From the ocean to lesotho...

So much happened these past days...
After spending another day at lugelethu on friday, i filled up my tank
on saturday for a trip to east london to spend some time with miriam.
Because i bought my car with no code for the radio i had to pass by
the merc dealer in king williams town. Unfortunately it was closed
already, so i need to go there some other day again. Then alex,
another volunteer called and invited me to come over to Cintsa, a
place ct the beach close to east london. With some time left i went
there and met now alex and jan in person. Very nice guys! As they then
had booked a boat tour i went back to east london to meet with miriam.
I was wondering why my tank was only 3/4 full after this distance and
figured out the woman ct the petrol station did not close it properly.
It made me very angry as i figured out i lost about 15 liters of
petrol on these bumpy roads... Now i control the closed tank! :)
After spending a nice time with miriam with some time at the beach, i
drove to cintsa again, to spend some time with alex and jan. This
place they were staying at was a quite international backpackers
place. So i met people from france, spain, england and from germany.
This was actually very interesting as the 3 germans were doing an
internship at mercedes.benz here in east london. They studied
mechanical engineering in germany; the same studies i also want to
take and we chatted about the hard, but very interesting studies...
Now i'm even more excited to study :)
Then on monday i did a very long trip to Sterkspruit close to the
lesotho border with my boss and an old anc freedom fighter to a
school. It was very interesting to get an insight in the south african
freedom struggle as he showed me on our way the places where they were
hiding and spoke about the political importance of this region. I
actually did not know that the germans did not invent the
concentration camps. It was an invention by the british to kill black
women and children in the early 20th century. Unfortunately we did not
have time to stop somewhere really, so next time i go this way i want
to stop at memorial places and the little museum to get more
information...
The drive inside the land of south africa is very nice! Good roads and
an undescribeable landscape! Its a very rocky area with alot of
mountains, but also plateaus. You can sometimes look for hundrets of
kilometers into the land and just enjoy the nature. In some places
there is nothing, in others there the little african huts and rondells
where people live in. And its very cool, in both ways. Its very windy
and quite cold.

So i also had a chat with my boss about my future here. As he is going
to germany this sunday to have some meetings with ijgd, and he needs
to report something i got the final promise to take over the project
of alex in july in somerset east. I hope this promise will stay as
plans and appointments here change very quick. Because there will be a
quite long gap now until july he proposed me several options to do in
this time. On of this option was also this school in sterkspruit. I
think i.ll take this opportunity, even its very very rural, very far
away from anything, as the school is actually outside of sterkspruit,
and it will be very different circumstances to live under. But it will
also be a challenge and a great opportunity as i will get an insight
into the community over there and its close to lesotho. I'll see what
happens and where it will take me:)
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So far

I Voted!

Hey, so yesterday were the election i wrote about. Luckily miss Booi
took me with and after controling my passport and curious questions
about my stay it was permitted for me to go with her. As miss Booi is
a big ANC supporter, we voted for them. Actually i like more helen
ziller, but thats probably my capetownian experience.
It was very interesting, as i spoke to a lot of people who told me
they would not vote at all, because all parties would be corrupt; but
thats the only opportunity to change something. So everyone who voted
gets a stamp in his passport and his nailbed is painted with an edding
that noone can vote twice. Interesting.

Today i brought my car to the garage again where mike did a great
tuneup, so its running even smother than before. I also have new
brakes now, as they were basically not exisiting anymore. I wonder how
this car got its road worthy certificate... :D
So within the daytime i went to Legulethu, a secondary school in the
direction of east london (el) where we briefly introduced the computer
lab consisting of 48 computers to the students. It was really
interesting how afraid the children were of the computer. Probably
nobody in germany is still using such old computers. But as long they
are running there is nothing wrong with them. And i was told that this
would even be one of the better labs... :) wow.
By the way, since this evening we have no water anymore. Yesterday we
figured out that our pump at the dam was stolen. So now the tanks are
empty and i'm curious about a solution. Remember: a toilet also needs
water :D
But everyone is taking it quite easy, as its not the first time... :D :D
----------
So far

Tuesday, 17th of May

I am really working on to keep my blog up to date, but its not so
easy... You know... :)
So this morning my car didn't want to start:( as i figured out the
battery for the car was too small. So i borrowed a battery from a car
from the organization and went to a garage which my boss knows very
well and advised me to. So we found out that the battery in the car
was only for a vw golf and too small for a six cylinder car. They also
exchanged my absolutely ran off spare tire to an old used one with
still a good profile. So with this new battery the car is running and
starting now quite well. I'll just go there thursday again to let the
major technician mike have a look at the engine performance. He was
really excited to see this engine, because he worked in the mercedes
factory in east london as a high technician and knows this engine very
very well. I just hope it well help me save some fuel :) there are
some other little things that must be done on this car i can even do
myself, but more important is that i bought it with a road worthy
certificate which indicates that everything is all right with the car.
I'm not so sure how trustful it is, as the technician only spent 15
minutes on testing all parts of the car, but i have it for
registration, and thats important! :)
With the running car now i drove to Dimbaza with my boss to do some
meetings at a steel manufactury which supports the dimbaza business
center financially. It was very interesting, as i also got an insight
how steel production is moved from johannesburg to dimbaza, as there
is alot of space and older empty factories from the apartheid times.
But thats a whole different story about dimbaza.
On our way back my car was stopped. This time by the real police. I
was just asked for drivers licence and there i made again the
experience i wrote about in the last post. I put out my passport,
german drivers licence and international drivers licence. The
policeman didn't even touch my documents and just asked me questions
about the car and that i should sell it to him and so on... Strange,
as alot of people like my car and want to have it :D but i like it
aswell :) so i could drive on without any problems. :)
Yeah there is so much to tell, but i think its enough for now... :P

