Trick-or-Treat 10/31/2012

Sarel, Kait, and I (the winning team)

Me, Gabby, two new German volunteers, and Sarel

BEN - Happy Halloween!  Another grey, rainy morning greeted us to our dismay.  Its unseasonable and bad for business because no one goes to the park if it rains. Gabby and I had a quick breakfast and went right to the storeroom to start working on our paw print mosaic table.  I added ostrich and lion prints as Gabby worked on buffalo.  The table is starting to look pretty cool.  We were almost completely done filling in all the white space in between the paw prints when a mongoose strolled into the storeroom, checked us out and scurried under some piles of crap on the floor.  A few seconds later Ninja, Dopey, and Lucky busted in and pure pandemonium broke out.  The dogs went mad, barking and knocking over everything in sight.  The mongoose trotted out the front door as the dogs continued tearing through everything. Gabby, Sarel, Corinne, and I cracked up as we watched the chaos continue.  After the entertainment, Sarel and I went to our 'flat' to prepare for festivities that we had planned for the night, moving a table in and clearing some space for drinking and Halloween fun.  South Africa doesn't really celebrate Halloween so Gabby goaded everyone into wearing some type of costume.  Just before the festivities began, two new volunteers arrived.  What a welcoming party!  Our costumes were: Gabby - Mouse, Corinne - Jack the skeleton from Nightmare Before Christmas, Kait - Hobo, Sarel - Farmer, Me - Wearing Gabby's bikini over my clothes.  The Germans speak little English, but Gabby and I tried to welcome them the best we could, remembering how lost we had felt the first day we got here.  We all had a big dinner together, and then Halloween began!  We decided that the first order of business was to trick-or-treat.  Our first stop was John and Cheryl who laughed and took pictures (I think John was disturbed by how good I look in a bikini).  Next stop was over to Hazel's where we were rewarded with a lollipop and half shots of sweet, caramel liquor which was quite tasty.  Giddy with our victory we retreated to our flat where we played/taught a plethora of drinking games and had a wonderful time, slowly becoming closer with our new posse as we let loose.  A great Halloween celebration, I'd say.

Getting Creative - 10/30/12

Nom, nom, nom

Our work station, complete with boombox 

GABBY - We woke up to a damp, rainy day in Addo and ate our usual breakfast of toast with strawberry jam and Corn Flakes.  We lounged around for the entire morning in our sweatshirts until lunch.  Since we had a ripe avocado, we decided to conjure up some tasty sandwiches for lunch.  We started by sautéeing mushrooms and onions in olive oil (a staple for any food that has a prayer of being good).  Then we fried up some eggs, sliced the perfectly soft, green avo, cut the cheese (both literally and figuratively with Ben), and toasted some bread.  I made my sandwich into an open face because it seemed impossible to eat as a sandwich.  Of course, Ben made it work.  I saw Kait adding some thick, red sauce to her sandwich. Being naturally inquisitive and loving condiments, I took a look and saw that it was sweet Thai chili sauce.  I grabbed the bottle so that I could dip my sandwich into the sweet, but tangy glob on my plate.  Finally we were able to chow down on our impressive concoctions, while the others ate their lunches with some serious food envy.  After our sandwiches were “done and dusted” (one of many phrases Sarel uses regularly), Cheryl asked if we wanted to learn the art of mosaics.  All around Orange Elephant, there are mosaic signs for reception and toilets and loads of mosaic tables and foot rests.  She told us that the beauty of mosaics is that they do not have to be perfect.  I said that this was just for me because I am perfect at being imperfect, especially when it comes to anything artistic.  Cheryl also brought out a boom box and told us there were CDs in the back of the storeroom.  I ran back and discovered a lot of old gems consisting of, Alanis Morissette, Crash Test Dummies, Simon and Garfunkel, Counting Crows, Eric Clapton, Train, and 3 NOW CDs.  We started with NOW 38 and enjoyed some throwbacks from Maroon 5, Black Eyed Peas, Ashlee Simpson, Christina Aguilera, and Britney.  We finished a background for a flower table and began on a painfully tall, dirty, and unattractive vase.  We worked on the vase for about 15 minutes before deciding to get creative on a table that was seen as our inventive opportunity.  Ben originally wanted to do the map of the world, which would have been cool, but the table was rather small and rectangular.  I saw one of the dogs make a foot print with their dirty paws and I proposed the idea of doing different paw/hand prints.  Ben started mosaicing his own hand, while I worked on a set of cheetah prints.  We finished our small sections, thinking of the next prints that we would work on in the future.  After the mosaics, we washed up for an incredible meal of breaded chicken over rice, with a mushroom cream sauce.  We talked “cock” (South African slang for shit) about the funny phrases we all say.  These included John calling people soft cocks, Sarel saying “all of a sardine” for the phrase, all of a sudden, and Corinne saying, “quite nice” for anything that is just nice.  We are getting more and more comfortable and able to joke around with the family a lot more.  Eventually we called it a night and headed back to our cozy flat to catch some Z’s.