As much as I hate rain, I can’t help but huddle on this little porch, knees curled up against my chest and tucked under my fleece hoodie. With all the trees hugged by mist and fog, the effect is pretty damn magical.
I’m constantly filled with wonder that I am here. When I think of all the steps it took to get to this country, this place, this porch THIS VERY SECOND, it almost seems impossible. But here I am.
I marvel at how many people have welcomed me into their world: The women that I teach, the school that has become a home, the hostel that is my haven, the revolving door of friendly faces.
Even though I’m no good at gardening, I feel like I’m cultivating something here and watching it grow. And that’s worth a little rain.
Because my life includes a number of educators — like my dad, sister, husband and multiple friends — I’ve been trying to get inside as many classrooms as possible during this trip.
That included a primary school in the heart of Soweto — the South Western Townships of Johannesburg, South Africa. The visit was arranged by our host and her friend, a representative for Discovery Channel’s global education project.
You’ve probably heard of Soweto before, because it was where many blacks were forced to live during apartheid. It’s also where Mandela lived before and after going to prison.
In 1976, the townships gained worldwide attention during the Soweto student uprising, a series of protests that became a turning point in tearing down the oppressive apartheid regime.
The protests were in response to the National Party government, which tried to force all schools to teach lessons in Afrikaans instead of English. In a country with 11 official languages, where most kids and teachers didn’t speak Afrikaans, this was yet another way to withhold education and opportunities from black citizens.
So thousands of students took to the streets in peaceful protest. The police opened fire and killed 23 youth. That inspired riots, which eventually resulted in 566 deaths.
With the violence in the past, Soweto is an exciting and unusual mix of shanties and glittery mansions, potholes and newly paved roads, artists and former political prisoners.
At the school we visited, the children receive lessons via a Discovery Channel global project that gives them books, lesson plans, videos and other equipment they otherwise wouldn’t have.
Like other kids in South Africa, they go to school from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m., Monday through Friday, January through early December . All of the students at this school are black, which is reflective of Soweto’s demographics. About half of the kids spoke Zulu better than English, so the teacher spoke to the students in a mixture of both languages.
Inside the third-grade classroom we visited, the kids prepared a special presentation called “South Africa: My Country.”
The kids then performed a couple songs and some traditional dances. They colored the South African flag, put together a South African map and wrote words to describe their country, like “desert,” “mountains” and “animals.”
Most of the students were extremely shy, though a couple of them asked questions about me. Like, why do you talk like the people on TV?
One little wisp of a girl stood up and recited a speech she wrote about what it means to be South African. Her face was earnest as she said, “Just because you come from a township, it doesn’t mean you have bad behavior.”
It made me tear up.
Altogether, it was a visit that ended far too early — but proved that students are often the best teachers.
There’s an old saying that a single straw from a broom can be broken, but together they are strong.
The Africans call that ubuntu, the philosophy that we are all part of an interconnected web, rooted in acts of kindness and generosity. It means that the way we treat others is more important than our individual accomplishments.
Basically, you can’t be human all by yourself.
I’m seeing ubuntu everywhere as I travel throughout South Africa.
At Bulungula, a woman shared a piece of bread with her son, who in turn, tore it into four more pieces and gave it to his friends.
Inside a local shebeen (bar), the revelers happily slung a paint can full of sorgham beer my way, offering me a sip.
In Johannesburg, a generous couple fed me, opened their home to me and basically treated me as if I was family.
While trying to find the correct minibus in Durban, my friends were told the correct bus was located several blocks away. “Hop in,” the minibus driver said. “I’ll take you there.”
Those simple acts of kindness are hard to resist, and I’ve found myself being a little more open, letting my guard down more than usual. I finally gave in completely yesterday in Durban, when a man approached me on the street. He pointed at my oversized, reusable Nalgene water bottle.
“Can I have a sip?” he said.
It caught me off guard, so I asked him to repeat what he said.
“Your water. Can I have a sip?” Then he elaborated, “I have been eating the peanuts. They are very salty.”
He was a worker who shuttled people into the minibuses all day long. He worked on a block far from any cafe, restaurant or store. There really wasn’t any other water nearby. And even though the wary, distrusting part of me was screaming no, I handed the bottle over.
