Okay.  I leave for the States in a few hours. I'll cross the international date line today - which is pretty exciting to me. I'll leave New Zealand Tuesday evening and arrive in San Francisco Tuesday morning. 

New Zealand has been a very calm part of my trip.

I spent most of my time in NZ in Christchurch working at a hostel and exploring the city.

I did end up getting to see my friend Bryn just over this past weekend. We had a good chance to catch up and I saw some beautiful parts of Southern New Zealand. 

So, to wrap things up, here are a lists of firsts for you.

First time:

in a lot of countries - Ireland, Thailand, Malaysia, India, Kenya, South Africa, and NZ (also Qatar and Dubai - but they don't fully count)

sleeping in a cave

having an extended conversation with a monk

having acupuncture

picking my own  - guava, cocoanuts, star fruit, pomegranate, wild chillies

seeing bananas growing

riding three to a motorbike

having mehndi (henna) done 

teaching an art class

teaching a gym class

eating - raggie ball, ghee, a cricket, a fish caught off the side of the boat, milo, fresh cocoanut milk (and many other things)

sailing to a tropical island

fainting

being very close to wild elephants, lions, baboons, guinea foul (my new favorite bird)

riding in a matatu

riding in a tuk-tuk (auto rickshaw)

wine tasting 

harvesting grapes

making mud bricks

having the women sleeping on my shoulder go into seizure

working in a clinic

trying to say any word involving a 'click'

missing a flight

spending Christmas away from home

going to an outdoor symphony

seeing more sheep in one day then I have seen in my whole life

puking on a boat (only because everyone else was doing it - think "Stand by Me")

seeing the Atlantic Ocean from the South East side

seeing the Pacific Ocean from the South East Side

seeing the Indian Ocean (from the North and South)

and many many other things

Thanks for reading about me and my travels. Thanks for all of your kind notes and e-mails. Hopefully I will see you all soon.

-Emily 

MMMMMMMMMMMthatha

My visit to Mthatha began with a very exciting 3 hour mini bus ride from East London. Jesse gave me very clear directions on how to get a cab from the airport to the taxi rank - who to ask what questions, what to expect, how much to pay, so on and so forth.

No problem. I'm in the mini bus, smooshed 3 people to a two person seat and completely blocked in by the seat in front of us. The country side was more beautiful then I ever could have imagined.  Rolling green hills, brightly colored houses, curving train tracks. The women sitting beside me fell asleep on my shoulder. The women on the other side of her spoke English and was about my age. We talked a little and she offered to ask the driver to stop where I needed to be let off. She feel asleep on shoulder of the women between us after we talked. Only 1/2 hour into the trip before I had lost all feeling in my legs "This is so sweet and great" I thought to myself. "Everyone is napping together - how peaceful"

Quite out of the blue the women napping on my shoulder grabbed my arm very tightly. She began gasping for breath and sat straight up, she turned and faced the women on the other side (now very awake) and grasping her own throat. She was making all sorts of noise - so she wasn't choking.  The women on the other side looked at me and yelled "hold her!" -like I was crazy for not thinking of this on my own. I obeyed. The women was having a seizure. The driver was still driving - taking really no notice of the situation. 

Taking control - the women on the other side put a hand on the women's head and started praying in what can only be described as a yell - when one hand wasn't doing it she threw another one on there. The three women sitting in front of us all had at least one hand on her chest and were working their way through prayers. I'm still holding the women to my chest and we're still driving. 

We eventually stopped. I drag the women out side - I thought I we were all taking a breather - no sir -  just changing seating arrangements. And away we went. She came back around before we reached Mthatha.

Jesse picked me up at the gas station I had been dropped at and we jumped right in to old camp gossip and any new gossip we could come up with. It was wonderful to be in the company of an old friend.  We went to dinner with Jesse's co-workers that night and they were actually asking for more camp stories just to see us crack up. 

Jesse is a Missionary with the Episcopal Church. He works with the African Medical Mission in a clinic and community center in a small village called Itipini.

