The South African Series

Because it darn well ain’t the classroom of the present, that’s for sure. See this shack? This is an appendage to the YMCA/Church/theater. This is where the kids are supposed to be having lessons, once it’s ‘cleaned up’. Nuh uh. This room doesn’t need cleaning…

Eii  A-Fri-Ca! Just when I thought South Africa possessed more sophistication than the rest of the continent, The natives have gone and proved me wrong! Now that I have earned the confidence of the women’s inner circle, they give me snippets of what’s really going…

It would be a stretch for me to say that I ‘love’ anyone of my South African kids, in the sense that we understand love in the West; but it would certainly be fair however to say that they have arrested my heart. I’d heard the term…

American Reader: You know how it is, don’t you? Our country has this innate ‘can do’ spirit that is so formidable that it sometimes comes across as obnoxious. For whatever reason, we largely believe that we can solve the world’s problems…even though we’re hardly able…

I would never insult your intelligence, Reader, by assuming that you are unfamiliar with South Africa’s apartheid past, so suffice it to say that it was brutal to say the least. Apartheid was a wicked, insidious regime that made portions of America’s civil rights struggle…

  It’s not hard to fall in love South Africa, and now that I’m here I can totally understand my husband’s lingering attraction to it.  When you live in a place where beauty surrounds you, it's not hard to leave your old Western life behind…

Yay! 'Sister Adjoa' has come! When you live in Africa, it is imperative to have some sort of household help. This will be in the form of a house keeper, nanny or gardener, and if you’re really balling, you’ll have all 3. Not only is…

This house and I are in a toxic relationship. I know exactly how Heath Ledger felt in Brokeback Mountain. Well, not exactly.   One of the best things about my stay in SA so far has been this house. Ironically, it’s also been one of…

The churches in Plett are either established denominational churches (the Anglicans seem to have a strong presence here) or a disorganized smattering of miniscule congregations. None of the Americans that we know really GO to church here - I’m guessing because it’s not really their…