The other night when I was getting ready for bed, I was telling Thembi that I am really looking forward to hearing some of the coach’s stories. I think it will help Albert and I to get a better understanding of how much HIV/AIDS affects the communities here and personalize the work we are doing. I am hoping to capture some of the stories on video as well, so that I may share them with everyone at home. I was reading a few other intern’s blogs and it seems like they have been getting a little more of a personal experience from the coaches and Albert and I haven’t exactly reached that point with our coaches yet. We are hoping soon; hopefully they will see our initiative and open up to us. Thembi said that sometimes the coaches will say that HIV hasn’t affected them, but she thinks they are just hiding something or do not really want to talk about it. It is interesting to me that we are working for an organization that prides itself on starting conversations about HIV/AIDS and we cannot even get some of our coaches to open up and talk about their personal experiences with it. She also said that her life has been affected in so many ways that she cannot imagine that there are people who have not been affected at all. Unfortunately she has not told me her full story yet, but hopefully she will tell me sometime soon.
I do have some stories that I can share with you that have been written down for our brochures. These are not necessarily the coach’s personal stories, but stories that have come from working as a Skillz coach. Right now I will share one and another time I will share the other with you. The first one is from the Kimberley coach, Joyce.
“Hi, my name is Tsheiso ‘Joyce’ Masekela. I am a Grassroot Soccer Skillz coach. I would like to tell the story of a 13-year-old girl and how she was affected by HIV. Her mother was affected by HIV and was bedridden. She had to take care of her sick mother, siblings, and act as a mother. She was too quiet in class and did not want to participate in school or in the Skillz curriculum. However, before practice 6 she shared the story of her mother with me. She chose to share it with me because she related to my coach’s story about my HIV positive aunt. After that, she was changed. She started participating, talking freely, and teaching other students. I personally experienced the power of the coach’s story in influencing participants and the support I was able to offer as a Skillz coach.”
Coaches are chosen from the community in which they serve, which makes them role models that can relate to the hardships and the issues the kids face. If Albert and I worked with the kids we wouldn’t have any idea the world they come from and our experiences and problems would not be the same as theirs. I have to say there are several times throughout the day where I find myself very jealous of the coach’s jobs and their opportunity to have a direct affect in these children’s lives. I have seen these children look at them like they are gods and I hope they realize how special that is and how amazing the work they are doing is. I also need to say that while we do come from very different worlds there are some things that exist across cultures, ages, races, and genders that I think anyone can relate to. For me I feel like in some way I can relate to that 13-year-old girl from Joyce’s story. While I have not been directly affected by HIV or AIDS, there have been times in my life where I have had to take on responsibilities that I was not ready to assume and I remember the difficulties of getting through each day in that situation. I think in everyone’s lives there are always circumstances in which you feel you are alone in the world and until you open up and share your story you don’t realize how many people have been affected in the same way. That is really the beautiful part of the coach’s story and probably a key reason it exists in this curriculum. We aren’t dealing with an easy topic to talk to kids about; this is something that is very real and very scary and something that is not always taken seriously.
Monday, September 13, 2010
Thursday, September 9, 2010
It Rained for Like a Second
Our first official cloudy day in Kimberley. It even rained a little! Today I have spent most of the day calling around to the schools where we had interventions running before the strike to see if we can start up again. It has been an impossibly, grueling process. Who knew something so simple could be so difficult. I call and the principal is out, then I call back and he is in the classroom, then I call back and he will call me back. Have a received a call? You bet not. This has to be done for 9 schools. We really need to get our interventions back up and running and pack 5 weeks of work into 2 weeks so we can reach our numbers by the end of our fiscal year, October 1st. Probably tomorrow we will start running around to all of these schools so that we can meet with them in person and get a real confirmation. Hopefully we will be back on in at least two schools tomorrow. We also have a meeting tomorrow with LoveLife about the Heritage Month Festival this weekend and a development course scheduled with the coaches. Probably another busy day ahead of us full of running around with our heads cut off.
Today we also met a girl from Florida who just moved to Kimberley 2 days ago to work with the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, which is partnered with the Evangelical Lutheran Church of South Africa. She will also be here for the next 11 months and may come on part time to help us out and fill part of the shoes of the missing intern. She seemed very nice and hopefully with her we will begin to grow our group of friends here in Kimberley. She also graduated from the University of Florida in 2009. I will tell you more when I know more.
