Burning Sweets

Eish! That’s a great South Africanism, meaning “wow,” “jeez” or “woah!” It has a wide range of applicability and is one of my favorites. Lots of things have been a-happenin since my last post. Firstly, the country has been going nutso with the World Cup. And frankly, it’s infectious. I thought I would go to one game and call it quits, but so far I have been to two games, one fanpark and watched many of the matches on TV. You can’t help getting caught up in it.

The first game I went to was U.S. vs. England. There were four of us completely surrounded by boisterous England fans and we got called “wankers” a lot. It was jolly good fun. The second game some friends and I stumbled upon tickets hours before the game, so we were able to see U.S. beat Algeria at the very end. Then, for each of the matches they have these fan parks set up at each hosting city for free, complete with big screens, live music and refreshments. Basically, whether you have a ticket or not, it’s a lot of fun. Good job FIFA and South Africa.

And THEN the event that has been the bane of my existence the past three months finally occurred. My host brother and I, in conjunction with four local schools and various organizations, held Camp Remmogo, an HIV awareness camp for fourth through sixth graders. We actually camped out at the nearby Borakalalo Game Reserve, freezing our bums off during the night and doing various activities during the day. Though it obviously did not go perfectly, everyone had a great time. Two other Peace Corps volunteers came to help and we had almost 30 adults help out with over 60 children. Almost all the kids had never been to any type of camp before and it was a new experience for a lot of the adults too.

One of my favorite light-hearted moments of the camp was when I attempted to show people how to toast a marshmallow, an unheard of concept. I explained what to do and shoved the marshmallow onto a stick. With their faces in a collective horrified expression, I lowered it down by the embers. I held it there for a few seconds until someone finally shouted "Stop! You're burning the sweet!" I eventually got a few people to try the very-American campfire delicacy. Some liked it, but most remained aghast at my reckless destruction of perfectly good sweets. Cultural exchange fail.

Overall, it was a success and the kids were so happy the entire time it made up for all the hair-pulling moments of organizing it. And several people have told me they want to run similar camps in the future, which is fantastic. Peace Corps would be proud.

So now it's another week of World Cup fever and then some friends and I are off to hike through the second largest canyon in the world, the Fish River Canyon in Namibia. Stay tuned for that adventure.



Also, I put up some new pictures of the games and the camp. Peruse at your pleasure.