Thursday 12 March

We all met again at Bill and Earline's house and drove to the RR Donnelley printing plant in Salem to tour the facility. Bill worked for the company for 28 years and was our window of opportunity into this fascinating industry. The plant is high tech and state of the art and fully focussed on efficiency; yet we were shown around by two senior staff members as if they had nothing else in the world to do. We followed the printing of a hard-cover book from stock paper to coffee table, so to speak, and, from now on, we have all agreed that we will have a deeper appreciation for the work and craftmanship that went into producing it.

We presented to the Rotary Club of Salem at noon, and were warmly received. The club is the second largest in the district, and has a very active membership.

After lunch, we were taken to the Taubman Museum of Art. The architecture is futuristic and 'divisive', in that you either love it or hate it. (We were impressed!) The museum currently hosts several collections and the works range from classic in style to what appears to be the hallusonogenic scribblings of psychiatric patients during therapy sessions. Of course, art is a matter of opinion, and even in the wrtings of the Spanish poet, Miguel De Cervantes, we read: "Good painters imitate, bad ones regurgitate."

The evening was spent at the Rotary Club of Roanoke, one of the oldest in the district, and quite "posh" to say the least. Dinner was delicious and the guest speaker (not us) addressed the issues around the financial bank crisis in America and concluded by saying that economists are positive because the majority of the financial institutions in America are "just too big to fail". Funny how familiar that sounds: from David and Goliath to the Titanic, we hear echoes...

Wednesday 11 March

Vocational Day #1:

We all split up and visited our respective locations. We admitted later to suffering from separation anxiety, a good sign, hopefully we'll still feel the same in a few weeks time!

Lawyers jokes, the world over, are all the same. PJ had an amazing morning learning about Legal Aid and then visiting a Large law firm in downtown Roanoke. Although the Countries may differ we have the same problems and aspects of the Law to deal with. It was interesting to listen to how similar our approaches are in dealing with matters. From the Law-firm we headed off to the Roanoke Rescue Mission-WOW is all that can be said for what Mary Ellen and her team do. Lunch with those in need was a wonderful experience The facility is multi-faceted and privately funded feeding up to 900 people a day. The care for the homeless, the abused and for those in need with addictions, all centred around a Christian base, was an eye opener.

Anna visited Balzer & Associates Inc (a company complete with Land surveyors, architects, landscape architects, civil and structural engineers). She was introduced to the team and taken to various projects. The company developed a Mall called Keagy Village. Construction methods are totally different to those used in SA - no brick and mortar buildings are built due to price and labour. It is quicker to construct timber frame homes that are clad. Anna then had lunch with the Balxer employees and attended their "Lunch and Learn" - where a sales representative was doing a presentation on GEOTECH fabric. Anna also visited Timber Truss - a plant where timber frame homes are built; roof trusses, floor trusses and more are manufactured here too. Here one can choose a floor plan - have the house built and delivered to site, and choose windows, doors, kitchen and bathroom fittings under one roof - Very convenient - HOUSE IN A BOX! The highlight of the day though was the chance to drive heavy machinery!!! Mark Henricksen ( a local Rotarian) put Anna onto a Bobcat Scid Loader and a JCB Back Hoe - Contractors beware... Girl driver coming through!

Norah went shopping for her vocational day (as far as the boys were concerned) but Norah wishes to refute that rumour... Norah, in addition to doing Food safety management systems, is also a consultant in product labelling, hence she spent her vocational day in a Supermarket, Natural food store and speciality store doing research. The product range in the US is amazing and everything comes premade; from the chocolate milk (or any other flavour you desire) to pastry and biscuit cases (that is if you choose not to buy the tart ready made!). Even if you buy the pastry cases you are still not expected to make a filling: as you could buy that ready made too. The ice cream aisle would be most children (and adults) heaven, the Kroger Norah visited had aisle (about 100m long) full of ice cream, in every flavour imaginable- 5 weeks is just to little time in which to try it all. The biggest eye-opener has definitely been the convenience factor and the variety. Do not assume this is only a good thing as people do not know what goes into their food anymore. Another aspect of Norah's vocational day included visiting the Home depot- for those at home, this is like a Builders Warehouse on steroids. Home Depot is large! And fun! The point of the exercise was to look at what is happening in the kitchen market, which interestingly enough is skewed towards solid wood kitchens unlike South Africa's prefab melamine kitchens. Norah admits that the whole exercise did include shopping... but... with a purpose.

Grant visited Andrew Lewis Middle School and sat in on the Social Studies classes offered by Grade 6 teacher, Deborah Turner. The day begins with admin and the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag, after which he was introduced. Grant came away filled with enthusiasm; Deborah Turner's style and passion had been inspiring, and the pupils' questions had been insightful. What a wonderful school. He said that he felt like a sponge that had been saturated. It is experiences like these that make GSE worthwhile!