He drank nearly all of it, handed it back and beamed in delight. Then he said, “Sala,” which is Zulu for “Stay well.”
OK, actually that monkey is pretty damn sweet. His name is Romeo, and he was my constant companion during my two-week volunteer stint with the Inti Wara Yassi organization at Parque Machia.
Inti Wara Yassi runs three wildlife sanctuaries through Bolivia, and they provide a home for mistreated animals. There are some extreme cases of abuse — like a puma who was practically crippled by jumping through flaming hoops at an illegal circus — but the majority of their birds and animals have been seized from exotic pet black market.
I was assigned to Monkey Park, where more than 400 monkeys live independently, reintroduced into the jungle. They’re not quite wild, because we still feed them and they do have interaction with humans, but it’s as close to natural conditions as they’re ever going to get.
I worked nearly a 12-hour shift each day, starting with breakfast for the monkeys each morning. They eat bananas, of course, but they also receive a quinoa porridge that was supplemented with lots of monkey-riffic vitamins.
My job also included preparing monkey lunch and dinner, cleaning monkey cages and scrubbing monkey blankets — though most of the monkeys live without any captivity, we lock up the spider monkeys each night to keep them safe from poachers and thieves — and lots and lots of monkey cuddling.
Like with Martina here, who I think looks a little bit like an Amish dude.
And, of course, Romeo, oh Romeo!
Then, one week into my work, tragedy struck.
A hulking monkey, Renor, hopped onto my lap. He’s the number-two guy for the alpha monkey, so he’s larger and far stronger than most of the other capuchin monkeys. Imagine a big playground ball made of muscle and fur.
After about 15 minutes on my lap, he suddenly hopped off, grabbed my hands and chomped down on me. First he bit down on my right hand, but didn’t puncture the skin. He moved on to my left hand, where he made two deep fang holes into the thumb, then a couple more holes on the hand. At one point, I heard his tooth hit my bone.
During one of the bites, he pulled my hand away, creating a gash in my flesh. Then he very calmly looked me in the eye and lapped up the blood. He didn’t seem angry or spooked; he was simply gnawing on me.
He had a tight grip on both my hands, so I couldn’t do much except let him go all vampire on me. I was afraid that pulling away would cause him to react even more violently.
Another volunteer heard me curse and walked into Monkey Park to see what was going on. When he approached, Renor scampered off into the jungle. I headed for the clinic, where the sanctuary vet gave me a couple stitches. (I was told that the last time Renor bit someone, he gave the guy 72 stitches, so I got off lucky.)
Here’s how my wounds look one week later.
It was difficult to return to Moneky Park the next day.
If I had done something wrong and caused the monkey to bite, that would have been one thing. But Renor’s behavior was so erratic and random, I was scared something would happen again. Plus, at the same time, the alpha monkey was acting particularly aggressive and biting at least one volunteer per day.
I’m proud of myself for going back, though. Monkey Park offers volunteers a lot of quiet time, and I did a lot of thinking about what it means to work through fear, find confidence … and trust your monkeys again.
The best travel moments happen when you least expect them.
That’s what I learned when my husband and I made an excursion to the village of Manco Capac, situated on an island in the Amazon River.
Our intention was to spend the morning strolling through the tiny town, getting a brief glimpse of village life. We had no expectations and no plans.
Then we stumbled on to a school just as the children were getting ready for their Independence Day parade.
The kids immediately crowded around us, tugging at our clothes, smiling shyly, pulling us into their classrooms. They all wanted their photos taken and loved seeing the digital image displayed right back at them.
When the parade started, someone grabbed a couple of chairs, setting them up where we’d have the best vantage point for viewing the festivities. The teacher told the kids to sing extra loud for their special guests, and he motioned to us.
The kids acted out the story of the liberation of Peru, then marched all over the schoolyard, waving tissue paper flags.
It was one of those things that could never be replicated for any tour, and you’d never read about it in a guidebook. But that brief morning with the kids — laughing and singing and hugging — was one of the happiest, most genuine travel experiences I’ve ever had.
