To Pretoria and Back Again

Last weekend we had four days off due to the Easter holidays. Luckily for us, Botswana hasn't gotten to the stage of politically correctness for religious holidays to be renamed for seasons of the year, so we got a few days off of school and I got to take a nice trip with my friend Julia down to South Africa.

We chose Pretoria mainly because it was within a half-day's drive, contained many shopportunities, and was safer than Johannesburg. I am a bit embarrassed to report that we spent the majority of our time there in one huuuuge shopping complex called the "Menlyn Park Mall" where we had our hair cut, saw several movies in the cinema, ate at lovely restaurants, and shopped 'till we dropped. But as much as this seems counter to my normal mode of living, Botswana has changed me! I now appreciate the availability of clothing stores, music stores, decent cinemas, etc. And I am happy to report that my wardrobe is now replenished and no longer looks shabby and worn out. Since I really have worn my clothes into threads, it was about time for some new ones! Now the only problem is finding someone to help me hem a new pair of trousers (yes, I said trousers. You have to be careful here because 'pants' actually refers to underwear!).

We also hit a craft market on sunday morning, which was intended to be a brief stop on our way home. Unfortunately for us, we arrived back at the car after a lucrative circuit around the market to find the car battery completely and utterly lifeless. Now, normally this is no problem.... but Julia had only recently purchased the car (it's rather old, a '96 Corolla) and we discovered that there were no jumper cables in the spare tire. Well, what did we do? Of course, there were two or three oh-so-kind parking attendants who were only too willing to look at the engine and look speculative while telling us absolutely nothing.

One point for South Africans, though, is that two nice men stopped their cars/shopping trips to take a look at the car. The first man tried to be helpful and pulled off the lid of the fuse box to have a look--after which he said it wasn't our battery at all, but a burnt-out fuse. This may sound like good news, but on Easter Sunday there really isn't a prayer of finding a repair shop open in the whole of the country! So we trekked down to the petrol station on the corner to search out a few new fuses (with our fingers prayerfully crossed) only to find that they didn't have the right ones...which was the start of our next adventure with a South African who took a look at the engine/fuses/battery and declared that the fuses were fine and the battery's voltage was fine (he actually carried a toolbox with a voltmeter in his car!) but he couldn't speak for the current. So it was either the battery or some wiring problem (which you can imagine wouldn't get fixed on Easter Sunday). Hence our second trip down to the petrol station for jumper cables in the hope that the battery was only run down.

Our third adventure with nice South Africans involved another car who we stopped to ask for a jump. We maneuvered the car into range of the cables, connected the leads, and turned the key.... to find that the car was still completely dead! But to forestall panic (I already had the travel guide and my phone out to call the backpacker about further accommodation) the nice guys who owned the other car told us to just give it a minute. We waited, and waited, and turned the key again.... and bingo! The car starts up and we're off to Botswana without switching the car off for anything!


It's funny how we had such a great trip, yet the most memorable part will probably be that interesting hour where we were stuck in the parking lot with a dead battery. But sometimes it's situations like that where you really learn about a place's character! I'm not sure whether people would have been so friendly if not for the rather ridiculous image of us as two young blondes getting help from two rather shabby looking car-guards. I suppose that I will never know... unless I end up in that situation again, which I hope I don't!

Isn't it supposed to be summer?

Yesterday it rained non-stop for at least 12 hours. RAINED!

Today it was COLD. COOOOOOLD. Two-sweaters-two-pairs-of-socks-drink-hot-tea-and-still-shiver cold!

Isn't it supposed to be 90 degrees and sunny? This is the only place in the world where I've ever gotten a real sun tan!

Please take the rain back to the hemisphere it belongs in, we're not quite through with the summer yet. Thanks!

Performances at Maru-a-Pula

In the last week the marimba band has gone into "performing mode" here at Maru-a-Pula. We had our first short "show" at assembly on Wednesday morning. It was only two songs, about ten minutes, but it was very interesting! It turns out that some of the students aren't so practiced at performing, and the songs started out quite a bit faster than they normally go...but overall it was a decent performance. I was much more nervous than I expected! I have gotten to the point in the past where I just don't mind performing, but for some reason it was different in front of the MaP community. I think my nerves can be attributed to my first performance in front of some of my very close friends amongst the staff, but still I was more unsettled than I expected.

