It's coming...

Hello, I promise I am working on a post for the INCREDIBLE trip I just took through Namibia, Botswana, and Zambia...
there are about 600 pictures for me to dig through...and 10 days to try to recapture for you all...so try to have a little patience :)

just as a heads up, my pictures do no justice to the actual experience. if you do nothing else in your whole life, take a trip to southern Africa. It is so unbelievably beautiful. I want to go back. Already.

Here is my theme song for last week:

Time is flying by down here in the southern hemisphere....

Date: 22/03/2011
Time: ooh…2am. Ouch…class is going to be rough tomorrow…
Days abroad: 57 (how is THAT possible?!)

I feel like it isn’t very conducive for me to start every post with “oh man, I am a terrible blogger and I’ve been neglecting you all…” so I am going to stop apologizing for it and everyone is just going to have to get used to the fact that I am verrrry bad at keeping up with the blogging…time just goes so fast sometimes...if it is any consolation at all, I haven’t written in my handwritten journal since…maybe the first week of February..? (sorry mom!). So, in comparison, I am doing very well blog-wise, right?

Okay, on to the good stuff….

So, last weekend (not the one that just happened…March 11^th- March 13^th) our program had arranged a homestay in a Coloured community for us. We all got host families in the town of Ocean View and we stayed with our family and, in most cases, one other American student all weekend. It was an incredibly educational weekend. Many of the families in Ocean View were forcibly removed from Simons Town during the Apartheid era…for those of you who don’t know…Apartheid had several classifications of “race” and Coloured was one of their classifications. From what I understand, Coloured is a mixture of the other races. They are not Black, not White, not Indian, not Malay…rather, they are a mixture of any and all of these things. There is a distinct Coloured culture as they were classified as ther own race and forced to live in the same townships during Apartheid.

My host family was a single mother, her mother, and her 16-year-old son. They were so great. They didn’t have a car so Friday, a family friend picked us up at the high school and took us to their house in this little neighborhood:

Saturday, we took the mini-bus taxi to their mall and went shopping. My host mom needed groceries (yes, the pick n pay was inside the mall) and the son wanted to look for a shirt. Then, we went back to the house and watched some cricket (it’s the world cup right now) with Grandma and ate a DELICIOUS sandwich called a Gatsby. It had steak and french fries INSIDE the sandwich..among other things, haha. After lunch, we took their 2-year-old nephew across the street to the “farm”. They had camels there! And a ton of delicious baked goods (I may or may not have purchased a few desserts…) and a petting zoo with a million rabbits. They also had a bunch of cute little souvenir shops with things mad by the local people in them. Saturday evening, my host-mom braiied South African sausage and chicken for us. We also had corn and potatoes and green beans and Coke. Then Megan (my American host-sister) and I went out in the street to play with some of the kids…as soon as you pull out a camera they lose all interest in soccer and only want to have you take a million pictures and look at them all:

Sunday, the Cape Argus cycle tour was taking place in Cape Town. It is one of the biggest bike races in the world and it goes right through Ocean View:

Apparently, it is a HUGE thing in Ocean View every year, people set up tents alongside the road to eat and drink and watch the cyclists go by from 6am until 4pm. I was astounded at the number of bikers, there was a steady stream from the time I went out there at about noon with my host brother and the time I left at about 3…the oldest cyclist in the race was a 92 year old man who hails from Ocean View…he was trying to beat his time from last year (somewhere around 6 hours)…

Sunday afternoon, my host mom and grandma prepared a HUGE meal for us (I guess Sunday lunch is a big deal in the community) and they sent me home with a Tupperware full of dessert (homemade lemon meringue pie and something called milk tart which I must google a recipe for). On the bus on the way home, every student was clutching a tupperware of food that their host family had sent with them…general consensus: it was a great weekend.

The week between Ocean View and this last weekend was somewhat uneventful I think…OH! Except Friday! Friday I started volunteering (FINALLY) with a group called Young in Prison. They took us out to a youth facility where boys go who have been in trouble with the law…I believe most of them are awaiting trial still but some have been sentenced to the facility…anyway, the boys are between 13 and 20 and they live at this youth facility all week and go home to their families on Saturday. Our main purpose while volunteering is just to distract them from their situation and give them some positive role models.

