Happy Thanksgiving!

I'm writing this from our lodge in Johannesburg.  We will be leaving soon to start our ride to Kruger National Park, where we will be spending our break on safari. Happy Thanksgiving from Africa!

Mo Afrika, the lodge in Johannesburg

Wines, Dimes, and Climbs: 23/11 - 24/11

Stellenbosch Vineyard

As I've mentioned in an earlier post, Langurg (the informal settlement in which I'm working) is located in Stellenbosch, an affluent municipality known for its wines.  After weeks of driving past dozens of vineyards nestled in the mountains of Stellenbosch, we decided to go on a wine tour.  The tour we chose stopped at four different vineyards throughout the day, with six different wines being tasted at each vineyard.  I learned a lot about wine, and I liked a lot of what I tried.  It was a lot of fun and I'm glad I did it.  However I won't rush to spend a day drinking.  Needless to say, I did not go to Mass Saturday night.  I probably would have smelled and swished the altar wine if I did.

Sauvignon Blanc at Fairview Winery

After we got back and refreshed ourselves, some girls left to see Catching Fire.  I decided to join the group of people going to dinner at the GrandWest Casino.  It is the largest casino in Africa, and has a  really good buffet restaurant.  We then tried our luck at the blackjack tables.  I sat down with R200, and left the table with R775.    Some of the guys I was with were not so fortunate.  We instituted a "sober buddy" system, where one friend sits at the table without playing to let the others know when it's time to stop, to reduce potential gambling problems.  It only works well when people listen to the "sober buddy".

View from Devil's Peak

Sunday we left early to go hiking.  There are three large mountains nearby that one should hike before they leave.  Devils Peak and Lions Head flank Table Mountain, the most distinguishable feature of Cape Town.  It is a huge tourist attraction, and has a cable car that will bring tourists to the top for those who don't wish to hike it.  Since Sunday was a hot but beautiful day, the base of table mountain was packed.  Some left to hike Table Mt, planning to take the cable car down, though apparently the cable car stopped working mid day.  Fortunately, I went with three other guys to climb Devil's Peak.

At the top of the Peak

It was probably the most intense hike I have ever attempted.  It took us 6 hours to climb to the top and back, with many breaks. I had brought two large water bottles, and we had to resort to refilling them in spring water we found. (One of our group was an experienced hiker, who tested the water first and determined it drinkable).  There was not a cloud in the sky, and the breeze that usually sweeps Cape Town was calm.  In other words, it was really hot and dry .  We also lost 20 minutes following a trail that wound it's way to a road.  We finally made it to the top after several breaks in the little shade we could find.  The view was remarkable.  There's still some debate over which is taller, Devils Peak or the Table.  We were very high up.

Going down, though faster, was harder.  The trip up was essentially climbing steps of natural stone, and going down we noticed all the loose stones that lined the path.  We finally made it to the bottom, and like a gift from the heavens, there was an empty cab waiting for tired hikers at the base of the mountain.

Since we were planning on hiking early on Sunday, I had looked into other Mass alternatives and found a 6 pm on Sunday at a church 25 minutes away by car.  With this being the final weekend of the Year of Faith, there was a special Mass at 11 in town that all priests in the diocese were to attend.  As such, certain Masses had been canceled, including a 10:30 am at my usual parish.  Knowing this, I called this new parish and found that their 6 pm Mass was still occurring.
  I had found that more people wanted to come when I went to afternoon Masses, so I assumed I would have sizable company. However, as I was preparing to leave, I found that the 6 other Catholics who sometimes came to Mass with me were either too tired from their hikes to Table Mountain, or had other plans for the evening.  So I took the cab by myself, spending a little more on the fare than I had anticipated, since I was paying the full amount.  It was worth it to me.

