Cambodia. Golden and Gray
Learning from the honeybees (and their keepers!) in southern Japan
(i.e. our final ‘workaway’ volunteer stint, an hour outside Nagasaki)
Travel so often forces you to say goodbye too soon. If you’re not careful, you find yourself spending as much time mourning the loss of the particular place, person, pet (!) – you name it – that you left behind and have to remind yourself that there’s more ahead. Our time with Yuka and Yosuke – our gracious hosts for eleven days in the countryside of southern Japan – was just like that. Yuka and Yosuke welcomed us into their home – and WHAT a home it was, set against a wild hill covered in mint and lavender (not to mention their at-home cafe and treehouse-in-progress) overlooking the sea below – and they taught us about honeybees, loads of Japanese foods, crafting, (how to use a hand-held grass cutter and which poisonous centipedes to avoid), and so much more. As we sit, now, on the train just having said goodbye, we are only hoping we can do this experience justice here!
Yuka and Yosuke met while living abroad and working for (competing!) Japanese airline companies. Tired of big city life, they came here — when the property was only an abandoned orange grove — and spent several years constructing their home. They now live, keep bees, run a weekend cafe called Poco Toscana, sell honey, and do pretty much everything else you can imagine here. (Did we mention they’re building a treehouse?) They’re also – as of two nights ago – somewhat local celebrities these days as they were just featured on the local news – see below 😉 – and Yuka actually has an 8-minute TV spot every month where she cooks one recipe or another because her food is just that good.
Our first full day with Yosuke and Yuka – VERY luckily for us – they harvested the honey from their ~100 honeybee hives, which only happens 2-3 times a year. Words can’t really describe how crazy it is to bee in ‘full bee suit’ standing amidst 100,000+ bees (did we mention the average bee hive has 20-50,000 of them?) and watching a fresh frame of honey get pulled out, wheelbarrowed 20 meters over to you, and then using a warm knife to cut off the excess honeycomb so the sweet stuff can be extracted right before your eyes, but maybe pictures can…
We also managed to consume 1-2 book on bees – not to mention daily back-and-forths with Yosuke, educator extraordinaire – and we have now decided – drumroll please – that we WILL be keeping beehives next spring in whatever backyard we (hopefully) have. 🙂 So expect to see beekeeping suits on our wedding registry. (Who needs another set of cookware, anyways?) One fun fact we’ll share is – contrary to that cartoon movie about bees that we all saw (what’s it called?) – almost the ENTIRE beehive is female. It’s a single queen, who lays eggs, an then just like tens of thousands of female worker bees who, for a few months out of the year, allow a few male drone bees to hang about in case a new queen is born that needs to be impregnated (which only happens once in her life; she’s then able to lay eggs for 2-3 years after that). Also, did you know almond trees couldn’t exist — i.e. no almonds, folks — without pollination by honeybees? So lots of American farmers — especially the California almond farmers who grow 80-90% of the world’s almonds —actually pay a boatload for pollination services and bees are trucked all around the country to help out the crops. There was recently a 3-part series on Bloomberg podcasts about it. But ok, ok we’ll stop.
Bees aside, we also weeded, cut grass, set up future cinder-block bases in a field for bee homes (they have to face southeast so the bees get maximum warmth in cold months and slant slightly down so moisture runs out, mind you), and helped clean and setup and breakdown for their new weekend cafe. Yosuke also enlisted us to put a roof on his treehouse yesterday, which was a learning experience in and of itself.
And we would be remiss if we didn’t dedicate a final shout out to SERI, their energetic adorable trouble-making 5-month-old puppy that again reinforced (if Greece hadn’t done it enough!) how much we now need to get a doggie ASAP.
We don’t know what our next ~2 weeks in Japan will hold before we return to the US (eek!), but we can certainly say we are leaving this experience with our heads and hearts full of new inspiration and friends.
Vietnam!
Vietnam was hot and sticky and colorful and chaotic and amazingly full of life. And, lucky for us, full of friends too — since Maureen and Anh came from DC to visit! We crossed the Cambodia/Vietnam border by bus and began our two-week journey in Ho Chi Minh (formerly Saigon) where we met Maureen and excitedly (slash terrifyingly) wove our way through throngs of motorbike traffic whirring in all directions including, at times, on the sidewalks where sidewalks indeed existed.
