One week is over now. A whole week already! And we just did not really realize it. We got to know new people, among them the PE College students we are going to work with. We got to know new places like the workshop and the market-like Werk_1 (and of course a bunch of great restaurants. We’ve all got to eat, don't we) And we got to know all the tools while we were cleaning them and trying to get them into an order. New signage is work in progress.
Our most used tool this week was definitely the measuring tape. After sizing a future staff room at the workshop we moved on to a bigger project: measuring and auditing a whole building. This building is going to be taken down and the material is supposed to go into new projects. So our job was to create an overview over everything what is there.
But, in case someone was worrying, our week was not just about measuring stuff. It was especially about getting into the South African way of life. Good food with good people was one part of it. Another was to learn a few basics in Xhosa, the main language here in PE. And we got to know some beautiful and special places.
Like the Baakens River Valley where we took part in a guided tour. It was on Saturday morning, Uta was out for a run when Kevin suggested this walk. It was supposed to start at 8:30 am. We got there at 8:40 – and still we were the first ones. When the other three expected people arrived we headed out into the valley, into a different world. No city noise, no cars honking, and almost no rubbish. Instead there were heaps of birds singing around us, thousands of different plants (native and invading species) and massive, bright coloured grass hoppers. The three hours passed like a finger clicking.
Being in a walking mood we directly added another walk to our weekend: Cape Recife. Roughly three hours across sand, along the rugged coastline and past the over one hundred years old lighthouse. Very few people, a lot of birds and apart from that just wind and waves.
With that impression in your and my head, I put this episode to an end. Until next Sunday!