Bang Bang

As you all are aware, I am sure, this post is excessively late to the party for which I do desperately apologize. To make up for it this post will be ridiculously long and difficult to read. Not really, but it will probably be long. I’ll start with my latest trip to a game reserve.

My parents and I took a long weekend and drove about four hours to a game reserve called Tskudu. A game reserve can be public or private but basically if it is private you are in charge of the wild animals and your property as soon as they step off your land they can become government property.  The one we stayed at was quite large and had a whole lot of animals. The best though, and I’m sure many of you have seen my Facebook profile picture, was the cheetahs and the lion cub. There are five cheetahs on the property that were all hand raised by the rangers of the reserve so they are used to people, but they are still wild. They make their own kills and everything but they just have to option to come home at night, kind of like a giant out door pet cat. My favorite one was Intombi, she is a sweetheart, but lazy. Her sister and brothers made a kill but she couldn’t be bothered to go eat while we were there, she sat with me by the pool instead!

Then there is the lion cub Sally. She and her brother were rejected by their mom and were in poor shape when the rangers found them. So they are bottle fed and everything, for now at least, but once they are old enough they have no problem going into the wild and finding their own food. This is because their instincts are so ingrained into them that even though they are raised by humans, they are still the kings of the animal kingdom. The sad thing is though is that Sally’s brother, a week before we got there, was bit by a Black Mamba and died. So now it is just Sally and you could tell she was a bit sad, but still ridiculously playful. She is only five months old but is already about 80lbs and will grow to be about 240lbs in the next 9 months. Which means when she is playing with humans she doesn’t realize that she could hurt them because she, at the moment, thinks we are her pride (pack of lions), but in turn we have to realize that as well and help her learn what she can and cannot to us. Meaning, at the moment when she tries to chew on your shoe it may be harmless, but in time that harmless play is ripping off your foot and you being eaten by other carnivores because your dumb butt can’t walk .

Those were the two best animals out there, but every day we went on two game drives around the reserve and got to see plenty of other animals. We tracked three Rhinos for about an hour, let me tell you, that isn’t all that exciting. But we saw elephants, giraffe, kudu, springbok, blesbok, hippos, and countless kinds of birds. It was so fantastic that I didn’t want to leave. Even the food was fabulous, I ate kudu pie, had no idea what it was until afterwards, delicious.

So that was Tskudu Game Lodge.

After that weekend it was possibly the most exhausting week ever. A new family came in so my mom was helping them out while I watched their 2 year old so we had people over every day of that week. And then it was my dad’s birthday that next weekend so that was exciting too. We went to this restaurant and I ordered some sort of chicken, yeah, they gave me the entire thing. I ate maybe a fourth of it, but then I was harassed to do Yeager Mistier shots, that was a no, never, absolutely not.  

And then came this past week which was like any other. Except Friday we had a dinner party to attend, then Saturday morning we had brunch at our house then I went to the shooting range with my dad and his friends, and then we had another dinner party.

Did you catch that whole I went to the shooting range bit? Yeah, I shot a gun, two actually. First I shot a 9mm pistol and then a 12 gauge shot gun. A shot gun!! Theat thing is almost as long as I am tall and has so much kick back the first time I shot it I nearly fell over. Now, don’t get me wrong guns are not an awesome thing but, it is useful to know how to use one as a just in case thing. But… I also didn’t want to be the only kid on campus in the fall that had never shot a gun before. Wyoming is the Cowboys, and cowboys know how to shoot.

And thus completes my blog post for today.

Side note though, I leave in 21 days from today (Sunday the 10^th of April), which is both exciting and awful all at the same time.

Props to Katy Westhoff

[7:56:00 PM] ~ktentacles~: hahaha (:

[7:56:06 PM] ~ktentacles~: you should be blogging

[7:56:17 PM] Kaiha Harris: blaaaaaaaaaaaa do  i have to???

[7:56:36 PM] ~ktentacles~: well you could just tell me everything you would put in your blog

[7:56:40 PM] ~ktentacles~: and then copy and paste our skype chat and post it

[7:56:51 PM] Kaiha Harris: that sounds like a wonderful idea!!!

[7:57:12 PM] Kaiha Harris: ask me questions and then i'll answer them and then i will post it!

[7:57:19 PM] Kaiha Harris: like an interview!