A CAR!!!!

I just can write it now, because its weird that i had a car before i
had a simcard, but anyway, i have got my first own car! :) I bought it
at the auction on saturday. I actually wanted to go for an old vw fox,
but this turned out quite expensive. Actually all used cars here are
very very expensive! So now i have got an old mercedes E 300, my age.
So all of my pocketmoney will go into fuel for this car. Its about 13
liters on 100km... But its so much comfort, space, safety, security
system and so on... I just love this old car!
Then on monday i went to the traffic department of king williams town
to apply for a traffic register number. Because somebody told me it
would be possible to register it on my name. So i went to a white lady
of the department and she was very nice and very very helpful. She
told me everything what i needed to do and that i had to go to take
pictures for the application. This was what i forgot to bring from
germany. I have a certified copy of my graduation, which i.ll probably
never need, but no pictures of me...
So i went out to the street again with no orientation where i could
get pictures. Finally after asking around i arrived at a place where i
got them. Its a story for itself. Then i returned to the traffic
department again. The white lady i was with at before was then busy,
so i went to a black lady. She was so unfriendly! Seriously i was
thinking about saying something, but i was told to be very polite to
officials, otherwise i would not get far. So i was the politest way i
could act for. But she was still so unfriendly! It nearly escalated
when she was looking for my nationality under G for Germany. But there
was no germany. Then i advised her to look it up under D like
Deutschland. It really escalated then when i tried to explain her that
i am not from the Democratic Republic of Germany, that it doesn't
exists anymore since 20 years :D... But there was still no normal
germany in the computer! Finally i got the idea that we have to look
under F, because i am from the federal republic of germany... :D i
thought i would never get my stupid number. Because without my number
i couldn't get my papers for my car... And these are worthier than the
car itself, because without the papers i cant do anything!
But suddenly this whole bad situation started to change into a nice
conversation just with her question what i would do in south africa.
That was the question i waited for! I explained her of a voluntary
work at a school and teaching children computer literacy. Now she was
really interested in what i do her and how long i stay and so on...
Even the tellar next to her asked me out curiously! So the biggest
fear i had about my not so clear place of residence turned out to be
no problem at all. She didn't know the place, but i described it to
her and it was a very interesting conversation. She just typed into
her computer some place, because i actually cant live in a post box as
an adress and everything was fine. But then she stopped again and
raised her voice, how it could be i would have only one name. It
couldn't be, so she gave me the name kanyiso, which should mean light.
She said that just suits me. Maybe because of my big big hair :)
Then i finally got all my papers and could drive to east london again
to fetch the papers for my car...
On my way back then, i was testing out the speed of the car. Here all
freeways are limited to 120km/h. I was driving about 170. Still
accelerating, driving on the right lane (remember: driving on the left
side) as suddenly a white car appeared behind me with letters on the
front. I got really shocked because i was thinking i'd be the fastest
on the road and now my licence will be gone, as the capital of the
eastern cape, Bisho, is just next door with all its police schools,
and every tenth car on the road is a police car. So i changed to the
left lane, breaking. The car overtook me. Now i could see the letters.
It was not the police. It was just ANC advertising. The ANC is the
party of nelsson mandela. Because on wednesday there are regional
elections here, and by the way a public holiday :D so this time i was
lucky. I really need to pay attention with driving my car, as when it
drives, there,s no problem at all with it, its just so fast! :D
There're some other stories that happened this day, but it'll be too
much to tell... :D
So then i finally went to register for a simcard with the official
papers of my car and it was on problem at all. I experienced with a
german passport nothing is impossible and you earn so much respect
with being a german citizen. Other situations will follow. Sometimes i
even dont want to get this kind of respect just because of my
nationality.
------
So far...