This past weekend I attended the Tri-Nations rugby match between South Africa and Australia in the Bloemfontein World Cup Stadium. I met up with a fellow intern from Lesotho to catch quite a rugby game if I’ve ever seen one. I haven’t, but it was still awesome. I played once at soccer practice. First of all my bus was running on South Africa time and arrived in Kimberley 2 hours behind schedule, which landed me in Bloemfontein right at kick-off without tickets or a place to spend the night. On top of that thank goodness Doug has a South African Sim card for his phone, because otherwise I would have never found him. Luckily the bus station in Bloem, is basically the tailgating parking lot for the stadium, so I didn’t have to go far to get to the game.
After I found Doug we went directly to the ticket window to find that tickets were now selling for R300 apiece. Knowing that we could have gotten them for cheaper earlier or from someone selling them in the parking lot, we decided to pass and head back out into the tailgating areas away from the stadium in pursuit of some tickets. On our way to find tickets we passed four huge white Afrikaner guys who told us that we were going the wrong way and that the game was the other way. They had obviously been having quite a good time for the past few hours. We told them that we knew that, but we didn’t have any tickets. One of the guys goes, “Oh, we have an extra just come with us.” Of course I replied with a “Really?,” which tipped off the presence of foreigners and made them our new best friends. However, as great as a free ticket was, we were still short a ticket because there were two of us. We made this little detail clear and our new best friends decided to purchase another ticket off of someone selling them for us. It was pretty cool being adopted by these crazy men. They spent the entire game explaining the rules, introducing us to their entire clan over and over again (their were 16 of them), feeding us local specialties (biltong or beef jerky and some sort of Slim Jim type thing), as well as American specialties like Coke and Captain Morgan, and simultaneously teaching Doug inappropriate words to shout in Afrikaans. One of the guys gave us his number and told us that if we ever come to Pretoria to give him a call because now we are family and we will stay with him. The also invited us to the Braai after the game (cookout, bar-ba-que, tailgate), but we regretfully declined because we did not yet have anywhere to spend the night.
When we decided to go to the game in the middle of last week, we didn’t really make a whole lot of plans ahead of time (or any at all) thinking that it would be easy to figure out once we got there. That is something that works when you are traveling in off times to places or when you are going somewhere where the one of the biggest games of the year is not being played. I didn’t realize how big of a sport this was and how big of a showing there would be at this place. I knew it was the game being played for second and third place in the Tri-Nations tournament, but that didn’t really mean too much to me. The amount of people there well outdid the amount I have ever seen at a professional football game in the U.S. Also this was a World Cup Stadium and there were no empty seats. After the game we met up with a few of Doug’s friends from Maseru, a girl from Kenya working for the Clinton Foundation, a girl from Italy working in an orphanage, a guy from Columbia and a guy from South Carolina that were working in the English Language Institute. As a group we drove around for 2 hours going into lodge, after hotel, after resort in search of a room and after all that time and 20 hotels later we had only found one room for two people. After our search, Doug’s friends decided to head back to Maseru and Doug and I got the one room left in all of Bloemfontein. I had made a return bus reservation, but Doug had decided to fly by the seat of his pants, so when we got to the bus station around 9:15 a.m. the next day for my bus, we found out that the only bus heading to Maseru for the day had left at 6 a.m. that morning. Luckily we are pretty good at thinking on our feet and Doug was able to find a taxi mini bus back to Lesotho, but don’t you think that between Maseru, Bloemfontein, and Kimberley, all capitals of some sort and all within an hour and a half of each other that there would be more than one bus every other day. If I had wanted to go to Bloem on Friday or Sunday that would not have been possible, I could only go to Kim on those days. I remember from when I was in Cape Town and Western Cape that buses were easy to find and public transportation was everywhere, I am quickly learning that same system does not exist in Northern Cape or the Free State.
At the end of the day today we had a strategic meeting for FY 11! This was exciting because we are gearing up for a huge year; we are doubling our staff, we are tripling our couches, plus we are doubling our interventions and graduates. So we have a lot of work to do this year to reach our targets. It was also nice because we are going to be moving into our projects, things that we can now put our names on as opposed to just finishing up the past interns work. There are a few new things being put in place in terms of teambuilding, woowoo, with the coaches and we also got a chance to get a better understanding of everyone’s role and how it will all fit together. A little excitement in the office today!! Unfortunately this could also mean the end of lots of blogging.
