Pics from our Canadian Night Party

Put African drums in front of foreigners and you'll never hear the end of it. I have no rythem.

Creating some music, There's CEEDers and Children of Fire trainees.

This is what happens when ppl drink.....and you start playing truth or dare. Abey ends up wiping shaving cream with his face off of Jon's hairy legs (whose in Monica's dress)

Eatinkg poutine....they really enjoyed it.

Julie showing some Canadian love.

In honour of having Patty come down from Botswana we were excited to have 4 Canadians in the house so we through a Canadian night party. Poutine....was a big hit!

Philanesburg & Sun City

I'd been living in J'burg for about 3 1/2 weeks when I had to moved to Pretoria...of course work had to begin sometime. After not even being in Pretoria for over a week some friends decided to come down and visit, adn that's when our plans for Philanesburg and Sun City began. So we headed to see the wild animals of SA. We rented a car and were off on our ways. You would not realize how dusty, sandy the roads were, despite that we had to stay in our cars the whole time, we still managed to be covered in sad/durt by the end of the trip. As I said, not African experience is complete if you don't see the animals, in the wild. We saw 3 of the big 5, but now CATS:( Perhaps next time).




A view from the hide out point. Trying to spot the hippos.


The gang at the Palace at Sun City

Absolutley gorgeous.......I will post up my pics of the Bridge of Time later.








Little monkies ran all over the vacinity of the hotel grounds.








And then there were the wild animals..............so many of them had their cubs.

South African Local Comittee Presidents Meeting -- J'burg

In July we had LCPM in which we brought all the LCP of South Africa to get together to do skills training, and come together to create & begin the implementation of Aiesec South Africa's national strategic plan. It was a chance to discover the reality of Aiesec SA and move forward. All the pics below are from LCPM

Second night of LCPM, having dinner at Buzz 9.

Alcohol is mad cheap in SA. We always joke that it's cheaper to buy beer than water.....which is true. Here I have discovered my love for Brutal fruit (mango flavour....YUM)

They are real big on braii (bbq) here in SA, this happens nearly every weekend at someone house.

Can you believe this is a picture of typical South African clothing...he...he...poor things they really don't know the true meaning of winter. It's winter right now in SA, I keep telling everyone that I've been jipped of my summer this year:) Coming to SA I expectected it to be boiling hot, however, to my surprise it's winter and though the days a beautiful (25 degrees) the nights are hella COLD ( 5 degrees) since they have no central heating. So when we go out at night and I'm in my capris & flip flop sandals everyone thinks I'm crazy.......Canadians!

Day 18

It’s unbelievable that I’ve been living here in South Africa for 18 days already. The days have passed by too quickly, perhaps it’s because I’ve been enjoying my stay here. I must admit that rarely, if at all that I get home sick, minus the obvious things like family and friends………and of course real good Khmer home cooking meals. I was watching Amelie with my roommates last night when my sister called. You always get excited when you get a chance to talk to others from home. Besides it’s so much cheaper when they called me. It’s ridiculous how expensive it is to call from South Africa to Canada. Anyways, that call literally made my day since I got to chat with my sisters and my mom.

Each day you learn something new about yourself. I’ve always been an independent individual and did, said and went wherever I wanted too. But living in Canada…..heck a Western country we are so sheltered by issues that affect others daily in 3rd world countries. We have this mentality that when we see war, crime, or poverty on tv……….for that split second we feel bad, that’s such a horrible thing that’s happening, but we move on with our daily lives. Since I’ve been here you see the extreme differences in class. You see those that are disadvantaged and often neglected, like the young burnt victims at the school I visited this past week (Children of Fire – a school for severely burnt & blind children). And I keep asking myself why are there no one helping these people? And so you become frustrated with the system. . . . as we often do in such countries. I suppose I can only do my share.

Happy b-day to MOI

I had a wonderful B-day here in SA. Thanks to all those that sent me b-day wishes from home muah! I started off the day going to Soweto with a bunch of my roomates. We were curious to see what a township looked like and wanted to check out some of the sites in the town.
I must say it was totally different from J'burg, at least where we lived. There wasn't really much to do there. We went to the Hector Peterson Musuem, did a little shopping for African crafts (in which I did pretty good bargaining for a pair of wooden carved goblets), and visited Nelson Mandela's home in Soweto. That that evening we went to the movies to watch Hotel Rwanda (it just came out here not that long ago). For those of you that have not seen it yet, I recommend that you go see it. It's such an intense movie, you will not leave the theatre feeling the same again. I cried a few time during the movie, but again....that's just me. When I got home my roomates had cooked a b-day dinner, cake, alcohol and all.