As I entered the church, I saw a sign welcoming pilgrims.  It seemed that in this Year of Faith, one could obtain a plenary indulgence by making a pilgrimage to certain churches, and this particular church was one of them.  Considering I had travelled halfway across the world and taken a R160 cab from the other side of the city, I felt I met the description of a pilgrim. I wasn't exactly sure what had to be done to get the indulgence.  I seemed to remember learning that part of it involves saying an Our Father, Hail Mary, and Glory Be for the pope.  I did that, enjoyed the Mass, and even lit four candles (it costs R1, or 10 cents per candle) for safe travels for the coming week, for my family, my girlfriend, and for all the people in Cape Town with whom we have been working.  As I was leaving Mass, I asked the priest what was required for the indulgence.  He was a little hard to understand, but seemed to indicate that since the Year of Faith was officially closed by the archdiocese that morning, the indulgence offered was no longer valid.  I guess there's still a place in purgatory for me.  Or Devil's Peak. 

Missing Fire 21/11 - 22/11

So on Thursday at midnight the major motion picture “Catching Fire”  (sequel to “The Hunger Games”) came out.  A group of people pre-ordered tickets Wednesday night to see it. I had added myself to the list of people to get tickets and paid my R50 ($5 for a movie ticket!), but I was really tired that night and was working on my CAD designs for our project.  I figured I could go another time, and $5 isn’t a huge loss.

Cape Town Stadium

Friday night most of us went to see a soccer game.  The Cape Town Stadium was built a few years ago for the FIFA World Cup, and is one of 8 used during the tournament.  It is also viewable and within walking distance from the lodge.  It is a beautiful stadium, though it was built to accommodate thousands of fans. It was a little sad seeing a majority of empty seats in the stadium, though I suppose for the teams playing, it was not a terrible turnout.  According to the soccer players in our group, neither team played particularly well.  The home team we were supposed to be rooting for lost 3–1. 

We left the game at 22:00 (10:00 pm), and six of us impulsively decided to try to see the 10:15 showing of “Catching Fire.”  We arrived just as it was starting only to find that it was sold out, which honestly is not surprising for a Friday night on the debut weekend.  Some of the girls tried to buy tickets to a different movie and sneak in, but movie theatres here do this thing where you reserve a specific seat, like in an actual theatre.  Because of that, I doubted it would work and didn’t try it.  I was correct – they came back a few minutes later with tickets to a movie they didn’t want to see.  I think some of them ended up seeing it on Saturday night, but I had other plans (stay tuned for my next post!).  It would have been kind of cool to see the premiere 7 hours ahead of my friends in the States. However, I can see the movie any time when I’m home, but you only Cape Town once.

Working Progress: Improvements and Designs 18/11 – 23/11

It’s not always rainbows and butterfly fish in Cape Town.  Sometimes we actually have work to do, and we did a lot of it this week.

Drawing pictures of improvements

The main things we’ve been focusing on this week have been minor improvements to the current WaSH facility (built last year) and designing a new, dry sanitation facility in Zwelitsha.  On Monday we worked with the caretakers of the current facility to brainstorm what they like and dislike about the current facility, and ways we could improve the aspects they don’t like.  We found drawing pictures was a successful way to bridge the language barrier, and have fun with the work.

Co-Researchers Siya, Funeka, and Noncedo
Nobathembu also pictured on right

On Tuesday we finally got three co-researchers.  “Co-researchers” are members of the community paid by the project centre who agree to devote time each week to help us in our work to communicate with the community, whether that means translating for us or talking to people after we leave for the day.  We will run all potential designs by these co-researchers, who will in turn use the community interest to give us feedback. 

Potential new location for Dry Sanitation Facilit

While we were meeting with our co researchers at one of the potential sites for our new facility, one of them noticed that there was a shack across the street with a large plot of land that could be a better location for our facility.  The main advantage is that the shack is built on a flat piece of land that will be easy for construction, as opposed to the hill across the street that we were planning on working with.  Our co-researchers offered to talk to the man who owned the shack when he was home.  Apparently, he would be agreeable to giving us his land as long as he gets another plot in the settlement.  Right now our co-researchers are looking for a new spot to which he could move.   It’s looking likely that we will be able to build there.

Using the community input, we have started designing potential layouts of our new facility.  I got the dimensions of the Enviro Loo units and spent a couple of late nights making SolidWorks mock ups of two different designs.  On Friday we showed them to Olwethu, the architect at CORC who was really impressed with our work.  He now will tweak those to make a more official, final design for approval and building purposes. 