Today we also met a girl from Florida who just moved to Kimberley 2 days ago to work with the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, which is partnered with the Evangelical Lutheran Church of South Africa. She will also be here for the next 11 months and may come on part time to help us out and fill part of the shoes of the missing intern. She seemed very nice and hopefully with her we will begin to grow our group of friends here in Kimberley. She also graduated from the University of Florida in 2009. I will tell you more when I know more.
This past weekend I attended the Tri-Nations rugby match between South Africa and Australia in the Bloemfontein World Cup Stadium. I met up with a fellow intern from Lesotho to catch quite a rugby game if I’ve ever seen one. I haven’t, but it was still awesome. I played once at soccer practice. First of all my bus was running on South Africa time and arrived in Kimberley 2 hours behind schedule, which landed me in Bloemfontein right at kick-off without tickets or a place to spend the night. On top of that thank goodness Doug has a South African Sim card for his phone, because otherwise I would have never found him. Luckily the bus station in Bloem, is basically the tailgating parking lot for the stadium, so I didn’t have to go far to get to the game.
After I found Doug we went directly to the ticket window to find that tickets were now selling for R300 apiece. Knowing that we could have gotten them for cheaper earlier or from someone selling them in the parking lot, we decided to pass and head back out into the tailgating areas away from the stadium in pursuit of some tickets. On our way to find tickets we passed four huge white Afrikaner guys who told us that we were going the wrong way and that the game was the other way. They had obviously been having quite a good time for the past few hours. We told them that we knew that, but we didn’t have any tickets. One of the guys goes, “Oh, we have an extra just come with us.” Of course I replied with a “Really?,” which tipped off the presence of foreigners and made them our new best friends. However, as great as a free ticket was, we were still short a ticket because there were two of us. We made this little detail clear and our new best friends decided to purchase another ticket off of someone selling them for us. It was pretty cool being adopted by these crazy men. They spent the entire game explaining the rules, introducing us to their entire clan over and over again (their were 16 of them), feeding us local specialties (biltong or beef jerky and some sort of Slim Jim type thing), as well as American specialties like Coke and Captain Morgan, and simultaneously teaching Doug inappropriate words to shout in Afrikaans. One of the guys gave us his number and told us that if we ever come to Pretoria to give him a call because now we are family and we will stay with him. The also invited us to the Braai after the game (cookout, bar-ba-que, tailgate), but we regretfully declined because we did not yet have anywhere to spend the night.
When we decided to go to the game in the middle of last week, we didn’t really make a whole lot of plans ahead of time (or any at all) thinking that it would be easy to figure out once we got there. That is something that works when you are traveling in off times to places or when you are going somewhere where the one of the biggest games of the year is not being played. I didn’t realize how big of a sport this was and how big of a showing there would be at this place. I knew it was the game being played for second and third place in the Tri-Nations tournament, but that didn’t really mean too much to me. The amount of people there well outdid the amount I have ever seen at a professional football game in the U.S. Also this was a World Cup Stadium and there were no empty seats. After the game we met up with a few of Doug’s friends from Maseru, a girl from Kenya working for the Clinton Foundation, a girl from Italy working in an orphanage, a guy from Columbia and a guy from South Carolina that were working in the English Language Institute. As a group we drove around for 2 hours going into lodge, after hotel, after resort in search of a room and after all that time and 20 hotels later we had only found one room for two people. After our search, Doug’s friends decided to head back to Maseru and Doug and I got the one room left in all of Bloemfontein. I had made a return bus reservation, but Doug had decided to fly by the seat of his pants, so when we got to the bus station around 9:15 a.m. the next day for my bus, we found out that the only bus heading to Maseru for the day had left at 6 a.m. that morning. Luckily we are pretty good at thinking on our feet and Doug was able to find a taxi mini bus back to Lesotho, but don’t you think that between Maseru, Bloemfontein, and Kimberley, all capitals of some sort and all within an hour and a half of each other that there would be more than one bus every other day. If I had wanted to go to Bloem on Friday or Sunday that would not have been possible, I could only go to Kim on those days. I remember from when I was in Cape Town and Western Cape that buses were easy to find and public transportation was everywhere, I am quickly learning that same system does not exist in Northern Cape or the Free State.