The students hate performing for their peers, but that is completely understandable. The MaP students are lovely as individuals, but in groups they are a terror! Somehow they lose all respect for authority and for everything else when you put more than ten together in the same place... and in the past groups have been actually boo'd off the stage during assembly (Can you believe that's allowed!?!). So I understand why the marimba students would be shy of performing for this less-than-supportive audience. Luckily, for our show we received exactly the opposite response from the crowd. As soon as the curtain was drawn the students went mad--they were screaming and shouting their friends' names in support. Now, that's not exactly what you'd encourage at a live music show either, but I'm not going to complain! I even heard my name being called out! Turns out it was my Form 1 students :) who are always a bit over-enthusiastic anyway. Some of my other friends confessed that their first reaction to seeing the group was: "who's that white kid? Oh, wait.... that's Sarah!"

Later in the week I went to see the Thornhill Primary School marimba teacher. He is a very nice Zimbabwean man named Roy Nyathi, and it turns out that he was a student of Alport Mhlanga's back when AM taught at the Zimbabwean College of Music! Roy seems like a good resource for my project and I am planning to spend a bit of time there next week viewing lessons and attending a rehearsal of his performing band. I also got to see their band perform for a regional swimming gala at the school on Friday evening. They were an interesting group! All of the songs they perform are full of energy and enthusiasm--to the point that the students get up and dance during the performances sometimes! But more on the Thornhill group another day when I've spent some time at the school.

Where to from here?

Where to now?

Well, many people have been asking me the “big question”: where am I going after Maru-a-Pula?

The answer is not particularly simple or well-thought out, but I am beginning to form some more realistic plans. Most schools in the region are on holiday from the middle of April to the middle of May, which means that this time of year is going to be a traveling time for me. I am thinking of heading north to Zambia (with HQ’s permission, of course). There are some pros and cons of this tactic… the pros being that I haven’t been there and it’s a completely different marimba culture. The major drawback is that I don’t have any connections there yet… although I am working on it. My thought was to go north to Lusaka for a couple of weeks to see if I could dig up any schools or marimba players in person. After that, or maybe sooner than later if it turns out to be unproductive, I want to head even farther north to Tanzania. I don’t actually know a lot about that area yet, but I would sure love to visit there and I know there is some marimba to be found. So… that’s the holiday. Hopefully I would get to swing back down from the North through Namibia and celebrate my and Jaimie Adelson’s birthdays with Jaimie at Gobabeb.

From there it is very likely that I will go back to Johannesburg to visit a school there for a month or possibly two. One of the former marimba teachers from Gaborone has moved to a ritzy private school there. He is reputed to be a very good teacher, so I would probably enjoy his teaching.

From there I plan to hit a marimba festival in mid-June in Mafikeng—the International School of South Africa has invited Maru-a-Pula to participate and it would be a fun event to attend. From there it’s on to Grahamstown, SA to visit Andrew Tracey at Rhoades University and hit the Grahamstown Festival at the end of June.

From the 1^st of July my lovely friends Samantha Worzalla and Julie Edwards are visiting and we’ll be doing some traveling until the end of the month. Conveniently there is the South African National Marimba Festival in Johannesburg on the 25^th of July, and my flight home leaves on the 29^th. So that’s the year in a wrap! Although, it is interesting to me that the majority of my plans for the near future are up in the air while the farther off plans are much more concrete! But that’s life sometimes.

The only other wrench that has been thrown in the wheels is the uneasy political situation in Zimbabwe. I was planning to visit there beginning in April for one or two months, but it looks as if there will be a travel warning issued for the duration of my stay in Africa. Oh, well! The irony is that I now have contacts and everything that would make a visit there a complete breeze from my end… providing that I don’t get shot at the border J. But I am still hoping that the travel warning is lifted. I would much rather go there than Johannesburg!!

So that's something to chew on for a while....

over and out1