It's been nearly three months since my last post and quite a lot has happened. In that time, I've traveled to two countries, absailed down a waterfall, met nurses and clinicians across the country, driven past crime scenes, and come much nearer my goal of visiting all 9 of South Africa's provinces. Most surprisingly, I've done all of this without major embarassament or mishap. (Sorry to disappoint.)
Work continues to go exceedlingly well. In October, I was selected to represent the country office at a week-long HIV prevention conference in Chicago and write the rappoteur report. Attending sessions with leading research scientists and health advocates was inspiring and humbling; I spent the week learning more than I'd imagined about novel HIV prevention techniques, promising vaccine trials, and disheartening reasons people at risk of HIV continue to face stigma around the world. I came home recharged by the conference proceedings and eager to contribute my small piece in the fight to empower young girls in South Africa.
The real proof that I work with an incredible group of people, though, is that my boss encouraged me to extend my trip to the States to attend my brother's wedding! Given the 24+ hours of travel and $1,400 plane ticket, I hadn't even considered the possibility of attending. My team schemed to use the timing of the Chicago conference, however, to get me to Michigan with just enough time to participate in the wedding preparations, see visiting family, and stand as a groomsman for the first time. Thankfully, my brother allowed his most feminine of groomsmen to wear a dress. I'm not sure I have the poise for a bowtie.
After 24+ hours of travel back to South Africa and a sleep-deprived reintroduction to life here, I hopped into a car and rode the 7+ hours to Lesotho for the Princeton in Africa regional fellows' retreat. Twelve of the fellows volunteering in Southern Africa met at the Semonkong Lodge, a beautiful expanse in the mountains of Lesotho that is home to far many more cows and sheep than humans, and is best traveled by donkey. Reconnecting with the fellows after five months apart was an incredibly welcome change of pace. These are people who's energy and excitement for travel and humanitarian work is infectious, but also realistic. Conversations were composed of equal parts excitement and comiseration, as we related stories of our weak, embarassing, or frustrating moments in our new positions, as well.
Lesotho is a trip I will always remember. If you ever find yourself standing on the edge of a raging waterfall and someone tells you to step backwards, the answer is a resolute "No." Unless, of course, you're hooked to a rope and ink on an indemnity waver is still wet with your signature. The Maletsunyane Abseil is the longest commercially operated single-drop abseil in the world, and easily the scariest and most exhilerating thing I have ever done. It is 204 meters (that's 670 feet, Americans), of repeling down soaked rock, dangling in a beautiful canyon between blue sky and certain death (turns out I have a propensity for drama that manifests when hanging from a rope). In my mind's eye, I would repel athletically and easily, every move graceful and sleek. In reality, though, my uncertain body spun in the air and bounced repeatedly off the wet - and very firm - rock. I muttered to myself constantly, talking myself through the stress of imminent death and forcing myself to stop and let myself just hang there, looking out at the waterfall and canyon unfettered with any unnatural thing.
It truly was incredible. So are the bruises it gave me. When I remember the descent, I can call out the moments that really were strong and intentional, when I was able to navigate the rock face with my able feet and find the best views. Revisionist history can be a beautiful thing. Only the scars on my knee from the rock face refute my skilled version of the story.
Lesotho helped me reflect on Mary's own journey with Joseph to deliver the Christ-child, as we approach Christmas. I imagine she rode her donkey with much more grace than I managed while in Lesotho. Donkeys are really the best way to get around Semonkong. Roads are bumpy and cars are hard pressed to dodge the many rocks and pot holes in the way. Our group enlisted twelve donkeys and guides to participate in a pub crawl, during which we were required to ride these donkeys barebacked between three pubs into the progressively darkening night. To satisfy some weird need in my life to be difficult, my donkey was the angsty one of the bunch. He certainly had no intention to be ridden. When we were finally set to leave the last bar and head back to the Lodge in pitch darkness, my donkey went missing. I found myself soberly walking home in the pitch black among a herd of donkeys and their drunken riders, desperately trying to dodge the animals barreling and mounting each other behind me and what I continue to convince myself were innocuous piles of mud.
It took four male guides to eventually find and wrangle my donkey back into submission. At their urging and against my better judgment, I climbed back up before he ran for the edge of a bridge over rushing rapids. I had just survived bouncing down the face of a rock for nearly 700 feet. Surely this wasn't how I was going to die, on the bare back of a donkey and unsure about just what substance was hanging from my shoe. Thankfully, my guide took pity on my shouts and directed my angry host back to the path, and heeded my earnest plea to guide us the rest of the way back. (It occurs to me as I write this that I may have been a bit hasty in declaring this an embarrassment-free blog post...) I earned that glass of wine that night. I think the donkey may have needed one, too.