We stayed in a wonderful hotel/homestay and tried our first Vietnamese coffee (think strong, chocolatey espresso on ice mixed with copious amounts of condensed milk and OH-MY-GOSH what a treat); wandered night markets full of knock-off handbags of every variety; and visited the sobering Vietnam War museum where — we must say — we learned more about the war and our country’s apparent policy of targeting not just soldiers but all southern Vietnamese civilians, including small children, through the lenses and narratives of dozens of foreign photographers and journalists, the victims themselves, and at times US documents and soldiers. (One thing that will stay with us are the physical, and of course emotional, horrors caused by our use of the chemical “Agent Orange” on civilians that continues to – up to 4 generations later – cause significant deformities in newborns whose ancestors were affected. Apparently some US soldiers and their families were also affected, and have since been compensated through massive lawsuits against Monsanto; but it appears the Vietnamese have not.) The museum also focused on peace and recovery, but leaves a lasting and disturbing impression.
Next stop for the Karen-Juan-Maureen triumvirate was the town of Hoi An, ‘tailor capital of the world’ (or at least southeast Asia) — where we had work dresses, shirts, boots, you-name-it handmade, and Juan even got his wedding suit! (But he’s too shy to post it here.) 😉
Tough decisions. Dark blue or…. dark blue?
We also spent a night next to Phong Nha national park, where we (expecting a leisurely day tour), somehow ended up hiking to high heavens through the blazing heat and spelunking the cool deep waters of a massive (pitch black dark and bat-filled) cave in life jackets with headlamps on our heads. So there’s your adventure. Unfortunately, because of the water/pitch black darkness/general need to devote all energy to staying above water, we couldn’t get any pics from inside the cave, but here is what the area around it looked like. Note: mosquitoes are also too small to capture on camera.
We also managed our first (and, thank heavens, only) overnight train of the trip —where we didn’t fully appreciate the fact that we’d be sharing our little sleeper cabin with someone else until the middle of the night arrived along with that someone else (he was quite nice, by the way; we just wouldn’t call it a particularly ‘restful’ night) before arriving in Hanoi.
Hanoi, the largest city in the north, reunited us with Anh! It is somewhat less chaotic than Ho Chi Minh, and we visited markets, saw the water puppet show (that’s right, amazing traditional puppets being hand-guided through water to narrate ancient stories with live music, smoke and lights inside a theater), went to a wonderful pottery town, and this time with Anh’s expert translations were able to get even more delicious dishes before hopping a 2-night, 3-day boat tour of Halong Bay.
The scenery of Halong Bay blew us all away. Giant rock formations jutting out of calm bright green waters. The boat took us around the Bay, giving us time to enjoy the scenery. We spent the one of the mornings kayaking and swimming in the Bay, another day enjoying the scenery in one of the slowly disappear fishing villages (yes, people have literally just built their homes on the water), and the afternoons relaxing under the sun. Anh and Juan even won their chef competition! Juan was also surprised with a cake, flowers, and a drink the night before his birthday — much to his (and all of our) surprise — complements of the ship. (Note: the hotel where we stayed the next day did the same thing, as did Karen/Anh/Maureen, so all in all Juan ended up with 3 birthday cakes in 24 hours — not a bad way to age.)
On to Cambodia
Cambodia, for us, has been a country gold and gray, like the drying leaves of the palm trees that dot the country landscape, or the concrete that lines the busy, chaotic streets of Phnom Penh. It could be that on the day we arrived it hadn’t rained for 4 months and from what our friend in Phnom Penh told us, was one of the hottest weeks she had experienced in her two years there. The temperature hovered at 97-99F in the day and 90-92F at night. And despite a gray haze in the city, or a golden one in the countryside that seemed to cover the sky, the sun felt inescapable at all hours of the day.
The sun shining through the haze
This is not a filter. Afternoons always take this hue
We spent 4 days in Phnom Penh, the capital and – at 1.5 million – the largest city in Cambodia, visiting the National Museum, replete with meticulously carved gray stone statues over a millennia old; admiring the golden roofs and walls of the various pagodas and historic buildings hidden throughout the city; and sampling some delicious curries and noodles. We also visited one of the many infamous and heart-wrenching killing fields, where from 1975-1979 the Khmer Rouge – under notorious dictator Pol Pot – slaughtered 2-3 million of his people in an effort to purge the country of the ‘elite’ and impose Maoist-style reforms until Vietnam finally toppled the regime. An entire quarter of the country was killed during this harrowing time, and needless to say the country is still healing.
The chaotic streets of Phnom Penh
People enjoying the river bank.
Monks walking through the city on a Sunday morning. For the record, they all have smart phones.
