We arrived in the Kalahari yesterday morning, with an early flight to Uppington from Johannesburg. Uppington is a small North Cape city, way up close to the border with Namibia. It's dusty and small and mainly industrial. This area of South Africa was highly dominated by Afrikkaners, and you can tell it's been very westernized, with Afrikkans the dominant language. We didn't stay long in Uppington, just long enough to stop at the local mall to pick up sporting goods for the school we were planning to visit later in the day. Students fundraised before we left, and we used the money to buy soccer and netball equipment for the school.
We jumped in our mini-buses and started driving north. Everything was dusty, scrubby, and sandy. Or course we were now in the great Kalahari desert, or, as the local spelling goes, the Kgalgadi. Think of those 'g' sounds as really deep back of the throat noises, and that's how it's really pronounced. This desert is filled with clumps of tough-looking light greenish yellow grass, with a bit of dark green grass, and some small shrubby looking trees. While photos make it look like it's a grassy savanna, it is really clear that this is a sandy desert, because the deep red colored sand is everywhere between the grass clumps. It rolls up in long dunes, like waves, that go on and on and on for hundreds of miles. These dunes are probably about 30 feet high, and very long, all rolling in the same direction. Then sand is really fine and soft, and so very red from the iron oxide. Near water sources, the sand lightens, and there are more trees, mostly medium sized acacia trees.
We drove out for several hours to the border of Botswanna to visit a school in the tiny village of Askham. The J.J. Adams Primary school is actually a fairly large regional school with kids from preschool to up to pre-high school. We had the chance to meet the students in an assembly, where they sang for us, and we heard the principal give a speech. Most of the students in this region don't start learning english until they are older, so one of our guides, Hermann, translated between us. The little kids were curious and flirty, some of them performing flips and cartwheels for us as we waited to go in. Others shyly approached for high fives and fist bumps. We donated piles of books and school supplies to the school, as well as the sporting equipment, and then we had the chance to break into small groups and visit different classrooms. Some of our students did songs or told stories, others tried other forms of communication. It was a great visit and a great opportunity to see what a westernized school looks like in a rural area.
We jumped in our mini-buses and started driving north. Everything was dusty, scrubby, and sandy. Or course we were now in the great Kalahari desert, or, as the local spelling goes, the Kgalgadi. Think of those 'g' sounds as really deep back of the throat noises, and that's how it's really pronounced. This desert is filled with clumps of tough-looking light greenish yellow grass, with a bit of dark green grass, and some small shrubby looking trees. While photos make it look like it's a grassy savanna, it is really clear that this is a sandy desert, because the deep red colored sand is everywhere between the grass clumps. It rolls up in long dunes, like waves, that go on and on and on for hundreds of miles. These dunes are probably about 30 feet high, and very long, all rolling in the same direction. Then sand is really fine and soft, and so very red from the iron oxide. Near water sources, the sand lightens, and there are more trees, mostly medium sized acacia trees.
We drove out for several hours to the border of Botswanna to visit a school in the tiny village of Askham. The J.J. Adams Primary school is actually a fairly large regional school with kids from preschool to up to pre-high school. We had the chance to meet the students in an assembly, where they sang for us, and we heard the principal give a speech. Most of the students in this region don't start learning english until they are older, so one of our guides, Hermann, translated between us. The little kids were curious and flirty, some of them performing flips and cartwheels for us as we waited to go in. Others shyly approached for high fives and fist bumps. We donated piles of books and school supplies to the school, as well as the sporting equipment, and then we had the chance to break into small groups and visit different classrooms. Some of our students did songs or told stories, others tried other forms of communication. It was a great visit and a great opportunity to see what a westernized school looks like in a rural area.
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