This weekend can best be described through photographs (I apologize for the poor quality, these were all taken on my phone). It began Friday morning at Walmer:
This is the morning assembly- all 1,600 students congregate at the beginning of each day to sing, pray, and listen to announcements- great way to start the day right? I thought so. So Alice and I did our normal thing Friday during the day- teaching, planning, getting organized. We were excited to leave school that day because we had a dinner party planned with some students we had met from Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University (NMMU) the weekend prior. We start heading home from school on our bikes (our main mode of transport these days) and Alice is leading the way.
As we are riding home on a makeshift sidewalk of sorts, Alice leads the way in front of a car pulling out from the Nelson Mandela Municipality Wellness Center (if you haven'tn noticed, everything is named after Mandela here. This whole story is taking place in the Nelson Mandela Bay, actually). Anyways, this car watches her ride in front of the driveway, so I imagine it sees me too right? Nope. Next thing I know the car is pulling out into traffic and I'm right in front of it. Down goes Colleen. I can't tell you exactly what happened next because it was a bit of a blur, but Alice turned around in shock, I got myself and my bike back upright, and the driver got out of the car (which we decided later was lucky because many SA drivers would have just continued on their way). Long story short, my bike and I are totally fine. The only mark I was left with was the baby scratch on my food you can see below.
I was a bit shaken up, so Alice and I walked our bikes the next two blocks to the grocery store where we were buying food for the dinner party, and it didn't take more than a minute before we were laughing hysterically. Yes, Colleen just got hit by a car. A true South African experience I suppose. (We were also very grateful since it could have been a lot worse!) Rest assured, we are more cautious in driveways now!
So Alice and I buy all the stuff we need to make fajitas for our 5 NMMU friends that are supposed to come over around 7:30. We get home with enough time to relax and clean up, and around 6:30 we start cooking. Around 7:00 Alice asks, "Have we talked to them at all today?" I realized we hadn't, and we both sent one of the girls, Karen, a text. I wasn't worried because Alice had spoken with Karen yesterday, told her an approximate time, what they could bring, and Karen had said they were excited to come over. Around 7:30 we haven't heard a word from them and no one has buzzed upstairs. 8:00, still no guests. Alice texts a different girl, KG, who responds promptly but says shes out of town (uh oh), and texts to Karen still aren't going going through. Those were the only two phone numbers we had (a mistake we soon realized), and we had exhausted those options, so around 8:30, Alice and I ate.
Here are our fajitas for two. Sad, I know. We spent most of dinner cracking up about the absurd amount of food we had, the fact that we were stood up by an entire group of "friends" for a dinner party in Africa, and brainstorming who we could invite over the next day for Mexican food. We invited some our grade 12 prefects (who probably think we are pathetic for needing to invite our students over to have friends) but they couldn't make it, so we spent the rest of the weekend making innovative meals with our leftovers. Breakfast was huevos rancheros:
Following breakfast, Alice and I were invited to go with a Grassroots Soccer employee who is from the states, but lives in our building, to a professional women's soccer game. Take this moment to rethink "professional". The following is a photo from the game:
We were in a small township about 45 minutes from where we stay. There were bleachers to sit in, but no scoreboard, food stands, or most importantly, public restrooms like you would find at most amateur games, let alone professional ones in the states. But we had a great time watching the game, drinking cokes (made with real sugar here) and hanging out until we realized that we were not going to make it the whole game without a restroom. A boy who was monitoring which cars were coming in and out, directed us to the locker room for a restroom. That was a problem since it was half time and both teams were in there. So we decided to wait until the teams were exiting and we would run in just after they left. We did just that, and made our way to restrooms in the now abandoned locker room. We were moving quickly, but suddenly there was a fair amount of noise in the locker room. Alice exited her stall moments before I did, just in time for me to hear, "Uhmm Coll, this just turned into a men's locker room". Low and behold, the men's team that was playing in the next match had all just arrived in the locker room, ready to change into their uniforms for warm ups. We are standing there like deer in headlights and they are cracking up. Not only are two girls standing in their locker room, but two white Americans (we were two of five total white people at the stadium). They started cracking up and tried to give us high fives and shake our hands as we ran out as quickly as possible!
We made it back to the stands laughing hysterically. We were enjoying the second half of the game when along came one more piece of entertainment. A handful of township kids (6-8 years old, but very small for their age) came and sat a couple rows in front of us. They would turn and look at us and inch a bit closer. They did this 4 or 5 times until finally they were sitting right next to us. (An important side note: Alice and I have found that many South African women have straight, blonde hair. Most days, I wear my hair curly, and because of the humidity, it gets pretty wild). So at one point, I turn to talk to Alice and the girl next to me quickly touches the back of my hair. When I turned back, I told her she could touch it if she'd like, and the next thing you know I have 8 kids from the township petting my head. Funny at first, and then very quickly felt smothering. I have been asked by a number of black South Africans here if they can touch my hair, I guess they aren't used to seeing white people with curly hair. Thanks Dad, for those genes! The day ended back where it started- in the kitchen. Dinner was delicious, and incredibly easy:
Fajita mix turned into curry.
Today (Sunday) proved to be a bit more normal. A morning run, brunch at Blue Water Cafe overlooking the water, and an afternoon reading on the beach. It was an entertaining weekend to say the least, and it is certainly nice to know that even in a quiet beach town, we can have plenty of excitement!
That's all for now, on to the next week!
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