Final Dinner and Krieger National Park

Tuesday night, the entire delegation had an end of trip dinner. Most of the delegation headed back to the U.S. the next day. 6 of us, including me wanted to take the excursion to Krieger National Park.

We left Cape Town at 5 am Wednesday morning to catch a flight to Johanessburg. From there, we had about a 6 hour bus ride to the park. Yes, the bus ride was brutal, especially since it started to down pour. Our bus driver did a great job getting us through the mountain pass in the dense fog.

When we actually go to our hotel, which is right outside the gate of Krueger, it was a torrential downpour and completely dark. We're in the middle of nowhwere and there are all kinds of sounds that I've never heard of. By the way, there are monkeys everywhere ready to steal your food if you're not careful.

We had a 4:30 am wake up call so we could get out and drive through the game reserve to see animals. We were pretty fortunate to see all of the big five (Lion, Elephant, Rhino, Cape Buffalo, and Leopard) on the first day. I've attached pics of them (missing the buffalo because it was too far away for my camera.

Day two tomorrow morning then we're going on a night ride through the park. I have to imagine it will be the darkest environment I've ever been in. I'll let you know when I survive it.

Robben Island Tour Cancelled

Really disappointed that the Robben Island tour was cancelled. Apparently the ocean was too rough to take the trip. Speaking to a couple of the locals, the management company that runs the tours isn't very responsible. We couldn't reschedule the trip because we left Cape Town the next day.

The Weather Sucked Today

We obviously got the really nice weather in Cape Town yesterday. Today was a high of 57 with rain off and on.

We started the day off with a discussion with people involved with the Active School Initiative. They are a not for profit organization dedicated to promoting play and physical activity as important approaches for social learning and life skill development. This program has been endorsed by the South African Education department.

Their vision is that each child has hidden potential that is worthwhile and yet to be discovered. They want to show that education can be fun, creative and dynamic. Their results showed that many students attendance and behavior has improved since the implementation of this program in the primary schools.

They focus on a lot of cooperative education, social skill development and health and safety awareness. Based on the activities they do and the content they get across, this program seems to be more relevant to elementary and middle schools. I couldn't imagine doing some of their initiatives at the U.S. high school level. Although, they do outward bound activities as well as teamwork initiatives.

After this meeting we were able to visit a primary school that was still in session. We met with the principal for about an hour and then visited a classroom. Though this school was struggling financially, they were far better off than the schools we visited in Durban. Instruction in this school was in Afrikaan, the official language of the old government. However the students spoke English fairly well even though the principal said they would be shy because their English isn't very good.

Their facilities are not great but they've done a lot with the help of the Active School Initiative, otherwise, Physical Education wouldn't be existent at this school either. After the school visit, we ate lunch in a Township at a bed/breakfast owned by a couple who turned their shack into a 15 room bed and breakfast. They built the restraunt one brick at a time when he would find them on the side of the street and collect them until he had enough to build his business. Now their in a position to expand and people come from all over the world to stay with them. It's really interesting to see this thriving business in the middle of the dirt poor township.

After lunch we visited the Sports Science Institute of South Africa. Bascially it was tour of their facility, which looked a lot like our upscale fitness clubs (X-sport, Bally's, etc.) but had a sports medicine and elite sports training department as well. I was in my element viewing this facility as they had a lot going on and were truly working on improving wellness. Unfortunately, they didn't allow us to take pics in their facility.

Tomorrow we'll visit a local university and then tour Robben Island. I'm sure that will be an amazing visit. Robben Island is where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned for 29 years.

Cape Town Tour

We got into Cape Town safely Saturday night and went directly to the hotel. My room in this hotel is awesome. I definitely wasn't expecting these type of accommodations on the trip. YIt's a view of table mountain from the 28th floor.

This city seems a bit more European than Durban but the poverty also seems to be worse. We took a trip down the peninsula to see a few different things. I've attached some pics. We visited Cape Point and the Cape of Good Hope which is the most southwestern point of Africa. We also visited an area where penguins colonize.

Since it is Sunday, there was no professional part of our program but we will eat dinner at locals home, not sure why they would offer but, OK.

Enjoy the pics, I've added a few more since the blog is shorter.

Heading to Cape Town

Checking out of the hotel in Durban, gonna catch a flight to Cape Town. I'll check in when I check in.

