I am one lucky girl!

Well the time came to experience my birthday for the first time not only without Kimbo, but also my family. I have been wondering how I would handle this and I did better then I expected. I honestly can say that I would not have been able to do it without the support of family and friends near and far. I really have learned how much of a support system I have stateside. It is amazing how many birthday wishes I got and how much all around support I have received over the last 7 months. All I can say is I am truly one lucky girl. Not only am I realizing the support from home, but also, I am beginning to see how strong of a support system I also have here in South Africa. The support from fellow PCV's has been wonderful, but I am also seeing how lucky I am for the strong group of friends I have made here.

For my birthday Grandpere picked me up from the bus stop and when I got back all the lights were off. Grandmere, Grandpere and Dan surprised me with a candle light dinner. I had my favorite, samp and beans and spinach quiche as a side. Nats even stopped by to give me a gift. It was a lovely evening and a great birthday. This Friday night, Nats and Derrick planned a big braai(South African BBQ) for me at their house. We had a great time and I have been lucky to have these friends here.

Important meetings and revolting drinks!

Every year all non-profit organizations in South Africa have to host an Annual General Meeting (AGM). These meetings allow the committee members, staff, stakeholders, and community members to come together and elect the board of directors and discuss previous and future projects. We just hosted our AGM and it was really neat to see what the welfare had done over the last year. It was also great to see a room full of people with the same desire…to improve the welfare of children and families throughout their community. We had a great turn out this year and I hope for an even better one in the years to come. Although I was not involved in any of last year’s events, I was still able to pitch in and help prepare for the meeting and I think we all did a great job!

As you are all aware, I like to keep busy and active so I joined a local women’s touch rugby team. I absolutely love it! I am not very good at it and have some habits from hockey that I need to break but all in all, its great fun. The team is awesome and reminds me a lot of my Thunder ladies. It is great to have a sense of belonging to a team and learn something new at the same time. A local company sponsors the team I play for and they are all actually really good. I look forward to the rest of the season and pictures are to come soon! I also joined some of my teammates in a local Fear Factor game.

We had so much fun but I don’t even want to know what I ate. I know at first we had to drink what was supposedly chunky yogurt with moss and black spaghetti noodles (which we thought were worms). It was a bit too chunky and nasty for me. Look at our faces in the picture below! The second thing I did was to drink some strange red stuff that I think had hot sauce in it. My lips were on fire for like 20 minutes! As soon as I finished that, I had to pick an egg out of one of three birds nests and crack it on my forehead. I was able to win my challenge but I was not really sure what the point of it was. My last challenge I was disqualified because my captain told me to go when I was not suppose to. I ended up eating another girls “frog eggs in oyster shells." I ate it so fast though because I thought I was behind that I didn’t even get a chance to taste it. Some of my teammates had to eat tripe (cows stomach) and dig for things in a trash bin full of cow manure. It was a super fun night and we ended up taking 3rd place.

A few weeks ago I headed back to the Hluhluwe-iMfolozi Game Park. It is always so fun to go to and it’s only about an hour drive from site. I was lucky to see 3 of the big 5 (an elephant, rhinos, and buffalos). We were able to see about 25 rhinos and that was incredible. There is a huge rhino poaching problem in South Africa right now and it is incredibly sad. I read that since 2007 there has been a 3000% increase in illegal rhino slaughtering. Just on Monday, 9 rhinos were found dead at the same Game Park I just went to. The rhinos are being poached for their horns. The horns are supposedly used for aphrodisiacs, traditional medicines, and beauty treatments, although the horns have scientifically been proven to have no positive effect. I hope people will put an end to this horrendous crime and cruelty to rhinos.