Tag Archives: verandah

Wayne’s World

After our stop in Harkerville, we moved onto the Conservation Academy, another day’s drive away in the VW buses. The Academy is the home of Wayne and Trelles Voss and their three children. It is a privately owned property in the midst of game reserves at an intersection of several different ecosystem types, also known as an ecotone. The compound lies in the belly of a valley which is green and wetlandy at the bottom, and sparsely dotted with dry-adapted desert-like vegetation at the top with intermittent thickets on the slopes. The first day we went for a hike up the ridge and explored the vegetation and interactions between the different systems. We saw baboons on the rock in the distance, which was a cause for excitement in the group. After the trek on the ridge, we hiked down through some nasty thickets (got some lovely Acacia thorn signatures on my arms), and we hiked back through the grassland valley bottom past Wayne’s livestock. We spent four days at the Conservation Academy. We did everything from plant ID to attending lecture at nearby Rhodes University. We all bonded with Wayne, who seemed to be some figure comparable to the late Crocodile Hunter with the wit and ferocity to outrun a charging rhino. Which he did somewhere in between culling elephants and saving the planet. We also bonded with his dogs, Stella and Cinnamon, two very flea-ridden lap companions of the Jack Russel Terrier variety.
Leaving the Conservation Academy was sad, but we knew it was just one step closer to the final destination: The Haven.
Of course in all these descriptions, I’m leaving out the determinant factors of the group’s mood.
Deterrents to joyousness:
Many lectures a day
Exhaustion from constant mental and intermittent physical stress
Spiders
The death of Joe Paterno, which we were informed of after a debrief
Group formation issues and personality compatibility troubles within small groups
LOTS of work

Catalysts of joyousness:
Stella and Cinnamon
Wayne
Off the Verandah bonding, which took the form of the group females chopping all of my hair off and taping the cut ponytails to the door of the boys and the door of the professors with a note stating, “OFF THE VERANDAH” to indicate the female willingness to transcend the limits of our current abroad state.
Taping said hair to VW buses before long bus rides
LEARNING! YIPPEEEE
Delicious braai (South African non-barbecue. Don’t call it a barbecue. But it’s cooking seasoned meat over hot charcoals)


Location: Grahmstown, South Africa

Yeboooo!

I realize I have failed in updating this as often as prescribed, but the internet situation in combination with the amount of work we have makes it difficult to write out anything of substance. So from where I left off, which was in Cape Town.

The fourth morning was our last at Ikaya lodge, and the lot of us packed up our bags and loaded them into the beloved VW buses, Marley and Sheila, and we set on our way. I was riding in Sheila with Dr. (Brian) King and several of my peers. We were following the lead van, Marley, driven by Dr. (Neil) Brown. Before we had even left downtown we saw something big fall off of Marley onto the highway. Brian immediately dialed Neil and they backtracked to find what was part of the trailer hitch. I was relieved my bag wasn’t in the trailer, and that it was safe in the back of the van! We again set off, and drove for hours through sprawling wine country and farm fields. Gradually, we began to go up, up, and up into mountains. The vegetation change was marked. We suddenly went from a warm, agricultural area to a thick conifer forest that smelled like Christmas trees. The temperature also dropped considerably. Then we began to descend on the other side of the range, and we were informed that we were no longer in the Western Cape. It felt like the adventure had truly begun.
That night we spent in Harkerville in a dorm-style accommodation. I met a little Afrikaner boy, Liam, and we spent some time hopping around the murky-looking pool on one foot for some time. We had a rather good time. His English was brilliant. Turns out he and his family had just returned from three weeks in the states. His parents informed me that he went over with no knowledge of English and that the flexible vocabulary he was using with me was procured from a little cousin about his age. Amazing!
We also had a very sleepy lecture that night, which only came alive with the discussion of global citizenship. It was an article that described what an off-the-verandah study abroad should be like. That means not being the typical study abroad. Actually reaching out to the culture. Not getting bathed in it. Immersing yourself. Talking to people you don’t know. Talking to people who aren’t your age. Learning a new language and using it. Getting lost in a place and finding your way home by asking people. Going to bars and clubs with other exchange students and university students doesn’t count. It’s all about becoming aware of your cultural experiences and impacts. Not whining about needing air conditioning or a pillow top mattress or high speed internet. Since then, the group has played with the idea of the verandah, which will later come into play.


Location: Harkerville, South Africa