I am the Lion King

After much deliberation I have decided to end the blog formerly known as Pierre In, and start a new blog that chronicles the highlights of my travels through Africa and Europe. For those of you wondering how this change will impact my writing, we will just have to wait and see.

I arrived in Cape Town, South Africa on the 18th of January and spent most of the day just lounging around our hostel in an attempt to familiarize myself with the place. Cape Town looks a lot like most cities built near the ocean, and I would say that its architecture and set up is very closely related to that of San Francisco. It took only the first night for me to realize that I should be more careful when reading the reviews people write about accommodations in Cape Town. If I had paid more attention to these reviews I would have noticed that the one I chose had a tendency to be noisy on the weekends. Seeing as we arrived on a Friday, the next two nights were spent tossing restlessly as African adolescents partied below us until 5 in the morning. Needless to say, I am still trying to catch up on my sleep.

Finally on Sunday morning we met up with the overland tour group and guide we would be traveling with for the next three weeks. Our group is a United Nations-esque mix of people. Those who have come as far as Korea and those who have come from the not as far of Switzerland. I have been practicing my Swiss-German but it is not a functionally sound as my Korean. I look forward to talking to all of you in a foreign tongue when I return home.

We spent the first two days of the tour working our way north through South Africa. On the third day we had to pass through the Namibian border. After the ritual circumcision, I was cleared through customs; however, I felt like Namibia had taken a little away from me. I should mention at this point that our tour is a camping tour, and at night it is Sarah and my responsibility to set up our tent. The first few days were fine, and I believe that we may have even beaten an old German WWII record for fastest tent ever assembled. However, after a few days of pitching the tent, we made the executive decision to just sleep in our sleeping bags on the ground. Not only did this save us time, but it allowed us to be up close and personal with some of the African wildlife, especially the jackals.

I have a plethora of exciting adventures I want to relate, but am pondering the proper way to express my excitement of them. For instance, I was fortunate enough to hike through the dunes of the Namib Desert (that's right - open google map!!!) Our desert guide was a local Namibian man named Franz (don't ask me how his parents came up with that). I learned a lot about the formation of the dunes, and even had the chance to jump down the side of a dune cliff. I felt like surviorman sans camera crew and any outdoors experience (except for the three overnights I did with Brad and Laurie at summer camp).

Of course there have been other highlights, too many to mention without getting carpal tunnel in my fingers. Once we enter Europe it will be much easier for me to access the internet and give everyone reading this a detailed account of my life.

I will leave you with the story of a young Jewish bushman, who in order to become a man in the eyes of his tribe, had to go out into the desert and spear the much feared and highly sought after gifilte fish. After many days the boy had not found the fish, and he began to feel disheartened. How could he return to the tribe without the fish? He pondered a solution for many days and many nights, until waking one morning with a solution. In his haste to return to the village and tell his people how he had fought off the wild Caananite dog, the gifilte fish's biggest predator, he did not leave time for his bread to leaven. When the bushman returned his people ignored his story but marveled at his creation of the newest African food ... matzah.

Hope everyone is well. Much love, I will write more soon.

The End

Cultural Shock 101

Today I was able to add to the list of numerous things a scrawny Jewish boy from the 'burbs should not do ... Hunt. However, I decided to put my love of living things aside for a few hours while I ventured into the world of carnage also known as hunting.

However, there was a catch. I was not given a gun. Nor was I given a bow or arrow. Heck, I didn't even get a wooden whistle that made the mating sound of a pheasant. It was strictly my job to trudge through wooded areas of the farm we were hunting at in hopes of flushing the pheasants out so the people with guns could shoot them. I couldn't tell if the people I was hunting with were joking or not when they instructed me to walk through the woods and scare the birds so they could fire shotgun shells in my general direction. Perhaps the only positive in my situation was that I was lucky enough not to be hunting with the vice president of our great nation; at least this meant I had a fighting chance.

When the hunt was over, and our group had killed about 15 birds, 1 jackrabbit, and a cooler of beer, I did learn how to clean a pheasant. This process took me back to my ninth grade science class. I remember walking into class one day and seeing a little baby pig stretched out on a metal tray. I thought about playing the whole "not kosher" deal, but decided that it would be a good learning experience. It was the same thing with the pheasant. I learned how to get rid of the feathers, where to enter the bird in order to remove the internal organs, and how to slice the gizzard up for good eaten'. I am almost positive these skills will help me somewhere down the line, as pheasant was such a popular dish in my household growing up. Mom, this time I'll clean the pheasant so you don't have to.

Halloween

Halloween is a Pagan holiday. For this reason alone you can pardon my ridicule of such a sound financial scheme. Instead of dressing up as a promiscuous nurse, or a promiscuous police officer, or even a promiscuous firefighter, I decided to go as a much less provocative version of myself. However, I could prematurely sense the disappointment my students would feel by me dressing up as me, so I decided to spend some time carving the likeness of me into a pumpkin.

