Travel Plans

The following is my itinerary for South Africa. All the usual disclaimers apply: my plans can and will change, some dates are approximate, my mother did not endorse the blog name, etc etc. Hope to see some of you at Winter Camp before I leave.

Note: If you would like to have "Filth-Man" emailed to you, so you don't have to do the arduous work of checking the web page, I now have a "subscribe" function. Just enter your email adress and follow the instructions. You will still have visit the blog if you want to leave a comment- please do. I like the feeling that someone is actually reading this stuff.

January:
I am leaving Edmonton, Canada on Jan 3 and arriving in South Africa on Jan 5.

I will spend 1 week(ish) in Cape Town, possibly at the YMCA. I plan to get a room so I can orient myself to the 9 hour time difference, sleep a lot and get to know Cape Town a little. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cape_Town) I also plan to climb table mountain, and catch a fish bigger than I am.

Afterwards, I will spend January 12- 18 (ish) with some missionaries I worked for last time. I want to help them out with whatever they are currently doing.

Jan 21: Begin to volunteer at the Cape Flats YMCA. http://www.saymca.org.za/programs/youthdevelopment/ywi/index.php?pageno=211 I will be living with a host family in the town of Strandfontien (http://www.mapsofworld.com/south-africa/cape-town-city-map.html, look near legend.) If you try to search for Strandfontein on the net you will get the other, more touristy one.

Feb- April:
My work hours and exact jobs will be determined when I get there, but I plan to teach life skills and possibly Christian stuff in schools and prisons around the Cape Flats area. (The Cape Flats are the so-called "ghetto" of Cape town, where poor, mostly coloured people live. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cape_Flats). I also hope to wrestle for a local club team, and try to qualify for the South African or African championships (I have no idea how feasable that is.)

At the end of April, my work ends and I become a tourist. My girlfriend Kathryn is coming to visit around April 23. After a week in Cape Town, we will travel the Garden Route by bus, stopping at various scenic locations. (http://www.gardenroute.org/capetown/index.htm) After a couple days on a beach south of Durban (in which I plan to catch enormous fish) we plan to take a bus to Johannesburg. From them we will be taking an organized safari to the Kruger park ( http://www.sanparks.org/parks/kruger/) from May 13-18.

May-June:
Kathryn goes home on May 2oth. I then have until June 8 to seek adventure. (I can change my date of departure if needed but it will cost me money). I plan to spend a lot of that time in the bush. My plans for this time are necessarily fluid, but some things I might consider:

1) Doing cool stuff with relatives. They are aweome. (For example: http://filth-man.blogspot.com/2006/12/to-catch-giraffe-from-archives.html)
2) Visiting the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park (http://www.sanparks.org/parks/kgalagadi/).
3) Drive to, and look at Botswana. Possibly visit some missionaries. "Lonely Planet" practically dares you to bike through Botswana, so if I can find some feasable way to do it that would be awesome.
4) I dunno. Shark fishing, I guess.

June 8: Depart for Canada from Cape Town.

Merry Christmas people! NO UTENSILS FOREVER!!!

Indiatinerary

Greetings to those of you who are my mother's friends and are wanting to know what she is doing. She is using my blog for the sake of convenience, and wants it known that she DID NOT pick or approve of the "filth-man" label.

This Friday, Nov 10, my mother and I are off to India. I will attempt to update this blog from India but I can't promise anything. Barring something happening to my camera, I will upload pictures when I get back. Please post any questions or comments you may have in the "comments" section of this blog.

Nov 10: Flying from Edmonton International Airport to Dehli, India.

Nov 11: Arrive in India late at night. Spend the night there in the airport.

Nov 12: Take the plane to Mumbai (formerly Bombay). Meet my sister Anja , who has flown there from South Africa. Spend the day looking at Mumbai.

Nov 13: Take the train to Vijayawada to the Children's Home.

my mom says:
The children's home is home to 300 children. We will help to write letters to sponsors and do daily devotions with the children centered on the story of Joseph. We look forward to learning a lot from the missionaries.

Nov 27 : Take the train back to Mumbai.

Nov 28- Dec 4: Meet up with Anja's friends, who are touring India. We will spend several days with then visiting as-yet-unknown sights in Rajasthan. The Taj Mahal and Ranthambore national park are the ones I hope to see.

Dec 5: Fly from Dehli back to Edmonton. My sister continues to travel with her friends.

The Christian Practice Room part 1

So, I finally figured out what I am doing in South Africa....

I am going to be volunteering with the cape flats YMCA. Here's the link: http://www.ymca.jez85.net/. I will be splitting my time (most likely) between the school and the prison programs, thus combining my love of incarceration with the prestige of my Bachelor's of Education. The YMCA teaches many life-skills type stuff, helping the youth from the rough areas of Cape Town to survive and thrive (gee, that rhymes). The "Cape Flats" are the slums of Cape Town and are often considered the crime capital of the world.

