We awoke early on the 19th, curious as to the form in which the strike would manifest itself in St. Matthews and prepared to temporarily adopt a disciplinary role in the absence of teachers. Drawing back the curtains revealed a damp and miserable scene, as rain poured from the heavy, grey sky - a sure reflection of the mood of both the country and us volunteers. Having run across to St. Matthews and sought the shelter of the school buildings, we found the learners loitering outside of the classrooms, evidently confused and exchanging gossip and hearsay about the strike. We talked to them for a while, trying to discover some information ourselves as the usually bustling staff room was deserted. After some time, a message, issued by some unseen high-command, an administrative apparition, was passed up the line of learners to gather in the assembly hall. We stood watch, trying to keep the students in order amid the contagious confusion, until the principal emerged from a meeting with the governing body half an hour later. For some time he addressed the assembly, explaining the predicament and possible solutions, although in Xhosa, so it fell on our deaf, frustrated ears. We learned afterwards that it was agreed that the learners would pack up their things in the hostels and seek transport home, for the hostels could not operate without the striking matrons and cooking staff to provide for them and the buildings would be targeted by violent unionists if it was discovered they were still full. We decided to make the most of the day and visit the recently developed Hemingway Mall in East London – a relatively luxurious shopping paradise, in comparison to the sad and dilapidated row of convenience stores lining the road through Keiskamahoek. After some time spent shopping, we decided to sample “East London’s largest cinema screen” in order to watch ‘Knight and Day’ with Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz. As this is a travel blog, and not a film review, I will shelve my critical response to the film, despite strong objections to certain laws of physics that the makers decided to unwittingly overlook in order to fill gaping plot holes. The screen was tiny and the sound awful, but it was a pleasant way to spend a rainy Thursday afternoon.
On Friday, with no sign of a resolution to the strike in sight, we packed up the car and headed out for a long weekend away from St Matthews, which by now resembled a ghost town in the absence of chatty, laughing kids – an eerily quiet spot in the rural hills of the Eastern Cape that would make a perfect setting for a horror film. Our first destination was Addo Elephant National Park – a huge expanse of grassy plains that formed the only “Big 5” (elephants, buffalo, lions, cheetahs and rhinos) park in the southern part of South Africa. After a long and largely uneventful trip, marked only by an unintentional detour and routine police check, we arrived at the park by mid-afternoon. We immediately booked onto a late-afternoon game drive for a not-insignificant amount. Despite the tarmaced roads that wove through the enormous reserve, it was good to be whisked around in a large safari jeep, the guide zipping between known hangouts of each animal and the elevated position allowing for an enhanced view of the surroundings in comparison to a DIY drive with our car. Near the beginning, we stopped to admire the solitary, and highly endangered, flightless dung beetle going about its crappy business with some back-end donations left on the road. As we pulled off again, after saying goodbye to nature’s noble bottom feeder, we turned for one last look in time to see the car behind us drive straight over the beetle, stretching it into a long, black smear along the road. That’s the circle of life, I suppose Elton John would say - from mess it was born and to mess it returned. In the remaining two hours we saw the placid Kudu and Eland (both deer-like grazers), some black-backed jackals scouting for carrion, warthogs, moody buffalos (apparently disease free, and accordingly, worth £30,000 each), elephants enjoying the waterhole, and even an elusive lion (a small speck from a distance, but very real looking through the binoculars of the Italian couple with which we were sharing the jeep. The more affluent nature-fanatic may pay a small fortune to get a lot closer in the neighbouring, private nature reserve). The large orange disk dropping slowly behind the mountains as we drove back cast a deep yellow light over the plains, the very personification of an African sunset.
By the time we had left the park it was past six and we had not yet located, identified or booked anywhere to stay, relying on the gaggle of guesthouses (common collective term) around the perimeter. Plucking for the “Orange Elephant Backpacker Guesthouse” as somewhere likely to be offering cheap beds to wearisome travellers getting by on a fraying shoe-string (judging from the omitted ‘B’ on it’s advertisement B&B sign, signalling simply a ‘Bed’), we parked up and entered. Having approached the formidably built manager behind the bar-come-reception-desk and enquired about dorm prices, Tom entered into a bout of bargaining, attempting to haggle a considerable 25% off of the price. The manager, with a wearisome sigh, leant forward, placed his hands on the desk and looked Tom squarely in the eye. “This is South Africa, mate, not India. We don’t bloody barter. It’s that price or nothing.” Having accepted ‘that price’, as ‘nothing’ would have meant sleeping in the car, we unpacked, ate and slept soundly.
