Mrs. Sims in South Africa: Durban

Goodbye, Pumla! You were a wonderful guide in Johannesburg!

Four a.m. is much too early to get up, but that’s what we had to do in order to catch our plane to Durban. It was a short flight, albeit rather bumpy, but we flew over the Indian Ocean coming in to land, and that made up for everything.

Durban is the largest port in Africa, and there are always ships lined up (queued up) waiting to get into port. Toyota is the sponsor of our trip, and they have a manufacturing plant in Durban, so we got a plant tour. It’s very similar to the tours I’ve had of the GM plant in Wentzville, but Toyota stamps some of their parts here, and I had never seen that before.

We visited two landfill projects. The Bisasar Landfill is one of the busiest in Africa. It is also Africa’s first and largest project to convert methane gas to electricity.

The Buffelsdraai Landfill Community Restoration Project is reforesting indigenous trees in a buffer zone around the landfill to offset CO2 emissions resulting from the World Cup last year. They recruit local people to grow the trees, and then they trade in the trees for basic food items, clothes, school fees, or construction materials. Local who grow 250 trees also earn a day trip somewhere, and 500 trees earn an overnight trip. We were told about a 76-year-old woman who earned a trip and cried when she saw a dolphin because it was the first time she had ever seen one. In the process of planting indigenous trees, they are also working to remove the sugar cane fields and eucalyptus trees.

We had a session with a group of facilitators who work with local teachers involved in Toyota Teach. Their goal is to improve the effectiveness of the teachers and teaching methods to increase student achievement.

We ended our last full day in Durban by going to a rugby match. I’m not sure any of us had ever been to one before or if anyone really knew the rules, but we had a great time. My favorite part was the remote control dump truck they used to take items out onto the field.