Backpacking the Drakensbergs!

Hey peeps –

So I’ll spare the whole “funnel” introduction and get right to it. Backpacking in the Drakensberg Mountains (!!!):

The whole thing was called a “Global Youth Summit”, put on by the International Mountaineering and Climbing Federation in South Africa. They do summits like this every year and all over the world – it’s self-described as an event which “promotes peace and cooperation between countries” thorough outdoor expeditions. I went with a slew of other people to represent Swaziland in the Summit (even though it wasn’t really necessary to ‘represent’, per say, we still brought a flag and broke it out for every picture). The group from Swaziland included Anne Caroline (New Mexico), Lykke (Denmark), Dane (Swaziland, leader of the Waterford climbing department), Baba (Swaziland), Mdu (Swaziland), and myself. We set out on a Friday morning for Johannesburg, where we would meet a group of 18 other individuals (most South Africans) that would be our backpacking partners for the week. After a night in Joburg, we took a bus to the foot of the Drakensberg, where we stayed another night in a hostel and were treated by the Federation to dinner and goodies. By Saturday night, our bags were filled with a week’s worth of food, sleeping bags, warm clothes, and dangerously few changes of underwear. We set out on Sunday morning for one of the most astounding and challenging trips I’ve ever been on.

And along these lines, I must say, backpacking is a great way to deflate the tough-guy ego. Because when you’re going between 10 and 18 km (~6 and 11 miles) a day, up and down huge hills, with 30-40 kgs (65-85 lbs) on your back, you start to realize how incredibly UN-tough you really are. The first few days were filled with me huffing and puffing up to the top, face tomato-red, usually somewhere in the back of the line. It became really fulfilling though, around the fourth day, because my backpack soon started to feel less like a burden, and more like an extension of my body. Perhaps it was the fact that we had less weight due to food, or that I had dumped the tent off on another one of my group members – whatever the case, I began to feel stronger and lighter by the third or fourth day. And after a few days of complete exhaustion, this was a phenomenal feeling.

So after “phenomenal”, the first word I would use to describe the trip to the Drakensberg would be “really freaking cold” (yes, I know that’s not one word). And if you ever decide to travel to Southern Africa in the winter and backpack in the Drakensbergs, please, do not assume that it will just be ‘a little chilly’. Some examples:

-       The first night we were camping the temperature got down to -18 C (that’s -0.4 F).

-       The first night I collected water from the river to cook our food. By the time I got back to the campsite (~half a football field away) it had already frozen a little.

-       We would sleep with our water bottles in our tents and would wake up to find the water in them frozen completely

-       We woke up almost every morning with frost on our sleeping bags and inside of our tents.

-       We were traveling with a person who had summitted Everest twice – he said that certain nights were colder than Everest base camp.

-       We hiked through snow five of the seven days of the excursion, sometimes knee deep.

-       The second highest waterfall in Africa is in the Drakensbergs. We went to see it – it was frozen. 

I put this warning out to the Internet community just because a few weeks ago we had a group of visitors from Malboro College at our school that planned on heading out to the Drakensbergs after our group. They packed light jackets and shorts. Aish. I was luckily quite prepared so I didn’t freeze my pants off, although there was a time that I decided to wash my hair in the river (snowmelt water) that ended with a very painful scalp.

But anyways, enough about the cold (I’m pretty sure I’ve beat the whole point to death).

One of my favorite aspects of the hike was how incredibly natural the whole thing was. I know this seems kind of obvious (mountains are nature, duh), but still… drinking straight from any stream we came across (the BEST water I’ve ever had), being able to pack my whole life in one bag, using the john with the best view imaginable, walking along and just listening to the sound of nothing… it’s very Romantic of me, but connecting to nature, even for a short time, helped me to organize my thoughts and become grounded. The thing about Waterford and IB is that there’s SO MUCH going on, all the time – on top of all the homework, there’s always weekend and after school events, plus all the social pressures that come with living with so many people, plus sleep (not always applicable). The bookshelf of the mind becomes cluttered by the IB tornado – getting away from it, to a place where you only need to keep track of is a few items conveniently located on your back, helps to get the mind re-centered.

I know, very ‘zen’ of me, eh?

I was so pleased on the trip to develop such close relationships with the other 18 backpackers – considering that we all spent 24 hours a day with each other, it’s no surprise that we quickly grew close. Everyone was incredibly interesting to talk to, totally receptive to others’ input and completely unafraid of diving into friendships. Looking back, one of the things I’m most grateful for was the group of intelligent, determined, sociable, friendly people that were on the trip. It’s also worth mentioning that we had Sibusiso Vilane, the first black African to summit Everest, on the excursion with us. I was so pleased to find how incredibly un-pompous he was – he was a joy to talk to, and always had something insightful to say about the trip. He was also filled with a wealth of stories (only person I’ll ever meet to start his sentences “When I was on top of Everest…” in such a casual manner) that helped to make everyone a bit more determined in those moments of exhaustion.

