Into Africa

1/19/13 

We land in the rain. Sheets of water on the tarmac riffle under the jets, and we stoop awkwardly over our seats wiggling swollen ankles and trying to breathe shallowly through 9 hours and 400 people worth of stale breath. Somehow customs is a breeze, our agent mostly chattering in Zulu to his colleague across the way. He stamps us, says gud luck, and we're on our way to wrestle with backpacks and two suitcases full of construction paper, puzzles, paint and brushes, markers, stuffed animals, and two desperate-seeming but hopeful binders of borrowed Montessori material. 

What lies before us is an indefinite stretch of conservation and education. For at least three weeks I'll be headmaster and teacher of a small private primary school, kindergarteners and first graders from farms and homesteads around Alldays, Limpopo, the northernmost province of South Africa. Our fundraising efforts have focused on gathering tuition for underprivileged kids in the community, hoping to pull some of them out of overcrowded and underserviced community schools. Welcome to Briershof Primary, the only multiracial school in the area.

Brooke will be project leader in charge of cheetah conservation. If they find an Afrikaans-speaking replacement for me (probably not—TIA), I'll join her on a nearby rhino-conservation project, tranq-ing rhinos from a helicopter and affixing radio collars for tracking. Poachers can pocket up to 30 grand for a good-size horn, mostly destined for China where it will do nothing to increase...pinky size. 

After hitting the airport ATM, I now have four kinds of currency in my wallet, and we ride a train from the airport toward our guest haus in Johannesburg proper where we're welcomed profusely by Bonga, who remembers "Crazy Bruke" from when she was here last winter. He pulls us flamboyantly toward our room and bids us rest up before lunch. Gratefully we collapse onto the bed, propping our legs up the wall. As soon as I'm asleep, Bonga calls "loonch!" and we straggle into the kitchen with the Awesome Travel Guest House staff who trickle home throughout the afternoon, leaving behind Rubin, Gihan, and Bonga. We drink whiskey and beer with them, trading stories and music, learning local laws and parlance and getting better with the accent as our two cultures slur toward a common understanding.

For the rest of the weekend (what day is it?) we'll stay here acclimating and picking up a few forgotten sundries before our 7-hour ride up to Alldays, to our tin shack and open sky.