I had no idea what to expect but it turned out to be so much fun. There was a group of about 10 of us Americans on Friday and a lot of the boys at the facility were gone on a field trip for the day so there were only 10 or 12 of them but we played a whole bunch of get to know you games and amused each other for about 2 hours. We played 2 truths and a lie and scramble and something called rock paper scissors evolution and human knot. Oh, and an all-time classic, heads up 7up…hahaha…The boys were all a lot of fun, they were all super eager to participate, I had a blast with them. I think next time we go we are going to teach them the great American game of kick ball…some CIEE students introduced it to the kids at the LEAP school (where I go on Mondays) a couple of years ago and they LOVE it…that is all they want to play during sport anymore…the boys all asked if we could bring music next time as well, they want to have a dance off, Americans vs South Africans…I think we all know who will win that competition…especially if I am on the American’s side. Hahaha. They also want to play soccer, Americans vs South Africans…once again…I better pre-apologize to my team on the way over there….

Other than Friday…it was a fairly uneventful week…I went to LEAP on Monday (man, I am running through the week backwards here…woopsies) and I went to the grade 9 life orientation again…there weren’t very many kids there because there was a taxi strike in the city on Monday so a lot of them couldn’t get to school…we had a discussion about Americans…White Americans in particular…my friend Mercy went this week too and she was born and raised in America but her parents are from Ghana so we had a talk with the kids about whether they considered her American or West African…it was quite an interesting (but very intense) discussion about race…

This weekend (the 19^th and 20^th of March) was a long weekend because Monday (the 21^st) was a public holiday! Yay, no school! It was Human Rights Day here in South Africa…so everyone had a 3 day weekend.

We went to Robben Island as a house on Sunday (CIEE pays for trips that are educational and cultural…so our RAs ask and CIEE either grants our house the money or not...). Robben Island has an incredible history which I am not going to get into right now because it is 1:45 am and I have class very early tomorrow…so, here are some pictures…and I will blog more on that at a later time…or you can google it…haha

Basically, what you NEED to know about Robben Island is that it was used as a maximum security prison for political prisoners during the Apartheid regime. Many political prisoners were held there, Nelson Mandela included…we took a tour of the island that took about 3 hours and both of our tour guides had been prisoners on the island during the late 60s.

This picture is the stunning view of Cape Town and Table Mountain from Robben Island...
This is one of our tour guides with some pictures of some of the prisoners. The ones who were considered leaders were locked up in individual cells that were 2 meters by 2.5 meters. They had to sleep on the floor and the only feature of their cell was a bucket to relieve themselves into which they had to remove and clean themselves every morning. The “non-leaders” were locked in communal cells of about 30 prisoners. There were microphones placed in all the cells so guards could hear what was being said and prevent political news from spreading or plans from being created. Rules are made to be broken though…the prisoners were forced to perform hard labor digging limestone every day. They had a cave in the limestone quarry which is where their bucket was…under Apartheid law, no White man was allowed to enter a Black toilet so the prisoners could go into the cave a scheme away and there was nothing the guards could do about it…pretty ingenious if you ask me…

Anyways…

That was Nelson Mandela’s cell…

I really do need to be off to sleep now…I have a very busy week…

Thursday, I leave for my mid-semester break trip…another girl in the program and I are flying to Windhoek, Namibia where we will get on an overland truck and spend 10 days camping our way across Botswana (including the Okavango Delta and Chobe National park) and we will end at Victoria Falls in Livingston, Zambia…then fly back to Cape Town on April 2^nd. A once in a lifetime trip, I am sure…please pray that I don’t get eaten by a hippo.

I hope everyone is well, I miss you all terribly!

Love love

South Africa has the most delicious plums...very unexpected...

Date: 3/9/2011 well…I started the 9^th…now it is the 10^th…
Time: very late
Days abroad: 45

Ok, ok…I am the worst blogger ever…my last blog was Mzoli’s…and it was a week late…and that was two weeks ago. Shoot. Apologies. So much has happened since then. Let’s see here…

The weekend after Mzoli’s weekend, CIEE took us out to Stellenbosch to the same winery we ate dinner at our first week here, Spier. They were having their autumn wine/grape harvest festival so we all got 5 free wine tastes and there was music and tons of good food. They had grape stomping!

