Turtles turtles rah rah rah!

If you had spoken to me on Thursday or Friday last week, my weekend plans would have been very clear to you - turtle tour! I was pretty stoked and could not stop humming the Turtles song - Turtles turtles rah rah rah. Turtles turtles ha ha ha. Mmmm. I love turtles. Now, I was not counting down to those yummy delicious chocolates (although my countdown for those is 3 days 12 hours), it was to a new animal sighting for me - turtles! Big ones! Both leatherback and loggerhead turtles lay their eggs on the northern coast of KwaZulu Natal. The Isimangaliso Wetland Park is a world heritage site and on the coast of the Indian Ocean, the turtles come up in November and December and lay approximately 120 eggs each. Apparently only 1 in 1000 of the eggs laid actually make it to maturity though - sad.

On Friday afternoon, with an additional member of the adventure crew, we were on our way to St. Lucia. It was Ellie and I, as usual, and we were joined by Ellie's fiancee who is visiting for a month. He arrived on Thursday, and I must say did quite well with the jet lag and time adjustment. Once settled in at our weekend home, we were picked up by Jeff, our turtle tour guide. Along with the three of us were, interestingly, 3 other Canadians. Jeff said this was the first time he had had a Canadian only tour. One couple was from the Queen Charlottes and were taking a year off from teaching to travel the world - amazing. Our other counterpart, originally from just outside Halifax, via, Ottawa and Calgary, now lives in Victoria (I liked this man right away, we've lived in most of the same places), is retired and had been volunteering at a private game reserve working in African wild dog conservation and research (no background in this, just interest). So, I thought we had a pretty good group. We would start with a night drive through the park and then make our way to the beach, where we would look for turtles and then back through the park for more nocturnal animals and home. Estimated time 6 hours. Because we were in the front row, Cesar was in charge of the big light for that side of the truck. This job also forced him to stay awake.

I must say, our animal sightings weren't starting out particularly well - first excitement, a chameleon. Not quite the same as seeing a leopard, although still pretty cool. Really, the entire drive to Cape Vidal (where we would go onto the beach) was a bit of a dud in terms of sightings. So we got onto the beach, and we drove. And we drove some more. And we watched for signs of turtles. First sighting! Oh wait, not a turtle, a bush pig (first sighting of a bush pig for me, but still, not a turtle). Keep driving. Get to a point where park rules forbid us to go any further. Turn around. Drive. Look for turtle signs. Look, there is a turtle nest. Unfortunately honey badgers like turtle eggs and had found this nest. Sad. No baby turtles from this nest. Keep driving. Look! Honey badgers! Two of them. They were, luckily, not in the process of disturbing a nest, rather they were eating some of the many many many crabs on the beach. Ok, now we have seen the honey badgers, I want turtles. Well, we drove for quite a bit longer and made two laps of the beach. No turtles. I was pretty disappointed. But, that is the nature of nature I guess. So, this means I will have to pick a destination with more turtles and go there some time. Our drive back was also fairly uneventful, although we did see a hippo out and about having a midnight snack. But no leopard, too bad. Ellie is still just missing the leopard for the Big 5 sightings. Oh, I did find out why they are called the Big 5. Apparently it has to do with the danger they may be to hunters. The 5, -hippos, buffalo, lions, leopards and elephants - are all very dangerous when hunting. Also I guess when on safari, but you should be ok if you stay in your vehicle.