Sociohistorical Note: (don't you love big words)
[ The main group of people there are called the "Coloured" people. No, not as in "I'm trying talk about black people while being PC".. they would take offense at being called "black". The Colored people are their own racial and social group. Back in the day, before Apardheid, white men (mostly men, since the first white people in South Africa were soldiers, hunters and explorers) married black women and had, shockingly enough, brown children. When the government of South Africa forbade interacial marriages (which is no longer the case) the "Coloureds" found themselves ostracized by both whites and blacks. Now they are their own group. If that sounds wierd, well, that's South Africa. Legalized racism is out (since the 1994 free elections, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_African_general_election,_1994), but people still think of themselves in racial- and tribal- terms.

Looking at the website it looks positively safe and easygoing compared to the 3 weeks of prison ministry I did last time I was in South Africa. "Stay in this room please, there's a big brawl in the other one, we're bringing in the dogs..." I wrote extensive letters about my experiences, if someone's interested I can post them sometime (i.e. leave a comment saying "I am interested). The most exciting part to me is that i get to live with a host family, and thus experience all the culture (and culture-shock, no doubt) firsthand.

Apart from a 3 month(ish) stay at the YMCA, I also hope to (in roughly chronological order): hang out with my South African sister, catch ginormous fish with rods and spears, visit the Andrew Murray Center and JAMM ministries (with whom I volunteered last time), go up the Garden Route, do some "extreme" touristy things (shark diving, skydiving, stuff like that), go to Namibia, visit the Etosha Pan, and I really hope to do some game capture with my uncle again. (Perhaps I'll also post my recollections from giraffe catching- I think every person who has ever met me has heard that story, but you know the drill, if you care post "I'm interested".)

So That's Africa, there will be details aplenty I'm sure. The rest part of this post is my attempt to write something intellectual and thought-provoking, as opposed to simple this-is-what-I-did-then... but it's only a teaser, the first part of what will surely be mind-blowing truth to the highest degree. Part 2 will be the stuff that's thought-provoking, so if I chicken out I can just write "the moral of the story is that Albertan Wrestlers are better than those in British Columbia." (BTW posting that on a Canadian Wrestling forum is about as controvertial as posting "George Bush is my Hero.")


THE CHRISTIAN PRACTICE ROOM: PART ONE

I remember a conversation a few years back I had with my wrestling coach. I was not on the roster of athletes selected (there were 10, I think) to compete at a big tournament in British Columia and I was upset about it. I went up to my coach's office to see him and asked what I needed to do to prove myself. I mentioned my increased sucess- in practice and aprevious tournament. He agreed with me, pointed out some things I still needed to work on, and told me "we have a lot of athletes ready to go to this tournament. Whether I find a spot for you or not, I want you to know you have proven yourself, it's simply a matter of space now. " Later that day I found out I was going to Vancouver.

In my first match, I met that year's 72 kg Canada West Champion, who was wrestling up a weight. It was a scrappy, low-scoring match, all sweat and scraped forheads and dangerous tie-ups. I remember a scramble to the out-of bounds that turned into a throw for me, fighting off a gut wrench in the last moments of the 2nd period, ribs feeling as if they might crack but determined not to go over, and finally being awarded a caution point because my oppoenent was stalling. That proved the winning point. (memory test.. score was.. 0-2, 2-1, 1-1 with tiebreaker going to me).

My feel good-story didn't quite have a hapy ending, as I lost a 3-round match in the semi-finals (1-3, 5-0, 1-4 something like that) and finished 5th, but that win was huge for me. I don't remember being kept out of any tournament I wanted to attend after that. And a rather long-winded trip down memory lane to get to my point...

WHICH WILL BE IN PART 2! BE PREPARED TO BLOW YOUR MIND!

Beauracrapcy Sucks...

So it turns out that due to a bunch of mistakes made by a bunch of people, including but not limited to myself, my South African Passport will not be ready by November. After a week of running around, making phone calls (and many thanks to my parents who made a bunch of calls and reaserch while I was working), getting a billion pictures taken, and cursing the pettyness of the Canadian passport office ("all birth certificates from Quebec must be post 1994, and no there is no good reason why") the general inefficeincy of Quebec ("no we are not allowed to tell you when your birth certificate will be ready") and the South African embassy's amazing paperwork-losing capabilites I am pretty much sick of it all. No plane ticket, no set dates, no nothing... gaaaa! My date of leaving has been pushed back probably to January.

However, I do know the following...

Before going to South Africa, I am going to India with my mom and sister on Nov. 10th, and staying for 3 weeks. We will volunteer at a children's home and touristerize. I also want to ride a tiger.

In South Africa I hope to volunteer for the South African YMCA, which does work in prisons and hard-done-by school, the very type of thing I want to be doing. I hope they email me back soon. I also want to do more prison ministry, catch more wildlife, and perhaps wrestle in the South African nationals. Good times...

Oh yeah, and I am doing a liquids-for-a-week contest, in which we are only allowed to consume foods that can be sucked through a straw. Basically it's been smoothies, soups and chocolate milk all week. Blenderized ravioli, when mixed with soup base and hot sauce, actually makes a great drink! I have yet to work up the nerve to try "meatcream", which sounds gross and only becomes grosser when you describe it- a meat milkshake... but I will try it soon, I think, which reminds me... my brother Nils wants to do a meat-week soon, a week of eating only the flesh of dead animals, and we need participants, so let me know if you're interested. You can eat a pack of bacon for supper and still lose weight!