South Africa | #africamp

Reflections on #africamp

Posted on June 5, 2016 by andrewrfretwell

This is our final blog post for our four month trip to Africa. Instead of my usual pontifications, this blog is broken down into a number of “top ten lists” in order to succinctly share the highlights; enjoy!

The 10 Best Things We Did

Attend ASYV Debate Tournament

After being in the village for like two weeks, we joined the coaches and participants and spent a day in rapid-fire debates on the motion: The Rwandan government should significantly cut its current dependence on foreign aid. I learned a lot about the effects of foreign aid on Rwanda and the global south in general. But more importantly had an incredible day watching and coaching my team of three awesome girls who went on to win the city championship!

Akilah One-on-One meetings

The work we did at Akilah has meaningful in so many ways, and one of those ways in how it allowed us to jump on motos and meet with individuals around Kigali, whether it was worth current students, alumnae, or private sector employers who regularly hired interns and graduates from Akilah. The meetings gave Jamie and I an up-close look into the developing private sector of Rwanda and those who are building it from the ground-up.

Gorilla Trekking

Being close enough to see a fully grown silverback gorilla change its facial expression as it finishes eating one thing and considers if he wants to eat the next thing is…rad. Seriously, it was like close encounter of the best kind.

Driving the Garden Route (including Winelands)

South Africa is immersed in natural beauty and winding our way through the hills along the South and East Coast became like a 4 day drive through a series of impressionist paintings.

SAFARI!

Big Cats, Elephants, Hippos, Giraffes, Craters, Zebras, there is no better way to get lost in nature than safari in Masai Mara, Serengeti and Ngorogoro Crater.

Stonehenge

After safari, it was fitting to go from basking in the natural world to trying to pry into the minds of Neolithic men and women who used this site to…bury the dead? Observe the seasons? Pray? All of the above? Few places leave you with more questions that Stonehenge so obviously, we loved it.

Driving Tour of Capetown with Noel

Our driving tour with Noel was amazing because he showed us the sights and shared with us the stories of South Africa. Not just the ones that feel good to hear, about what a saint Mandela is or how great it was for Apartheid to be overthrown without a war. But he also told us the stories about government abuse and corruption that is severely souring the sweetness of what post-Apartheid South Africa could have looked like. For the comprehensiveness and the nuance that we learned, we will forever be grateful.

White Water Rafting down the Nile

Jamie and I are not extreme sporters but we like to have fun. Rafting the Nile was about as far as we could go. We paddled our way through a couple of Category 5 rapids, got stuck under a 14 foot waterfall (that we rafted over) and we capsized twice…each time there was like a half second when one part of me went “huh, is this how Jamie tells everyone that I died?” But anyway, it was super-super fun and wouldn’t trade it back for anything.

Attended Rwanda’s National Genocide Memorial at Amahoro National Stadium

While we didn’t see the Agahozo Shalom students perform, joining with Rwandans from around the country to come together to remember such a recent, painful, confusing and real trauma in ther collective psyche and individual lives was an honor. And because Rwandans are such hospitable people, we were welcomed into such a private, vulnerable moment with open arms and teary eyes. It was a moment through which I will feel connected to Rwanda for a very long time.

Spice Tour and Beach out in Zanzibar

With our volunteering and safari behind us, we took our last few days in Africa to check out Zanzibar, an island off the coast of Tanzania. While there we both went on a spice tour, where we used all five senses to learn more about how spices and herbs are planted, grow and are used culinarily, medicinally and cosmetically. We’ve done a lot of walking tours, but from this one we said, “Wait, but really?” way more than any other. Then we spent a few days to just sit on the beach at a resort and drink and eat like we were rehearsing for a Corona commercial. We stayed at the Beach Breeze Resort and I recommend it to all. We were also lucky because it was peak rainy season so prices were low, but it was still sunny and in the high eighties on most days. #winning.

