From the Author: Gardens and art

Marty's experience

Nothing in the below text is the opinion of Peace Corps, but are the thoughts and impressions of Marty Strauss and Suzanne Del Sarto.

Thursday, June 26th we received direction from Peace Corps to be ready to be picked up and brought down to Pretoria on Saturday where we would stay until reassigned. We were told it may take a month to relocate us. This action was taken due to not being able to secure housing for the balance of our assignment.

This decision was made after visits to site by Peace Corps staff and discussions with both ourselves and our sponsor.

We arrived in Pretoria early Saturday night and reported to the Peace Corp office on Monday to do paper work, etc.

We are now at a hostel. Our room is comfortable and we share a kitchen. While we wait we are discovering Pretoria and meeting interesting people. We are also preparing our three month report for an upcoming training the latter part of this month.

That is all for now.

Marty

From Suzanne's Perspective:

After completing our business with the PC we stayed at a Hostel called the Backpacker. During our stay we went to the National Botanical Gardens and Institute.   The garden was mostly asleep given this is mid-winter.  There were enabling gardens where seedlings are started, a medicinal garden with 3 rondeval thatch roofed huts with plant information, and medicinal  information. We took  the path that surrounds the gardens.  Got to see a small waterfall, some small critters, and took a tour through the Herbarium.  There we learned how plants are collected researched, and stored.
Saw some plants from Venuzuela, and the USA.   People throughout Africa and the rest of the world send samples of plants to this Institute to find out classification.  South Africa does research on herbal traditional herbal remedies.  The Institute plays an important part in this research. We met Anne-Lise Fourie, Director of the Library.  She took time to discuss the library and the South African National Biodiversity Institute.  She explained that the institute was organized into 3 regions, Western and Central Africa region, Eastern Africa Region and Southern Africa region.  She explained how this organization is building up an international network of biodiversity librarians and connecting them with each other and the international research community.  This international collaborative is receiving some support through the Smithsonian, as well as other international organizations for its very important research and connectivity through downloadable identification of these plants, and trees.  Their global initiative with project nodes in Egypt, Europe, China, Brazil, Austrailia and sub-Saharan Africa is to improve accessibility to this information by digitalizing using high definition technology the natural history, botanical research, and other biodiversity literature.  Members can access this information on PDFs free on line at www.biodiversitylibrary.org

We had a lovely lunch in the garden and visited the bookstore to purchase our books on medical plants developed within the sub-Saharan cultural use of herbs.  We hoped onto a taxi, missed our stop and discovered more of Pretoria on foot as we quickly made our way home.

We watched the American verses Belgium cup competition, which was riveting!  USA lost by 1 goal with a score reached in over time of 2 to 1.  What a game!

Another time, we visited the Pretoria Art Museum, and were impressed with the artwork of the artists of the resistance who painted during the 1960s through 1990s.  Very moving and well worth the entrance fee which was reasonable.  Walking home we visited a small outdoors arts and crafts coffee shop.  This was across the street from the Sheraton Hotel, on Wessels street.  There were beading artists and displays of paintings that were of museum quality, as well, embroidered jackets, carved soapstone, and wood.  We met Wellington, a PHd student at Pretoria University, and  volunteer for the shop.  He is  from Zimbabwe.  It was a well spent 1.5-2 hours. His parents migrated to Indianapolis, USA.  He wanted some time with us to discuss a business plan and the steps to take to design one.  He was helping this NGO.  The NGO had a homeless program with a soup kitchen.  The bed cost 8 Rand per night and the applicants had to work on a self-sustainability plan, how to earn money and get off the street. This shop provided financial sustainability to this program. We also talked about the PC and how organizations could apply for volunteers and what the volunteers do.  He took our contact information and will be in touch with us.  We are open to assist while we are in town. We walked hastily home and continued to work on the PC statistical assignment due July 10. 

Suzanne