So disappointing night, but what can you do? Saturday morning we got up and headed into town. On our way we spotted these pesky creatures - mongooses, mongeese? I don't know. More than one mongoose. Something new and exciting. Plus, they are not actually pesky. I really like them. They eat my enemy species. We made our way down to the marina and joined a hippo and crocigator boat ride. Cesar and Ellie were happy that we stopped for coffee before hand. Yahoo! Exciting animal, although would have been more exciting if they moved. These crocodiles were rather uninterested in us, but I found them interesting. And then, wait for it, I saw Robin and Aaron, or at least friends of theirs (hehe). I saw hippos! And a baby hippo too!This hippos name is Julius, he apparently can't keep his mouth shut (a little South African political humour). Doesn't he just look so proud of himself? Just like the human version. I liked this guy. He had a little friend along for the ride. Back at the dock, after all the hippo sightings, we found these birds. Pretty cool. This lady is building herself a home. Her neighbours are a bit close in my opinion, but she seems content with the location. Post hippo tour, we took a little drive to two markets that Ellie and I wanted to check out. We ended up with a lot of pineapples. Like a lot of pineapples. We also decide to check out a site labeled a traditional Zulu village. We got there just in time to join a talk and see the dances and music. It was actually a really good overview of the Zulu traditions and a good introduction for Cesar. This kid made me laugh - a Zulu warrior in the making. The men put on a little show of stick fighting. If they were actually fighting one (or both) of them would have come away with a few cuts and bruises. They performed some song and dances. I really liked this lady - she is dressed in the traditional dress of a married Zulu woman. So, Sunday we got up and went on a little self guided game drive. This is as close as I got to seeing a turtle over the weekend (it is a tortoise). But we saw lots of kinds of antelope. This is a bushbuck. Side note - I learned about antelope. Apparently, distinction between deer and antelope are the horns/antlers. Antelope have horns, these horns do not branch, and they never shed. Now, the pronghorn, which those of you from South Alberta know and love, are not actually antelope, even though we always call them antelope. Apparently because they have branched antlers (and not horns) and they partially shed these, they are the only surviving species of the family Antilocapridae, not true antelope. Also, apparently true antelope are only found in Africa and Eurasia. Ok, that is enough of that. But thought you might like to know. Again, this is a bushbuck, an antelope. We also saw a few dung beetles. Some actually rolling dung, like this one...Did you know that they actually roll the dung with their back legs? Almost doing a handstand? And then walk backwards on their 'hands' pushing with their back legs. We stopped at Mission Rocks. I was promised great tidal pools by the Lonely Planet; they were very mediocre by Pacific Coast standards. But, it is a beautiful spot. And there were fun, colourful crabs everywhere. We then headed back up to Cape Vidal where were had looked for turtles Friday night. There were no turtles this time either. But, it seemed like a good plan to enjoy a really beautiful beach. And despite the clouds, and only spending an hour there, I ended up a little more red than I started. It has now turned to a tan. More antelope - Kudus - on our drive back towards the highway. And a warthog with babies. Too cute. And then I drove over the crest of a hill and holy schmoly I almost hit a zebra. These two went a little crazy after that and the one in the back threw in a couple of kicks. So, although the animal sightings were mediocre at best, I did see a bucking zebra for the first time in the wild (it reminded me of the bucking zebra at the Wellington Zoo with Melanie and Nichole many years ago).

So although there were no turtles and the animal sightings were mediocre, I had a really good, relaxing weekend. The perfect way to prepare for my few days of work before Christmas holidays. This will likely be my last post from South Africa for awhile as I am heading off in two days to go home for Christmas and for the marriage of two good friends in Ottawa. So, if I don't speak to you individually, have a happy holiday season and I will be back at the blogging from South Africa in the New Year.

Office Christmas Party - South African Style

A little slow on this, but things have been a little hectic around here. Last Wednesday afternoon our office closed early and we all packed up to head to Paradise Valley - a local nature reserve. Our office is made up of people with at a variety of life stages - grandmas to new moms and those of us without kids. So, our Christmas event is a little different - a braai was organized at Paradise Valley. It was a great afternoon - beautiful weather, great food and only one little not so pleasant incident, which involved a sighting of my enemy species. I was proud of myself and did not have a full on flip out. I calmly asked Dave (Willene's husband) to confirm my sighting and then everybody else joined me in a little freak out. I was a little on edge for the remainder of the time there, but still enjoyed myself. So, here are a few of the people I work with and their families.... Celeste (an attorney at our office) and her daughter. Thandeka (all you can see are her legs here) and her precious son. The kids that Willene and Catherine brought (GP and Dave). And yes, we played Twister at our party. I feel like GP is cheating picking up the mat in this one. I actually won this round (I may have run Catherine off the end of the mat). Asha and Kathy enjoying the sun. That's about it. It will be quite strange to be going back to snow later this week. But very much looking forward to seeing my family and friends. Merry Christmas!

Marching (and marching along the route we want) - a lesson in asserting your civil rights