At the end of the day today we had a strategic meeting for FY 11! This was exciting because we are gearing up for a huge year; we are doubling our staff, we are tripling our couches, plus we are doubling our interventions and graduates. So we have a lot of work to do this year to reach our targets. It was also nice because we are going to be moving into our projects, things that we can now put our names on as opposed to just finishing up the past interns work. There are a few new things being put in place in terms of teambuilding, woowoo, with the coaches and we also got a chance to get a better understanding of everyone’s role and how it will all fit together. A little excitement in the office today!! Unfortunately this could also mean the end of lots of blogging.
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
We Have Some New Office Rules
So these are the new office rules that were posted yesterday by Mr. Jones, Thuso Jones that is.
1) Dress Code:
• You are advised to come to work dressed according to you salary.
• If we see you wearing Prada shoes and carrying a Gucci bag, we will assume you are doing well financially and therefore do not need a raise.
• If you dress poorly, you need to learn to manage your money better, so that you may buy nicer clothes, and therefore you do not need a raise.
• If you dress just right, you are right where you need to be and therefore do not need a raise.
• Albert and I decided that based on our salary we should probably come to work naked, Mandla disagrees, agrees triple our salary, which would still unfortunately leave us naked.
2) Sick Days:
• We will no longer accept a doctor’s statement as proof of sickness. If you are able to go to the doctor, you are able to come to work.
• This one was good last night when Mandla threatened not to come to the teambuilding movie because he foresaw himself getting sick and promised to show us a doctor’s certificate, nope sorry Mandla you are coming with.
3) Personal Days:
• Each employee will receive 104 personal days a year. They are called Saturdays and Sundays.
• These don’t even exist for us because we tend to work at least on Saturdays and sometimes on Sundays.
4) Bereavement Leave:
• This is no excuse for missing work. There is nothing you can do for dead friends, relatives, or co-workers. Every effort should be made to have non-employees attend the funeral arrangements in your place. In rare cases where employee involvement is necessary, the funeral should be scheduled in the late afternoon. We will be glad to allow you to work through your lunch hour and subsequently leave one hour early.
5) Bathroom Breaks:
• Entirely too much time is being spent in the toilet. There is now a strict three-minute limit in the stalls. At the end of three minutes, an alarm will sound, the toilet paper roll will retract, the stall door will open, and a picture will be taken. After your second offense, your picture will be posted on the company bulletin board under the ‘Chronic Offenders’ category. Anyone caught smiling in the picture will be sectioned under the company’s mental health policy.
6) Lunch Break:
• Skinny people get 30 minutes for lunch, as they need to eat more, so they can look healthy.
• Normal size people get 15 minutes for lunch to get a balanced meal to maintain their average figure.
• Chubby people get 5 minutes for lunch, because that’s all the time needed to drink a Slim-Fast.
Yes, we may have a running joke of the day in South Africa too.
So everyday Mandla tells Albert and I that he wants us out of this city and that we better not come to this office tomorrow. Especially after my pranks and antics. Poor guy will be scarred after this year. Although I must say we have a running tally of the pranks on the board (South Africa vs. America) and South Africa is up 2 to 1. Mandla got Albert once when Albert locked the keys in the car (he told him we didn’t have a spare and let Albert freak out for 5 minutes before handing me the spare to go unlock the door) and he got me once when he decided to lock me out of the car and drive away without me. So if anything he is worse than us or maybe we need to step up our game.
Mandla is always yelling at me from the other room. Earlier he called my name and I didn’t respond because I was trying to promote the Pepsi Refresh Project so then he was mad (jokingly mad) because he called me again and I ignored him. He then got up and told me to come back for a second because he had a job for me. He then asked me how long it would take me and I told him an hour to buy myself some time and he was like “An hour? I think you can do it in less.” Of course I knew I could do it in 15 minutes, but I didn’t want to disappoint the beloved site coordinator and his expectations. He then just told me that I am missing out because I didn’t come back there again (this is after I finished my other job), so I asked him if I should come back there and he replied that he does not want me back there. He then proceeded to ask me what is wrong with me and I told him that he is what is wrong with me. You have to love the camaraderie in this office. He also threatened to move me out to Platfontein (one of our sites) and he said I could work from there for the rest of the year. He said he would give me a host family; I thought it sounded like kind of a cool idea, too bad he was just kidding. Got to go video the boys changing Mandla’s tire. Peace.