Which is awesome…I really wanted to do it but they were charging and I waited in line for about half an hour then I got to the barrel and they told me I had to pay inside and get a ticket and get back in the end of the line instead of just paying the man shoveling grapes into the barrel. And that was way too much of a process for me…so I used my wine-stomping money to buy a slice of black forest cake instead. And I watched a lot of other people stomp some grapes. THEN! I saw the biggest spider I have ever seen in MY WHOLE LIFE. HUGE HUGE HUGE. Exhibit A:

I was going to put my hand up next to it to give everyone some scale but I was scared he would eat my whole hand…so you’ll have to imagine. The umbrella he is on is one of those giant deck umbrellas…use your imagination. I’ll collect pictures from my housemates before I come home…maybe one of them got something next to it for scale. It was so gross. I didn’t fully comprehend African wildlife until that moment.

Oh! Which reminds me…earlier that week, I lost a bet to my RA, Buhle…a dumb bet about peanut butter…anyways, I walked down to Checkers (the grocery store) to buy his dumb Fanta and there were pigeons all over the sidewalk. Not a big deal, there are a LOT of pigeons here…like Oregon squirrels. Anyways, I was walking back home and I walked through the flock of pigeons and they all hopped and fluttered and did pigeon-like things and then I heard something running through the leaves on the ground…and I thought to myself hmm, pigeons do not run…so, I looked down. Big mistake. A GIGANTIC rat, cousin to the ones who live in the New York City sewer/subway system (yes, I’m referring to them as one big system) was scurrying down the sidewalk. I SCREAMED bloody murder and ran up the hill to my house. I’m quite sure the locals thought I was being mugged. Or raped. Which is just silly because it was the middle of the afternoon right next to Main Road.

That was a bit of a side-track story…anyways, we went wine tasting on Saturday and on Sunday of that same weekend (2/27), CIEE took us to an outdoor concert at this beautiful venue:

Kirstenbosch Gardens. It’s about 10 minutes from campus. A huge botanical garden with big lawns for picnicking and Frisbee and whatever your heart desires and a concert venue…kind of like the Cuthbert in Eugene but with beautiful Table Mountain as the backdrop. I don’t even remember the name of the bands that played…they were South African, but it was a lovely evening…we took picnic food and sat in the shade and listened to some music. Delightful.

Umm…the week after the wine and the concert…classes…and homework. Haha. Classes take up a surprisingly large part of my days during the week…because I start at 9 and don’t finish until 345 on tues, wed, thurs those days are pretty much all used up. I do have some breaks during the day but the climb from my house is too daunting to make me want to go all the way home and all the way back…though I have trimmed my hill time down to 12 minutes. 12 minutes is fast, I tell you. I took a picture of the big hill:

This is the 2^nd up-hill on my way to class. Remember the Jameson hall picture? Notice how there is not one stair in sight in this hill picture? Yes, that’s because I have to climb that ^ beast then there are 2 flights of stairs, a tunnel under the freeway and a path between the rugby fields before I can even start thinking about Jameson Hall and its 100 steps…I have never in my life had such burly calf muscles.

I also took a couple of pictures of the outside of my house for everyone…

This is what it looks like from the driveway…the pointy-roofed house on the right is “A” house, 12 people live in there…they have a separate gated entrance…the little hut in front of the pointy-roofed house is our security guards’ hut, we have 2, Allison and Stephen. They are both very nice guys…and they keep the burglars away, so I really like them…The flat-roofed house in the background on the left (with one small window visible) is both “B” and “C” houses. B is downstairs, 8 people live there and C is upstairs, 10 of us live in C (including me!).

