Safari!

This weekend we went to Addo and we spent four days exploring that beautiful area.  The first day that we were there we went to a big cats breeding place and I got to pet a full grown Cheetah!! We walked in to its enclosure and pet it, not on a leash or anything.  It was amazing.  We also got to play with lion cubs!! It was super cool! We went to a reptile place after which was also pretty cool, and we got to hold snakes. 

The next day we drove around Addo Elephant Park and got to see tons of elephants roaming wild and they came super close to our car! We also saw 3 buffalo super close to our car along with tons of warthogs, Kudu, and zebra.  It was an awesome day.  

The day after we went on this hike/walk where we ended up at a waterfall and there were a few of us, including me, that climbed under it and slid down the rocks through it.  Keep in mind that it is winter here so the water was absolutely freezing.  But it was fun and you have to do as much as you can while you are here.

The last day we went canoeing down the Sundays River and had a blast.  It is South Africa’s fastest rivers, however it was not very fast at the portion we were at, however it was still beautiful and canoeing is always awesome.  However, I managed to canoe Sally (my awesome roommate) and I in to an Acacia bush.  Please google the Acacia bush, it has massive thorns, and over the four days in Addo, me and that bush became the best of friends, and I still have scratches.

Overall, this experience was freaking amazing and it was wonderful to see yet another beautiful part of this country. 

Cheers,

Erin Fitz

Sorry it has been so long!

Life here has been crazy busy and we had a storm that knocked out the internet on Thursday and it just got back up yesterday. 

Two Saturdays ago we went to Plett for the first time, which was very interesting.  It is a little tourist town, near the beach, and since it is currently winter, there were not very many tourists. 

Sunday we went on potentially the best hike of my life.  It was Robberg Island and it was sunny and quite warm. We hiked around this island and we could look down and see the crystal clear ocean.  We saw lots of seals and I really wanted to see a Great White Shark, but sadly we did not see one.  On our way there the VW van we were traveling in broke down, so it meant that we missed the true low tide.  This then made the latter half of the hike really tricky, because the rocks that we were scaling, were starting to be covered in water.  I fell once (surprise surprise) but it all worked out ok.  There is a point out there where the waves crash in the middle of the ocean, like you cannot see anything besides the waves crashing and rolling perpendicular to the coast line. It was a beautiful view, and I do not believe I have ever seen something so breathtaking. 

For the next week we finished the houses and they turned out pretty dang fantastic.

This past weekend was a huge storm, with something like 6 inches of rain in two days, most of which came in one day.  There was so much standing water on the ground that we could not walk to our tents with shoes on.  Everyone just carried socks and walked up to the main area or back to the tents bare footed and put their socks on at their destination.  It ended up being pretty chill but a crazy storm. 

This week we started working with our NGO’s and so I started out by painting the Rugby clubhouse, and have now moved on to working with Piet who runs and started the Rugby club and was a police officer for 17 years.  He is a great person to work with and we actually work really well together.  I have tons of interviews set up for the next week with current police, coaches, and members of the community and I am also going to help the people here organize and better manage their community watch program.  I am super excited for that and I think it will greatly benefit the community. 

We leave tomorrow morning for Addo nature reserve, where we will be until Monday night.  It is our safari!! So excited and we get to visit a place where we can hang out with the big cats! It is going to be amazing and I will take lots of pictures. 

Africa time gets some getting used to; life is crazy hetic so nothing gets done on time.  If you are leaving in 20 mins, in reality it will be closer to an hour. 

The food here is fantastic, they spoil us so much and feed us so well.  I am for sure going to miss having braai every Friday!

It was 25 degrees here today and it was insanely hot! It was nuts.  Clear blue skies and blinding sunshine. Some winter they have here.  However, it is supposed to start raining again tomorrow.

Cheers,

Erin Fitz

Holy Bungy Jump!

I just did the highest bridge bungy jump in the world.  It was so amazing!! I have video and pictures to prove it.  Apparently when you are up there your body takes over and does what is natural, because you are supposed to jump out, away from the bridge with your arms held out at your side.  However, I go to jump and I end up jumping with my hands over my head and I pretty much dive off the bridge, not jump, dive.  It was an amazing experience. 

Much Love,

Erin Fitz  

What a week!

We started out this week working on renovating two houses that are back to back, so what we would call a duplex and we are still not done.  To improve these houses we are basically patching up the walls, repainting, filling holes, and putting new flooring in.  However, this seems simpler than it actually is.  We first have to take putty knives and chip off the paint that is flaking off the walls and make sure that the rest of the paint is on well enough to paint over and not just flake off.  It is super time consuming and in some of the rooms there is oil based paint that is brutal to work with.  After chipping we have to sand the spots we chipped to make it smoothish.  In the rooms with the oil paint we have to sand the entire room to make the primer stick to the walls.  We then scrub the walls with sugar soap, then apply primer and then paint the walls.  This was all the walls in the house and also outside of the house.  The ceiling of these houses is the corrugated metal and you have to brush the roof to get all the soot off and then you do two coats of cement and then at least two coats of primer.  It is brutal work but the group of people we are working with are awesome so that makes it better.  Glenrick and Daniel are the two men that are helping us and other than that it is just our group working.  There are many things I have learned in the repair of these houses:

-         Cement leaves burns in your arms and at some point I am going to have to man up and dig the cement out of those burns.

-         Primer does not come off unless using turpentine, meaning I am covered in white primer that is giving no sign of giving up.

-         Coal burning stoves ruin a house especially the paint inside. 

-         I am good at cleaning/dealing with ceilings so much so that I am now in charge of doing the kitchen ceiling, which is a crap job.

-         Doing anything with somewhat liquid materials and ceilings sucks. 

-         Painting is fun.

-         Putty knives can be used to the point that they no longer have edges. 

-         Breathing in dust masks is not fun. 

Overall working on the houses is fun, even if it is freezing cold. 

The first few weeks we were here the weather was awesome, it is just now starting to get cold but it warms up a tad during the day.  It rained on Wednesday but only in the morning so it wasn’t too horrible. 

4^th of July in South Africa was kinda nice.  We had a reason to celebrate and the staff here made delicious burgers and chips (fries) for us.  It was freaking awesome.  No fireworks or family but lots of fun still. 

Speaking of food, it is freaking amazing.  I have not yet had a meal that wasn’t delicious and I even had fish! We have a braai every Friday night, which is a massive BBQ.  They feed us so much it is crazy! We even had a professional chef come in last night and make our meal. 

We are going in to Plett tomorrow, which is the big town about twenty miles from us.  We are also doing hikes every Sunday, which are always beautiful.  I think I love everything about this country. 

I have figured out what I am going to do research wise.  The plan right now is that I am going to work with the rugby program, which happens to be run by a former law enforcement officer, and I am going to be studying how sports deter youth involvement in crime. 

I learned a new game here called Patonk.  It is similar to Bocce ball but with different rules.  I will be bringing it back to the States because I absolutely love it! It is awesome.

We are currently having a wine and cheese night.  I will at some point learn my wines!

Cheers,

Erin Fitz