Another week came and went (despite South Africa time seeming to go so slowly in the present, it certainly does fly by…does that make sense?). All of the Bedford/Itipini volunteers decided that it would be a good weekend to head to the coast. We went to Coffee Bay, the place that I went to with Pete during my first weekend here (Pete has since left, currently I’m living with a girl from Colorado and next door is dr and his wife from California along with one of his residents, also from California). Richard, the Itipini volunteer from Wisconsin, told us that he has friends that live in Coffee Bay in a “really nice house” that is “right behind the hotel”, so we should stay there. Susan, Harry and Megan (the dr., his wife and my roommate) decided to be safe and stay at said hotel while Reza (the medical resident) and I decided to go with our adventurous instincts and stay with Richard and his friends.

We took the pot-hole-filled-cattle-crowded drive to Coffee Bay. Despite some car-sickness, we made it in one piece. The ocean was lovely and the sun was shining. Here is where I should mention that we took two cars to get to the Bay. One car contained Harry, Sue, Reza, Megan and myself. This car arrived at the Bay at around five…two hours later we hadn’t heard anything from car #2 which contained Richard, his Coffee Bay friends, and Adam, a very eccentric young medical student who studies at the med school in Mthatha. It wasn’t until car#1 people were sitting and eating dinner at the very nice Ocean View hotel, when we finally heard some word. Adam and Richard trampled into the hotel dining room, very bedraggled looking. Apparently the house was not behind the Ocean View hotel, instead it was behind the Coffee Bay hotel that was about a mile down the road. Adam and Richard walked through the woods, in the dark, in the rain to get to Ocean View hotel to find us. That meant that Reza and myself would have to walk back with them to get to where we were supposed to sleep for the night. Luckily the “through the woods” route was not the only way to get there and there was a road connecting the two places.

Adam took my head lamp and decided to wear it on the very top of his head, light pointing directly to the sky (really helpful tool at this point), while he stepped in every single pothole while simultaneously warning us to not walk in cow poop. This is not a normal quaint town road…this is a very remote South African style road….somehow I found security in the fact that my hunter’s knife that I had purchased for like a bazillion percent off on steepandcheap.com was securely in my pocket.

Anyway, we of course safely arrived at the “really nice house” (read: it was a run down, half finished, frat house with bathrooms that didn’t work and showers that looked like they could use a bath themselves). Reza was a little wigged out, but it wasn’t stopping my sense of adventure…I’ve seen worse.

We spent about 3 minutes at the house, and then we walked about a half mile to get to a local bar/backpackers hostel/hippie hang out. It wasn’t a half bad joint…there were people of all sorts there (mostly the old worn out hippie type) and there were a few African drums on display (which I thought were free to jam on…so I did…and got in trouble….but my hand still hurt the next day, as it always does after drumming). Adam started to play pool while downing several drinks between victories. I engaged in a conversation with two doctors from England. Time passed quickly. Soon enough, Adam was puking in the bushes and adamantly requesting to return home. Richard and Reza were nowhere to be found.

I got to play the responsable “mama card” (go me!). Richard’s friend Msie (who looks like an African version of Gandhi), and I walked Adam back to the house, which involved him crossing a small river and losing a shoe…with mad hunting for said shoe ensuing for several minutes afterwards. We got Adam home, put him to bed, and then returned to the bar to look for Reza and Richard. We crossed the same river, looked for the shoe, didn’t find the shoe. We came across the boys trying to light their way home with light from Richard’s lighter. We then turned around, crossed the river again, looked for the shoe again, failed at finding the shoe again, and made it home…safely.

I also forgot to mention that two girls had approached Msie on the first trip to the bar after dropping Adam off at home. He spoke to them in Xhosa, something that probably went like this: “hey, you are hot, I live around the corner, meet me there in ten minutes”. Anyway, when we all arrived home, those girls were upstairs waiting. I was tired and went to my room…enough craziness for one night. I later found out that they were most likely prostitutes and Richard had to tell them, ever so politely…to “get the @#$% out of the house”.

The next night, Reza and I decided that we would crash with Megan at Ocean View.

The rest of the weekend went smoothly, we went to Hole in the Wall, body surfed on the waves at the ocean, marveled at the scenery, etc.

When we arrived home, our local Pakistani Dr, Iqbal, got so excited that we were home that we made a late night trip to the grocery store so that he could get supplies to make us Indian food (note: Iqbal drives about 120km/hour). We had delicious Indian food at 10pm. So very random, but I guess that’s just the way my life is these days.

Hope you enjoyed my story! And a sidenote for people like Geriann and Benny Mae from work (who always go crazy when I tell them stories like this…usually on a weekly basis)…I’m alive, well, and am keeping a sound head on my shoulders….no sense in worrying about me!

Life is good!

until next time,
Irena/Rocks/Psyche

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