After seeing Grant off at Andrew Lewis Middle School, Trevor was taken to Salem High School. One of the premier high schools in the region. Principal John Hall and Assistant Principal Scott Beleeb made him most welcome. Trevor started off with a grade 12 English class, where he shared some of the distinguishing features of South African schools with some very intelligent students. The rest of the day proceeded in a similiar vain with visits to various grade and subject classes and opportunities to talk about South Africa and South African Education. The Facilities of the school made Trevor drool and dream: Resources are wonderful but it was the people, the faculty (staff) and the students who really impressed, ultimately enthusiastic people trump advanced technology everytime. Below can be seen a picture of some school buses from Trevor's visit to Salem High School.

The day was topped off by sharing in a outreach program at Maryanne's (PJ's host) former church where the whole team went out in Church vans to load up the kids, share a meal with them and work with them in their groups. This church program operates 3 times a week and is supported by volunteers so that it can help these kids, from difficult circumstances, to do homework and receive a decent meal. We had fun and many of us lost our hearts to these precious kids!

Tuesday 10 March

We presented our program today at the Rotary Club of Roanoke Valley, which meets at the Roanoke Country Club. It went very well and stimulated some interesting discussion, especially around the topic of education. We were treated to a good breakfast and enjoyed watching the sun come up over the golf course.

The highlight of Tuesday was a visit to the Roanoke Higher Learning Centre where we had the opportunity to talk with the director of the centre, which co-ordinates co-operative studying facilities contributed to by 14 different universities. The heads of the programmes from Virginia Tech and the University of Virginia both joined us and contributed to a fascinating discussion about education in our respective countries.

Our afternoon was spent at the Virginia County Administration building, the seat of local government. We were formally introduced to the Board of Supervisors (which you can actually watch on their website, as it is recorded and televised). We had been led to believe that it would potentially be a bit of a 'yawn', but this proved not to be the case at all. We found the manner in which the meetings are run fascinating, and, as usual, were made to feel very welcome.

Grant's hosts are members of Salem's Choral Society, and he attended their dress rehersal at the Sholoh Baptist Church in the evening. The team are not convinced whether it was the amazing soloists or the cup of Mill Mountain coffee that brought tears to his eyes.

Monday 09 March

This morning, we met early at Bill and Earline Orndorff's house and they took us on an amazing sight-seeing drive through this breath-taking part of the world. We drove to Natural Bridge, said to be one of the seven wonders of the new world. The solid limestone arch is very impressive, to say the least, and the team enjoyed the tranquil walk along Cedar Creek Trail. Spring is definitely in the air, and every dogwood, poplar, red bud and beech threatens to burst into full colour at any moment.

After lunch, we drove to the Natural Bridge Caverns, deepest on the East Coast at over 34 storeys below the surface. The caves are cold (10 degrees C) and wet, but well worth the trip; the water-sculptured rooms and colossal flowstones mirrored in pools of crystal clear water.

[SIDE BAR: The 7 of us walk into the small gift shop and reception to the Caverns with our tickets in hand, which we exchange for tokens issued by Phyllis, the manager standing behind the counter. The shop is one-roomed, and we are the only ones there, except for a young girl, Tiffany, who would turn out to be our guide. Phyllis tells us that the next tour leaves in 4 minutes, and so we basically just stand around and wait. 3 minutes later, Tiffany makes her way from behind the counter and Phyllis raises a microphone to her mouth. She announces (as if we are not standing right there) that the tour group must please make their way to the entrance of the cavern (in the shop!) and hand in their tokens. She then comes out from behind the counter, too, and stands at the door to collect the very tokens that, not moments before, she had handed out to us. DAFT!]

The drive back to Salem along the Blue Ridge Parkway was spectacular. The ridge road affords one the opportunity to take in the vista of forests and valleys, and we could only imagine what it will look like in a few weeks time when the trees are once again covered in foliage. We are working on our dialect and have practised saying Peaks of Otter, which is said, "Peaks-av-odder" with an exaggerated 'odder'.

In his essay on American scenery, George Coleman wrote, "Over all, rocks, woods, and water, and the silent energy of nature, stirred the soul to its inmost depths." He must surely have been standing on the lue Ridge Mountains in Virginia when he thought that!

Sunday 08 March

Today we met Earline Orndorff, the co-ordinator of this part of our itinerary. She took us through the details briefly, and then Ernie introduced us to our first host families. We are all overwhelmed at the hospitality of these wonderful people, who have so willingly allowed us into their homes.

Earline and Bill (her husband) presented an early challenge to the team when Bill invited Anna, Norah-ann and Trevor to go cycling with him. Bill is an avid cyclist who has a certificate to prove that he has cycled all of Switzerland's cyclable mountains, including the famed Alps D'Huez. It was a super way to see a little more of Roanoke. While those three were being put through a strenuous workout, Grant enjoyed a visit to Smith Mountain Lake and PJ participated in a local church service, courtesy of their respective hosts!