Traditional Zulu Dance

Visited Zulu Land Today..Met With a Real Life "Zulu Healer"

Nothing on the professional agenda today. We drove out to a very rural area and had a traditional Zulu experience. The Zulu people are the extreme majority in this are of South Africa and a lot of them still live the traditional way.

You can see from the pics that the houses are still traditionally round and they mostly grow their own food and live traditional lives from the food they cook to how they interact with one another. The road to their village was filled with stray goats and cattle grazing on the peoples land. Ironically, we ran into a camera crew filming a movie.

We visited a primary school to see their facilities and how P.E. and sport were implemented. It was pretty disappointing that there wasn't even an area dedicated for activity. The school can't keep equipment from being stolen. We were able to buy some equipment for them before we arrived and they were so thankful. Sometimes I just wish my students were as thankful for what they have. Some of my colleagues handed out candy but I felt that was counterproductive to our mission so I gave out toys, balls, etc. They couldn't get enough of it!

One of our tour guides was born and raised in the village. She couldn't have been more than 20 years old. It was pretty funny that we were in such a remote, rural area and her cell phone rang every 5 minutes. I have no idea how she got service out there but apparently she does. The funny thing is the government was saying how difficult it was to reach the rural schools because of lack of electricty, etc. Well, one of my colleagues was able to get wi-fi service on her phone out there so don't tell me you can't give these people access to education!!

Anyway, we were able to meet with a real live Zulu Healer in her traditional round home. I'm the only male in the delegation and their tradition states that females must sit on the left side of the house and males on the right. I found it pretty funny that there were 15 women sitting on the dirt floor (polished by cow manure) and I was the only person sitting on the right side of the house on a wooden bench! Needless to say, I had to help a few of them get up from the ground.

After we heard the traditions of the village and the role of the village healer, we visited a villagers home where she cooked us a traditional Zulu meal. I have to be honest, it wasn't any different than a soul food dinner I've had many times. Mashed corn, pumpkin squash, collard greens and cabbage. I have to admit, it was really good....but I couldn't bring myself to eat the cabbage, I hate that stuff. In addition, they don't eat with silverware; they use their hands. I was done before anybody (I gave my cabbage away, sorry Dad, no force feeding me this time).

When we were done, the children of the village performed traditional dances for us. The pulled me out there to do it with them and I did but some how it wasn't documented on film....very weird how that happened. Oh well, I guess you can't trust technology.

We leave for Cape Town tomorrow afternoon. The majority of the day is free for us to do what we want. I'm actually going to go back to the stadium where they hosted part of the world cup and do a bungee swing from the rafters of the stadium. I think I'm a bit crazy but hey, you only live once. Apparently it drops you about 10 meters from the ground, I hope it's a bit higher. I'll post a video of it later.

Nice Weather But It's Friggin Humid!

Got up at 6 am to go for a run along the beach front. The weather here is awesome but it's really humid. My shirt was soaked through after about 10 minutes.

Gonna chug some water, head to breakfast then off to Zulu country.

WE Showed Our American-ness at Dinner Tonight

Well, we went out for dinner and a relatively nice restraunt. It was "paid for" by part of the cost of our trip but just like most foreign countries, ordering water doesn't mean you're getting tap water.
It's bottled water with our without "bubbles".

Well, I should have known better seeing that I've experienced this before but I didn't really think about it. When it came time to order drinks, everybody wanted water and of course they brought out bottled water. Fast forward to the bill.......the meal plus 1 soft drink was paid for however they included all the bottled water they poured, generously I might add, on the bill and only told us at the end that bottled water wasn't free!

Have you ever tried to get 13 people to pay their fair share of a bill? No offense but I was the only male at the table, if you know what I'm getting at. Anyway, with all of us being educators and wanting to speak up there was nothing but chaos and the poor waitress was stressed out to say the least. It was pretty embarrassing. After 10 minutes of craziness we just split what was owed evenly and left. I'm sure they were talking about the crazy Americans when we were gone.

Moral of the story....when traveling abroad, make sure you request tap water if you don't want to pay for it.

Heading for the Land of the Zulus tomorrow to visit a school and have a cultural African experience.

Good News and Bad News

We were able to sit and have a discussion with the Department of Sport and Recreation in Durban. Basically they are a staff of 12 people responsible for implementing the federal mandate of incorporating sport and wellness into the society. Their municipality has approximately 6 million citizens. Seems like a pretty daunting task.