The community center has a preschool, a clinic, an after school program, and a number of other programs for the very very poor people who live in the village.

I went to work with Jesse each day and volunteered in the clinic. I watched my friend give pep- talks in Xosha (a language involving 3 different clicks) to patients very near death with HIV, as well as 4 year olds who had scraped up their knees. In the time I was in Mthatha I met two different people who have since died. I met a little boy who had been on the hospital for 97 days after burning 20% of his body with boiling water and only had his 15 year old sister to look after him (she also has a child of her own). In the high school English class Jesse teaches one of his students shared her chair with her pre-k son who sat more or less quietly for the hour. 

I've attached a link to Jesse's blog if you are interested in reading his incredible stories from the past year and half and seeing his many many pictures. 

On the weekends we got the chance to visit some places Jesse had not been yet. We hiked to 3 different waterfalls in the Hogsback Mountains and drove down to the Indian Ocean the next weekend. 

When we weren't in Itipini or seeing the sights we spent our time singing camp songs, playing speed scrabble and watching Paul Newman/Robert Redford movies. It was a wonderful visit. Now I'm on my way to New Zealand. I'm hoping to see another camp friend there - however he is currently visiting the US. We shall see.  

South Africa

Alli, Flo, Quinn and Emily piled in to the borrowed car. Emily's luggage in the truck and Obama's inauguration speech turned all the way up on the radio and fuzzing in and out. With the window's down 3 Americans and one French guy cheered out loud to the lines of Obama's speech. We got to the airport and hurried to catch the tail end on a TV that was pointed towards the cafe tables from behind the counter at the airport cafe. After the speech I had 15 minutes American time and about an hour and a half Kenyan time to catch my flight. We hugged goodbye and I was on my way to South Africa.
I flew to Nairobi first and spent the night with Alli's former host family from her study abroad days. I got in around mid-night and left at 5 am and had warm meals waiting for me on either end of my 5 hour stay.
I got back to the air port and settled down near my gate to watch the live overage of the 10 inauguration balls happening in DC. I got so wrapped up I forgot you need to board your flight BEFORE departure time - they also didn't announce it was time to board. I remembered in time and got in the back of the line - got on my flight and headed south.
Soon after we were in the air the pilot suggested we get out our camera's as we were about to have a nice view of Mt. Kilimanjaro. Now, not to sound snobby about this - but - my camera was a little on the fritz, and in the over head, and I was the window seat AND I forgot to mention that that night with the elephants and the water whole and all the amazing - we also had a magnificent view of the Mountain from our porch and I already had many many pictures of Mt. Kilimanjaro. So I decided not to bother. Then all of a sudden I realize we were getting closer and closer to a huge mountain. The ground was rising up to the plane! We flew directly over the table top of Mt. Kilimanjaro!!! Then the pilot tilted the plane and it looked like the wing could of hit. We circled around once and then returned to our flight path. Absolutely Amazing! I saw the top of Mount Kilimanjaro. Maybe I didn't stand on it - but it's still a pretty cool thing.

Alright, Cape Town. I got to Cape Town and had a friend of a friend to stay with. I was instantly in love with the city. Down town is called the city bowl because the mountains hug the city in a bowl and kind of tip it in to the ocean. I spent my first full day doing tourist things. I went to the beach and the water front. I went half way up one of the mountains. The second day I walked down the main down town street and went in to all of the boutiques I could find. The clothes were amazing - and often the owner/designer was sitting in the back room making the clothes and then running out to say hello when you walked in the door. The rumors are true - it is similar to San Francisco - but much smaller and less intense. I am really quite twitter patted with Cape Town.
Now I am on a farm/vineyard about 2 hours north of Cape Town. I have been here 6 days. We work 8 - 5:30 with 1 hour for lunch. There is a family of 4 that run and own the farm. We can eat all the grapes from the vine we want and last night we had a wine tasting. The wine tasting turned in to a brandy tasting which turned in to a grappa tasting which turned in to dinner with the family (with wine) which turned in to brandy and chocolate for dessert - which turned in to drunk Emily. I put myself to bed.
So far my favorite job on the farm in picking almonds. Did you know that the almond is closely related to the peach and look very similar on the tree?