So even though I talk as though I was constantly cheerful throughout the whole trip, ogling at amazing views and walking around with a big watermelon smile on my face, I had my set of frustrations as well. There were times that I became frustrated with the other members of my group (Baba and Mdu, as there were three to a tent) or began to question what the hell point there was in walking around all day with a oversized bag on my back. But every time I got to that next amazing view (frozen waterfall, field covered in snow, endangered vulture colony in flight, incredible drops and passes) I knew that the trials were easily worth the magnificent experience of nature.

Here are some of my best pictures from the trip. As I’m sure you know, there’s no way in a million years that these photos could ever do the real thing justice. Nevertheless:

Extending my deepest thanks to Jenny and the Mountain Club of South Africa, as well as Dane, for providing this outstanding experience – I know I’ll remember it for years and years to come as a beautiful excursion and a great personal achievement. Thanks also to the others on the trail, who encouraged me when the times were tough and provided great friendship and endless laughs. (NO) thanks to my teachers, who have bombarded me with homework upon my return to school. Guess I should have had more foresight when I decided to skip a week of school, eh?

And with that, I bid my Internet homies adieu. Soon enough you all will be hearing of these experiences as I sit next to you on a sofa… hope you all are as excited as me (flying out in 17 days :)

Cheers

Eli

24Hr. Run, 'Quiet', Term Two Drag, All that Jazz

Hey everyone –

So I’ve been a bit remiss in updating the blog, but I’ve returned now with a heaping, steaming pile of new stuff that will (hopefully) please whatever followers I have left.

One of the reasons I haven’t been updating too frequently is because the last few weeks have been mostly WORK. I put all of the interesting stuff on the blog, vacations and the sort, mostly because I know people don’t want to read about all of the prep (homework) that I have. The interesting, fun stuff is just interjected in between assignments to make it all bearable.

Now I don’t mean to sound like a pessimist, because even within the work, stuff is quite interesting. I recently started sitting in on Peace and Conflict Studies classes – it was a course I was interested in taking during orientation week, but bureaucratic conflicts prevented me from signing up for the class. So, a few weeks into this term, I started going to PaCS anyways, and told the teacher I was really intrigued by the material, and would like to sit in on classes without signing up officially. I’ve been in the class for maybe a month now, and am enjoying it a lot – we’ve had discussions about just war, addressed psychological aspects of aggression and violence, and frequently talk about current events. My involvement in the class is also nice because, if I feel too overloaded with other classes, I can just stop going to lessons. I’m going to try to keep it up for as long as possible, though.

A couple weeks ago, a student showed up at our school that I had a fantastic time talking with – his name was Prestige (or that’s what people called him), and he was the Swazi NC studying at UWCUSA. It might clarify some of this jargon (what the hell is an NC?) to know that I’m the American NC studying at Waterford.

Maybe that doesn’t help. Basically, in the same way that I was sent to Swaziland by the US, Prestige was sent to the US by Swaziland. He’s currently at UWCUSA, the United World College in New Mexico, studying the same diploma programme as me. Since the US is on holiday now, he came back home to SD and visited Waterford to meet other IBs.

We talked for the few hours he had at the school about all sorts of stuff – UWC ideals and expectations, our personal experiences with IB, and even some of the same places we have been in New Mexico (specifically, Ghost Ranch). It amazed me at how small the world is becoming – here I meet a Swazi guy, coming from a completely different cultural background to me, and we’re chatting about our favorite hikes at Ghost Ranch. It was kind of comical at one point, because he was asking Anne Caroline and Sofia (my American co-years) who they knew from interviews that made it into UWCUSA, and when he turned to me to ask, I told him my situation was a little messed up, and my interview group has already graduated because I had to delay my admission at Waterford for a year. His eyes widen a little and he says, “Oh man, you’re the cliff guy!”

I was pretty taken aback at first (alarm bells were going off in my head), as I contemplated how a Swazi I had never met, spoken to, or even heard of knew about my accident and delayed admission. I found out later that his link family (like a host family for exchange students) are people we were in contact with when I had fallen.

Like a said, small world.

A couple weeks ago was the 24-Hour Run, an event loosely based on the 12-Hour Relay for Haiti hosted at CDO High School (… maybe I have that reversed?). Everyone was really stoked for all of Friday, and at five o’clock on Friday afternoon the event began.