10 Teachers and What They Taught Us

JC, Executive Director of Agahozo Shalom Youth Village – showed us how to hit that balance of bringing the the right people to the table with the right jobs and supporting them, but in a way that lets them do what you hired them to do, and therefore thrive.
Vincent, Village Director of Agahozo Shalom Youth Village – taught us how to look at a start-up and begin building, in order to go from good to great
Ritah, Alumnae Affiars Manager at Akilah Institute for Women – taught us how to love a job through building the relationships through those you serve
Aline, Country Director for Akilah Institute for Women – taught me about part of the psychology of Rwndans as refugees and what that means to their values and sense of self-value
Noel, Tour Guide in Cape Town – taught us to look under the surface to see the stories less told in South Africa, post-Aparthied
Nida, graduate of Akilah Institute for Women – taught us that where there’s a will there’s a way
Francis, Tour Guide for Glory Safaris – taught us about the Maasai and how to consider the balance of thousands of years of traditions with modernity
Jessica, Director of Registration and Career Development at Akilah Institute for Women – gave us a crash course in “Re-organizing the systems of your Start-up” through our work together at Akilah
Maxime, graduate at Agahozo Shalom Youth Village – who inspired us with his ambition, belief in hard work, and gratitude and eagerness towards opportunities and uphill battles
Phyllis, fellow volunteer at Agahozo Shalom Youth Village – taught us how to give without imposing, to support without commandeering, to give in the truest sense of the word

10 Assumptions Going to East Africa Tears Down

Africa is too backwards for there to be significant progress any time soon.
Africa is a great place to send charity to, not business contracts.
African women are comfortable accepting a life similar to that of their mothers, grandmothers and great-grandmothers
The best way for African problems to be solved is to find the equivalent problem in the US or Europe and just apply the model.
Travelling in Africa is not safe.
Unless they are rich, Africans do not speak English.
Africans do not deal with issues around ‘colorism’ since almost everyone is black.
Africa just needs “time” to get better.
Africans think life is cheap.
Africans are a “simple” people.

The 10 Things We Will Do When We Return to Africa

Climb Kilimanjaro and do some Safari Hikes and Balloon Rides
Do some work with African Innovation Prize
Check out the Apartheid Museum in Soweto
Attend Passover or Shabbat with the Abuyadaya in Uganda
Stay over for a few nights in Addis Ababa
See Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe
Hike up a volcano in Virunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo
Spend more time in Capetown and the Winelands in South Africa
Visit the Nyamatta Church Genocide Memorial in the Southern Province of Rwanda
Hike around Namibia

#africampers out…for now.

Eating our way through Africa

Posted on May 25, 2016 by jamiemaxner

Whenever I travel, I love to find ways to both eat and cook my way through a new city or place. Food activates all of your senses and helps create an instant connection to a new people and place. It’s one of the best ways to learn more about a culture. And did we “learn” a lot during our months in Africa.

We tried local ingredients that we had not encountered before or are used in a way we’d never considered. (“What is a ‘tree tomato’? Are you sure a tomato will taste good in my fruit salad?”)

We used cooking equipment and techniques that provided a lens into a way of life that has stayed authentically earnest and draws connections to those who have cooked these same dishes for generations before us. (“Did you know that in the U.S., we have a special knife designed especially for cutting tomatoes and a tool that cuts avocadoes into slices in one fell swoop?”)

RWANDA & EAST AFRICA

We spent most of #Africamp living in Rwanda, with a few side trips to other countries in East Africa (rafting in Uganda, safari in Kenya & Tanzania, rest and relaxation in Zanzibar). We were lucky to experience both rural life during our time at Agahozo Shalom Youth Village (aka “the Village”) AND city life during our month living in Kigali. We shopped at the local markets, ate at local bars and sought out hidden street food stands (imagine, a tiny hut with plates full of freshly fried treats), ordered goodies at the local store, and enjoyed every simply tantalizing moment.

Ibirahi

Delicious Ibirahi at a village bar

This is the ultimate street food. If ibirahi (slang for ibiraha samosas – irish potato samosas) were served out of a food truck in New York, they’d be an instant hit! Cheap, simple, fried goodness. It’s the perfect post-bar snack that will absorb your night of drinks, so you can wake up feeling bright-eyed and bushy-tailed tomorrow morning. Can you say East Village money-maker?? Open call for anyone who wants to go into the food truck business with me. Just saying. We’ll also sell Brochette (see below), so I just don’t see how this DOESN’T kick ass.

Brochette

Brochettes at the Milles Coline (aka Hotel Rwanda) poolside Brunch

Meat on a stick. It’s simple. It’s genius. It is marinated in the perfect blend of spices that makes sure it hits the spot every time. You may be thinking, isn’t this just like shish kabob or a skewer of meat? Maybe. But, nothing will make your eyes light up and mouth salivate quite the same way as a plate of goat brochette served at the bar with a Primus (local beer), especially when you’ve been waiting for two hours since it seems they’ve freshly killed the goat out back to make these delectable meat sticks just for you. It can also be made of beef, chicken, or fish. But, to me, goat is the ultimate Rwandan way.