Following this sobering experience, we went to the city of Siem Reap, home to the largest religious complex ever built: Angkor Wat and its surrounding temples. Built in the 12th century, the Angkor Wat complex is full of ancient architecture and mystery. We explored as much as the heat would let us, waking up before sunrise and panting our way home just after 1PM. We saw the infamous Angkor Wat and 4 (out of many, many more) ancient temples, thanks to a friendly Tuk Tuk driver who shuttled us around. (We got around exclusively by Tuk Tuks in Cambodia — they are open-air rickshaws or go-carts with benches and guardrails often pulled behind a motorcycle. No, not always safe; yes, pretty much the only option for a taxi.)
Bayon temple
The main Angkor Wat temple
Ready to escape city life, our next stop was the much more tranquil town of Kampot on the southern coast. Kampot, a smaller, somewhat more artsy riverside town, has been called a ‘hidden gem’ in Cambodia. Here we toured a pepper farm and salt fields (who knew there were so many types of each), sampled tasty cuisines, kayaked on a palm tree-lined river and watched a beautiful sunset on the banks of the Kampot river with some new friends from Holland and Mexico.
Salt and…
…pepper
Sunset on the Kampot river.
Kayaking on the Kampot (unfortunately, it looks cleaner than it really is.)
Children biking home from school.
Other highlights of our 12 days here included seeing Karen’s old-time family friend Holly, who had been living in Phnom Penh for 2 years and gave us the best tips on where to eat and what to do. (She also let us tag along with a group of her friends for trivia night! Which we did not win but, with .75 USD beers and good company, enjoyed immensely nonetheless.) We also made new friends in Kampot, many of whom had just left Vietnam and gave us great advice for our upcoming adventures there… speaking of Vietnam, we are currently on the bus and will cross the border in the next few hours.
But first, as always, a few more photos of Cambodia!
See what we said about the smartphones?
“We lost a donkey”
(And a mule too) on our first day of volunteering at the animal rescue sanctuary in Andros, Greece. The donkey and the mule — aka Marco (will not respond back with Polo) and Cyla (will not respond regardless) — escaped out of the front gate (actually not our fault) of the large mountainside home where they normally graze with their other rescued donkey friends along with 29 cats, 19 dogs and a few humans. We arrived at the sanctuary last Saturday. It’s run by an amazing British woman, Sandy, who’s been living on this island a few hours’ ferry ride off the coast of Athens for 40 years. Sandy lives here with a stream of international volunteers who, like us, come for a few weeks to a few months to help her run it.
View when you first pull into Sandy’s, aka Magic Mountain.
Just some casual lemons on the mountainside.
So on any given day we can be found cleaning/feeding/walking animals, painting various fences, preparing the AirBnB guest rooms, disemboweling a life-sized blue stuffed animal to make smaller dog toys (real example – see photo), or – oh yes – chasing down a vigilante mule and donkey.
The mule/donkey day found us, Sandy, and two other volunteers from California fanning the island in two cars, stopping locals to see if they’d spotted the pair, and jumping in and out at various green patches of trail or field in search of fresh donkey/mule poop or hoof prints. That’s right, detective sh*t. We excitedly stopped at one low-hanging tree branch that had a bunch of animal fur stuck to it – but sadly that turned out to be from a nearby sheep. False alarm. About two hours in, though, we spotted what we were looking for – FRESH POOP AND PRINTS! – Cyla and Marco had definitely been there. The field was gorgeous – wildflowers, clover and streams as far as the eye could see – so who could really blame them. We fanned out, feeling lucky. Even Billy the dog, who had joined us, had a good feeling about this. We could tell. But after much hiking and climbing still no luck.
Until, just as we were about to give up, Juan ran up one more trail and – BOOM! – ran right into our fugitives. (Acting innocent as ever.) They came right to us (or ok, to the barrels of bran Sandy wisely brought) and we were able to get them on leash.
But. There’s always a but. Ever walked a donkey or a mule on a two-lane mountain road for half an hour? Me neither. So not surprisingly there was a dramatic moment shortly after this photo was taken when both animals – spooked by a car – re-broke free and set us back in our donkey/mule repatriation journey. But we did eventually get them both home and are happy to report they have not attempted re-escape. At least this week.
PS – we head from here to Cambodia on April 29th, but are currently distracted by the prospect of taking half of this shelter’s dogs and cats home with us. So just stay tuned. (And more photos below!)
