mosaics, gardens, hiking

after laura left my training group attended our close of service conference in pretoria. we talked about everything from goodbye strategies, closing up projects, getting jobs back home, traveling, re-adjusting/reverse culture shock, and did lots of reflecting over our 2 years of service.

i continued teaching grades 6-7 and 12 english with my counterparts and the library officially made it into the primary school time table of classes! each week for one hour grades 4-7 hold their english classes in the library and do dictionary work or focus on reading. let's hope it helps! the girls club also continued and we spent lots of time talking about goals and future planning.

 term 2 winded down with another mural, this time a map of south africa at my primary school. after the teachers and principal saw the photos from the one we did at danny's school they loved it and wanted to start right away. we painted it in 4 days with the whole staff and about 20 learners. teachers now use the map as a teaching aid. 

over the winter holidays (june-july) danny and i spent our time at each others sites and visiting nearby volunteers. we finally got around to two mosaic projects we started in january. oh time.

located on my front stoop it celebrates the gecko family that i've lived with. i love the way the full moon reflects on the uneven angles of the mosaic.

this one was inspired by van gogh's starry night but mostly the ingwavuma (danny's home in the mountains) scenery. danny built a table from free wood scrapes we found in town and we put the mosaic on top. we also learned that not staining the wood first was a bad idea as it absorbed the water from the cement and warped/cracked. oops!

 we visited the community garden in my village and got to hang out with my host mama #1 and all her hard working lady friends. they gave us so much food!

after spending about a week in my village we went to visit some nearby pcvs. together we went to check out lake sibaya, south africa's largest fresh water lake. we were so kindly hosted by a family who lives right next to the lake on an organic WOOFing farm. their house was amazing and is powered by wind and solar energy. they are very involved in the local communities and have started many developmental initiatives- check out their website here http://barefootcommunityworks.wordpress.com/. we went hiking for the day around the lake, saw hippos and tons of birds, and cooked dinner with the family and the full moon.

we also did some more hiking with friends around danny's village. the infamous 'swazi pass' was our goal for the day. many swazis hike up and down this mountain trail everyday or weekly to attend school in south africa or go to the hospital. after getting a late start and a little lost we found our way down to swaziland, hitched some rides to the closest gas station and had lunch under a tree by some cows. then we got arrested for not using a cross walk. we told the cops we didn't have those in south africa, which is very true, and after talking with them a while and letting them know we were teachers and one was a doctor they let us go. thank goodness! we hitched back to the pass and made it up the mountain in time to catch the sun setting over endless sugar cane fields.