[7:57:31 PM] ~ktentacles~: ok!!!

[7:57:38 PM] ~ktentacles~: let's start with an easy one

[7:57:40 PM] ~ktentacles~: how is the weather?

[7:58:01 PM] Kaiha Harris: quite nice today, the sun came out so I went and layed in the pool and fell asleep and got burned.

[7:58:26 PM] ~ktentacles~: what's the best thing you've seen all week?

[7:58:49 PM] Kaiha Harris: the tap dancing guys at the roseland mall roof top market in j'berg

[7:59:00 PM] Kaiha Harris: they were intense

[7:59:23 PM] ~ktentacles~: haha, roof top market?

[7:59:33 PM] ~ktentacles~: is that a clever name or is it actually on a roof?

[8:00:35 PM] Kaiha Harris: haha its actually on the roof... well the top level of a parking garage. and all these people come from all over africa to set up stalls to sell things and there are even food stalls. but you have to bargin for stuff, which i'm not very good at

[8:01:21 PM] ~ktentacles~: have you improved at all?

[8:02:28 PM] Kaiha Harris: not in the slightest! someone tells me the price and i say ummm ummm umm okay! I start to come up with a number but then I chicken out. And i'm sure they all laugh at me when I walk away.

[8:02:57 PM] ~ktentacles~: haha aww

[8:03:01 PM] ~ktentacles~: how is moseby!!

[8:03:30 PM] Kaiha Harris: i actually haven't seen him in a while which makes me a little sad. i think he may have ran away

[8:03:44 PM] ~ktentacles~: ):

[8:03:51 PM] ~ktentacles~: does he just live in your backyard?

[8:04:51 PM] Kaiha Harris: yeah, i found him one day. he just mozzied on up to  my pattio, which he had to climb some intense stairs might i add.

[8:05:09 PM] Kaiha Harris: and then the next day he just showed up in my living room and i had no idea where he came from

[8:05:37 PM] ~ktentacles~: that's so cute

[8:05:51 PM] ~ktentacles~: sad he's left you ):

[8:06:15 PM] Kaiha Harris: tis. but! his causin comes round alot!

[8:06:25 PM] ~ktentacles~: fun!

[8:06:27 PM] Kaiha Harris: i haven't named her yet so i just call her moseby's causin

[8:06:42 PM] ~ktentacles~: aww, that's pretty cute

[8:06:45 PM] ~ktentacles~: and she still comes around?

[8:07:04 PM] Kaiha Harris: yup! she's the one i saved in the monsoon last week

[8:07:40 PM] ~ktentacles~: ooh tell me more about that

[8:10:45 PM] ~ktentacles~: kaihaaaa

[8:10:54 PM] Kaiha Harris: well the clouds were pink and orange in the morning, which is how you tell if its going to rain that day, so we knew it was going to rain. and it had been raining for the past cupple of days. now when it rains here its all or nothing so we were pretty water logged already so i think it was wednesday my mom and i got home right before the rain really started then boom! terential thunderstorm! my pool was level with the water washing over the yard, which was also flooded, then the area off our deck, which is like a foot deep completely filled up. that's where i saw moseby's causin clibing up some mettle mesh and i ran out side and saved her

[8:11:05 PM] ~ktentacles~: oh you were typing a lot hahaha

[8:11:07 PM] Kaiha Harris: she's a tourtois so she couldnt swim

[8:11:12 PM] Kaiha Harris: haha yeah

[8:11:40 PM] ~ktentacles~: aww look at you, that's great

[8:11:54 PM] ~ktentacles~: was there any flooding?

[8:12:40 PM] Kaiha Harris: nothing major, like no houses being washed away or anything. But the lack of gutters here makes the roads flood so its not all that safe

[8:12:48 PM] Kaiha Harris: and then there is the pot hole it creates...

[8:13:04 PM] Kaiha Harris: don't even get me started on pretoria and pot holes...

[8:13:18 PM] ~ktentacles~: ehhe

[8:13:35 PM] ~ktentacles~: how far away are you from "j'berg"? you've told me before but i forget things

[8:14:04 PM] Kaiha Harris: i'm about a 40 minute drive from down town its closer to an hour in traffic though

[8:14:28 PM] ~ktentacles~: not too bad of a drive

[8:14:32 PM] ~ktentacles~: ok one more question then i have to go!!