Draft 1: Maximizing Social Space                                  

Draft 2: Maximizing Toilets

Victoria (caretaker) at Building Express

On Thursday we also took Victoria, one of the caretakers at the current WaSH facility, to a hardware store to start buying improvements.  We bought some mirrors, which will improve the aesthetics of the facility, a large trashcan, and a towel bar/towel for hand drying (right now people just shake water off after washing).  We left our purchases with the caretakers, in hopes that they or the community leaders will take initiative to make these improvements themselves. However if they are not installed by next week, we will probably just install them ourselves to push this effort forward.

After we got back from shopping, we had a lunch meeting with a man named David.  David owns the largest business in Langrug, a restaurant called Batho’s Place.  We wanted to talk to him because we heard that he and his wife have been getting professional public health training for their restaurant.  We are hoping that as we open more WaSH facilities, we can have caretakers be trained in public health, who in turn can educate the community members who use the facilities.   David is really an inspiring man.  His English is very good because he is also a tour guide who gives tours of informal settlements to people who are interested in investing in upgrades.  When he in not doing this or running his restaurant, he holds soup kitchens, plans new crèches (preschools) and lends a hand in the community wherever needed.  Our lunch date actually had gotten rescheduled because earlier in the week he was rebuilding a neighbor’s shack that had collapsed during the weekend storm.  As he puts it, “one day we’re all going to die, and it’s what we can leave behind for others that we can measure our lives with.”  Needless to say, he is very willing to help educate the community on public health.  I only wish we could work with him more.  If nothing else, for the African hot dogs he served us.

David on the roof patio of Batho's Place

On Saturday we sponsored a field trip for 18 community members from Zwelitsha to visit Signal Hill to see the Enviro Loo toilets for themselves.  Only one member of our group was able to be there (since the rest of us were on a Wine Tour – blog post on this coming soon), along with Scott (our advisor) and one of our sponsors.  The community was very pleased with what they saw.  Scott however was not as impressed, and wants us to look more into the functionality of the toilet before we commit WPI’s grant money to a partnership. 

WPI received a substantial grant from General Electric three years ago to implement sustainable WaSH facilities in Langrug.  About half of this grant went toward the facility constructed last year.  We can use the remaining funding for our project, at Scott’s discretion. It seems our project is getting very real very quickly.  We have our work cut out for us in the next few weeks. 

A Fishy Weekend - Swimming with the Sharks 16/11 - 17/11

 Shark Cage Diving.  Yeah.  We were supposed to do it on Saturday, but since it was raining the company rescheduled it for Sunday.  Instead on Saturday I went to Green Market Square, where people sell crafts in the streets.  It's a place to get your bargaining face on.  I figured I would be terrible at talking back to people for prices, but by the end of the two hours there I think I did pretty well for myself for a first time. At the first stall I visited, I walked up just to take a look and some stone figurines, and the man offered me one for R150. I told him I was just browsing, didn't have that much money in my pocket, and I'll come back when I do. He wouldn't take no for an answer, asked me how much I would want to pay for it.  I got flustered and started to walk away, he called back to me and said he'd give it to me for R50 ($5).  I bought it just to get him to leave me alone.  I bought a few other things from other stalls, negotiating less like a stupid American.

At the aquarium, with "Nemos"

After that a group of us went to the nearby aquarium.  It was pretty cool.  I haven't been to an aquarium since I was in first grade; it was pretty cool.

After I got back from Mass we found out that people were going to the movies to see Thor 2.  I'm not a huge fan of superhero movies these days, but it was only R75 ($7.50) for a 3D ticket and there wasn't anything else going on. I guess it was a little better than I thought it would be.  Spoiler alert (not really) there's a lot of action and a shameful setup for a sequel.

So Sunday we had our rescheduled shark cage diving.  The way it works is they bring you out about 3 km and bait sharks to lure them toward the boat.  There is a cage lowered off the side of the boat, which is mostly submerged in the water, but is enough above water that you can stand in the cage and breath without scuba or a snorkel.  You wear a wet suit and goggles, and when the men on the boat see a shark coming toward the cage you go under the water for about 5 seconds and watch the Great White shark pass by, inches from your face, with nothing between you but steel bars.