Rock Climbing in Greece! (And Other Things..)
One of the best sport rock climbing destinations in the world — the small Greek island of Kalymnos — is a 45 minute boat ride from the Turkish coastal town of Bodrum. So of course, that’s where we made our way after 9 amazing (and chaotic) days in Istanbul. We figured we could relax in the mornings, climb in the afternoons, and finally tackle all the logistical hassles we’ve been putting off as much as possible. (i.e. it’s time to remember we have jobs we need to go back to, and probably need an apartment to live in come July, oh and plane tickets to make our way to Southeast Asia and to get back home, plus a wedding to plan.) Bodrum, Turkey was a lovely, sleepy town (at least during this time of the year), home to one of the seven wonders of the ancient world — the Masoleum of Halikarnasus — and a castle built in the 11th century by crusading knights looking to ‘take back’ the holy land. Unfortunately the castle and museum were closed for renovations and there isn’t much left of the Masoleum, most being destroyed by an earthquake, and the rest being taken by the afore-mentioned knights to build their castle. So Juan spent hours reading about the history of the area (which we’ve decided not bore you with) :), while Karen read some more relevant and modern material under the mediterranean sun as we awaited our ferry to Kalymnos.
This bird has heard some things it cannot unhear
Our guesthouse in Bodrum
What little remains of the mausoleum with the town of Bodrum in the background.
Fresh fish in the Bodrum harbor
Boats docked at the Bodrum harbor
The caste at Bodrum
From Bodrum we ferried to our very first Greek island, Kos, birthplace of Hippocrates (and, more recently, a very ‘en vogue’ resort spot for English and other tourists that was, lucky for us, still sleepy as the season hadn’t begun), where we were meant to take the next ferry to Kalymnos. We biked around Kos to even more ancient sites – you can’t throw a rock without hitting one around here! – and then spent an extra day when 35mph winds and rains prevented our ferry from leaving. (Future Greece travelers beware! With 2,000 plus islands making up the country, ferries to and from are the norm and – though quite glamorous generally speaking – are subject to the whims of the open seas!)
Bike touring around Kos
“No boat is leaving in this weather”
This island of Kalymnos did not disappoint. Vertical cliffs rising above calm, deep, blue waters. And up in the heights, small moving bodies that can either be those of rock climbers tied to ropes, or goats looking for their lunch. Eager to get some of the action ourselves, we went around looking for rental equipment, only to find out ‘it’s illegal to rent load-bearing equipment in Europe.’ This includes the ropes and quick-draw carabiners needed to ‘clip-on’ to the metal bolts encrusted in the rock. We walked around the town telling our predicament to anyone bored enough to hear it, hoping a selfless soul would take pity on us. We got to the end of the one-street town and made our way back ,stopping in all the same shops hoping the second time would be the charm, and to our surprise, one of the shop owners miraculously agreed to let us borrow her own equipment! We spent the next 7 days biking up and down the hilly ocean side roads looking for all the ‘easy’ climbs, and seeing some of the most amazing climbers (probably) on earth. Oh, and finally tackling our to-dos, including updating this blog :). Photos below!
I spy a Juan!
Sunset over Telendos Island, across from Kalymnos
See what we mean about the goats
(us)
Juan made it to the top!
Karen made it to the top (after lots more struggles!)
Mountain biking breather
No words
Boats on the Kalymnos harbor
(Well, us again)
Karen with Juan’s life in her hands
Karen looking far too relaxed with Juan’s life in her hands! (Jk he’d come down by now.)
Making sure there are no knots
The approach to the climbs
We wanted to show you all how the pros do it. credit: visitgreece.gr
The island of Telendos was separated from the island of Kalymnos after an earthquake 1500 years ago.