[8:14:37 PM] Kaiha Harris: haha okay!

[8:14:44 PM] ~ktentacles~: umm are you gonna travel anywhere else before you come home?

[8:14:58 PM] Kaiha Harris: yes! this friday actually!

[8:15:06 PM] ~ktentacles~: where!

[8:15:37 PM] Kaiha Harris: i am going to krugar national park and then the week before i leave i am going to mozambic (sp?) and swaziland

[8:16:15 PM] ~ktentacles~: i expect lots of pictures

[8:16:20 PM] ~ktentacles~: loved your cape town pics

[8:16:34 PM] Kaiha Harris: haha credit to the mamma

[8:16:44 PM] ~ktentacles~: haha ok

[8:16:51 PM] ~ktentacles~: well i really got to go love you lots POST THIS TO YOUR BLOG!!

[8:16:55 PM] ~ktentacles~: or i will hunt you down

[8:17:01 PM] Kaiha Harris: <3

[8:17:04 PM] ~ktentacles~: ~bye

[8:17:07 PM] Kaiha Harris: haha have a good day!

[8:17:15 PM] ~ktentacles~: have a good night! (:

As for my segment about my trip.
Its nice is Knysna! (silent k like in knee) Knysna was actually our third stop but Mossel Bay wasn't all that exciting. I slept there, I saw peguins there, and I ran into the ocean there. But in Knysna, whre it is nice, I went kloofing after the hike of death. and litterly I mean death. No joke, up hill both ways. It can happen! Now kloofing is the art of jumping from cliffs into water and kyaking inbetween jumps, but! where we went was to rocky for kayaks there for... kloofing sans kayaks. The place we stayed was called Inyathi Guest House. Its litterly built around trees and tucked so far back it super easy to miss. The family that runs it is awesome too. The husband is a local and his preggers wife is from Whales (and she hates the cold?!!). And of course our callet was the highest hike up and I did not pack light... bleh. On our second day there we just kind of explored and saw where there was to see. And then headed on our way to our next destination. Graff- Reinet.

so yeah... its a little late

I apologize for not posting on Sunday like I said I would but I was so exhausted and then I tried to write about my entire trip buuuuut no one wants to read a novella on the computer… except for maybe Katy Westhoff and that’s only because she is wonderful. So I will just put up part of what I wrote and then next week I’ll write about my week and my trip. Sound good?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Oh boy!! Where do I start!?! I got back last Saturday night from a week long road trip across the southern cape of South Africa. To make this easier on me to write and easier for you to read I will do sub headings that way you know where I was when I was doing something. I’ll go in chronological order too, meaning we begin with Cape Town.

CAPE TOWN

Here is where we started after an almost 12 hour drive from Pretoria. And here is where we got on a two lane undivided highway. Trucks passing trucks while a car is passing both of them… THERE ARE ONLY TWO LANES YOU STUPID PEOPLE! Stay on the road! There is a reason why the accident free days count signs are blank! Any who, we went through some mountain passes as well, and it was really pretty so it was a nice distraction from crazy people on the road, although the curvy here and the curvy there made me a little bit nauseous. When we got into town and we easily found our hotel that was called Urban Chic (seeing as how it was in the heart of down town the name is fitting), very kitschy, there was no door to the bathroom just a sliding door next to the tub. I slept on an air mattress next to the window so I got to look out as the loudest party bus I have ever heard passed by our window, BUT I also got the best view of Table Mountain (look it up, its nifty!) Word of advice though, don’t go in to the heart of Cape Town on a Saturday night and/or payday weekend if you want to sleep. It was cool though, there were a lot of buildings that were modeled off the buildings in the French Quarter of New Orleans and the building across from ours was painted really cool, it was called Mama Africa.
So that was where we stayed, but what we did was go see Robin Island, and for those of you who don’t know Robin Island was the prison where Nelson Mandela and many other political prisoners were held during apartheid. Now though, Robin Island is a World Heritage site and there are about 1000 people who live on the island (as residents, not prisoners, they shut the prison down a while ago). Their school consists of three teachers and 20 students from preschool to 6^th grade and the older kids get ferried off to the mainland for school, all 8 of them.
The next day we set off to Mossel Bay, but we made a few stops along the way first. Stop one was Cape Point and Cape of Good Hope. Cape of Good Hope is called so because it was where many ships first saw land but could not land because of all the rocks so if they did try to dock they would smash of their boat. It is also the most South Western point of Africa. So we hiked to the top of the point and thought we saw a whale, but it was just a reef. Then from this stop we skipped on over to Cape Agulas. This is not only the Sothern most point of the African continent but it is also where the Indian and the Atlantic Oceans meet.  So basically I was in two oceans at one time, and while the Indian Ocean is supposed to be significantly warmer than the Atlantic… they were both pretty cold.  And that was the Cape Town portion, even though we didn’t spend much time actually in CT…

