Getting Out to See the Sights

For my trip to the nature reserve, I was joined by local fellow volunteer Jessica and her boyfriend. The reserve was much bigger than I expected, being surrounded by houses, though it must have been more than 10 square miles. We hiked for around three hours through fields and forests, the likes of which one would expect to see in Africa, being more like a jungle than anything else. For the first bit of the hike, we saw no wildlife, but eventually we sighted duiker, huge monitor lizards, monkeys, freshwater crabs, springbok, and many different types of birds. As I was a bit disappointed that I had not seen any zebras, Jess's boyfriend took us in a ride up one of the trails in his bakkie, and we saw 9 in total. The first set we came upon consisted of a female, a young male, and an older male. They got quite close, and I could have reached out and touched them at some point. They were extremely beautiful animals, and their stripes blended quite well with the surrounding grass if you were not looking specifically for them. I got lots of good pictures and wish I could upload them!
    Right now, I am typing this in an internet cafe a floor above the hostel in Durban where Michelle and I stayed last night. We came out to Durban early Sunday morning and spend the morning browsing the local market. I bought lots of things including a new outfit but the rest are hush-hush because they consist mostly of gifts :) During the afternoon, we spent time at the same outdoor eatery/pub and watched reggae music again for several hours. With all of our walking around, we are getting quite good at navigating Durban and have lost most of the tourist look. We at dinner (a large plate of roast pork with really yummy rice and zucchini, plus a bubblegum milkshake) for only around 6 dollars each. Unfortunately, by the time we finished eating, it was dark and we were still 6 blocks away from the hostel. Still in our beachwear, we hightailed it back home, walking in the middle of the street if we felt threatened. A very concerned looking woman stopped and ask us if we were in trouble or needed a ride, as women just do not walk around after dark in Durban! By then though we were only one block from the hostel and still in one piece.
   Though it was dark, it was only around 6 o'clock, so Michelle and I decided to go to a local dance club. We called a taxi and spent the rest of the night listening to blend of American and South African music while eating good food and watching the white boys attempting (and failing miserably) to dance while trying only a bit of dancing ourselves.
   The next morning, we went to breakfast at "Waffle Express" and I though it was quite odd that they had a breakfast menu that didn't include waffles or pancakes, which were only listed on the regular menu. I ordered some chocolate mousse pancakes (really more like crepes) that were divine, as well as a girly chocolate coffee drink. After eating, we gave our leftovers to a man on the street and spent the rest of the day before returning at 4 on the beach. The beach we chose was an all black beach, and we got a couple of odd looks though we did meet some nice men from Zimbabwe who asked to use my sunscreen and talked about how nice the local markets were. All in all, it was a wonderful weekend and I hope to have another adventure next week.
   Back at work today, I was royally ticked off to find the kitchen a mess in the morning; meat left out on the counter coated with fly eggs and maggots, cutting boards and knifes left out covered in food and unwashed, and trays of food sitting around attracting flies. As the day went on, I was angry to see some of the animals had also be improperly fed (monkeys were given a bowl of dog food!)and the clinic staff reported that the other volunteers wandered in a half past 8 instead of bothering to show up and feed the hungry animals at 7 o'clock in the morning. The clinic staff does not have enough time to police all of the volunteers and it angers me so much that the volunteers around me see this more as a holiday rather than the chance to care for these amazing animals and had trouble controling my anger when voicing my opinions. Hopefully this was a wakeup call for them, and things will get better.