Biking back home after a long, ‘hard’ day climbing 🙂
Carpet buying in Istanbul
Like every real purchase here, is a marathon not a sprint. It all starts the same: “we are only popping in to see, we do not want to buy anything today, we repeat we do not want to buy.” And you believe it, you really do. At this point the shop owner simply smiles, nods and offers his hand for a shake. The next thing you know, you’re sitting on a giant 17th century-looking couch inside a giant room surrounded by hundreds if not thousands of whatever it is they are selling. In this case, carpets. Then of course there is tea, there is always tea. And so we found ourselves yesterday, after a casual mention to our hotel host who casually mentioned to the store owner who casually swept us up the stairs and onto his couch on the second floor of a wall to wall covered room. Before we knew it, we were sipping hot apple and black tea on that couch, listening to the shopkeeper tell us about his children, his travels to America, how long he has been in the business – and in return we shared about our travels and our lives back in the states. Eventually, after no less than 15 minutes of conversation, he casually asked what kind of carpet we were looking for. We honestly said we didn’t know, but eventually agreed on a medium-sized one. He swiftly went over to the wall, lifted a carpet and it loudly unrolled over the ground. Thunk. Then another. And another. Thunk, thunk. This was done about seven more times. We carefully marveled and walked around the carpets, looking at their intricate designs while he explained the differences between them, the meaning of the shapes and colors, and how they were hand-made–all the while becoming more and more convinced that we did, in fact, need this carpet. (We most certainly needed this carpet!) He showed us how they changed hue depending on the angle and imparted his business philosophy of honesty and customer service so that he’d gain more customers in the future. Eventually we had a clear favorite–a beautiful royal blue design with pomegranates that changed colors as you circled it. His assistant darted in to remove all the reject rugs (rifraf!) and he volunteered to leave the room while we discussed. We figured we’d haggle if it was above $400, but if it was anything less than $300, we’d buy it right away. He came back, and we chatted for yet another 5 minutes before we finally–nervously–asked him for the price (we’d already done so several times, but had already been warned by friends not to *rush* the pricing process..). He lifted the carpet to look underneath, puttered over to his office, pulled out a calculator and started typing in numbers. We waited with baited breath. Then he turned the calculator around to show us. $3,850 USD. Damn. Crestfallen and chastened, we apologized for wasting 45 minutes of his day and hurried out with our tails between our legs.
Looks like we’ll be settling for one of these this time around…
South Africa Part 2
This country is full of surprises everywhere you look. Literal surprises like almost crashing into a family of giraffes while driving in a national park, to more subtle and thought-provoking ones like learning about the different cultural groups and their various thoughts and opinions on each other and the world. Given that Karen’s post was more introspective, and focused on the latter, my goal is to focus on the lighter stuff. And what better way to do that than with pictures. During our time in South Africa we road-tripped over 1100 miles from coast to coast (Indian to South Atlantic, to be specific) and along the way did self-driving ‘game tours’ through a myriad of national parks. We were lucky enough to catch a glimpse of 4 of the ‘Big 5’ animals (lions, buffalo, elephants, and rhinos…leopards, we’ll see you next time) and sample the food and wine that went along with it. The iSimangaliso Wetland Park and Hluhluwe-iMfolozi Park are known for having some of the largest number of hippos and some of the largest numbers of rhinos in the country.
African Buffalo. 1/5 ‘big 5’
Lions. There was a line of cars to see these two 4/5 ‘big 5’
Elephant grabbing lunch. 2/5 ‘big 5’
Lean on me
These two jostled by the water for quite some time
One of the many baboons we saw
Rhinos bathing, but so far! 3/5 ‘big 5’
A family of Hippos
We loved just staring at these 2
So here are more 🙂
A family of elephants
We watched this storm one of our weekends
The boats we rode on to see the Hippos
One of our favorite stops was Addo Elephant National Park where saw giraffes and lions and more baboons than we could count. We continued along the Garden Route which had been recommended to us by nearly everyone who visited South Africa. We stopped in Plettenberg Bay, Knysna, and Hermanus, admiring the beautiful beaches, green forests that ran up to the ocean, and rocky sea outcroppings all around. We finally reached Cape Town after a week on the road to meet with our friends Loren and Meaghan who had come all the way from NYC to spend some time in South Africa. Since they had lived in South Africa before, we were lucky enough to ride along as they showed us their favorite spots throughout Cape Town and took us to visit almost a dozen breath-taking vineyards in the area including in Stellenbosch, Franschhoek and an area called Robertson where we spent a weekend. Here we sampled the olive oil, more flavorful wines, and drove through the beautiful dry valley, which gets all its water from the surrounding mountains making it feel almost like an oasis. Among other highlights in Cape Town were climbing up Table mountain, and my bicycling in the Cape Town Cycle tour, a 108km race around the windy Cape Peninsula.
