The New Neighborhood: Glenwood, Durban

We have settled into our daily lives in Durban. Natty works only until 4 at the Legal Resource Centre (with tea in the morning and an hour lunch break) and I am volunteering at Sinikithemba Centre, working with HIV positive kids in the mornings. What our days lack in length though, they make up for in the intensity of the experiences. Natty visited a family where 24 children under the age of 18 are living with three adults. I spend time with kids who have been developmentally delayed because of AIDS and have often lost a parent or family member to the disease. We are thankful for our quiet neighborhood and cozy apartment as places to let down and think through all we are seeing.

Pretty street!
Cricket batting cages. Remember the cricket field on Green End?
Hey, how does my butt look?
Barbed wire. Everywhere.
Durban in spring is lovely.
Our gate. Well-protected. Whether it's out of fear or neccesity, we're not sure.
And just in case, our landlord's husband is a police officer. Reassuring....we think. S.A.P.S. (South African Police Service) are known primarily for corruption.

New Apartment

After a long drawn out battle to find an apartment in Durban, we ended up renting the second place we saw. It is a small cottage/converted garage on the property of a young family with two kids and two dogs. The place is small, but perfect for us and in a great neighborhood just north of downtown Durban. On our way to renting this apartment, we had a an apartment pulled out from under us after we signed a lease, we saw apartments that had stunning ocean views, we saw apartments with parrots next door, we saw apartments with landlords who made sure we understood the quality (read white) of his tenants, and we saw apartments overlooking one of the largest malls in the southern hemisphere. In the end, we are in a small place with only half a kitchen, but we love it. We have a great coffee shop around the corner, some bars and restaurants a few blocks away, and nice community feel - or as much of a community feel as you can get when every house is surrounded by a large wall with barbed wire on top.

More animals!

Here's a few more pictures from our trip to Kruger.

Our hut. Looked out on a pond where elephants came to drink (see previous post).

Lion track!

Do I spy a lion?

Rhinos!

Sunset.

More rhinos. Wierd creatures!

Vultures nesting together.

Yes, these are hippo feet.

The hippo.

Kruger and Gomo Gomo

Nine hours into our drive to Kruger, we finally found them. Hippo warning signs! If the road hadn’t been even narrower and more winding than usual, I would have taken a picture. Early the next morning, we ate our favorite meal – peanut butter, crackers, and instant coffee – and headed into Kruger National Park through the Phalaborwa Gate. It didn’t take long to find impalas. Thrilled by our first animal sighting, we pulled over immediately and ogled the lovely antelopes for a good long time. As it turns out, impala in Kruger are a little like bunnies in New England. Everywhere.

We spend one night at a hut in Letaba Camp. The camps are more developed than we expected, each equipped with gas stations, restaurants, and shops. That’s because the gates close at 6:00 pm. You can’t leave, otherwise lions might eat you! Seriously. The real concern is not lions, but charging hippos and lone male buffalo. Eek.

We took a night drive that evening with a Kruger ranger, and found elephants, giraffes, a spotted genet, and wild dogs. Wild dogs are endangered and difficult animals to spot, and our guide was more thrilled than we were. The next morning we drove more through Kruger, spotting a huge family of giraffes and then headed to GomoGomo, a game lodge situated on private land adjacent to Kruger (with an unfenced boundary so the animals can roam freely). It was about as low key as a private lodge can be, with jovial rangers (all white, with trackers who spot the animals who are all black, but the race dynamics we’ve observed so far deserve a separate post) and unlocked huts. We spent two days careening around the park on an open, 4x4 safari Jeep, watching elephants and endlessly and fruitlessly pursuing lions. Elephants are amazing, and we watched a six-month-old learning to use his trunk, big sisters watching over their sleeping little sister, and adolescent males mounting each other as mating practice. So human!

We were sad to leave, especially without our lions, but were eager to get to Durban to start settling in. We arrived on Friday and are excited to be exploring our new city!