Shark and cage from the boat. 

 The experience was overall pretty cool.  It felt surreal, like being in an aquarium except without the glass.  The shark part was pretty neat and not that terrifying.  The worst part was the sea-sickness.  The waves were really choppy, and we were in the ocean for about three hours. I’m by no means a sea-farer, but I have spent some time on ferries and boat tours and have never felt sea sick.  That day was the exception. About half of us spent the majority of the three hours sitting on the side of the boat spilling our breakfast.  It was not pleasant.  It would not have been so bad if we had put the wetsuits on land.  However, they didn’t have us put them on until we were out at sea, so you to go into the cabin (the worst spot for sea-sickness), find a suit your size and squeeze into it while looking at the horizon to calm your churning stomach. It was not the most pleasant experience I have ever been on.  The experience of seeing the sharks was almost worth it.  YOCTO (You Only Cape Town Once).

Underewater photo credit, Gaetana Spina (next to me in the cage)

The drive home was pretty nice – though we slept most of the way our driver made sure we saw some nice views, including some whales and 3 remarkably well defined rainbows.

 

Apparently that's a whale

Rainbow behind a mountain

Children of Langrug

Things are moving along for our project.  When we were in Langrug on Tuesday we started working with a woman named Nobathembu.  She is really awesome.  She is fairly young, probably only in her thirties or early forties, and has lot of working experience in a variety of fields.  Within the last few years, she got a calling from God to work at crèche (or preschool) in Langrug.  She has been there ever since.  We are working with her for two reasons.  One of the other project groups was supposed to be working in a crèche in a decent section of the city of Cape Town.  However, their sponsor wanted them to look at crèches in informal settlements, so they came with us to Langrug with their sponsor last week and are trying to work more on improving conditions there.  The reason our WaSH team is working with her is because she is a community leader in the neighborhood of Zwelitsha, and will be actively helping us to get community input on our project there (which, if you haven’t read my blog in a while, is planning a dry sanitation facility in a neighborhood where there are no toilets for 500 families).

On our way into Langrug on Thursday, our van was in a minor fender bender.  We were sitting at a traffic light behind a large truck, and for some reason (probably to make a turn) the truck backed up into us.  Damage was minimal and everyone was fine.

My writing style is going to change slightly for this next section.  As I mentioned in an earlier post, as part of our project we have to write “scenes” for important days or moments in our project.  Our posted scenes can be found here http://wp.wpi.edu/capetown-2013/homepage/projects/2013-2/wash/acts-scenes/act-1/

I was responsible for writing a scene for Thursday, which needs to get approved by our advisor before we can post it online.  I should note that Sizwe is one of our sponsors at CORC.  He is Xhosa by origin, but speaks excellent English and is focused on the social aspects of community upgrading. Here is what I wrote:

As the van turned into the WaSH facility ‘parking lot’, we found the centre mobbed with children.  Nobathembu had brought the children from her crèche to use the bathrooms.  We stepped out of the van to chants of "amabhulu", Xhosa for “white people.”  Children raced toward us grabbing our hands in theirs’, some of them still damp from washing their hands.  They danced and climbed on the men in the two groups. [Note: We speculate that these children are drawn to male visitors since many of them lack a male figure in their lives]

After several enjoyable minutes of this, Nobethembu called for the children and led them back to the crèche.  We followed, and once she had the children settled with some other women, she left with us to go to Zwelitsha. We waited with Sizwe at one of the potential sites for the facility while she gathered community members of Zwelitsha to meet with us.  Sizwe facilitated the meeting, explaining in Xhosa what we were hoping to accomplish and translating their feedback for us.  However sometimes he would lapse into long conversations and not translate some parts for us.  We gathered that they had had a meeting the day prior and had decided that they would prefer to build the facility in the more central of the two locations.  They also identified several components that they would like to see in the facility, such as a play area for children and proper lighting at night. The play area would keep the children closer to their homes in Zwelitsha for supervision, and the lighting to make the community safer at night.

Sizwe with the child

As we were talking, two small children were playing among us.  One of them wandered to the edge of the platform on which we were standing. Sizwe ran over and scooped up the child before he could fall.

