7/6/2015 - Bulembu Day 1

Despite not being able to start with the science club until 2 pm, we had told All Out Africa we would leave around 8:30 and we decided this would be good as we knew it was far and that we might like some time beforehand to check in and eat lunch.  20 minutes into driving, Sifiso stopped to call Roland.  He didn't like the way the brakes sounded and felt, shuddering the car a bit when they were applied, and explained we would need to drive over two mountains to reach Bulembu, and he didn't trust this van and its brakes on such steep slopes. This van had been rented from another company as all All Out Africa vehicles were otherwise occupied, and so Roland suggested we stop at some nearby shops to kill time while he called the company and saw what could be done.  

There was a very cool glass-making place where we went, and lots of well-to-do crafty shops surrounding it.  We explored everything and bought one or two gifts, then convened.  It seemed there was no vehicle to replace ours, and so we made the group decision to keep on going and go carefully.  However, a few minutes into driving, Roland called back and said the man who had rented the van insisted on replacing it, and so we were to meet him at the Maguga dam visitors' center.  It was a good 20 - 30 minutes away, but it was perfect as we got to go to the bathroom and take a quick look at the breathtaking view of the dam we would tour later this week.  This van was a teensy bit smaller, but still comfortable for the 6 of us and had much better brakes (on the way to the dam, we could smell the brakepads burning on the old van).  

   

When we finally made it past Pigg's Peak (town nearest Bulembu), and started the dusty, red ochre rocky roads up and down the mountains into the heart of Bulembu, we were even more grateful for Sifiso's call on the brakes. There was one hill in particular that we could not make up without going back to the bottom of it and gunning it up all the way.  There was no railing, no pavement, and steep slopes, and we held on and convinced ourselves that people came this way all the time and made it, so we could, too.  We did see 2 trucks and 2 mini buses traveling in the opposite direction on the way.  We finally made it, and there were paved roads again, though the town is very hilly.  

It was 1:15 by the time we got there, and Nelia's contact, Michelle, was waiting for us at the Bulembu Country Lodge, where we would be staying.  We were originally planning on staying two nights since we thought we could do the solar cell workshop, but there had been miscommunication (as we found out over the weekend), and we could only get two hours with the students this afternoon. So we thought it possible we might just leave early and give ourselves more time to prepare for the now full day workshop we would be doing Thursday with Siskelo in Big Bend. We evaluated and divided rooms quickly, but left our stuff in the van to unpack later as we had limited time to eat before running over to the high school.  Since the high school had no time for us tomorrow, Michelle suggested having us do some demos for the primary school.  We agreed this would be great and she said she would look into setting it up (we were told their schedules are more flexible this time of year due to some critical exams the older students were taking soon).  

We hurried over to the high school and got our demo stuff out, greeted by John, the principal and a science teacher himself.  He led us to a lab classroom where we set up and did our now well-revised act, but we had two hours (we had grown accustomed to 1), so we could elaborate more than usual and not hurry through concepts. Participation was again limited as the students were initially shy with us.  One girl asked me  a really excellent question about my presentation on space telescopes: I had explained some of the significant discoveries of Hubble, including showing that it could see to nearly 1 billion years ago, but also that it had helped us determine the age of the universe to be about 13.7 billion years old.  She wondered how it could determine the age of the universe if it could only see back a small fraction of that time.  I did not know, and told her it was an excellent question, and I would attempt to get her an answer as soon as I had internet.  We added showing how a PV cell worked with the cell we built last night to the demos, which was to be used for the hydroponics system the school was working on. 

  

Overall, we had a good time doing demonstrations as always, and the principal was very pleased with everything we did.  He explained after class that he was teaching the form 4 and form 5 science classes tomorrow, and wanted us to come to their classes, with completely new material (many of them had seen our demos today).  We were a bit baffled; we explained this was all we had planned on and we had no internet available in Bulembu. John (the principal) implored us, saying it would benefit his students so much to even hear science lessons from us, so we promised we would try to put something together.  With Michelle's help, I was able to get internet for 5 minutes in her office to download some documents from when I taught high school physics, and was able to look up the answer to the question I got earlier about the age of the universe.  

After dinner, we all worked hard on preparing lessons, the rest of the group on various energy topics (thermo basics, biomass, Carnot cycle, fuel cells) while I modified my presentation on special relativity to under 15 minutes with some example problems using time dilation and length contraction equations.  We were up late and had to have an early start as the first class began at 7:40 but breakfast didn't start until 7, so we would have to hurry.