been almost three weeks since I left Ecuador. Now I'm in South Africa, and this place is buzzing with World Cup fever! I arrived in Johannesburg on June 4th and was excited to find out that the USA was going to be playing a free pre-tournament friendly against Australia the next day. It was a good game for the US, and even though they rested a few of their starters they were still able to pull off a 3 - 1 victory. David Beckham was there to watch the match and for a while he was getting more attention then the game itself. It was a great first day in South Africa!

QUITO

I parted ways with my friends in Vilcabamba. Heidi, Grace, Jesse, Mary and Cassie all took off for Peru, and I caught a bus up north to Quito. It's a good thing I had some cool weather clothes along with me because Quito is rather chilly. It's only fifteen miles from the equator, but at 9,300 feet above sea level it remains pretty temperate. I explored the old town and found some hills to climb where I could get a good view of the city. I wanted to take more pictures but a nice young dude warned me to be careful while walking around with my camera, so I stuck it in my bag. I guess petty theft is pretty common in Quito. It was a short stay, and now I sit in the airport waiting to catch a flight to New York. But only for a night, and then it's off to South Africa for the World Cup!

VILCABAMBA

After a few days in Cuenca we took off for Vilcabamba with Jesse and his two cousins Mary and Cassie. Vilcabamba is a small village in southern Ecuador nestled up in the mountains in what is known as the Valley of Longevity. Supposedly the people of Vilcabamba have a longer than average lifespan that they credit to their laid back and healthy lifestyle. I guess I did see a few really old looking dudes hanging around. And one of them even hollered at the girls I was with, funny.
The six of us went for a hike one day up to these peaks overlooking the valley. Here's a video of our adventure...