Tom and I got out of bed with the sun in order to explore Addo reserve in the early morning, hoping to encounter a different cross section of South African wildlife. This turned out to be primarily the smaller and ‘less significant’ animals, mainly birds and a mongoose, until we stumbled across a family of elephants (almost quite literally – they aren’t referred to as natures ghosts for nothing) and came within a metre or two of a grazing mother and calf (all the while conscious of the dangers posed by infringing on personal space where maternal instincts are involved). After returning to the guest house in time for check-out, we drove on to Port Elizabeth (or P.E. as the learners refer to it) – a coastal city that we’d heard much about. We checked into a friendly, hippy-styled backpacker hostel a stones catapult from the beach, a stark and pleasing contrast to the open hostility we’d received in The Orange Elephant. We drove into the city centre, but couldn’t really find much of a hub or heart of P.E., just a stunted ‘heritage walk’ consisting of a statue devoted to the horses that lost their lives in the great war and a single-roomed museum devoted to beads. Having fulfilled our culture quota for the day, we headed to the beach to take advantage of the remainder of the sun. This seemed to be all there was to P.E. – a long stretch of sand, cement and hotels, up and down which the tourists may walk to savour the warm sea breeze and spend their loose change on trinkets (or loose savings in the large casino). Despite the seemingly shallow nature of the city, we all appreciated the relative levels of safety to be found on the boardwalk at night, in comparison to the highly dangerous nature of almost everywhere else in South Africa after dark (an opinion shared by the locals). We made the most of it by wondering along to a sea-front restaurant in the evening, heading afterwards to the club opposite, which was packed with teenage athletes (the culmination of the tri-varsity games held that day in P.E. – despite having just graduated, I found myself misty-eyed with nostalgia, already reminiscing about our heady days at University, too soon left behind), for some dancing until late.
The next day, having used the grey skies outside as an excuse to roll out of bed considerably later than our usual time (as we most certainly did not over-imbibe the night before), we strolled the promenade, browsing the ‘cultural’ and ‘traditional’ souvenirs of the Sunday craft market. The remainder of the day, for the majority, was a wash-out, but we resolved to stay in P.E. in order to go on a whale watching expedition the following day, the African Winter being the prime time to observe them. Our luck, having been expended in Addo, ran dry the following day, in contrast to the weather, which ran wet, dashing our chances of having a Moby Dick adventure. Deflated, we packed up and headed home. En route, we stopped off at Graham’s Town, an historic student town home to Rhodes University (which many of St Matthew’s learners aspire to attend post-graduation. We wandered the grounds, ending up in the English Department, where we were amazed to find a newspaper clipping detailing the new Harry Potter module being offered in Durham University, of all places!) and St Andrews High School (the spoilt, older sister school of St Matthew’s was allocated for the white children of the Eastern Cape in the 50’s under the apartheid regime, and as such, was generously funded by the government and by its extortionate tutoring fees (£13,000 in 2009) and has developed and prospered to become the cream of Eastern Cape educational facilities, boasting in its 244 page prospectus the highest pass rates and, within its overflowing sporting portfolio, no less than 16 rugby and 9 water-polo teams (among others). St Matthews, on the other hand, was assigned to the ‘blacks and coloureds’ and has suffered from several decades of fiscal negligence, with poor pass rates, 2 rugby teams and perhaps a third of students who can even swim. This kind of contrast could perhaps be found within the British educational system, separating the rich, in expansive public schools, and poor, in cramped inner-city colleges – the striking difference in South Africa is the clear divide in race, a bad hangover from the troubled middle decades of the 20th century).
Tuesday and Wednesday passed by in an uneventful blur of killed time as we caught up with some personal and house-based chores, all the time checking the news in some hope of finding tidings of joy in the form of a resolution to the strike. Pondering for the hundredth time “what good are we, who have come to help at St Matthews for this short time, able to do without students?” we struck upon the idea that we could pour our helpful energy into the buildings. Having visited the hostels often in the evening for tutoring, we couldn’t fail to notice the truly disgusting state of the bathrooms and corridors (all grey, chipping paint, cobwebs and years of thick, accumulated dirt). Having taken the prospect of renovation to Emily and Jarvis to confirm financial backing from the Calibar Foundation, we began to plan our volunteering comeback. The only difficulty was gauging the answer to the infernal question – how long do we have before this confounded strike is over?
in the senior hostel (for grades 11 and 12), basing our decision on the facts that it was fairest to improve communal areas, and that all years would eventually benefit (also we couldn’t find keys to the junior hostel, as Eric the man in charge of catering who had the keys had disappeared). Tim, Tom and I then travelled to King in convoy with Emily and Jarvis to buy materials (generously funded by the Calibar Foundation) in a shop called ‘Builders Depot’ (think B&Q, South Africa style). We collectively decided that a calming light blue would be the best colour to go for, as the walls were currently a dull grey, and so the blue would brighten it up without having to change the colour too much. We purchased the first of many pots, along with paint for the ceilings, many brushes and rollers, and much to Tom’s excitement, an electric sander! 
in the senior hostel (for grades 11 and 12), basing our decision on the facts that it was fairest to improve communal areas, and that all years would eventually benefit (also we couldn’t find keys to the junior hostel, as Eric the man in charge of catering who had the keys had disappeared). Tim, Tom and I then travelled to King in convoy with Emily and Jarvis to buy materials (generously funded by the Calibar Foundation) in a shop called ‘Builders Depot’ (think B&Q, South Africa style). We collectively decided that a calming light blue would be the best colour to go for, as the walls were currently a dull grey, and so the blue would brighten it up without having to change the colour too much. We purchased the first of many pots, along with paint for the ceilings, many brushes and rollers, and much to Tom’s excitement, an electric sander! 
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