Meaghan, Loren, Juan and Karen
Enjoying the view on Robbert Nature Reserve
Robberg Nature Reserve
We could smell these seals way before we could see them
Karen getting artsy with the camera
One of the many beautiful vineyards we visited
Table Mountain from a distance
Beautiful road scenery
The ‘two heads’ of Knysna
Robberg Nature Reserve
After Loren and Meaghan left we drove ~3 hours north of Cape Town to the Cederberg mountains. Here in an area known as Rocklands, lie thousands of boulders scattered like dirt where one can get lost climbing and hiking for days. We spent 6 days here, climbing, visiting Rooibos farms, and of course, doing some more wine tasting. Unfortunately, our little sedan could not handle the rough unpaved roads and we got a flat on our way to the airport as we were leaving. Luckily the spare was inflated and we returned our car with 1 minute to spare, before we waited for our next flight to Istanbul…
Karen making her way to the top
Juan ‘fighting gravity’
Rooibos plants
Rooibos tasting
One of the many roads that
Boulders as far as the eye could see
How could we not add this beautiful flower
And these mountains!
South Africa, Part 1: Volunteering at Lungelo Youth Development.
Where to even start. We recently finished 5 weeks of volunteering at Lungelo Youth Development Center in Mzingazi, Richards Bay, KwaZulu Natal, South Africa, where we filled our days feeding-teaching-playing-sweating-singing-dancing (and everything in between) with children aged 6 months to 16 in a community where the average person lives on less than 1.25 USD a day. It’s been the most rewarding, impactful, and at times heartbreaking experience we’ve had to date. We lived, ate and worked at the Center. We felt connected to more children than we can count, learned to pronounce words we never thought we could (with the added bonus of making the kids and, at times, the staff, laugh hysterically) as we practiced the dominant local language isiZulu, oh – and we got “married” in a traditional Zulu wedding. But we’ll get back to all that. First, a little context.
South Africa is, like many places, full of contrasts. As one of the most unequal countries in the world, within minutes one can be transported from dirt road villages with roaming livestock and corrugated metal or thatched roofs, where street addresses simply don’t exist, to euro-style cafes where you can fork out $5 for a latte. Johannesburg, South Africa’s largest city and the financial powerhouse of the African continent, boasts chic citizens in shiny shoes and suits and buildings, but they all live and work surrounded by giant shard glass and electricity-studded fences while the larger populace walks (and sometimes lives) in the streets.
In this way, South Africa is not unlike much of the rest of the developing world (or, frankly, different variants of our ‘developed’ one), but it has a very unique history – both for its raw recentness and its deliberate, deep, and well-documented state orchestration – of racial discrimination. Black, Indian, ‘Coloured,’ and various other ‘non-whites’ (as determined by the government) lived – and were often forcibly relocated to – completely alternate universes from those occupied by white South Africans. (The architects of apartheid actually traveled the world, including studying under Nazi Germany, to perfect their efforts.)
Apartheid, this system of institutionalized racial segregation that began officially in 1948, only ended in the early 1990’s just before the presidency of world renown activist-turned-decades-long-political-prisoner-turned President, Nelson Mandela.* But, not surprisingly, the country continues to struggle in its wake. One barrier (which is also culturally amazing, but a barrier nonetheless, and one that was deliberately exploited by the architects of Apartheid), is that South Africans don’t really share a common language. The country has 11 official languages, with English being the ‘business’ language (though few peoples’ first one), and next in line isiZulu (whose native speakers are primarily black) and then Afrikaans (whose native speakers are primarily white or ‘couloured.’) There is also rampant corruption in government, and elections have at times turned deadly – both for supporters and the candidates themselves.
It is against this backdrop that our heroine (!), Mary Mlambo, started the Lungelo Youth Development Center in 2012. Mary, a black South African who grew up in the township of Soweto, spent ~27 years in the corporate world of Johannesburg until one day she and her husband met some women of the Mzingazi community. Her whole life changed and, piece by piece, she left her job and her city and she moved to this village where she started what is now a bustling, integral community space for adults and children alike, with a small group of women (and little to no funding) in someone’s front yard. (*FYI – Mary – the ultimate entrepreneur – was recently featured as a local “heroine” by a news outlet on International Women’s Day – and we’ve go that feature video below to prove it (and to show you more about the Center!) here or here*).
The Center aims to empower young people of all ages — it’s a day care for pre-K kids in the morning, an after-school space for games/lessons/homework help in the afternoons, a space for young adults to practice choir in the evenings, and hosts loads of other ad-hoc events and trainings for community members and staff (all of whom live in or near the community as well). Critically, it also provides healthy meals – sometimes the only one a child may get – during the day. There are staff who do home visits – including Mary herself (and at any hour needed, as we saw firsthand!) – to inspect children’s home spaces and counsel parents on how to support their children. This is a challenge because unemployment, and its attendant sense of hopelessness and poverty, is very common.