This is our courtyard…right inside the gate…and a better view of B and C. Don’t mind the creepy mariachi man and the streamers, some of my house mates had a tequila party the week I took this picture…

The weekend after the wine and concert was last weekend…Friday I got out of class at 11 and, due to some administrative issues, my volunteering was pushed back another week so, my lovely friend Loren and I decided we wanted to go to the beach…it was a hot day. We caught the mini-bus taxis…which are 16 passenger vans that drive everywhere and have a man who whistles and yells where the van is going and bangs the side the whole time…most of the time they are a huge annoyance because they all want you to get in their taxi but they are quite convenient when you need to go somewhere. Anyways, we took one from Rondebosch into the city to a place called the taxi rank where hundreds of mini-bus taxis are going in every direction imaginable….we wandered around a bit confused for a couple of minutes but then found a taxi headed to Camps Bay which is a lovely beach town where lots of rich people (such as the Beckhams) have summer homes. We got off the mini-bus at Clifton beach number 4:

As you can see, beautiful. We wandered up and down the beach…I bought a DELICIOUS passion fruit sherbet bar from a nice man with a cooler…and we splashed in the water a bit. Though, we are on the Atlantic side so there is an arctic current which means the water is FRIGID. Think Oregon Ocean. It’s a quick dip in then lay on the beach for an hour to defrost kind of place…haha.

When we decided to go home we count not, for the life of us, catch a mini-bus. They were ALL full. It was crazy. I have never had such a problem. So we were walking and walking and walking…and we found a construction site and somebody had put a sticker that said “filth” on the sign…which we thought was oddly funny in our overheated, dehydrated, sun-soaked delirium:

This is the lovely Loren with our construction sign.

FINALLY we found a mini-bus that wasn’t full…until we got in. And we headed back for the city. Our driver stopped in a random farmers market place and said “last stop” so we got out and asked him how to get to the taxi rank and he pointed us down the street. So, we were walking through this seedy farmers market and people kept asking me for money…I assume because I look so obviously American…so I grabbed the first mini-bus that was shouting “Wyneberg” because they had to go through Rondebosch to get there….it was the most dilapidated taxi I have ever seen. Loren and I were on the bench seat in the back and it was not attached to the rest of the vehicle. Every time the driver slammed his brakes (which was a LOT) we would have to brace our feet to keep from sliding into the seats in front of us. It was hilarious. Anyways, this man gets in and he asked me to pay his fare…mini-bus fare is only 6 rand to pretty much anywhere, I think you could get in a mini-bus destined for Kenya and only have to pay 6 rand so, normally I wouldn’t have a problem helping someone out…6 rand is less than 1 us dollar. However, it really bothered me that this guy ONLY asked me. There were at least 12 other people in the taxi and I was the only one that he was trying to coerce into paying his fare…now, if he had asked everyone for 50 cents, I bet they would’ve paid, I sure would’ve…there is a lovely sense of community and helping people out here…but no, he wanted the white American to pay his fare, so I said no. He kept asking and I kept refusing and he was getting really agitated and he started yelling not very nice things at me. Then this old lady in the mini-bus started yelling at him in Xshosa so I had no idea what she was saying. By this point, we had gone like 8 blocks (half of them on the sidewalk…traffic rules are more like suggestions here) and the guy hadn’t paid fare so the money-collector yelling man kicked him out.

Overall, a very exciting day.

Saturday, CIEE took us to a rugby game at the stadium in Newlands, which is about a 10 minute walk from my house. It was fun but I do not understand rugby. Not one bit. Sometimes they throw it and sometimes they kick it and sometimes the ref blows the whistle. I had no idea what was going on. So I just cheered when everyone else cheered.

Sunday I caught up on a lot of homework…

Monday! Monday was the BEST day I have had since being here. By far. Monday morning I (finally) started my volunteering! I went out to a high school called the LEAP school where they admit kids from the township called Langa and try to get them educated and into University. The schooling system in this country has a huge disparity between township schools and suburb or city schools…LEAP is trying to fill in that gap and provide opportunities to kids who wouldn’t otherwise get them…so Monday, I went out at 9am to the school to participate in a “life orientation” class. I got put in the grade 9 class and at first I was worried…you know, freshmen can be a bit…bratty? But, oh my gosh, the kids were AMAZING. The class is designed as a safe place for kids to talk about experiences and their feelings and discuss them with their peers. It teaches them about open communication and respect. Well, Monday was about relationships. At first, the kids were scared to talk to me…Nigel, the teacher, asked how they felt about having a visitor and many of them said it made them a bit uncomfortable discussing things because they didn’t know me. Then Nigel started including me in the conversations, he grilled me about my past boyfriends and what-what and at first it was a bit embarrassing but once Nigel started talking to me, ALL of the kids wanted to talk to me. The girls were all very giggly and the boys were pretty fidgety and when Nigel asked what was up, one ADORABLE boy raised his hand and said “I think because we have a woman from the USA here and we all want to be her best friend so maybe we are showing off…” oh my gosh, I wanted to bring him home with me. He was so cute. After class, the kids had a 15 minute “yoghurt break” so I went downstairs with them to mingle…there were some grade 12 kids selling waffles with ice cream, naturally, I bought one and I was talking to them…they were doing an entrepreneurship project for one of their classes…so cute. I cant wait to go back next week. I wish I could go there instead of to my school every day.