First Week on the Farm

Molweni, (Hello Together)
now that I am finally arrived at the organizations place I have a lot of things to write about.
Of course I had some problems with South African Airways in Johannesburg again. The plane was standing on the runway already when we had to push back again to the terminal. Technical problems. Again. But after an hour delay we finally flew to East London. There I was picked up by Robin from the organization and we drove to a little computer center still under construction. There I met Miriam, the other volunteer from IJGD. Later on I met Kyle, the technician on the farm with who I am living. A very nice guy and a good cook! :)
So then on Saturday I made my first experience with driving on the left side of the road. Weird! But driving here is so nice, as the streets mostly have two lines and are straight. And the landscape is just so Beautiful! So we drive to a school and set up a server for a Computer room. I had to realize that the organization works quite alot with linux, not so much my fovourite operating system... But I'll have to learn how to work with it.
On monday then the work started. I worked with Kyle, Nozuko and Ms. Booi in the workshop to set up 30 PCs for another school I went Tuesday where a computer room should be set up. The Computers are from Linux4Africa, a German organization located in Freiburg, who send containers of PCs to South Africa. Strange, repairing PCs from a Stuttgart Insurance company in South Africa :)
So as I got an insight of cloning hard drives and changing defect power supplies on Tuesday I went to Peddie to this school. We had a meeting with the principals and the parents to finally decide about setting up this computer room. It was really wondering me how big the issue for the Parents was to pay not even 3 Euro per month for computer lessons for their child. I just have the little picture in my mind how many money students in Germany spend at the 'Kiosk' per day for food, and compare it to a month computer education in Africa... But it was very nice, as after the meeting was finished, the schools choir came in and they sang some songs. Forget about DSDS and all the other 'talent' shows in Germany and elsewhere. It was just awesome!
So after this we drove to East London where Rommel and I went to the auction to look for a car. There was only one, so we will have a look some other day.After that Rommel had a meeting I was more interested in, so I went to the beach of East London. It was so nice! And the water was unexpected warm. :)
I could write so much more... :)
So yesterday and today I am at the Dimbaza Business Center, getting an insight of lessons and the administration. Its a nice place :)
But I still do not know where exactly I am going to work soon. Its just not clear :D
So right now I just enjoy travelling around, meeting new people and enjoy this great nature!
Everything here is very different from my experiences in Cape Town. :)

Johannesburg tonight

Well, as i thought, I am stuck in a hotel in Johannesburg. Here the Service of South African Airways is very very bad! We arrived at 12pm in the hotel and had to queue for half an hour. There was no food or drinks, just a hotel room. All the passengers to Windhoek I met have to leave at 4am to the airport already. But there will be no bus. Luckily my flight will go at 10am. But I didnt get any confirmation for this oral information yet, because all SAA ticket offices were closed. I am a little bit surprised how SAA is handeling their passengers in their main airport Johannesburg.

Unfortunately Robin, from my organisation, did not get my email and phone calls from my mother, so she drove to East London and tried to pick me up. But I wasnt there. I was still in Frankfort.... Then it also didnt helped to call me out through the loud speaker :D Now they already know me when i arrive tomorrow (=
But there was also a good side about the delay. I flew over the world in daylight, so I first saw the alps, then the Mediterranean sea, the Algerian dessert (I was worried if we would fly over Libya) and then Congo... It was an impressing view and I took some pictures Ill upload when I get the opportunity. Really amazing as there were lightning to the left and right side of the plane and we just flew through the middle.... :)

But now I am quite tired and exhausted and just want to fall into my bed... But tonight I can say that I am in
SOUTH AFRICA!!!!!!!!!!!   :D  :D 

My difficult way to south africa...

Today nothing worked as planned... First the ICE was 45 minutes
delayed in francfort. Then everything went quite well. There was only
some confusion about so many Haribo at the security.
Boarding at 8 pm ; planned flight at 8.45pm...
But the plane never took off. It appeared they were having problems
with the plane. Half an hour passed by. One hour. One and a half
hours... I was so excited for the meal, but there was none. Then the
pilot cancelled the flight, because a little thing didn't worked. It
has to be flown in directly from tollouse. All passengers so went off
the plane and were driven to a hotel where there was a very fine
dinner. I met some interesting dutch people and had an interesting
conversation as he talked about his voluntary service some years ago
in indonesia. :)
So lets hope the plane will take off tomorrow.
I'm a little bit concerned about my connecting flight to east london
as i will probably arrive in johannesburg at 8pm and need to enter
south africa with visa and stuff so that there might be no further
flight and i might fly the next day. But south african airlines
promised to take care of my connection flight, so i shouldn't be
worried so much.
Lets see what the next day will bring:)
P.S.: I had 25 KG luggage and over 18 KG handluggage... But i didn't
have to pay anything... :*

- 1

Time is seriously running. I started my count down 39 days ago with a post on facebook. It doesnt feel like its five weeks ago now. Even the imagination of the day before the flight was nearly impossible. Now I reached this point. It is a mixture of alot different feelings at the same time; happyness and excitement at the top. But of course there are the feelings of sadness and fear how the year is going to be.
And there we are these 39 days back again. An imagination is impossible because it will always be different than expected. I accepted that and look very curious and with low expectations forward to my year. I hope thats the best way, otherwise I will learn what I did wrong. Maybe thats all about.
Learning and experiencing the different.
Lets hope for a comfortable flight (: