Picture on bottom: Grandpa Gary and Grandma Connie at the Addo Elephant Park watering hole. (*2 elephants at the watering hole between them in the picture.)
Picture on top: Grandpa Gary, myself and Grandma Connie posing in front of the Port Elizabeth World Cup Stadium.
Now that Grandpa Gary and Grandma Connie have left back to the States, I will have to push myself a bit more to come up with blog topics and to keep up on the blog. Having them here kept me really busy, showing them the sites and travelling around. We had full days planned everyday, which always left me with plenty to write about at the end of each day. We had a really great time, and I am glad to have been able to be a part of their first African journey here in South Africa.
So now that Grandpa and Grandma have departed S.A. and I am back to work at my internship, I decided to take my blog topic ponderings out of my head to seek feedback from my Facebook friends about what I should be writing about in regards to my experiences here in South Africa. I have decided to take on the challenge of writing a blog about each suggestion made. The idea for this particular blog about what a day in my life in South Africa looks like, came from my aunt Lori (loyal supporter of my blog), as well as my friend Ashley, who I consider to be a blog diva! Ashley has close to 700 blog followers and is generating income from her blog. She might not know it, but I have adopted her as my blog coach. Thanks for the inspiration Ashley! To read Ashley's blog, Confessions as a First Time Mom, go to: http://myconfessionsasafirsttimemom.blogspot.com/
So, a day in the life of Lexi in South Africa:
Well, it depends on if it is a weekday or weekend. I'll start with weekday. I work at my internship Monday through Thursday, some weeks I also work Fridays, if there are special events or a heavy workload.
I wake up in my flat, which I affectionately call my hut, in Annie's Cove. Annie's Cove is pictured in the picture below:
I am awoken by my faithful South African Nokia cell phone alarm. My Brookstone travelling alarm clock sleep sound machine ran out of battery juice and because we prepay for electricity, I too cheap to plug the alarm clock in. My workday starts at 8 a.m., so I should be up and at it by 6:30/7ish, although I seem to be notorious for pushing it until as late as 7:30. If I can be out the door by 7:30 a.m., I can walk to work, but if I leave much later than that I need to catch a minibus taxi to work. Minibus taxis will have their own blog, because I have plenty to say about those! The pictures below are of minibuses at the minibus lot halfway between Annie's Cove and campus.
After getting ready, making breakfast for work and packing my lunch, I head to work. If I walk, it is about a 20 minute walk. A straight shot down one road, take a right, and a straight shot down that road and I am pretty much there! The picture below are of the final stretch of my walk leading on to campus to Embizweni, the big tall building where I work.
Once I am at work, my workday can look a variety of ways. When I get to my office, I check my email, eat my breakfast and make my coffee. Water for coffee, which is instant coffee-VERY common in S. Africa-is boiled in the "tea kettle", an electric water boiler. I am very used to instant coffe, and enjoy my daily cup of joe, but will still enly getting back to the States to some strong brew! A workday can be any given combination of facilitating workshop, attending meetings/supervision, covering reception and developing events/documents.
Tea time (10:15 a.m.) is customary in South Africa, although I tend to work through tea time and drink tea whenever I feel like it. Lunch time is at 1 p.m. and lasts 45 minutes. I pack my lunch and eat in the main meeting room with my co-workers who are also on a lunch break at that time. Depending on the day, lunch may not always happen right at 1 p.m.
The afternoon, from 2ish until the end of my workday at 4:30 p.m. can be any given combination of the various tasks and activities that my internship encompasses. Once I get off work, I either walk home, or take a minibus, depending on the weather, as well as how tired I am and how quickly I want to get home from work. Once I get home from work, I make my rounds through Annie's to say hello to the ladies. On any given day I see Ethelyn, Aleschia, Neelu and Alexandra. After hanging out, catching up and unwinding, I head over to my flat to make my supper, which can be eaten either in my room, or with one of the ladies. After supper, I either hang out and catch up some more, or watch a few episodes of any given television series that I have downloaded on my laptop.
At any given time between 8 p.m. and 11 p.m. I lay down in bed to unwind, which could be anything from Facebooking to surfing the web to blogging.
Randomly, at any given point, random things can come up that would then be inserted into the above schedule. If I need groceries, I get my duffle bag, round someone up and we make the 20 minute walk to the grocery store, Spar. I don't mind the walk to and from Spar, but I do have to be careful to not buy more than what will fit in my duffel bag. If we are getting close on running out of energy, I round up the money from my roomates and go to the petrol station (gas station) to buy energy. To get energy, I need to bring the serial number for the energy box that is on the outside wall of my flat. When I get home with the energy voucher, I enter a pin number into the energy box. The pictures below are of the energy box. Take note of the bird's nest in the right corner of the box. We had hatchlings to welcome in spring for us!
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