I start volunteering with a group called young in prison on Friday…I guess we’re going to go out to a youth prison and play sport or do arts or something with kids age 16-22 who have been arrested and are awaiting trial. The idea is to distract them from their current situation and help provide a positive role model for them to start thinking about what they want to do when they get out…maybe it will prevent them from spending the rest of their lives in and out of jail…I’m a little more nervous about this group…I fear that I might be an easy target for some of these kids but I am going to do my very best…they all need some support too.

I joined the surgical society on campus last week and tomorrow I am going to hear a talk about neurosurgery at the medical school…I am really excited….

I also joined the Zimbabwe society because all of the Zims I have met in Cape Town are extraordinarily nice people…and very relaxed and laid back…I like that. They ordered me a shirt, which I am quite excited about…

Next weekend CIEE has a homestay arranged for us in a Coloured township called Ocean View…which does not have a view of the ocean. I am quite excited about it…we leave Friday and come back to town on Sunday. It should be a lot of fun.

Other than alllll of that…it’s mostly just been school and homework for me. I am learning so much about South Africa and South Africans in class discussions and lectures and from my RA at home…I cant even believe how much I have learned. They call a hot water heater a geyser…only they pronounce it geezer, like the old man. I told Buhle (my RA) that we call it a hot water heater and he thought it was hilarious because that is such an obvious name. hahaha. I’m telling you, it’s the little things I pick up in conversation that make my whole trip.

I hope everyone at home is doing well, I miss you all!

Love

Mzoli's (that is: 'mm-zolees' NOT 'MAH-zolees')

I realize that I am like the slowest blogger in the world and it is already Thursday...night. But! Some images from last Sunday:Yes, That is a giant dirty TUB of meat with 30 grubby Americans eating out of it. South African sausage, chicken, and steak.
And yes, all Mzoli's serves is meat. And some fresh salsa with something called pup...which they described to me as "maizemeal" (cornmeal) but it was grits.
No silverware, no plates, no napkins. We walked about 5 houses down the road and bought all of our drinks out of some super shifty guy's refrigerator.
Basically, the ultimate experience. And if anyone is feeling the urge to pop by for a visit in the next 3 1/2 months, this will definitely be a stop that makes my list of things to do.
Love

Babies and classes and mountains, oh my...

Date: 18/02/2011

Time: 20:32

Days abroad: 26

Oh my gosh, what a week. Classes started this week and I am WORN OUT. Their scheduling system is so bizarre…they have “periods” that are one hour long and you register for a class in a certain period then your professor tells you which days you have class…so it could be 5 days a week and it could be 2, you don’t know until after registration is over and your teacher gives you the course handout. This is very inconvenient. At University of Oregon, I can take a class at 9am Monday, Wednesday, and Friday and a completely different class at 9am on Tuesdays and Thursdays. No such luck here. If you have a class in second period your teacher owns your time 9-9:45am 5 days a week. Even if they only schedule class Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday you don’t know that until you start so you cant sign up for another and hope it is only Thursday and Friday. Nope. If 2 classes you want are in the same period, too bad, find a different class. Anyways, my point in all of this is…my schedule is crazy weird. Because each of my professors want a different day of the week off. And I have class from 9-4 Tues, Wed, Thurs but only 45 minutes of class on Mondays and Fridays…which would be fine except my volunteer transportation only goes out to the high school I am volunteering at in the evenings…so I can only go on Fridays. Because my 3-4 class meers Monday-Thursday. Talk about frustrating. I guess this is all part of navigating a new country, right?