 *** I'm working on pictures to put up on FB, there are a lot to go through***

Yeah I'm not going to bungee, especially not in my fuchsia zebra print soccer shorts...

So Cape Town is upon us. Ten days of driving and exploring. This is what I have wanted to do since… ever, and it all starts tomorrow morning at 5am with an 11 hour drive. Which really isn’t a big deal, since we drive that to Colorado all the time.

On another note though, we got lost this week! We were on an adventure to find proper spices for my mom’s Indian food that she cooks and we got quite discombobulated on our way back. Now let’s back track a day or so…
So we’re at the mall and we want to get some lunch so we stop at this Indian food place and get some food and while we are eating my mom decides she is going to ask the woman running the counter where to get good Indian spices. She gives us the name but not the real address, right? Okay well, this spice shop, we found out, is in West Pretoria, we live in East Pretoria and West is like a 40 minute drive away and could be considered the Muslim/Arab/ Hindu quarters. Looking at a map we figured that part out but we didn’t know what it was really like down there so we go after I’ve been to the gym and I’m in my work out clothes, nothing really that revealing but my shorts we kind of short and outlandish seeing as how they are fuchsia zebra print(… haha) but yeah so we get down there and there are women in full on burqas and hijabs and I’m so embarrassed we go in the spice shop and go. So we’re trotting along following the GPS ignoring that it keeps telling us to get on the interstate and we miss our turn back to road we take so we have to back track a good 10 minutes and end up taking a back way to get there and we’re passing all these military bases and schools and it was weird.

And that my friends is all I really have for you, other than next week should be like 10 times better so don’t let this meager blog discourage you from logging on next week. Which by the way, will be posted on SUNDAY  next week seeing as how I won’t be back until Saturday night next week and will more than likely not have internet. But expect pictures on Facebook… none of me bungee jumping though… I’m not doing it. Nope. Not happening. I’m going to zip like across the gorge instead. I apologize to those of you getting excited about me jumping off the world’s tallest bridge and bungee.

p.s. my puppy is in surgery today (Friday the 25th) so keep him in mind por favor, anesthesia and old puppies... not the best of friends

to bungee or not to bungee... that is my questions

So on Monday after making 4 dozen muffins for my dad I was all depressed about missing out on some senior festivities but then I went to babysit. It was wonderful! The older boy and I hung out in a tunnel that we built, he decided it was a train, for about half an hour then it was bed time. After I got him down I spent the next two hours playing with their 8 week old mastiff puppy. She is…. Adorable! I want one! But when she is done growing she will be around 145-175 lbs and just in case you didn’t know I’m not that big… But it also made me miss my *14* year old puppy.  Loki is my homeboy and personally I would love it if someone could get him to me like now…

Babysitting though, wiped me out. I was so exhausted the next morning that I couldn’t even wake up for tae bo . But by Tuesday night I was singing “by the moon and the stars in the sky, I swear” and squawking like a chicken because it was taking forever for the chicken we were having for dinner to cook through. I also made like 6 dozen chocolate chip cookies… which are now all gone. Then on Wednesday I bought a prom dress. Wait what?! Am I even going to prom? It’s only February? Yeah, yeah, but I have to decide like now if I’m even going to be home for prom or if I’m going to come later in May. Thursday though, was just a day. I woke up went to the grocery store then ate lunch, then fell up the stairs and bashed my shin on the edge of a stone, then I went to the gym. So yeah, nothing special. And then yesterday, Friday, we took the car in to get serviced and found out it didn’t need it yet so I got out of my pa-jay-jays for no reason at 6:30am. Then we sat in the mall parking lot for 45 minutes waiting for it to open at 9 and then we bought my dad 12 shirts and two belts, and I made a trip to Cinabon.  And so that was my week.