1) Dress Code:
• You are advised to come to work dressed according to you salary.
• If we see you wearing Prada shoes and carrying a Gucci bag, we will assume you are doing well financially and therefore do not need a raise.
• If you dress poorly, you need to learn to manage your money better, so that you may buy nicer clothes, and therefore you do not need a raise.
• If you dress just right, you are right where you need to be and therefore do not need a raise.
• Albert and I decided that based on our salary we should probably come to work naked, Mandla disagrees, agrees triple our salary, which would still unfortunately leave us naked.
2) Sick Days:
• We will no longer accept a doctor’s statement as proof of sickness. If you are able to go to the doctor, you are able to come to work.
• This one was good last night when Mandla threatened not to come to the teambuilding movie because he foresaw himself getting sick and promised to show us a doctor’s certificate, nope sorry Mandla you are coming with.
3) Personal Days:
• Each employee will receive 104 personal days a year. They are called Saturdays and Sundays.
• These don’t even exist for us because we tend to work at least on Saturdays and sometimes on Sundays.
4) Bereavement Leave:
• This is no excuse for missing work. There is nothing you can do for dead friends, relatives, or co-workers. Every effort should be made to have non-employees attend the funeral arrangements in your place. In rare cases where employee involvement is necessary, the funeral should be scheduled in the late afternoon. We will be glad to allow you to work through your lunch hour and subsequently leave one hour early.
5) Bathroom Breaks:
• Entirely too much time is being spent in the toilet. There is now a strict three-minute limit in the stalls. At the end of three minutes, an alarm will sound, the toilet paper roll will retract, the stall door will open, and a picture will be taken. After your second offense, your picture will be posted on the company bulletin board under the ‘Chronic Offenders’ category. Anyone caught smiling in the picture will be sectioned under the company’s mental health policy.
6) Lunch Break:
• Skinny people get 30 minutes for lunch, as they need to eat more, so they can look healthy.
• Normal size people get 15 minutes for lunch to get a balanced meal to maintain their average figure.
• Chubby people get 5 minutes for lunch, because that’s all the time needed to drink a Slim-Fast.
Yes, we may have a running joke of the day in South Africa too.
So everyday Mandla tells Albert and I that he wants us out of this city and that we better not come to this office tomorrow. Especially after my pranks and antics. Poor guy will be scarred after this year. Although I must say we have a running tally of the pranks on the board (South Africa vs. America) and South Africa is up 2 to 1. Mandla got Albert once when Albert locked the keys in the car (he told him we didn’t have a spare and let Albert freak out for 5 minutes before handing me the spare to go unlock the door) and he got me once when he decided to lock me out of the car and drive away without me. So if anything he is worse than us or maybe we need to step up our game.
Mandla is always yelling at me from the other room. Earlier he called my name and I didn’t respond because I was trying to promote the Pepsi Refresh Project so then he was mad (jokingly mad) because he called me again and I ignored him. He then got up and told me to come back for a second because he had a job for me. He then asked me how long it would take me and I told him an hour to buy myself some time and he was like “An hour? I think you can do it in less.” Of course I knew I could do it in 15 minutes, but I didn’t want to disappoint the beloved site coordinator and his expectations. He then just told me that I am missing out because I didn’t come back there again (this is after I finished my other job), so I asked him if I should come back there and he replied that he does not want me back there. He then proceeded to ask me what is wrong with me and I told him that he is what is wrong with me. You have to love the camaraderie in this office. He also threatened to move me out to Platfontein (one of our sites) and he said I could work from there for the rest of the year. He said he would give me a host family; I thought it sounded like kind of a cool idea, too bad he was just kidding. Got to go video the boys changing Mandla’s tire. Peace.
Please Help Us
http://www.refresheverything.com/athletesforchange
Hey guys,
We have a Grassroot Soccer affiliate program working in Washington D.C. fighting HIV/AIDS. They are trying to win a $50,000 grant from the Pepsi Refresh Project and they really need our help. All you have to do is follow the link above and vote once a day for the idea. Your help would be very, very much appreciated! You will have to copy and paste the link, I can't make it link on my blog. Thank you so much!