Juan and I spent our days designing computer lessons for middle- and high-schoolers – many of whom had never touched one – and helped those students learn to type on freshly donated computers. We also talked to kids about puberty, bullying, and other life skills, including safe sex practices. (Condoms are actually free in South Africa, but – as in so many areas of the US – there is a huge gap in education and implementation. This is all the more critical in communities, like this one, where HIV/AIDS is very prevalent.) Juan spent many evenings with a group of 16-year olds helping them apply for an intense STEM scholarship program that would allow them to travel abroad for a summer. And I grew oh-so attached to a group of young girls whose home life still stops me in my tracks as I remember, weeks later now, how much there still is for us to do in the world.
Serious stuff aside, though, we also spent an inordinate amount of time singing, dancing (or, might I say, learning to dance, because it quickly became clear we didn’t know how by these kids’ standards) ;), and playing games and sports with everyone from the toddlers to the teens. And, we know you were waiting for it – yes – WE HAD A ZULU WEDDING CEREMONY!! (Don’t worry people, we didn’t technically say our vows or anything…at least not that I’m aware of in English.) 😉
It was our last night at the Center and it had already been an emotional and somewhat chaotic one. I’m helping oversee the unplanned-but-sorely-needed outdoor bucket bath-time of several smaller children (long story), sweating like crazy, when Mary and some of the other women tell me – smiles barely concealed – that I needed to go change clothes into a few things they’d brought me, as they had a bit of a surprise… (A group of men simultaneously conveyed the same to Juan.) The next thing I know, we are being swooshed off and dressed up in these amazingly beautiful and intricate beaded/woven outfits as bride and groom. We’d joked for weeks about having our own little (as the staff called it) “South African wedding,” but little did we know we were in for one of the most amazing nights of our life. The female staff and other community members became my ‘female relatives,’ acting on my behalf for ceremony purposes, and the males became Juan’s. And Mary, needless to say, was our unifying relative slash officiant. Singing and laughing we were swept by our respective family members through intricate rituals of song and dance and eventually – but only after I got to reject Juan’s relatives’ offer of marriage a few times – I was able to approach and join him across the divided seas of our ‘families’ under the night sky. (And I of course decided to pretend, even if for a second and to get a laugh from the others, that – partway through my walk to him after all the courtship fuss – I had changed my mind and decided to go back over to my female relatives after all…) 😉 Then we were led – and this was the BIGGEST surprise of all – into a beautiful banquet in a miraculously transformed dining room area complete with cloth-covered chairs, tablecloths with runners and exotically crafted centerpieces (did we mention that, lucky for us, one of the Center volunteers is a wedding planner on the side? And apparently a very good one? She also MC’d the event (and translated isiZulu wedding songs to us as needed.)). Our appointed ‘best man’ and ‘maid of honor’ gave speeches (one of them by a now dear friend, Mbali, featured below, who Juan and I both grew very close to over the weeks), and a heartfelt speech by Mary followed by an impromptu over-swelling of gratitude by Juan and I. It was one of the most touching things I’ve ever experienced. We ate, we sang and danced some more, and just like that, the night was over. Our time at the Center was over.
And though we’ve done our best – and will continue to – to stay in touch with Mary and the others, it breaks a bit of my heart sitting here, writing about an experience that touched me so deeply but that I can now only describe and experience in past tense.
This blog post can’t really convey what our 5 weeks at the Center meant, or looked or felt like, but it will feel good to share – and to memorialize somewhere – this space and its people through words and photos. That said, and with an eye toward the privacy of the children (though it kills us a little because we have SOO many amazing close-ups of them we’ll just have to show you in person) – here is a little montage – wedding photo included. 🙂
*Interestingly, though Mandela is nearly universally revered abroad, a surprising number of black South Africans do not share this sentiment; there is a feeling he gave too much to the ruling white elite when push came to shove, especially when it came to returning land that had been taken, an unfinished process that continues to be hotly contested to this day.)
*Life at the Center*
Juan dazzles with his jump rope skills
Cuties
Weekend road trip to a staff training in Durban!
Learning about puberty
Walking a group of kids from school to the center for computer classes
Mary addressing the local primary school
Juan having ‘a moment’ (ha!)
Giving out shoes to kids who need them
Game time!
Juan taught them to play chess
One of our computer lessons
More computer time!
*Wedding Photos!*
Zandile, our MC/planner/everything extraordinaire!