We finished our meeting, and established that the Zwelitsha community members would be putting together a team of co-researchers to work closely with us in our planning.  Additionally, they expressed their interest in taking a field trip to Signal Hill so that some more members of the community can see the Enviro Loo toilets.

It wasn’t until Friday night when we were having dinner with Sizwe and our advisors that we realised exactly what had happened during the exchange.  Sizwe told us that originally, the community members were asking what we would be bringing them.  Sizwe had emphasised that we would only be helping in the design process, and that the community had to decide what they wanted to bring to the new facility and how they would implement it.

Reflection:

This was most we had interacted with the children of Langrug.  The presence of the crèche children at the WaSH facility and those at the future facility site illustrated the importance of child safety in the facilities we plan.   Children are an integral part of the community, and whether we are improving the current facility or designing a new one in Zwelithsa, we need to make them safe spaces for children.

We also found the attitude of the community to be interesting.  It would be easy to arrive in the community to design and build something for them and leave feeling satisfied with work being done.  However, our project is more than that.  Projects like this will be more meaningful and successful if we can work with the community so that they are a part of the process and can replicate the work in the future.

A Loo with a View - Signal Hill 11/11

So our assessment of the current WaSH facility still isn’t finished.  We got our report back Monday morning with a lot of constructive feedback. We spent the day restructuring it and finding a lot of sections that we missed.  Around 18:00 (6 pm), tired after a long day of writing, we made the impromptu decision to go to Signal Hill.

As I mentioned in an earlier blog post, Signal Hill is part of Table Mountain National Park.  Every day at noon a cannon is fired from the hill.  What makes Signal Hill so interesting to us is that the restrooms at the top are made by a company called EnviroLoo.  We are currently negotiating with EnviroLoo to use their toilets in the facility we are planning.  We have been told several times that we should make a trip up there to see the toilets for research purposes.  Being young and somewhat physically fit, we have been waiting for a day that we can get the full hiking experience of Signal Hill, rather than taking a cab to the top.  However, the opportunity never presented itself, and doing it for work seemed to take some of the fun out of the concept of hiking.

We realised on Monday however that we really needed to see these toilets soon.  So we called a cab and made the drive up to the top before sunset.  It was really beautiful.  While couples were having romantic dinners and taking pictures of the sunset, we were taking pictures of toilets.   Talk about a crappy project.  (If you’re thinking about making a poop pun, don’t bother.  I can guarantee they’ve all been drained).

Signal Hill EnviroLoo, outside

Inside the EnviroLoo facility

Pictured is the outside of the toilet facilities. The turbines theoretically dissipate 95% of odor.  Inside the facility was very clean, very much like a bus bathroom.  However downwind of the turbine was a little malodorous.  If that was only 5% of the odor, I’d hate to smell the full 100%.

Inside, the toilets look like normal toilets.  The only difference is that instead of a flush system, the waste goes into a seemingly bottomless pit.  One of my partners was afraid to use the toilet.  Admittedly, I was mildly terrified for the safety of my camera in obtaining that picture.

We were still able to enjoy the sunset.  If you’ve ben wondering about the pictures on my blog, unless I’m in a picture or it’s a graphic from the internet, all the pictures are taken by me.  I’m really not that good at photography, I just take lots of pictures and occasionally luck out with good ones.  You just can’t plan shots like this.

View of Table Mountain and Lion's Head from Signal Hill

After waiting a little longer to get the beginning of the night view, we called another cab to bring us back down the hill.

Hello Cape Town

As a team we enjoyed a dinner at an Italian place called Mario’s.  Our lively discussion throughout our meal really speaks to the good dynamic we have as a group.  Though we sometimes have our disagreements, we work and socialise very well together, for which I am incredibly thankful.  Other groups don’t seem to be as lucky. I only knew one of my partners prior to this year. I wouldn’t say they’re my best friends, but I wouldn’t trade them as partners.  No bull.

The WPI WaSH Team

[left to right] Morgan Boyd, Ivette Carino, Mackenzie Alameda, and yours truly

PS It's purely a coincidence that this post about my adventures on 11/11 is my 11th post on the blog.  Just like with pictures, you can't plan this crap.