Chapati

There are so few ingredients; I’m not even totally sure how chapati tastes so good. I’m pretty sure we’re talking flour, eggs, salt, and green onion. It’s very similar to Indian naan. But, it’s better. Some of our favorite moments at the Village would happen when we were walking by the lower gate and spot Betty (owner of the small shop across the way), yell through the gate and across the street to find out if she had chapati…and she said yes. Score Jamie and Andrew!

(**Rolex: Chapati with a thin layer of egg with green onions (cooked on a hot plate like those used to make crepes) placed on it and then rolled up. It’s only sold in Uganda and this made us extremely sad. It was awesome!)

Nyama Choma

My plate at Carnivore…worth the angioplasty.

MEAT! Barbecued (i.e. grilled) meat. Note, I never met a Rwandan vegetarian. In Kenya, we had the ultimate Nyama Choma experience at a restaurant aptly named Carnivore. Think Brazilian Churascuria (a la Fogo de Chao) but African style. Ostrich, goat, lamb, chicken, beef…and all of it in my tummy.

Akabanga

It’s just Rwandan chili oil in a small dropper-style bottle. But, it packs a HUGE punch. A lot of the Rwandan dishes are fairly simple and often consist of rice, beans or potatoes – a fairly bland bunch. Now imagine meals in the Village as a pretty consistent rotation of those aforementioned staples – a few drops (emphasis on a FEW) becomes a game changer and added necessary flavor profiles to our meals over these past months. Whenever we’d pull out our Akabanga at the table, someone else would spot it and work up the courage to ask for some. Of course, we were happy to share. It cost like 50 cents and we never even finished one bottle in all of our months.

SOUTH AFRICA

Food and Drink at the Stellenbosch Wine Festival

The start of our trip in South Africa was full of beautiful sights and sounds, but some of my favorite, delectable tastes of our whole time in Africa.

Wine

South Africa’s winelands are a must for any visitor heading to the Cape Town/Western Cape area. For this trip, we even put some of my old Cornell Hotel School connections use and emailed the Wines professor for some suggestions. They did not disappoint! Not only are is wine country picturesque, but the food scene is strong with farm-to-table style spots bursting on along the quaint tree-lined Cape Dutch streets of Stellenbosch, the veritable heart of the winelands. We hit the jackpot on our visit with the annual Stellenbosch Wine Festival hitting town at the exact time we were there. So, instead of driving around to a handful of vineyards for tastings, they all came to us. One low price, two wine glasses, unlimited tastes from over 100 wineries! TOTAL BLISS.

Biltong

I now understand that beef (or meat) jerky is just a poor attempt at biltong. In South Africa, there is a magical way of drying, curing, and aging meats (beef and a whole slew of other animals that I’d never heard of before we ate our way through them, like Eland, Kudu, and others) that creates one of the best snacking experiences I’ve ever enjoyed to date. It’s more moist, flavorful, elegant and freaking fantastic. A bag of biltong carried us through a six-hour car ride along the Garden Route. I am sad that I didn’t accept the offer of freeze-dried, packaged biltong at the Cape Town market. I have already started researching South African biltong suppliers in New York City.

West Coast (of Africa) Oysters

Scrumptious Oysters at Clarke’s

Oyster happy hours are my jam in New York. But, oyster happy hour in Cape Town blew them all away. At Clarke’s, I ate my first African West Coast oysters and I entered a whole new world of meaty, sweet, subtly briney oysters that were, in my opinion, perfect in every way.

Signs and Wonders in South Africa

Posted on April 24, 2016 by andrewrfretwell

Passover has arrived, and with it the commandment to retell the story of our inspired and painful passage from oppression to freedom, and the “signs and wonders” (Exodus 7:3) that produced it. I find my mind keeps bringing me back to my and Jamie’s 10 days in South Africa, a land of signs and wonders; South Africa is blessed and cursed with beauty and pain interwoven into the fabric of every day life.

South Africa’s natural beauty is stunning. Jamie and I drove from Cape Town to Wine Country and then along the Garden Route to Knysna, and then back to Cape Town to hop on a train to Pretoria. South Africa is a continent unto itself, with scenery that switches seamlessly between, lush green hills, brown-orange dessert, majestic mountains, dense jungles, rivers that winding through canyons, and vast farmlands. From the clouds dramatically spill over Table Mountain to the intersection of the Indian Ocean, Atlantic Ocean and Antarctic at the Cape of Good Hope, South Africa is a biological, ecological and meteorological laboratory, bubbling and oozing new possibilities.