As you might be able to tell from the title of this post - we won! As an update from the last posting - on Wednesday, we served the municipality papers for an urgent motion brought before the Durban High Court. The motion requested that the Court confirm our clients' right to freedom of peaceful assembly; to declare that the decision of the municipal manager was unconstitutional; and to confirm our clients' right to hold a march on their chosen route where the municipality failed to meet the threshold to restrict their march under the Regulation of Gatherings Act. Emma and I had a bit of a rough day on Wednesday, but everything eventually got served and filed with the Court. Luckily, the people accepting service were generally quite nice (people don't like when you show up with court papers as a general rule). Not long after I wrote my blog on Thursday, we had a call from our client - the Civil Society Committee for COP17. Apparently the City Manager had contacted their rep the evening before offering another route (by my count we are on route 7 now). He had already made a decision, but seemed to be going back on it, conveniently after the papers had been filed with the Court. Hmmm - Anyways, the City Manager proposed that we meet at noon - last thing I wanted to do was sit in another meeting discussing the streets of Durban and how much traffic would be disrupted. However, the route that had been proposed was great from our perspective. It allowed us the two things we were most focused on - to march down Dr. Pixley KaSeme Street (one of the major streets in the Durban downtown) and to march along Samora Machel Street, which goes along next to the International Convention Centre where negotiations are being held. Yahoo! So, things were looking good. The meeting got pushed into the evening, but I still couldn't figure out why we needed a meeting. What ended up happening was that our client went to retrieve the letter approving the new route at around 6:00pm without needing a meeting (thank goodness). Problem - we were already on the rolls for court the next morning. So we proposed that we ask the Court, on consent, to make the letter approving the new route an order of the Court. Seemed logical to me. At 9:30 on Friday, Emma, along with 2 others from our office and a Jo'Burg Advocate (from the LRC Constitutional Litigation Unit) were over at the High Court. I had to miss on account of a meeting with the KZN Street Kids Alliance (which I will tell you more about later). But, two hours later, Emma texted me to say that the case was still going on - I was quite surprised, an order on consent should take 20 seconds. So, after the meeting I was off to the High Court. I arrived just in time. I squeezed into the gallery seating with Desmond (the convener of the march and C17's main guy with regards to the march) and Sue (a reverend with the Anglican Church and representative of the faith community within C17). The judge started - I have to admit, it didn't seem to start very well. The judge was asking questions about why other parties had not been named as respondents and all kinds of strange, irrelevant questions. I was concerned, the judge just did not seem to be getting it. Our Advocate was having trouble getting the judge on our page. But then, all of the sudden, you could see the penny drop, and he was on our side. He figured it out. So here is a little run down of the questions - Judge to LRC - so you want this letter made an order of this Court? LRC - Yes. Judge (to Municipality) - Do you have a problem with that? Municipality - Yes. Judge - What? It's your letter? How can you have a problem with me making it an order of the Court? Municipality - I have been instructed by my client to oppose having the letter made an order of the Court Judge - Ok, well, let's move onto costs. (I may be adlibbing a bit, but that's the gist of it).

And the costs also went our way. Nice. Yeah for us! Success! So we left the Court with an order requiring the city to provide police and close roads in order to allow us to walk from Botha Park, along Dr. Pixley KaSeme Street turning at Samora Machel Street, handing over a memorandum to UN representatives at the ICC and finally, ending the march at the beach. We were all very happy heading back to our office.

So what do you do after working that hard for a march - you join it. I also decided that marching is a very South African thing that I would like to experience and what better march to take part in? Ellie and I decided to head to our office where we were expecting to join with the Faith Community for the first part of the march before joining with the rest of the Civil Society march. This is what it looked like at Diakonia...At Diakonia, we met up with Asha, who I work with. Asha is an amazing woman. The role she has played and continues to play in social justice is astonishing. She fought against apartheid and continues to fight to keep government accountable to the people of South Africa. If you are going to march, there is no better person to go with than Asha, the super experienced marcher (It makes me laugh when she talks about marches now, and how they aren't as exciting as they used to be, no dogs and such with the police). Asha convinced us to head over to Botha Park and join the main march. She said that we should see it from the beginning, and I have to say I'm glad we did. It was an experience and I was very proud of the work we did, feeling pride as we passed the street signs saying Dr. Pixley KaSeme Street.

Here are some photos of the march. This was what we were greeted with at Botha's Park...intimidating? Slightly. The police were out in full force and riot gear ready. Apparently there was a scuffle before the march even began between ANC Youth League Members and youth from the Democratic Left Front. We were there and didn't notice anything, although apparently the riot police stepped in. But don't worry, it wasn't all police. Actually, the march came together really well. Lots of organizations; lots of ways climate change is impacting different lives; and generally a positive atmosphere - I mean there was a clown on a unicycle. At the march, we met up with Emma. Oxfam had extra signs, I also liked their message, so these were the placards we used. Not surprisingly, there were some Canadians there. Want to know how to spot a Canadian? Dead give-away is somebody wearing a CBC t-shirt. Also a dead give-away - an MEC backpack. There was a solid crowd. Estimates were between 5000 and 7000. Some signs were better than others and some t-shirts better than others. But in general, the message was the same, get going on combating climate change! The WWF had awesome shirts. I wanted one. Although we were a little late starting thanks to the scuffle I mentioned earlier, the march had quite a festival atmosphere to it. As my mom said, a parade with a purpose. We also decided that best course of action would be to stay with the giant puppets from Oxfam, then you can't get lost. This is Asha. This is us walking down Dr. Pixley KaSeme Street (you can just see the street sign on the right hand side). I also happened to run into Awa. She was running all over the place getting things ready for her latest story, but stopped for a picture and a little protest. This is what happens if you walk too long next to the puppet, you have to start assisting in carrying the giant thing. Ellie was very happy about this turn of events. As much as this march was about saying to the negotiators here in Durban - get your stuff together and do something - for me it was also a confirmation of the human rights that are essential to a functioning democracy. It seems to be a constant battle here - to hold people (and government in particular), to the standards set out in the Constitution. But it made me feel really good to do work that confirmed the importance of these civil rights. So yeah to a successful march and yeah to a successful case!