Trevor's Photo Journal

Today one of the high schools I work at had a clean up day.  Over the last two months they've painted the whole school and it really looks nice so the principal wanted to clean up the grounds as well.  I decided to go help out and got put to work filling erosion ditches with dirt from a termite mound from next to the building.  It was great fun.

It was mostly teachers that showed up - but those kids that did came dressed to impress not dressed to work.  I guess on the one day you can come to school and not have to wear a uniform your not going to wear your old cloths - even if you know your going to be cleaning up and getting dirty. 

Friday afternoon football.  If I'm not in a rush somewhere I'll normally stop and kick the ball around with the kids for about 15min.  This is why everyone under the age of 16 knows me in the township.  Since my soccer skills never improved after about 7th grade this works perfectly for me as well as the kids.

When work and play combine.  My host Gogo is one smart lady.  She finds ways to keep all the kids running around the place occupied - given her self some peace and quite - while at the same time getting some productive work out of all that spent energy.  Coming home to a scene like this really makes ones day.

Once the storm clears up it's always fun to go out and explore what's happened.  We saw several large crabs, many worms, and some cool looking spiders along the water filled path.

The butterfly effect at work.  Earlier this week I finally got around to fixing my sandals which had broken over the December Holidays. Since I was wearing my sandals when I past the kids in my house playing with bright neon nail paint it was really for me to remove my sandals and let the kids paint my nails.  They enjoyed it and I found another use for the bottle of paint remover in my room.

Sometimes to make something better you have to make it worse. Or at least that's how it's working with the road out to the EDC where I work.  Over the last two years I've watched as the pot holes made it mostly undrivable.  But sometime over the weekend they had cut out large squares around all the pot holes so that they can repair the road.  I hope they fix them fast because now the road is definitely undrivable - sometimes I am glad I just have a bike.

Dressed for the best. Gogo Anna, Yoliswa and Nkosiphile outside church.

Today Barberton Highschool hosted the regional interhigh track and field event with five other schools attending. Events included long jump, high jump, shot put, javelin and many different running events.  Each school brought not only their athletes but their entire student body - dressed in school uniform and lead by dressed up grade 12 students they tried to cheer and chant louder than the other schools.  All the schools present are former Model C and therefor much different than the ones I typically work in. Organized sports at township secondary schools are basically non-existent, while the athletes that participated in the events today practice after school for weeks.  I walked around in complete culture shock at the drastic difference just 6km and a change in school can make.  However, I also walked around feeling like I was glimpsing the future of South Africa as all the many races of the Rainbow Nation intermingled all day.

All the buses that brought over 4000 students to the school this morning. Parking those must have been a challenge.

This is one of the friendlies people in Barberton. All day Monday through Saturday Kenneth sits at "his" corner in this shopping center greeting everyone that comes by.  It's where I go to print photos and pick up my mail so I see him ever few weeks and always stop for a chat.  He's never once asked me for money though sometimes he gives me change to go by him a cold drink on my way to pick up my mail.

I've made sun tea about five times this summer and every time I do my host family is so intrigued. They seem to think that when I leave a 5L bottle filled with water on top of the old toilets between our two houses that the resulting tea has medicinal powers and that I'm doing it because I'm sick.  I've never really been asked why I was making tea before and they just laugh when I say to drink - but I don't know why else I make it.