They have been fairly successful implementing the mandate in the city itself but the issue is implementing it out in the townships and rural areas. Once again, politics get in the way. Part of the mandate states that physical education must be offered in the schools however two problems persist: 1) the schools and the government refuse to work with each other and 2) the schools in the townships and rural areas never had physical education to begin with so facilities are non-existent.

Typically there is a professional relationship between the park district and the school district when it comes to facility usage in the United States however it is quite the opposite here. Schools don't want anybody else using their facilities regardless of whether they are responsible for meeting the same mandate.

The Dept. of Sport and Rec in city of Durban (it's new name is eThekwini) has a good plan on moving out into the townships and rural areas to implement sport however it's difficult when it was never part of their lifestyle during the Apartheid era.

One of the city planners came into the meeting to discuss how they planned to host part of the World Cup. A lot of the money that was brought in went into the rural areas to develop training centers. This was huge in helping to meet the federal mandate. In addition, they were able to upgrade current facilities including public swimming pools, the beach front, fitness/wellness centers, training facilities, and the new stadium that was built which we were able to take a tour of. In one of the pictures, you'll notice the arc over the stadium. During stadium tours, they allow you to bungee jump from the top of the arc! I tried to get them to allow me to do it but we were crunched for time.

After lunch we traveled to The University of KwaZulu Natal- School of Social Science where we met with 4 professors of Life Orientation and Physical Education. They basically reitereated the issues and concerns of implementing the federal mandate of sport. They are responsible for training the physical education teachers but they face extremely large class sizes (upwards of 150 students). In addition, there is a difference in philosophy of what physical education is. Some see it as sport skill development while others see it as movement/wellness education.

Definitely a lot of the same arguments we see/hear in the United States. While our main focus is wellness/fitness, we use sports and activities as a vehicle. There is a big difference and at times, I think we even confuse the two. It was good to see their passion as they felt movement education was important. Teaching the value of wellness and fitness as opposed to just teaching sport skills. However, it seems that other parts of the country are focusing on sport skill development.

I was able to make some contacts so we can communicate via e-mail. Their ultimate goal is train physical educators to go into the rural schools and implement physical education programs in schools that have never had the opportunities to have education let alone physical education.

They Have a Physical Education Mandate in this Country!

Right after the sober history lesson, we were able to meet and have a discussion with the director of Sport and Recreation South Africa (SRSA). Her job basically is to build sport and recreation in the country. Unfortunately because of Apartheid, there is a huge divide between the haves an the have nots. Prior to 1994, Education was racially based. All schools received money however most of the white, privileged schools also had the ability to hire more teachers which allowed the class sizes to remain smaller (approx. 15-20 per class). The poorer schools which were Indian and black didn’t have the means due to the government structure and ended up with class sizes near 75-80.

Once the democratic government was put in place, their first task for education was to cut the 19 different departments of education down to 1. In addition, they had to deal with the large learning gap between the schools due to the previous government rule. This meant that art, music and physical education were the first to be cut. Physical education only existed in the white schools prior to Apartheid ending so those schools still have physical education. There are approximately 29,000 schools in the country yet only 3,000 have physical educators on their staffs.

With the change in government and the creation of the SRSA, physical education has been mandated into the schools. The biggest problem now is that because of Apartheid, the disparity between schools is so large that it’s difficult to add this discipline when their is such a large learning gap in what they call “the examinable” subjects. In the schools that do not have qualified physical educators; teachers from other disciplines had to fill in to teach the P.E. curriculum. This put a large burden on an already overburdened system.

The SRSC’s mandate is to increase participation by enabling and creating access across all age levels. The schools are just one area that they focus on. The SRSC oversees all sport federations. The federations are equivalent to USA Basketball and USA Track and Field which are part of the USOC. The federations are required to develop their sports from the grass roots level all the way up to elite level teams. The problem arising is that the federations only want to focus on the elite level teams and not spend time developing at the grass roots level (i.e. schools). The SRSA has stated that in order to receive federal money, each federation must show that they not only are developing their sport in the rural and impoverished areas but they also offer access to girls.

In February of 2011, each federation will be required to have members from the schools sit on their governing board so the development process doesn’t leave the schools out. South Africa focuses only on sport development and training in physical education. Life time wellness and fitness is taught in other areas of the curriculum. Their biggest challenge at this point is not only implementing physical education in all the schools but finding qualified instructors to teach it.

