Do you ever feel like Mary Poppins? -  The seasons in South Africa are beginning to change. It is not seen as the dramatic color change of autumn leaves, or the cripness in the air from the first frost, but we know winter is coming. The ethonol in the thermometer on the wall in our little [...]

The news is in and the news is good. Just before the deadline we were able to reach our goal of just under R45000. Here’s a short version of the backstory… (if you know the story you may want to skip to the next section) Beginnig with a single donation of the used trumpet St. Johns Apostolic [...]

Last year at the Longtom Marathon Event in Sabi, AJ, a fellow volunteer, asked one of the staff from the backpacker, “Is there any good rock climbing in this area?” His response was, “if you want serious rock climbing in South Africa, bra’, you need to check out Waterval Boven.” So that’s exactly what we [...]

“Green,” she said… “all I want is to go somewhere green.” In the scorching heat of northwest Limpopo we triple lined our backpacks preparing for rain. First our clothes and gear went into gallon sized Ziplock bags. These went into durable garbage sacks and into our packs. Finally we got our duck backs ready to go [...]

Why hello, I don’t usually ask for much, but in this case I believe it is a good cause. One of the reasons why I believe Peace Corps has a good thing going is that its service work is flexible. We as volunteers have been asked, within loose project guidelines, to find areas of true need [...]

As 2008 begins to draw to a close, I find myself thinking about the successes and challenges of my Peace Corps service. When we first arrived in our village in September 2007, I tried to make projects work at my NGO, Abbotspoort Home and Community Based Care, but soon realized that they simply were not [...]

You may have heard rumor that I (Suz) flew home for a week in September. Well I’d like to officially confirm that that rumor was correct. I flew home for the wedding of one of my dearest friends, Sarah Spring! Although I was only in the states for 6 quick days, it was totally [...]

Sometimes projects just come together in beautiful ways. With Susie’s careful planning the Chrysalis Girls Club had a full unit on HIV/AIDS. The girls got the facts about the disease as well as the realities of how the pandemic is affecting their country and even their little village. According to the municipality and our clinic, 1 [...]

I knew that joining the Peace Corps would be challenging for me  in many ways. Early on in our first week in country we had individual interviews with our Assistant Program Country Directors (APCDs). In this interview we discussed desires and fears for the upcoming two years of service.  The one desire that Suz and I [...]

Hey, everybody! Suz here. Long time, no updates, we know. Things just seem to keep getting busier and busier…Girls Club is rockin’ and I just finished two humongous Peace Corps reports on the project, we organized a huge celebration for Women’s Day, Ben has been busy being the official “Village Tech” as well as doing the [...]

Hey, everybody! Susie here. Just a quick note to let you know there are 3 new updates on our Chrysalis Girls Club blog, so if you’re interested, click on the link in the left column to check them out. Also, 7 new photo albums have been added to our Picasa website, including pictures from our massive vacation [...]

Wow, it’s been a while since we’ve updated our blog! I guess that’s what happens you go on two incredible vacations, eh? It’s time to start catching-up… Mid-Service Vacation Part One: Bob! On June 19th we left our village to make our way to Pretoria. We picked up Bob at the airport on June 21st and [...]

Hey everybody! Tomorrow Susie and I are leaving for Pretoria to start a wild and wonderful vacation that involves Bob Stafford, Susie’s Parents and little (well not so little) bro. We are headed through Namibia, a bit into Zambia, botswana and then back into SA to head over to Krugar, St. Lucia and Swaziland. We’ll [...]

No no no… Susie and I are still overjoyed to be married, but we have chosen to put the Chrysalis Girls Club updates on a second blog. Think of it more like a split in the stock market, you get double what you had before. You can still see links to the newest posts on [...]