Mariah's Adventures: South Africa

AMAHLUBI, KWAZULU-NATAL, SOUTH AFRICA: Rural community where we did a WASH (water, sanitation, and hygiene) and Rainwater Harvesting workshop for a member group of the Rural Women's Movement (RWM) (http://www.rwm.org.za/). RWM is the organization Sizani started to help women come together to advocate for land rights and other social issues. I love how this small community has house numbers-won't find this in other parts of rural Africa!

AMALHUBI, KWAZULU-NATAL, SOUTH AFRICA: Zama, Sizani's niece and new assistant at RWM, teaching the women about Tippy Taps-a handwashing station using old plastic jugs where you use a string to tip the water out without having to touch it.

AMALHUBI, KWAZULU-NATAL, SOUTH AFRICA: RWM women watering their community garden-a project started by a group of grandmothers. Grandmothers here have a huge responsibility to take care of children, especially when their parents die.

AMAHLUBI, KWAZULU-NATAL, SOUTH AFRICA: Water tests using Colilert 10 ml tubes to test for Coliform bacteria; the ones that fluoresce under the UV light have presence of E. Coli

AMAHLUBI, KWAZULU-NATAL, SOUTH AFRICA: Our workshop venue was a local creche (daycare)...another one of those words I just learned from non-native English speakers about my own language (remember viand from the Philippines?)

AMALHUBI, KWAZULU-NATAL, SOUTH AFRICA: Zama, daughter of one of the RWM local leaders. She's gonna be an amazing young woman in 5 years! So exciting to meet people here you know will soon be great leaders and forces in their communities.

AMALHUBI, KWAZULU-NATAL, SOUTH AFRICA: Nature's sunscreen!

AMALHUBI, KWAZULU-NATAL, SOUTH AFRICA: Traditional mud hut where we installed a gutters and a tank for rainwater harvesting

AMAHLUBI, KWAZULU-NATAL, SOUTH AFRICA: Sizani teaching the women about the different methods for rainwater harvesting.

AMAHLUBI, KWAZULU-NATAL, SOUTH AFRICA: Local homemade Zulu instrument

AMAHLUBI, KWAZULU-NATAL, SOUTH AFRICA: Cloud burst at the end of the day...a nice farewell for our workshop

AMAHLUBI, KWAZULU-NATAL, SOUTH AFRICA: The Amahlubi Rural Women's Movement group upon completion of our 4 day workshop

AMAHLUBI, KWAZULU-NATAL, SOUTH AFRICA: The students at the daycare gave us a short concert the last day of the workshop, complete with "Twinkle, Twinkle"

AMALHUBI, KWAZULU-NATAL, SOUTH AFRICA

AMAHLUBI, KWAZULU-NATAL, SOUTH AFRICA: The Amahlubi landscape, these hills are the start of the Drakensberg Mountains

AMALHUBI, KWAZULU-NATAL, SOUTH AFRICA: Rural South Africa-I love the simplicity and the beauty

AMAHLUBI, KWAZULU-NATAL, SOUTH AFRICA: Rockin' hair!

AMAHLUBI, KWAZULU-NATAL, SOUTH AFRICA: Digging the foundation for the rainwater harvesting storage tank

AMAHULBI, KWAZULU-NATAL, SOUTH AFRICA: The ladies during the workshop doing a group activity to identify the water resources and problems within their community

AMAHLUBI, KWAZULU-NATAL, SOUTH AFRICA: The daycare playground

AMAHLUBI, KWAZULU-NATAL, SOUTH AFRICA: Look at the tummy on this cutie! Actually the nutritious snacks served at this daycare are amazing for how poor and rural the area is-yogurt, carrots, crackers, milk!

AMAHLUBI, KWAZULU-NATAL, SOUTH AFRICA

AMAHLUBI, KWAZULU-NATAL, SOUTH AFRICA: The water carriers

AMAHLUBI, KWAZULU-NATAL, SOUTH AFRICA: No words necessary!

AMAHLUBI, KWAZULU-NATAL, SOUTH AFRICA

KWAZULU-NATAL, SOUTH AFRICA: The landscape dominated by vast tracks of private land-87% of the land here is privately owned and a large portion of this land is empty and unused. A huge land battle is going on for the black South Africans to regain some of the colonial land to settle on and farm in order to relieve the problems of overcrowded settlements and hunger.

KWAZULU-NATAL, SOUTH AFRICA: As a response to the government threatening to take privately owned land back, land owners create game ranches which exempts them from losing their land...it's just for show, there is no game to be seen on these reserves

PIETERMARITZBURG, KWAZULU-NATAL, SOUTH AFRICA: Mickey, one of Sizan's dogs in her garden. I've been lucky, every place we have stayed at so far in Africa has dogs and cats to play with!

PIETERMARITZBURG, KWAZULU-NATAL, SOUTH AFRICA: Yes, it is cold here!

COLENSO, KWAZULU-NATAL, SOUTH AFRICA: Colenso women attending a meeting to become a member group of RWM

COLENSO, KWAZULU-NATAL, SOUTH AFRICA: Colenso feels like a ghost town. When apartheid ended and the new black government took over a lot of white people moved away, closing factories and stores and leaving land empty and fenced off. Very sad, seems such a waste!