Man, it was a treacherous twenty-four hours.

For starters, six of the twenty-four hours were occupied, for me, by rehearsals for my play (covered later in this post). On top of this, the team I was on scheduled me for a running shift between midnight and 2 a.m. One of the ideas of the event is that there should be a person from every team on the track for the entirety of the run. So I got the golden midnight shift… typically I would have had some fun with this shift, as everyone is quite delirious and a little loony by this time. The only problem was, it was SO COLD. I’m not sure how I can emphasize it enough on the blog, so let me just say again:

SO

SO

SO

COLD.

While everyone in Tucson was baking in 105, I had turned into a giant ice cube with legs, waddling around a track in temperatures well below freezing. Once again, the culprit of the weather was the wind, which made regular cold turn into my-hands-would-shatter-if-I-hit-them-hard-enough cold.

However, I had no say in the matter, and had to run from 12-2, regardless. Luckily enough, I didn’t have the 2-4 shift, because at around 3am the power went out (classic Swaziland) and the wind picked up. The only people that stayed on the track fell ill the next day (big surprise).

Despite my time being dominated largely by rehearsals, I still managed to do a fair number of laps (50 laps = 20 km = 12.5 miles), and while it was total hell during the event, I look back on it with (mostly) positive feelings. Shoutout to Mom, Dad, Gramma, Grandpa, Katherine, and her father for their sponsorships (especially the latter two, as I know Katherine was prepping to head off to school. Cheers, and good luck!). Reports in the future for how much the event raised in total!

The reason I had so many hours of rehearsal during the event was because we performed the day after the 24-Hour Run finished. The piece was entitled “Quiet”, a devised piece by director Philine Gessner and cast (consisting of me, Anne Caroline [US], Sebastian Kern [Germany], Ane Grinstad [Norway], and Ibraheem Baqai [Pakistan]). The performances went really well, and on the whole I was VERY happy with the production and the results of our efforts.

The piece was essentially a critique of modern society, and the dichotomy between how people act and how people really feel. There was no dialogue, but it included synchronized, contemporary, and ballroom dancing. There were no characters in the conventional sense; rather, we all were ‘the common person’, although we could construct what that meant for ourselves in our own minds.

Working with the play was definitely an interesting experience. At times I became very discouraged and frustrated, worried that the ideas that we were devising wouldn’t be understood by our audience. Imagine watching an entirely silent play that’s an artistic criticism of society, and searching for the deeper meanings within the acting.

Lemme give an example..

We had a scene where we all walked in silently and began a long a tedious process of getting dressed in our Sunday best – as fancy as possible. We took our sweet time getting dressed, making sure every thread and hair was in its proper place. We then all got together and began to decorate a table in a similarly lavish fashion, with many candles, streamers, perfectly placed cutlery, etc etc. We then carried out, in a very regal fashion, a tiny cake, which we then took ages to decorate. Then, all at once, we grabbed a piece of cake with our hands and chowed down like pigs.

The scene was critiquing the fact that we spend so much time getting everything so fancy and ridiculously nice, but in the end we eat like pigs and finish before we even know what had happened. And as one of the people that devised it, I thought the message behind the scene was very cool and insightful. I was worried, though, that the audience wouldn’t appreciate the message of the scene if they had to watch for half and hour as we silently and compulsively decorated a table to look perfect.

As it turns out, my assumption turned out to be totally false. People came up to us after the play and seemed to get the hidden meanings in all of the scenes, saying they really like the intensity of the more drawn out scenes. All of us were a little shocked that people understood our artsy-fartsy production so well, but it was a pleased kind of shocked. We got a lot of positive reviews from students and teachers, and on the whole it was definitely a success.

And as I always like to end these posts with a positive or funny note, the other day my friend from Germany got a care package from home that contained Pop Tarts. I saw and said something to the effect of, “Score, Pop Tarts!” (or something equally uncool). He looked at them for a moment with a puzzled expression, and then turned to me and said, “What are they?”

WHAT.

So I had the pleasure of teaching my German co-year about the wonderfulness of S’Mores Pop Tarts. What a great night in hostel.

I think that’s about all I have to report on for now. I leave in just a few days to go backpacking in the Drackensburg Mountains as part of a South African Global Youth Summit. I couldn’t be more excited, and although I’m going to have a horrendous amount to catch up on when I get back… it will be totally worth it. I’ll bring a small journal with me so I can write thoughts night to night, which will then be transcribed onto my blog for you, creeps of the internet.

As always, love you all. I haven’t started an official countdown yet, but in a month from now (give or take a few days), I’ll be touching down in Tucson. Excited as all get-out :)

Cheers,

Eli