Our Summer Vacation Part 2: Hlane with our protogée John

     We went on Friday, January 2 to Hlane, a nearby game park that we like a lot, with John Koffi, the head boy last year at our local high school, who will now start his “A Level” or “Matric” year (which is pretty standard in the South African system, and I think in the British schools; kind of like a post-graduate year after high school in the US, but much more standard, and required for South African and maybe British and other international colleges and universtities) at a good school in the capital of Swaziland, St. Marks. John's family has just moved out of the nearby Refugee Camp after 2 night-time tent fires resulted in the deaths of 2 children, bringing back the trauma after John's father's store was burned and his 2 brothers murdered precipitating their flight from the Congo 5 years ago. It is now clear the tent fires were set intentionally, apparently hostilities between national groups. It is just as awful as it sounds.

     The upshot is that, after a year when we saw and worked with John nearly every day, we won't see him now very much, and we wanted to go over decisions and issues we could anticipate for the coming months, partly because we are probably going to have to pay for his St. Mark's turition and board. That kind of payment is made here by depositing cash, which will take us some traipsing around, so we wanted those events on our schedule, to the extent we can. And John has some other school possiblitilies cooking, and deadlines to meet.. Also he's fascinated with Africa's natural treasures and had never seen lions. And because, having been with no one who needed my advice for nearly 2 decades, John got the expected list of suggestions, questions and cautions. Handled it well. Seemed attentive. Application essays. Interview techniques. What lies beyond A levels. What the future may hold, and what could derail it.

Enough chatter:

One of the things we like about Hlane is there is a very nice restaurant, with fine impala and wildebeest grill:

John had been on a school trip to a game park in Malawi, where his family stayed 2 years after leaving Congo, but had never seen a lion. Now he has. He took most of the pictures we have of our trip:

     On Thursday we leave for Cape Town (said by all who have lived or visited to be one of the world's great cities) for a week, plus 2 days to further explore JoBurg. Then school.

      I think our last blog on returning from seeing Baby Matthew sounded a little sad. We were. But as we walked up our road, on our way to Hlane, a bright-eyed lively little girl called out “Teachers!” We try to stop when we hear that, or our names, from a child. Turns out she had done really well in 4^th grade tests, and she wanted us to know that we will teach her in the new school year. That's why we're still here.