Trevor's Photo Journal

Day 181: December 28

South Africa is a land of extremes and by now I'm fairly used to navigating the switch between the commercialism and familiarity of modernized South Africa and the hustle and bustle rough around the edges South Africa that most volunteers spend most their time in; but when reviewing my pictures even this one caught me by surprise. These two pictures are taken less than 20min apart. As I was leaving the new mall in Nelspruit I saw a display booth for Microsoft's Kinect - a device so new I barely now anything about it and this is the first time I've even seen one in a box.

I leave the mall and jump on a R9 town taxi to the long distance rank so I can get back to my site and this is what I see as I step out of the taxi.

This is the worst I've actually seen the Nelspruit rank and it must be because it hasn't been cleaned the whole holiday season, but even still the stark contrast between these two pictures taken just 20min apart is striking and I think illustrates one of the biggest complexities in modern South Africa. For most people going through this rank every day the Kinect is a foreign concept belonging to a different world, and yet they are constantly being bombarded with imagery and advertisements saying that they can't be completely happy in life with out one.

Day 180: December 27

After over 2 1/2 years I cut my hair off today. I'd been planning to for a while and after leaving my braids in for so long my hair was such a mess that my limited hair upkeep skills couldn't do much to keep it back. I had wanted my Peace Corps friends to cut it off, but it never worked out during break so I went to a hair stylist in the mall. Here are the before and after pictures.

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And here's what I looked like a few hours later after returning to site and my hair had dried.

Very few people actually mentioned that I got my hair cut and everyone still seems to recognize me. Maybe that's because since all the males have the same hair cut and all the females change their hair so often hair isn't used to distinguish between people as much here as it is in the US. It's going to take some time to get used to pouring less shampoo and I bet the giant bottle of head and shoulders my mom brought out will last me four to five months now.

Day 179: December 26

It was almost 24 hours of continuous travel to get back to site. Above is the Prinsloo Taxi Rank in Pretoria which has taxis to most areas of Mpumalanga as well as Maputo and Mbabane. It is one of the small ranks in Pretoria and by now everyone from the guys who sell ice pops and trinkets to the queue managers know and recognize me. Since I'd been traveling all night on a bus I got to the rank before 7am (earlier than I'd ever gotten in before) and was surprised to just miss the first Nelspruit taxi. But that gave me time to go use the bathrooms which were surprisingly clean for taxi rank standards.

Day 178: December 25

Christmas so far way from home is always hard but you make a community of the people you have around you. There was a group of Peace Corps Volunteers from Namibian camping near us and one of them loved to make pancakes even more than me (I didn't know that was possible). The kitchen was overflowing with pancakes - it was pure awesomeness.

Day 177: December 24

We stayed at the wonderful Buccaneers Backpackers in Chintsa and one of the best parts of a backpackers on the beach is being able to play volleyball in the sand everyday. It was also amazing how international each game was. In the game today we had three different groups from France participating, two Germans, a South African and me. By this point in the vacation my braids were coming out and it wasn't long after that people started calling me Tarzan. Must have been a combination of the crazy mess of hair and bottled up energy. I think the picture below captures the Tarzan Trevor pretty well.

Day 176: December 23

One of my main goals of this vacation was learning to surf. Because of weather and to few spots in the surfing class I never got to take lessons, but that didn't stop me from trying. I first took this really big board out on theory that it be easiest to stand up on. However, it was so big and the waves so strong I could hardly control it. I went back for a smaller board and actually did manage to stand up five or six times, although for less than 10 seconds each time. I hope to try again sometime.

Day 175: December 22

A brass band from the nearby township came by the backpackers a few times. I'm not sure how much other people enjoyed it but the pounding of a bass drum, blaring of a trumpet, and deep tone of a tuba sure made me miss marching band. It's been such a long time since I've played a trombone - because, no a vuvuzela doesn't count.

Day 174: December 21

I love backpackers. Each one has it's own character and charm. I particularly liked this sign over the sink since backpacker kitchen sinks normally remind me of the one in my house my last year at UVA (and we had a dishwasher).

Day 173: December 20

The bus station during the holidays is a crazy place. So many people going every which way. We were waiting for a bus from Pertoria down to East London for about two hours. Waiting in front of us was a guy who'd packed a TV in a giant mink blanket and left a whole roasted chicken on top. The bus ride was 19h which if it had been a plane could have taken me back home to Virginia.

Day 172: December 19

Passing through Pretoria today I decided to save the R9 (~1.30) and take the hour long walk from downtown to the backpackers. This walk passes right through the beautiful gardens of the Union Building which holds the Office of the President. On this beautiful Sunday families picnicked in the shade, two wedding parties posed for pictures, and I enjoyed reading a few more chapters of my book.

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