The line between man’s realm and the animal kingdom is blurry. At the beach you can walk alongside penguins and watch whales splash around. Driving inland, we hit a traffic jam because an ostrich was standing in the middle of the road, inspecting every car that went by. Whether it was ostriches, baboons, tortoises or other animals, our guide, Noel, would say, “Yeah, they walk around like they own the roads.”

Ostrich Road Block at the Cape of Good Hope.

South Africa also looks different than everywhere else; most of the plant-life i is exclusive to South Africa’s biosphere. This botanical distinctiveness gives South Africa myriad agricultural and horticultural idiosyncrasies, from its flowers to its wines and meats, much of which Jamie and I indulged on non-stop (especially biltong, which is like jerky, but way, way better). South Africa’s natural gifts impart the country with incredible hiking, sightseeing, food, wine and general marveling.

These wonders are the backdrop of man’s struggle, and our guide, Noel, offered a glimpse into its signs. Noel is colored, a racial designation of mixed lineage; if Barack Obama were South African he’d also be colored. The colored community has a unique perspective on the transition from Apartheid, which protected White economic interests at the expense of blacks and coloreds, and the current regime, which often uses reverse discrimination to compensate blacks for Apartheid. Unfortunately, the colored community is small and while they are not suffering as they did under Apartheid, their interests are not guarded with the anything near the vigilance as for blacks.

He showed us how morally murky and economically perilous the government’s choices are. Noel is an excellent, highly competent tour guide, yet struggles to secure work consistently since most jobs are designated for blacks, not colored or white people; this type of affirmative action is widespread and has high political expedience, but ultimately it prevents South Africa’s best and brightest from uplifting themselves and South Africa. While he explained this to us, he drove us to a Township outside of Cape Town. While the Township looked like a shantytown for hundreds of thousands of poor souls, Noel warned us to look upon the township with skepticism, not pity. He told is that on the outside they look like tin cans, but pointed out that almost every home had a satellite dish. He told us if we ever walked into one of those tin shacks, we would see they generally are far more luxurious than their exterior would indicate. I regret that I never got to see the inside of a home and confirm or dispute Noel.

Noel, our excellent tour guide, with us at a winery outside of Cape Town.

He also overturned our assumption that those who lived in townships were stuck there, forced by their poverty to live in these impromptu ghettos. He explained, “The government’s policy is that any black person who shows up to a piece of vacant land and builds a tin-house becomes entitled to that house and land. If the government knocks it down, it has to build a permanent structure for them. So people build these tin shacks and then eventually the government obliges them 5 years later by knocking it down and building them a nice home for free. I wouldn’t mind, but they steal the electricity from nearby lines (why we have power outages all the time) and these people aren’t from Cape Town. So many come from the East Coast and while they live here for free are renting their homes in Durban or Soweto. They are really turning a nice profit for themselves at everyone’s expense.”

Jobs and housing are foundations of society, and while the evils of Apartheid are gone, the incompetence of dysfunctional democracy poses incredible dangers to South Africa. Over the past year the value of the Rand fell by 60% against the dollar, and while everyone knows the President, Jacob Zuma, is corrupt, no one expects to see him leave his post. That type of resignation to government failure is dangerous to a country and I only hope that South Africans reclaim their national aspirations. While we were in Pretoria, protests raged against Jacob Zuma in anticipation of his “State of the Nation,” address, demanding he resign; God’s Speed to the protester.

But hope endures in a country that produced Nelson Mandela. South Africans of all races speak of Mandela like Americans speak of Lincoln, and Jews speak of Moses. His wisdom and incorruptibility stands as a voice of conscious for the country. He brought his people out of oppression and led them towards the Promised Land. And while many South Africans are discouraged by the country’s politics, they should take heart in the Exodus story. After overturning Pharaoh, the Hebrews needed forty years of wandering in the dessert before they could enter the Land of Israel. Apartheid was a 20^th century Mitzrayim. South Africans will decide whether to remain in the dessert or continue their long walk to freedom, transforming their country into a 21^st century land of milk and honey.

Click the photo of “Nobel Square” in Cape Town to see our Paris and South Africa Google Photo Album!