Juan’s gentleman brother/cousin/father 😛
Part of the beautiful setup!
Dance moves
Me (trying) dance moves
We are making our friend Njabulo blush
Reunited/allowed to marry, finally!
Celebrating
Then, after all that, shocked to see the room setup!
After Mbali’s heartwarming maid of honor speech
And of course, cake cutting
Us with Mary herself (also in traditional attire for the occasion!)
Colombia: Time for Family, Friends, and LOTS of Festivities
(Karen just had to write this one; photos by Juan!)
We’ve spent the last month touring Colombia – one of the most amazing places I’ve ever seen and, well, just “home” to Juan in his early days. Colombia is full of changing landscapes – from coffee fields along the snow-peaked Andes to bright green (and adorably baby cow-filled) valleys, and then back through the tropics of the Amazon to the windy coasts of both Atlantic and Pacific oceans – the biodiversity is breathtaking. And I may be biased, but the people, too, are hard to beat. 😉
We started our journey in Bogota, the incredibly modern (and high-altitude!) capital, where Juan’s parents, brother and uncle met us from Miami. Before I knew it I’d met half a dozen new family members and we were taking off on a two-car caravan road trip through the mountainous terrain of the state of Boyaca, where we visited town after town filled with holiday decorations, national monuments, and every fried food you can imagine. (There was a little incident with a dog bite in there, specifically a small dog bite and me, but hey – that’s what rabies vaccines are for. And luckily rabies boosters are easy to come by…!)
After our mini cross-Colo road trip we headed to Juan (and his Mom’s) home town of Santa Rosa, in the heart of the coffee-growing region. There we stayed with another aunt in the house where Juan’s grandparent’s lived, and Juan spent the first five years of his life. Here I met many more relatives, and spent a rather raucous Christmas eve, complete with Aguardiente (“the” Colombian liquor), amazing BBQ, dancing, and a hired singer who busted out the works for us into the wee hours of the morning. Also, bonus, one of our friends from DC and his cousin came to spend a few days!
We then reunited with family near Salento, an adorably quaint town known for the tallest palm trees in the world, where we slept in a big cabin surrounded by mountains and llamas and sheep and several very friendly pups (the non-biting kind, of course — see earlier comment re: rabies vaccine situation). We built campfires and ate on picnic blankets and played Uno with whichever cousins we could convince to be interested.
Then, just in time for New Years, we all caravanned (3 cars now!) to Juan’s dad’s home town of Apia, an even smaller town in the coffee-growing region. There we stayed in the former house of Juan’s grandparents, where his uncle now lives, which is also across the street from Juan’s parents’ very first apartment (now converted into a small ‘shop’ where another close family friend makes coconut cookies!) Gives a whole new meaning to the phrase ‘keeping it in the family,’ no? Needless to say one of my favorite activities from this stop was looking at old photo albums. Some real gems in there….
(But sorry, I digress.) 😉 Apia is, like many of the places we visited, nestled in the mountains and built around a quaint town square filled with cafes, a church, little street vendors, games for kids (including a trampoline!) and, for the holiday season, warm Christmas lights and a live band for New Years Eve. Another fun (albeit noisy) tradition here included everyone (mostly teens) getting on their motorcycles (as with everywhere in Latin America – and much of the world – several people can fit on one!) and riding around as people throw flour (yes, the stuff you bake with) bombs at them. So by the end of the day, everyone is covered in white! They did, more recently, ban this in the hours and areas close to mass at church, as I suppose they grew tired of people coming in shedding white dust all over the church pews on New Years. 😉
But Medellin – touted as one of Colombia’s most culturally rich, diverse, and well-visited cities – did not disappoint either. We lived the “high life” in a rented airbnb in one of the more ‘hip’ bohemian areas there and then, on our final nights, stayed in a quiet modern cabin overlooking the water in El Peñol and Guatape, where we climbed our way up the steep stone that gives the place its name. (See below.)
We slowly got back into the swing, and made our way over to the northern coastal town of Santa Marta, where we visited a holistic nature retreat for two days — then (because we decided we hadn’t had enough family time!) visited Juan’s aunt for a few days in the nearby town of Riohacha.
After a few more days of beautiful beaches and seafood, we wrapped up in the epic city of Cartagena, a wonderfully diverse, seaside town full of music, color, shopping and (turns out!) monkeys and baby sloths in public places. (Well, just this one city park. But see below!)
Sending everyone big hugs for now!
xx. Karen and Juan.
Where in the World are Karen + Juan 