Hey guys,
We have a Grassroot Soccer affiliate program working in Washington D.C. fighting HIV/AIDS. They are trying to win a $50,000 grant from the Pepsi Refresh Project and they really need our help. All you have to do is follow the link above and vote once a day for the idea. Your help would be very, very much appreciated! You will have to copy and paste the link, I can't make it link on my blog. Thank you so much!
It is Finally on Hold
I have been scanning the papers and the news for anything that I can link to my blog and discuss, but I haven’t come across much that is too interesting lately. In the local paper I have found out that apparently today is “D-Day for the Strikers,” and by D-day I hope they mean decision day. It would be wonderful to get back to work or rather really start work. Since I have been here, there has been a strike going on. I am beginning to think either there is no such thing as school here or that it is just me, like I brought on this strike and if that is the case the strike will be lasting for another 11 months. That would not be good for the children. For those of you who are not like my mother and scanning every single African newspaper to get the latest news over here (I guess that is where I get my news junkiness), I will inform you of what I know about the situation. Warning: It’s not much. Mostly that the strike keeps us from going into the schools and running our program.
Aside from the problem of not educating the kids, the biggest problem relating to the strike revolves around the matric exams that all of the 12th graders have to take. The matric exams are standardized tests that need to be passed in order for the students to graduate. Pope, wouldn’t you hate that if no matter how well you did in your class, if you didn’t pass the year-end exam, you don’t get to graduate. Thank goodness we don’t have these in the states. If you pass you can get a job or seek further education, but if you do not then you can study part time to be able to pass later. Thuso said that it is very difficult to get a job if you do not pass; you wouldn’t even be able to work in the mines.
The latest news is that at this point most of the schools in Kimberley have returned to normal working hours and activity; however, the strike is not over. It is just simply on hold, possibly because of these matric exams they have already postponed twice. So more to come about the strike; I don’t know when we get to go back to work, but hopefully soon.
Aside from the problem of not educating the kids, the biggest problem relating to the strike revolves around the matric exams that all of the 12th graders have to take. The matric exams are standardized tests that need to be passed in order for the students to graduate. Pope, wouldn’t you hate that if no matter how well you did in your class, if you didn’t pass the year-end exam, you don’t get to graduate. Thank goodness we don’t have these in the states. If you pass you can get a job or seek further education, but if you do not then you can study part time to be able to pass later. Thuso said that it is very difficult to get a job if you do not pass; you wouldn’t even be able to work in the mines.
The latest news is that at this point most of the schools in Kimberley have returned to normal working hours and activity; however, the strike is not over. It is just simply on hold, possibly because of these matric exams they have already postponed twice. So more to come about the strike; I don’t know when we get to go back to work, but hopefully soon.
Monday, September 6, 2010
I Love Being a Child
Teambuilding is my favorite activity here and I am always looking for new teambuilding opportunities. We keep trying to get free tickets from Howard at the DeBeer’s office to go see the Big Hole for a teambuilding opportunity. When I say we keep trying, I really mean that we tried once and need to keep trying. This past week, luckily, we had the opportunity to get in some quality office teambuilding. Phew, we need all the building of the team that we can get! Last Thursday Mandla, Thembi, Thuso, Albert, and I went to the Gariep Festival in Kimberley and spent the night eating and going on rides, two things that you might not want to put together if you have a weak stomach. Oh, we also did some dancing. The festival was sort of similar to the Barnstable County Fair (but less trashy) or the South Florida Fair (but probably less trashy too). We spent 15 minutes in the car trying to decide whether or not to go since we had already rented movies, but upon hearing Mandla’s sadness that we might not want to go, I made the executive decision that we would go because I knew that we could fit in the carnival and the movie. Boy am I glad we decided to go, I love when I just get to be a child again. That would be the 5-year-old in me. I wanted to go on all the rides, but unfortunately we only went on four. Mandla and Thuso were fraidy cats and wouldn’t go with us on the cool rides, so they just waited while Albert, Thembi, and I (the children) went on the Round Up and Break Dancer. Round Up was the ride that is cylinder, kind of like a flying saucer, and it spins so fast you stick to the wall. The difference here was that it was open on the top and then it turned on an angle so you could see out while you were spinning; much cooler than the ones at home. Break Dancer was like the Scrambler at home, you sit in a little car-like seat and the car spins, and then the four cars on the one leg spin, and then the whole ride spins. It was great. The people in the car across from us kept their eyes closed and concentrated on not getting sick; I didn’t think it was that bad. I can’t believe there was a point in time in my life that I was afraid of roller coasters and similar rides.