Lions and Giraffs and Baboons!

A friend of both Alli's and mine arrived in Mombasa late in my stay. Quinn is a friend from Star Island and will be staying in Mombasa volunteering at a hospital for two months. Alli and I met Quinn at the airport with a make shift gin ricky at 10 am. We tried to gentally ease her into her new surroundings - but there is really no gentle way to go from Brooklyn to Kenya. Also, over e-mail, Quinn and I had planned to go on Safari with a friend of Alli's beginning on the 4th day of her stay in Kenya.
The morning before our Safari (Quinn day-3) she weakly told the house hold that she had been up all night sick and was still feeling really terrible. Alli and Flo went to work and I slowly shuffled Quinn down the road to the clinic. The nurses thought we were a pretty funny pair when all of a sudden I (the healthy white girl) ran to the bathroom to begin throwing up. Quinn and I spent the rest of the day in our shared room with the lights out, holding out tummies with "The Sound of Music" playing on my computer in case we could sit up and watch it.
With amazing recovering time we were ready to go at 6am the next morning. A little fragile - but detirrmed - we headed to Tsavo East.
The first day started slow but by the after noon we had seen a couple of herds of elephants (I spotted the first) a group of about 20 baboons and two lions way off in the distance (Quinn saw these first).
The next morning we went out before breakfast. between 6 and 8 am we saw three lions - just a few yards from our van - a huge group of giraffes on either side of the road and walking around the car, baboon parents with the babies riding sitting up on their backs. That evening when we arrived back at our lodge our guide quietly brought us to the back porch to find 10 elephants drinking from the water hole in our back yard (10 yards). There were another 10 about 100 yards away. The elephants came and went as the pleased for the next 3 hours - always with at least 2 manning the water whole. In the time we were watching the elephants a group of gazelles arrived and then a LION tried to sneak up on the gazelles - but a duck starting making noise the the gazelles ran away. This was one of the most incredible nights of my life.
The moment I arrived back at Alli's house I was sick again - somehow my body pulled it together long enough to go on this adventure. I'm better now.

Alli and Flo!

So I arrived in Kenya and I already have told you a little about Christmas (mid-night mass in Swahili, billion course meal on the roof after mid-night mass, opening stockings sent by mom). All and all a fun couple of days. Then Alli, Flo, and I headed 8 hours north to the small island of Lamu.

The buildings of Lamu were built long enough ago that no one considured making the streets wide enough for cars. None of the streets are more then 8 feet wide - there for there are no cars. All transportation (human or frait) is done by donkey. There are 6,000 donkeys on this very small island. As far as I could tell many of them did belong to any one inparticular. We would walk down the alley-like streets and see 3 donkeys walking towards us (no human to be seen) who would then casually make a left hand turn - like they had somewhere particular they were headed. I found the donkeys all very funny.

Also in Lamu we went out on a very small wooden sailboat (a dow). We went snorkeling

around coral and spent the afternoon on a picture perfect beach with out another person in sight. I (like a champion) ate most of a fish - in the spirit that the captain had caught it off the side of the boat and fried it there.

The only way we afforded this luxurious (not actually luxurious) vacation was Alli and Flo renting out there apartment for more then a week beyond the time we were actually gone. There was a huge religious event happening in Mombasa and people were flying in from all over the globe desparate for housing.

Back in Mombasa Alli and Flo returned to work after 2 weeks off for the New Year and for holidays. I began volunteering a little bit a school for orphans that was just getting started. Alli and I swam across the channel that separates the island of Mombasa from the rest of Africa. You could say we swam to Africa. I'll have pictures up as soon as I can - but internet in africa is very slow.