Update from the East Side

Molweni,

I am not sure about you, but time is sure going quickly here in the Eastern Cape of South Africa. April has come and gone and we are almost halfway done with May.

Things have been up and down for me lately. I will first update you with the highlights! I recently had the opportunity to journey to Johannesburg to meet up with some fellow interns for the weekend. I left Thursday afternoon on an Intercape bus at 5:00pm and reached my destination of Park Central in Joburg at 8:30 the following morning. A nice, casual 15.5 hour bus ride to get to the financial capitol of South Africa! Karl Alexander, a fellow intern; picked me up and brought me to work with him. He works in the township of Alexandra. A very large, consolidated township on the outskirts of the city. However, Alexandra is quite small in comparison the the larger township of Soweto where two other interns work.

Although, very tired I was greeted with smiling faces and unbounded enthusiasm that only a Friday can bring to the work place. In all of the GRS sites, the coaches come in on Fridays for development courses which makes the office 100% more lively. The coaches were not shy in pushing me into the center of their dancing circle to see how well the new 'umlungu' could jiva jiva (dance). They were in the middle of energizers, a conglomeration of laughs, dances, and general fun. These times are perfect for me as I am able to let me inner child surprise even the newest of friends. However, I found that the energizers in Alex are much longer than the ones in Port Elizabeth and the weariness from my journey set in, so I decided to become a spectator for the rest of the development course. The topic of conversation for the coaches this particular day was stress management, which was the exact same for our coaches last week. When I told one of our staff members back in PE that we seemed to be ahead of curve, he looked at me in the most serious face that he possesses and said, "Matewu, I have always known that PE is the best site. This has been fact for many times, no need to tell me."

Anyways, the rest of the day I spent with Karl driving to the bank (waiting in line for almost 2 hours to change 200 and 100 rand notes into smaller bills), stopping by a school to hand out flyers for an HCT, and eating kota. The kota consisted of a piece of bread stuffed with french fries, cheese, salami, ham, hot dogs, and a myriad of spices. I finished, but lets just say that my body was not very happy about that for the next couple of hours. However, definitely a valuable experience. We departed Alex around 5 and picked up another intern from Lesotho to travel back to the Joburg flat.

The rest of the weekend was nice hanging out with the other interns and swapping stories from our sites. We went to a Portuguese festival one night with live music and some amusement park rides. We also celebrated Cinco de Mayo the only way you can...devouring Mexican burritos (however, south african Mexican restaurants pale in comparison the ones in back home). The weekend was a lot of fun however, I did not get enough sleep and did not dress appropriately (wore shorts when it was cold) which has lead to me being sick for this past week...(Sarah Lynn Mertins might disagree with my diagnosis of why I got sick, but we agreed to disagree!)

So, I have been out of commission from work the second half of this week because of my cold--which is my only low (I know you were waiting for the bad news)!

Yesterday, I went with my friend Khaya to a local high school for a rugby game. It was a great experience and very similar to a friday night football game back home. I know that I have completely failed with picture taking during my year in Port Elizabeth, my deepest apologies. The last video is the pre-game war cry of the local high school. Very cool, however again I apologize for how small the picture is. I could not figure out how to make it any bigger.

Finally, shot out to my momma for always supporting, loving and encouraging me--especially in the hard and lonely times here in SA. I love you mom, I hope you feel loved today. For whatever reason the recurring thought I have had all day is us doing Insanity together with Shaun T. Me making fun of you and Shaun T, but secretly having trouble keeping up and while you are laughing and saying you don't know what to do with me...Happy Mother's Day:)

Also, Happy Mother's day to my future mother, but already considered my second mother for quite some time..Sarah Lynn Mertins. Please save all the leftovers, I'll be home soon:)

Grey High School Entrance

Grey High School with Emblem