It's...a Long Story

VroooOOOOM ca-THUD. The car lurched forward before stalling out yet again. My co-intern Liz and I had been sitting in an increasingly pregnant silence as our driver struggled with the daunting logistical feat of leaving the parking lot. He, our “field specialist”

Zach, had learned to drive stick last week. Well, “learned.”

Ca-Thunk THUD. Our brief forward momentum was arrested for the Nth time that morning. Also for the Nth time that day, I found myself wondering vaguely whether Fearless Leader was going to kill us all. What if, god forbid, we faced a slight INCLINE?

Anyway, we were clearly going to be late to the march we were supposed to be covering as our "first assignment", and what did that mean for lunch? Maybe I could find a coffee shop. Man I loved coffee shops. Wonder if Zach and Liz would be down to find a coffee sh–VroooOOO THUD.

In between oaths cursing “this stupid car” and the world and the gods and whatever else, a quiet voice spoke up from the right side of the car (passenger side in this crazy place): ”I think…you need to have your foot...on both…?”

And so began the first and last assignment of our team of adventure travel environmental international journalists extraordinaire.

By some miracle, we all made it into Plett, a small coastal town an hour away, in one piece. Long straight highways were something Zach was apparently capable of wrapping his mind around. On our way in, we passed cars decorated with rhinos and elephants...the cars meant to be leading the World Animal Day march we had driven an hour to write about. 

Oh, so we weren't late to the event, we just missed it entirely...good, cool. 

"Well that's okay." Liz had three years of journalism experience under her belt, and was great at remaining outwardly calm even when fuming on the inside. "Let's just call our contact for the march."

"I mean, well, I WOULD, but this stupid phone they gave me doesn't have any minutes on it!" 

Some background: Zach's phone had been stolen his first day in Africa. While the rest of us were in a meeting about the safety hazards of carrying expensive things alone on the beach, Zach had been wandering alone with an expensive thing on the beach. See, Zach had come in as an intern the same month as I had. I was a research intern, and he was a journalism intern. Somewhere in there, his specialist left, and she decided it would cover her ass to just have him take her place. He couldn't drive a South African car, and didn't have a journalism degree, but hey! He was there. 

Zach spent his month as an intern building up the cocky self-assurance only an American who had barely been out of the country could possess; sleeping with the European girls who idolized him, ruthlessly poking fun at his fellow journalism intern from Hong Kong, and bragging about how he was going to get to stay on another month. I, meanwhile, avoided Zach like the plague and assured myself that an actual teacher would be hired while he stayed on as some sort of assistant. This was not the case.

Now, let's get back to what was happening in Plett. Liz listened to his complaint about lack of minutes, and inquired sympathetically whether they hadn't told him the phone had no minutes on it. "Well I mean YEAH they TOLD me! But like, I thought it would at least have like a couple minutes on it to call people, you know?! We're just going to have to stop at a gas station or something." 

Upon getting into town, we had stopped at a grocery store, and I remained silent in the back, taking notes on the day thus far and gnawing on biltong. Biltong is South African beef jerky, and it is delicious. I had procured springbok biltong with chilli powder. 

Zach parked the car and left to get minutes. I offered Liz a piece of biltong. "It has chilli!" Liz accepted the biltong and practiced, I presume, her deep breathing. Zach came back and announced he might be able to do his job and call the event contact. Liz suggested (not for the first time that day, as HER phone DID have minutes) that maybe she should just do it. Zach said that HE was the specialist, and it was HIS job to make calls. Only he could call anyone. Only him. Liz said "okay" in a manner I'm sure Zach thought was friendly. It was not. I sat in the back, using my remaining biltong piece like a pixie stick to scoop up the chilli powder in the bottom of the bag. 

The day turned out alright in the end. We talked to the media person for the march, who told us about another organization that has a after-school program for kids. She also told us about a bird of prey sanctuary we should look at on our way out of town. 

Look! An eagle!

Wooo artsy silhouette

Thant night Zach went out to party with the other interns. Liz and I stayed back to work on our writing assignments. Somewhere between Zach being too hungover to get us to Sunday's event on time, and Zach attempting to tell Liz how to be a better interviewer, Liz decided to leave the program. That afternoon, she and I discussed our course of action at the local coffee shop. As I munched on a brownie, she outlined all the ways in which this what not what we had signed up for. I threw in my two cents and agreed with everything she said. 

The Site of Scheming

We asked for a meeting with the CEO upon our return, and were told that a meeting was set up at 8:30am the next morning. At 8:30, Liz and I were ready with our comments and concerns. Namely: we don't have a teacher and he's probably going to kill us. Then 9:00am rolled around...then 9:30. I asked Kennedene, the "campus coordinator," when Katie would be arriving. Kennedene said she didn't know. I said we would wait until Katie arrived. Kennedene politely inquired as to whether there wasn't some story Liz and I were supposed to be covering that morning.

I said we would wait until Katie arrived.

Kennedene took out her phone to "contact Katie again." Sometime around 10am, Katie rolled in, claiming surprise that Kennedene has said we were meeting her at 8:30. She said the first she had heard of the meeting was 9:30. We were off to a great start.

There were a total of three meetings that day, during which Liz systematically laid out every way in which the program had f-ed us over, and Katie made increasingly desperate pleas for us to stay. She said there was a "Plan B, a guy who had extensive experience in environmental journalism, and could start right away!"

I said that should have been her Plan A. Her eyes said "well shit" but her mouth didn't say anything for a good ten seconds because what do you say to something that obviously true?

In the end they refunded less than half of our money. We paid for less than a week of room and board, and the honor of having our lives put at risk by the esteemed Oceans Campus crew.

For my last month in Africa, I am volunteering at an organic wine farm in Wellington, near Cape Town. It is very pretty here.

Baby cabernet sauvignon vineyard!

The hay is to keep weeds down because ORGANIC :D

Pretty mountains!