Thanks Jen for the necklace, Fred for making dinner, and the rest for a memorable night for my first b-day in SA!

Mountain and Pony Treking in Lesotho

I hope everyone had an amazing Canada Day! Anyways, I must tell you about the most amazing trip I had these past days! I and 6 others of my roommates decided to take a trip to Lesotho. Lesotho is this really tiny, rural country embedded inside South Africa. So myself (1 Canadian), 1 German, 1 South African, 2 Estonians, and 2 Dutch head off on this amazing 4 day road trip to Lesotho. I really wanted to go Lesotho and wasn’t exactly sure that when I got here anyone would be willing to go with me. My interest to travel here was sparked by the travel doctor who worked here for 2 years on a project funded by the government to do research on HIV/AIDS. Now since I’ve got here all I’ve seen is the city, and it doesn’t give me too much to a glimpse of the real rural Africa. Here the malls are big, restaurants are everywhere, at times I felt it was very much like Canada. So this trip was an eye opener.

It took us one and half days to drive to Lesotho. On our first night we stopped off just close to the border at a mountain Chalet and stayed there for the night. Once we got off the highway the roads were horrible (pure dirt and rocks). So rugged and bumpy, it’s a good thing I don’t get car sickness. You couldn’t see anything. We were so surprised that we had a tv in our cabin. The next morning when we got up…..you should have seen the view of our resort. Holy shit! It was gorgeous, it was so dark the night before that I didn’t see anything. Our cabin was on the top of a mountain and the we were surrounded by mountains and valleys everywhere. You could see the small village huts from far away.

The whole purpose of the trip was to go to this place called The Sani Top Chalet, in which my roommate Bende had gone to last year to do some hiking in the mountains. Lesotho is nothing, but mountain after mountains. So literally the whole time we’re driving up and down the mountain at the edge of a dirt cliff. Definitely the bumpiest ride of my life. We passed so many rural communities, and these houses were made of nothing but stones, mud, and grass. Sheep, cows, and donkeys were everywhere. We stopped in the small village for a bathroom break for the girls, and the guys wanted to buy some beer. Everyone was staring at us (since we were all foreigners….thank god Bende was from SA (and black) so he did all the talking). As we passed the villages small children would stop and wave to us, sometimes sticking out their hands because they were expecting sweets. Ever been stopped by a herd of sheep or oxes while driving at the edge of a mountain…..we nearly hit some on our drive there. As I was going to the bathroom I was trying to not step on donkey poop which was everywhere. The outhouse was really clean…not smelly at all compared to the ones I experienced while camping back home.

When we got to The Sani Top Chalet, it was extremely foggy. This place was popular for having the highest Pub in Africa. You couldn’t see anything it was so foggy we couldn’t even drive. It was a small resort with about 15 others staying there. We had an authentic Lesotho dinner that night. Lesotho is a mountain country so it’s really cold. Yes, it can even snow up here. Can you believe that you can even cross country ski at this resort….yes……..in Africa that was a shocker to me. That night I slept and when I breathed into the air, I could see smoke. The next day we went on a 4 hour hike up a mountain. It was amazing. And finally the best part….I got to go on my pony trekking ride that I wanted to in the mountains. We even when quading ( those desert motor bikes).

On Sat. night we nearly didn’t get to cross the border back into SA. Our hike and pony trek ride had taken a lot longer expected. We were so persistent on leaving at 3:30pm because the border was closing at 4pm. Rego drove so fast down that mountain, it was hilarious……….if my mother had seen the way he drove….she would have had a heart attack. Needless to say we got the border at 4:15pm (LATE). We begged the guy to please let us pass as we didn’t have anywhere to stay in Lesotho and our accommodation was in SA on the other side. He firmly stood still, and in a mean tone said, “Do you realize what time it is………..you are LATE! What time does the border close at?” We all just stood silent. I didn’t think he’d give in, but luckily he did and we were in SA in minutes.

http://www.sanitopchalet.co.za