Sorry

To all of my adoring fans, I apologize for the long overdue blog update. Many things have happened over the past few weeks, but I will spare details and get down to the nitty gritty.

The first topic of today's blog deals with the current BCS rankings. South Florida, Kansas, Hawaii ... it sounds like the the first three games of the Penn State football season. How can a Penn State team that completely dominated 17th ranked Wisconsin still not fall into a BCS or AP poll rating? At the same time the highly overrated Michigan Wolverines some how managed to find their way into the 24th spot. Does anyone in a position of sports responsibility remember that Michigan lost to Appalachian State and Oregon. Also, they managed to squeeze by Northwestern (should have lost), Purdue (should have lost), and Eastern Michigan. O.k. O.k., so they beat Penn State 14-9 in a real shootout, but did I mention Michigan lost to Appalachian State. Do the sports columnists of this great country not have any dignity for the sport of football. The one positive is that when we beat first-ranked Ohio State in two weeks, it will be that much sweeter.

Well now that football is out of the way, we can talk about my life. I recently spent some time in Denver hanging out with the Rippin Skiers. They showed me a great time, and the possibility of a move to Denver seems all the more reasonable. Perhaps the highlight of my trip, aside from spending time with friends, was my run-in with crazy Chuck, a South Dakotan autochthon full of spirit, song, and alcohol. This man had a song for every occasion. If your hair was blond he had a song, if the sun was shining he had song, if your shoe was untied he had a song. While having a song for all occasions is no real feat, it was the enormous amount of mucus that Chuck would cough up while in mid-song that made his act something to see. There were a few occasions when I thought his heart was actually going to stop from a mucus clog or he was going to rupture something and cause internal bleeding. Either way I guess I was not the only one concerned because the waitress cut him off at 5:30 in the afternoon. Chuck, if you are reading this (which judging by your basic demeanor and the fact you were paying for alcohol in spare change makes me think you are not), I really do wish you the best buddy, and South Dakota misses you dearly.

The trip was great, and really helped with my headspace. I am back in the classroom and loving every minute of it. In what other profession could a lesson on garbage and pollution turn into a 15-minute discussion on flatulence? I was teaching about garbage and landfills, and just as I was explaining how the methane produced underground from garbage landfills needs to be released to prevent combustion, one of the students farted. In the education world we call this a "teachable moment." You can imagine my students surprise when their teacher told them that if I was to hold a match to their fart I could produce a tiny explosion (the adjective varies depending on the lunch being served that afternoon). I had a few teachers ask me later on in the day why my kids were discussing methane to the other students. The way I see it is if they can remember the word methane, it shouldn't matter that they are talking about flatulence.

I hope to keep this blog updated from here on out, but I do not put any guarantees on that. I look forward to talking to everyone soon, but in the meantime stay good. Love you all.

In lieu of recent events surrounding my phone bill, I have decided to take my Lent vow early this year. I am going to give up talking on my cell phone for 40 days. Some of you may think I'm crazy. Some of you may even be saying, "But wait, he has the most sophisticated piece of technological equipment available on the market (*** that is of course excluding the Nintendo Wii and the Toyota Prius ... but those don't count they are Japanese products). Well you naysayers are correct. I do have an iphone, but I have come to realize that the iphone is the one responsible for my astronomic phone bill. You see, the iphone makes it incredibly easy for me to dial 11 easy digits and talk to someone from lets say ... Sweden! If Steve Jobs had made it a little more difficult for me to dial overseas, I would not be faced with such a burdensome phone bill. With that being said, if you need me I can be reached by starting a bonfire and quickly waving a blanket over it 7 times. Carefully not to wave it eight times because that is the universal code for After Labor Day Shopping Sale.

In school news, I received a wonderful question from one of the girls in my class. It was the afternoon and I was teaching math (for those of you that know my math ability, I use the term "teaching" very loosely in that sentence), when the young girl raised her hand and asked, "Mr. Schwartz, what if that guy never invented clothing?" I was a little surprised at how sure she was of it being a man that invented clothing. In fact, after owning a pair of button-fly jeans, I am almost one hundred percent sure that it was not a man who invented clothing. Anyway, I asked my students what they thought life would be like if clothing was never invented. One boy raised his hand and said, "There is no way I would come to school." I agree with him, why come to school when you could be out running around naked!

What Is Good Parenting?

If any Pennsylvanian parent approves of their child going to the University of Michigan, I suggest that child services be notified immediately. Nothing good could possibly come from sending a child to Michigan, a school rooted in corrupt football. I hope that ever player on the Michigan football team is convicted of academic fraud. I also hope that their fate rest in the hands of an extremely unforgiving judiciary board.