Work has kept me busy traveling within South Africa, as well. Part of our work to prevent new HIV infections involves supporting twelve clinics across the country. Over the course of a couple weeks, I traveled to several of these clinics to train nurses, counselors, and data capturers about new reporting and data procedures. As someone new to reporting in true field work, this was an incredible and informative opportunity. Finally meeting the clinicians I've been speaking with over e-mail and some of the clients they work with, I've gained a new respect for and understanding of the environments they work in, resource constraints they face, and their importance within their communities. With this growing perspective, some policy recommendations from DC seem myopic and out of place.
While this travel was exciting, it was also draining. We were traveling extensively day after day, boarding airplanes at 6 am and then driving for 5+ hours one way to reach the clinic, sitting with nurses for 2 hours, and then making the 5+ hour drive back to the airport to fly home late at night. The next morning would bring more of the same.
These trips were not without their own (mis)adventures. Driving through the roads of KwaZulu-Natal to rural Pongola saw us dodging donkeys (can I escape them?), goats, and the occassional raucous monkey. GPS's get confused on unmarked roads and dirt roads start to look the same. The most concerning drive was our trek back from a rural clinic in Limpopo. Three of us were eagerly looking forward to the (much deserved) weekend break and willing the 6 hour drive to the airport to pass quickly. Mother Nature had other plans. An angry storm began to rage as we wound our way through mountain passes, clinging to Google Maps. One by one, the phones in the car began to die and it became a race against time to make it back before the last phone battery drained. Eventually even the GPS tracker abandoned us, repeatedly urging us to take turns that would lead off a very steep cliff. An unplanned construction detour forced us to turn around and find our own way through the mountains admist the thunder and lightning. The only sign we saw for miles - declaring an "alligator feeding area" - did little to comfort us. Thankfully, the team member driving kept his sense and good humor throughout, and after endless jokes about living out the rest of our days in the mountains of Limpopo with nothing but alligators for both friends and meat, we made it back to the main roads and could follow signs to the airport. The final sigh of relief was pulling into the car rental lot as our fearless driver let us in on a secret he'd been keeping - the gas tank had just reached empty. Nothing bonds people quite like this travel schedule and our team has only grown stronger - and more wary of rental cars - from these trips.
Apparently it's been a period ripe with coworker bonding. My office hosted the annual year-end retreat in Cape Town in early December. After a day of strategic building, the next day found us competing against our coworkers in an Amazing Race. With colleagues we don't usually work with, we were racing through islands, hotels, and bustling marketplaces to beat our competitors in completing random tasks. Activities included tracking plants on an island of birds, bowling, golfing, and a go-carting show down. The most intense part of the Race, though, was watching our taxi drives compete against each other and growing increasingly clever in the short cuts they'd take to get our team to the next task first. My biggest take away from this experience is that I don't have a monopoly on competitive spirit. My team and I were well-suited to each other, each member set on victory. Thank goodness we did end the day as champions, or else our enthusiasm may have been embarassing...
I was able to extend my trip to Cape Town to spend the weekend with a PiAf fellow that lives there. It was a fantastic weekend spent spying dolphins from the waterfront, enjoying a South African picnic on the rocks of Hout Bay, and hiking up Lion's Head as a rescue helicoptor made its own way to the top. There is still much I want to see and do in Cape Town, and I'm eager to take my family in April.
The past three months have been punctuated with weekend adventures, like exploring a shebeen in Soweto, attending a Thanksgiving celebration hosted by South Africans eager to make the few Americans feel at home, and enjoying time with a few PiAf fellows visiting from Botswana. (Traveling as a PiAf fellow has been great for many reasons, but perhaps most valuable is the network of couches and dinner recommendations across the continent it comes with.)
The next advenutre begins tomorrow. Unable to come home for Christmas this year, I've planned a solo backpacking trip to the Eastern Cape. I will take a bus to Coffee Bay on South Africa's "Wild Coast" and stay in a backpacker (akin to a hostel) for little more than a week. Because I seem to be unsatisfied without personal embarassament, I've signed up for a week-long surfing class, complete with extra excursions for hiking and (perfectly safe?) cliff jumping. I've been told sharks aren't strangers to the area - here's to hoping they'll be full enough from Christmas dinner to leave me well alone. Otherwise, learning to type with one arm may even further delay my next post.
I'm a bit nervous to travel on my own and spend Christmas without family, but also excited. This has been a year of pushing myself beyond my comfort zone and finding out who and what I am. I look forward to a week of the unknown and meeting others open to travel and new experience. Thanks for reading this far, and I'll see you (hopefully in one piece) in 2017!