After all of that fun, we talked Thuso and Mandla into doing Bumper Cars with us. Since it sort of hit me close to home, I just rode with Albert instead of crashing into people. Just kidding, I really just wanted to get some funny pictures (success) so I decided not to drive and instead catch some shots of Thembi, Thuso, and Mandla in action trying to kill Albert and I. It was hilarious; I spent most of the time laughing instead of taking pictures. I think they were really out to get us. Thuso said that I wouldn’t be able to get a picture of him (he doesn’t take pictures, sound familiar), but I did, yes, I did. Since I didn’t drive, I didn’t have to pay so we had four tickets left and lastly Albert and I went on the flying swings. These flying swings were pretty ghetto and probably not the safest, but I still had a good time at least when I wasn’t imagining my swing unhooking itself and shooting me across the fairgrounds. The clip that held my safety bar in place didn’t exactly work and when I looked up, while we were flying nonetheless, I noticed that we were just held onto the machine by a large size paperclip. Real safe, hey TIA (This IS Africa). Well, kind of. I wouldn’t compare it to a lot of other African countries, but I guess technically speaking it is considered part of Africa. All and all it was a wonderful way to spend the night; I don’t know if our team got closer, but its alright because there is definitely more teambuilding to come. I.E. tonight we are hitting up Movie Mania Monday with 10 of the coaches, our office staff, and Jerome (HR manager visiting from Cape Town). We already took 16 newspapers to the mall to get the tickets; comical to say the least. It should be a spectacle and a rowdy, good time. If anything interesting or out of the ordinary happens, I will be reporting back. Also last week we found out that Mandla is very, very afraid of snakes, so we had to make sure to start introducing snakes around the office. We just hung up a panoramic postcard with 5 different snakes all over it on Mandla’s door. Just wait for the plastic ones. I can’t wait for him to come out. Moral of the story thus far, don’t tell me things you are very afraid of, don’t tell me things I shouldn’t do or you do not want me to do, and do not, I repeat do not challenge me. All of the above will lead me to do these things. We are obviously hard at work here in Kimberley; blame it on the strike. Over and out.
After all of that fun, we talked Thuso and Mandla into doing Bumper Cars with us. Since it sort of hit me close to home, I just rode with Albert instead of crashing into people. Just kidding, I really just wanted to get some funny pictures (success) so I decided not to drive and instead catch some shots of Thembi, Thuso, and Mandla in action trying to kill Albert and I. It was hilarious; I spent most of the time laughing instead of taking pictures. I think they were really out to get us. Thuso said that I wouldn’t be able to get a picture of him (he doesn’t take pictures, sound familiar), but I did, yes, I did. Since I didn’t drive, I didn’t have to pay so we had four tickets left and lastly Albert and I went on the flying swings. These flying swings were pretty ghetto and probably not the safest, but I still had a good time at least when I wasn’t imagining my swing unhooking itself and shooting me across the fairgrounds. The clip that held my safety bar in place didn’t exactly work and when I looked up, while we were flying nonetheless, I noticed that we were just held onto the machine by a large size paperclip. Real safe, hey TIA (This IS Africa). Well, kind of. I wouldn’t compare it to a lot of other African countries, but I guess technically speaking it is considered part of Africa. All and all it was a wonderful way to spend the night; I don’t know if our team got closer, but its alright because there is definitely more teambuilding to come. I.E. tonight we are hitting up Movie Mania Monday with 10 of the coaches, our office staff, and Jerome (HR manager visiting from Cape Town). We already took 16 newspapers to the mall to get the tickets; comical to say the least. It should be a spectacle and a rowdy, good time. If anything interesting or out of the ordinary happens, I will be reporting back. Also last week we found out that Mandla is very, very afraid of snakes, so we had to make sure to start introducing snakes around the office. We just hung up a panoramic postcard with 5 different snakes all over it on Mandla’s door. Just wait for the plastic ones. I can’t wait for him to come out. Moral of the story thus far, don’t tell me things you are very afraid of, don’t tell me things I shouldn’t do or you do not want me to do, and do not, I repeat do not challenge me. All of the above will lead me to do these things. We are obviously hard at work here in Kimberley; blame it on the strike. Over and out.
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
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