This weekend though we are going to a local Afrikaans restaurant and a micro light flight tour. I’m super pumped for it! And I leaved for Cape Town exactly one week from Saturday and I’m still trying to decide if I want to jump of the world’s highest bungee jump. Oh dear!?

Lack of Curbs and Busy Days

This week I haven’t much to say, so today’s blog will be about more mundane things in the life of a South African resident. I’ll start with the roads.
What is a curb? Well people who are in charge of infrastructure here, a curb is something placed on the edge of a road to do several things such as keep people on the road and act as a guide for water on the road. They are also great for sitting on, if I do say so myself.   Oh and then my dearest infrastructure people, there is the pot holes. And that is all I have to say on the pot holes other than its worse than 75^th street in March.
Then there is just the state of mind of drivers here.
*Common Thoughts of a SA Driver*
“This car is only going 10 over the speed limit so let’s go on the gravel to get around them and not use the passing lane.”
“ ohh lookie! speed bump!! Let’s go super-fast and then slam on the brakes right before.”
“Let’s honk our horn at the person in front of us before the light even turns green!”
“I don’t feel like going fast anymore so I’m just going to put-putt in front of you if that’s okay?”
“I like your bumper! I’m going to get super close to it so that I can have an intimate moment with it… that was nice…. Oh look at that one! I want to see that one too!”

Needless to say I have no purpose for my $15 international driver’s license at the moment. I am not mental enough.

Mundane topic number two is the $6 movie tickets FOR A PEMIRE. At any given time at Menlyn Shopping Center Mall in the New Metro Theater a movie ticket will sell for all of $6… and yes that is in US Dollars. I just got back from seeing the Kings Speech actually… Loved it!

Topic three is less exciting… scullery wear…we finally got our washer fixed!!! Yaaaayyy!!! Clean sheets!! Yaaay!!!  And we might be getting another fridge because I can’t fit everything in to the one we have. This fridge size is like from the 20’s or something?  Our oven is gas and I hate it because I have no clue what the actual temperature i …its dumb... and I burnt my cookies…

 Then there is the even less exciting  bracelet making …well it might be less exciting for you but not for me. I have nothing much better to do so I have yet again started making mass amounts of bracelets so don’t be surprised if I come back and looking like I just got back from a hippie commune. And I’m reading Sense and Sensibility, sooo my days are pretty busy if you can imagine. Between my Dexter’s Laboratory, NCIS marathons, bracelets, reading, and laying in the pool, I’m so busy I don’t even know how I have time to sleep.

it may or may not be all about elephants

Sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo I love elephants. I got to play with them this past weekend and it was kind of sort of awesome. The place we went to was called the Elephant Sanctuary where they have, at the moment, I think six elephants and all of them are rescues that they plan to reintroduce into the wild, which personally I think is stellar.  The two I got up close and personal with were Timba and I can’t remember the girl’s name, but she is 18 and super sweet.

And now for some fun facts about elephants:

-          Males are called bulls and females are cows

-          The female leads packs with the kids in between

-          They actually do hold each other’s tales with their trunks, it’s their way of holding hands

-          Elephants are migratory animals so as much as I want one they would make terrible pets unless I wanted to migrate with them day to day (that sounds nice )

-          When an elephant dies the other elephants burry them and then in a year’s time they return to that spot

-          Elephants talk to each other by making a kind of gurgling sound

-          They pass on information from generation to generation which is how  the new moms know how to care for their young and they know which plants to eat

-          Elephants can cry but not from their eyes their tear ducts are between their ears and their eyes

-     They have two eye lids one up and down and one side to side

-          I love them.

 : )

So that really all I have to say for this week other than I finished Water for Elephants and then I found out its being made into a movie. Now the fact that it’s being made into a movie I have no problem with, it’s the cast. Robert Pattinson playing the lead role as Charlie O’Brien if he butchers it I will sue and or cry. However, Reece Witherspoon is playing opposite him, and that I am pumped for.

My momma has fully planned out our trip to Cape Town.  It’s a 7 day trip starting with a drive from our house in Pretoria to Cape Point and then an adventure from there. I’m super pumped and not sorry at all that I’m missing the awful weather in KC. Although, my stomach has officially started to peel from my sun burn from like two weeks ago and I sunburned my calves today…

And don’t get upset with me for missing this blizzard… I’m going to college in Wyoming, suck it up… even if I  can’t and or wont….