A few little stories

I have decided that tonight I will update all my followers about the random things that have happened during my time here at training.  First of all, pubilc transportation in South Africa is probably the scariest thing I have ever seen. People here walk slower than you can possibly imagine, but they drive like they own the road, especially the taxis. When I say taxi I am refurring to a van that has seen better days, a lot of better days. most of the seats are broken, there are no seat belts, and cram so many people in that you couldn't wear a seatbelt even if it was there. My favorite taxi experiance so far has been traveling for our site visit. We went on a five day trip to the boarder of Swaziland to stay with a current Peace Corps Volunteer. Our director was kind enough to print us directions from Google Maps, as if we were driving straight there in a car, and it would only be a little over four hours. Unfortunately it is against Peace Corps rules for volunteers to even drive cars, so public transportation it was. Getting from our small town to Pretoria was fine and gave us all a very optomistic start to the trip, but that ended pretty soon. After shopping for two hours to get phones and groceries we made our way to the taxi ring. That was where we learned that if a taxi isn't full, it doesn't leave, possible ever. We were the first four people on a van that help 16 people, and we were going to a town that apparently isn't a very popular destination because three hours later we were still sitting there. In total is took us 13 hours on public transportation to make it to a site that was less than five hours from where we started. On the trip back to the college where we are staying we went a different route in the hopes it would be a little faster. That way it took only 11 hours, but it was actually more incomfortable than the previous trip. I was in the back bench seat that was designed for three people but contained four when I realized that the seat wasnt actually bolted to the floor. When the taxi sped up the seat would tip back about four inches until it hit the back wall, and when the breaks were used the seat would tip forward. It took me about two stop signs to realize that as the tallest person in the back seat, my knees were what was holding our seat upright when we braked. My knees crammed into the seat in front of us was the only thing between our faces and the back of the other passangers' heads. it was a super fun three hour drive until the next taxi point.

My absolute favorite story about Africa so far is about animals. Anyone who knows me knows that I love animals, and that I have dreamed of Africa being just like the Lion King, and that I could be like Mowgli in The Jungle Book since I can even rememeber. I was told by the vast majority of my friends and family that they really hoped I wouldn't get eaten by a wild animal because I was trying to play with it. To all of those worried about my safety in regards to animals you will be happy to know that I have finally accepted that Disney lied to me, and that the animals really dont want to cuddle and be my fiends. A few weekends ago our training group decided that we would use one of our few Sundays off to have a little get together. We wanted to have some real food that wasn't made from ground corn, and partake in the consumption of alcohol (which is totally not ok for women in the villages). So in order to maintain our impeckable village image we decided to have this little get together on a small animal reserve about 20 minutes from our current village. As we were driving in, a herd of wilder beasts trotted by the road and I thought all of my Disney animal dreams were about to come true, for where there are wilder beasts there will be other animals. Oh was I right about that. As we were unloading our things and walking to the BBQ area I heard one of my fellow trainines say "look monkeys!" and it was like music to my ears. What could be cuter than a bunch of little monkeys? Well let me tell you, monkeys are bitches!!! They might look super cute and innocent but they are the devil of all animals. First off, where there is one monkey there is a pack waiting somewhere in the back waiting for some secret signal to swoop in. One monkey distracts everyone with it's cuteness while the others sneak up to all your stuff you set down behind you so you could take pictures and they start jacking all of your stuff! Basically anything you own, the monkeys want. Food, backpacks, cameras, alcohol, you name it and they will steal it. It's all fun and games until some monkey takes your beer. At one point someone got a rake hoping that they could chase some of them away. He held the rake in the air and chased one moneky around the corner, five seconds later he came running back and was now the one being chased by four of the little devils. From there it went down hill, once we showed fear they became the dominant species. All the food and valuables had to be moved inside, and you only put something down if you were ok with the possibility of never seeing it again. As cute as monkeys are they would be the worst friends ever. Who would want a friend that would steal all of your stuff when you weren't looking. Thanks Disney for buliding up my hopes and dreams just so they could crash and burn.

That same day we also saw a baboon, and it was maybe the scariest animal I have ever seen. One it was huge, like really huge, two it was super ugly, and three it would totally win in a fight againts like anything. If I ever saw Simba go up against Rafiki my money would totally be on Rafiki. Especailly if Rafiki had his big stick think, then Simba wouldn't stand a chance.