We visited a school today in one of the townships. The enrollment of the school was approximately 1800 students. The school employs 47 teachers through all grade levels. If you do the math, that equals 38-40 students per teacher. They haven’t been able to meet the mandate of physical education because they are so behind in other disciplines. Their physical education facilities include an open field about the size of our stadium football field and a multi-purpose court, approximately the size of 1 tennis court. Even if they were able to implement it, they would have a hard time due to lack of facilities.

On a positive note, the SRSA really has a good philosophy and a good plan to incorporate sport and recreation in this society. The only issue that really stands in the way is the disparity between the schools due to an unjust political system. It kind of mirrors some of the issues we face in the U.S. as well. With the way our schools are funded, some schools have a lot more than others.

Regarding sport, our governing bodies do very little with the schools. They focus on elite training only. School sport is developed via organizations like the IHSA and the NCAA, etc. Even then there are differences in protocol and rules of each sport. Interestingly enough, neither of those organizations truly have an interest in the society as a whole, just their member schools an their programs.

The picture you see is the physical education field of the school we visited today.

A Very Sobering History Lesson

We started our professional portion of the trip today with an introduction to South Africa and a brief historical perspective of how the country came to where they are today. It was a history lesson that I had not heard before and I like to think that I had a decent understanding of how the Apartheid government came into play.

I knew that Dutch settlers had moved into South Africa but their initial conflict and political battles were with the English monarchy which ruled here for a long time. While the dutch settlers continued to try to live their life their way, paying taxes to the throne was becoming more and more of concern. Sounds pretty familiar to American history.

Eventually the Dutch settlers (known as the Afrikaans) political party became stronger and stronger and instituted the Apartheid government so they would never have to lose power again. They were only 20% of the poplation but made land ownership laws that allowed them to own 80% of the land. The majority (80%) black and Indian cultures were placed on 20% of the land and as time moved on, were stripped of more and more of their rights.

There were persistent “rebellions” due to the inhumane conditions of the Apartheid government. Eventuallly it led to the end of that government rule and the installment of the democratic process in 1994 where Nelson Mandela was elected as the nations first president.

There are a lot of eerie similarties between the history of South Africa and the history of the United States. Specifically the desire to get out from under English rule and govern themselves. Though different governments were established, class systems and race played a huge part in how the countries developed. South Africa’s current democratic government is only 15 years old and they are facing a lot of the issues we face in the U.S. I know we complain about the unemployment rate of 9% however it’s approximately 35%- 40% here.

There is more government involvement in the lives of the citizens here mainly because they are trying to create a middle class. The gap between the rich and the poor is extreme. We visited the house of Mahatma Ghandi which is in the middle of a township and the level of poverty is amazing. People are living in actual huts; 4 walls and a roof made of either bricks and mud or tin. From what I could tell there really was no rhyme or reason to how they set them up, just find a space and build it.

I’ve attached a picture of the Townships where the shacks are located. Really eye opening to see how fortunate we are to have what we have.

Finally Made It!

Well, we finally made it to South Africa. I think it took a total of 29 hours from the time I left my house on Monday morning until the time I walked into our hotel in Durban, South Africa.

I had to fly from O'Hare to Dulles in Washington D.C. to catch our international flight. What I didn't know was that it wasn't a direct flight. We flew direct to Dakar, Senegal and had about an hour and a half layover....without getting off the plane; not good for my ADHD. Good thing each seat had their own video monitor so I was able to watch a few movies and TV shows. Ironically, the guy I was sitting next to was from Evanston and had no connection to the trip I'm on.

After we took off from Dakar the pilot alerted us that it was 10 hours to Johannesburg!! I was thinking more like 5 ish...sooo I did my best to sleep through it but ended up watching two movies and 3 TV shows.

Once we got into Johannesburg we passed through customs, exchanged some money and jumped right on another flight to Durban. It was only about 45 minutes, kind of like flying from Chicago to Minneapolis.

Unfortunately, it's currently 10 pm and I'm wide awake. We're 7 hours ahead of Chicago and tomorrow we have a full day. Breakfast at 7:30 am and beginning at 8:30 am we meet with the Department of Sport and Recreation whose goal is to increase the levels of participation in sport and recreation activities. This should take most of the morning and early afternoon but afterwards we will visit the Kwa-Muhle museum where the former headquarters during the apartheid era.

I'll let ya know how it goes. I'll post pics tomorrow too. Gonna go for a run in the fitness center, maybe that will put me to sleep. Somehow, I doubt it.