Coffee Bay/Hole in the Wall

Okay I had an awesome and busy weekend! I'll recap that, answer some questions and then talk about this coming weekend!

Thursday we left right after class and went to the airport to pick up the car. The airport is only a few miles away so it's not too far. But I'm sure you can imagine how loud the airplanes can be when they fly right over our apartment! And PE has one of those landing strips where the plane has to fly out over the ocean, turn around and then head back in to land. There were four of us, Joe, Zach, Colleen and myself. Which ended up being the perfect amount in a car for a long car ride. We drove half way to Coffee Bay and stayed at a hostel, or a Backpackers in Chintsa. This place was good, but we went to bed almost right when we got there at 11:00 and woke up very early in the morning.

Friday we woke up, checked out and then went for a walk on the beach. This town was in a nice little bay so the beach was very nice. We took some pictures and then were on our way.
I drove this morning. It went well. I never tried to drive on the right side of the road like I was worried about. But I did continually switch on the wipers instead of the blinker because they're in different spots. I also stalled the car one time at a stoplight, or a ROBOT! Calling them robots is weird because it makes them seem like they're alive or something. There was about 70km of road that we took off of the highway. This was the worst road you could EVER imagine. We were warned from the people in Chintsa to beware of potholes and animals but we had no clue how severe that warning was! The road was littered with potholes. There was rarely anywhere you could drive without hitting one. So this was pretty stressful for me and I ended up switching so that Joe was driving. We lost two hubcaps on this road (luckily we saw them fall off). And the animals!!! WOOH! When we were warned of animals, I of course thought of kudu and springbok and all those animals I’d seen wild before. But no, the animals to look out for were cows, horses, donkeys, sheep and goats. The region we drove through is called the Transkei and it is where Nelson Mandela grew up. During the apartheid regime, it was one of the “homelands” or something comparable to an Indian Reservation. So this area has been able to maintain its heritage very well. It is in a mountain region, or at least very big hills (our car almost didn’t make it up some of the hills). The hillsides are filled with colorful huts where Xhosa people live. In this area, there isn’t running water or electricity. Almost no one has a car, so we also needed to be careful of all the people walking in the road. There were some beautiful views on this drive and if it wasn’t for the potholes and animals, we could have really taken it all in.
We got to the Coffee Shack Backpackers and were hot and tired. So we went to the beach. It was no easy feat to get to the beach here! We had to cross a river walking on rocks because it was filled with waste from the village. Then we had to walk up a hill and across a stretch of beach. Then we walked up some shaky steps, over fence. Through a forest and campground, through another fence. Down the road and onto the beach. Swim across another river thing (but this one was fed by ocean water), holding our belongings on top of our heads. And then you’re at the beach! Children were following us along the whole way, but we just kept telling them we didn’t have money and they’d run off for a little bit.

For dinner we went to a Xhosa village. This was arranged by the hostel and they sent an interpreter with the group of 10 of us who went. We got a tour of the yard. Apparently all those animals we saw would be herded into a fenced in area at night. We saw how they cook the food on coals in a special enclosure. And we went into the headman’s hut. This is where dinner was because it was the biggest. Some young girls danced for us while the rest of the people from the village sang. We tried Xhosa beer which was made from Maize. It was all right, but not my favorite. We drank from odd containers and passed it around. The females were made to sit on the ground, while the males were given benches and beds to sit on. This wouldn’t have been that big of a deal if we weren’t there for three hours! I was definitely ready to stand up when we left! We ate a traditional two course meal there. The first course was sugar bean and corn soup (kind of). It needed a lot of salt. The second course was pap, which is ground up maize. It was very good and then it had a store-bought gravy on top. After dinner there was more dancing by boys and girls (the girls were topless, and some a little too old). Then they invited/made us dance too. The dancing was pretty hard, lots of shaking of the hips and butt! When we left they followed us in the car for a ways singing. This whole night cost $4.oo.

Saturday we went for a hike to Hole in the Wall. Well we drove to the town of Hole in the Wall and then went hiking around it. It was a great day with the most beautiful scenery. The landmark Hole in the Wall is a very large rock only a little bit off the coast that has a hole in it (like the shape of a mouse hole in a wall). The hole was formed over time from the waves hitting against it. We climbed to the top of a very big hill/mountain and had a gorgeous view of the village, the ocean and the hole in the wall. Again to get to the hole in the wall we had to go over the river and through the woods, and on and on. But it was cool. We took some pictures so it looked like we were IN the hole, but the waves were too big to actually go into the hole. We also went to a beach that was around here and we were laying out, sun tanning, with cows!! The cows were on the beach! So to pick out a spot to lay down, you had to first of all stay far away from the cows, and second of all, watch out for poop!

Sunday we drove home, it ended up being about 7 hours total and Joe and I took turns. The others did homework in the backseat. Since we got home, I’ve been exhausted and stressed out about homework! But I’m not going to stop seeing everything I can just because of a silly little thing like school! I’ll post some pictures from this weekend later too.

So I have this paper due Tuesday, today, and one due on Wednesday. Those are taking over my time for now. But then bright and early on Thursday we leave on a group excursion to Durban till Monday! I'm too busy to even think about it! Durban is further up the eastern coast. I think it'll be about a 2 hour flight. And I'm not sure what we're going to do there, it's all planned out and paid for though.

I hope everyone is doing well, I’m really sorry to hear about all the snow you’ve gotten this last week! I hope the shovelers in the group aren’t too sore!

Happy Belated Birthdays to Jessie, Dar and Steve! Both the Iowa party and the Hamel party sound like they were fun this weekend! I wonder if cake was served first at the Gustafson party too?

Mac I hope you had fun at your retreat this weekend! Sorry I didn’t get to talk to you on Sunday! And I hope synchro is going well!!

Nome-Beltz Junior High students: I would not advise anyone to feed the monkeys at my school! The monkeys can be very mean. If they see you have food, they might attack you and scratch and bite. So it’s probably best to just keep your food hidden when they’re around. But I haven’t seen them yet this week! Make sure you check out a post I’ll be putting up soon about what school is like here!

I know that I told a lot of you this winter before I left about my boss at St. Bens, Cynthia who was sick with cancer. She passed away this last week at home in Holdingford. She really meant a lot to me as we worked together every day for two years. I miss her now and I will miss talking to her a lot next year when I go back to St. Bens. Please pray for her son and daughter who no longer have her with them.