Other than the scheduling, classes went swimmingly this week. I think I am going to really like all of them. A bunch of people in my program were kind of freaking out because the lectures here are all about 200 (or more) people and they all go to small, private schools where the average class size is like 15. I keep telling them all it is fine, all of the big classes meet in small tutorial groups once a week and you can get your discussion in then.

UCT itself is very comparable to the University of Oregon in size, I think...it has about 26,000 undergrads so I think it is just a small bit larger. (I’m not sure on UO’s exact enrollment anymore and googling it would cost me too many megabytes. Haha, you don’t realize how spoiled we are with all of our unlimited internet until it is taken away.) The diversity at UCT, though, is unlike anywhere I have ever been. As a white student, I believe I am in the minority. Barely, but still, the minority. The majority of the student body is black (full African) while a large portion of it is Colored (most people who are not ‘white’ or ‘black’ are considered ‘colored’…like everyone who is mixed race…it isn’t a derogatory term like in the states…it is just a description). Anyways, I think the population is almost divided in 3rds but the Black population is slightly larger and the White population is slightly smaller. It’s crazy because as I walk down the sidewalk I hear so many different languages and accents. And it makes class discussions very interesting because everyone comes from so many different places. There are people who come from all over Africa to attend UCT, it is considered one of the premier universities on the continent. Most of the international students are American…I have met a couple of Dutch and a couple of Norweigans…I think that is about it for world-wide representation…

The campus itself is beautiful…though it is literally built INTO THE SIDE OF A MOUNTAIN. I get an excellent cardio workout on my walk to school every morning. I’m going to have glutes and claves that will make Richard Simmons jealous by the time I get home. There is a shuttle that goes to upper campus but I would have to walk about 10 minutes to get to the shuttle stop and it only takes me 20 to hike up the hill so I’ve been walking all week. It’s good for me, right? Anyways…I’m not including any pictures this time because they cost a lot of megabytes but the picture of Jameson Hall last week should give you slight indication of how pretty campus is. I’ll put up some more pictures in a week or two...another thing about campus, South Africans walk SO SLOW. Seriously, I think they can all tell I’m American because I weave around them down the sidewalk. Oh, and because I try to pass on the right. Hahaahaha. I always step right when I meet someone and they step left because they drive on the left here and there is that awkward back and forth moment where you both don’t know which way to go..I;m sure you all know what moment I am talking about. Well Monday and Tuesday it happened ALL THE TIME. By Wednesday though, I remembered to consciously think “move to the LEFT” when someone was walking towards me.

The policy that I have officially adopted this week: attend anything on campus that promises “refreshments”. The refreshments here are always like fully catered meals. I went with a friend to a speech on Wednesday, it actually sounded cool, it was the first Black South African to earn his PhD so we actually wanted to hear him speak…it turned out to be a 2 hour lecture with about 4 speakers. All talking about investments and finance and corporations…oh my goodness, snooze-fest. But the refreshments were AMAZING. I had some lemon-herby chicken and some cheese-herb pita and sausage rolls, and little pastries filled with spinach and cute little mini-sandwiches! And, as always, Coke and Orange Fanta. They LOVE their Orange Fanta here. So, my new policy…always attend functions that include refreshments. Totally worth the awkward moment at the end where they ask you if you enjoyed the function and if you are interested in joining their society (in the case of InvestSoc, I had to politely decline). Our study abroad fee includes the cost of joining any 3 societies on campus (except skydiving club, which I’m kind of okay with). So I’ve been talking to people about the different societies. The only one I have signed up for thus far is Habitat for Humanity…since my volunteer organization through CIEE can only get me to the high school once a week I figured I’d better find some other things to do with my free time…and why not build houses? I am trying to decide on another society but it is so hard to choose! They have a lot here! I was considering yacht club, they have beginners sailing every Wednesday night; or fencing club, I could totally learn to fence; or maybe a club that has an African country in the title…like Namibia club or Zimbabwe club…I don’t know. Too many choices.

My house was supposed to go to Robben Island tomorrow (where Nelson Mandela was held prisoner) but when my RA went to buy tickets, they were sold out this week…so, hopefully next weekend. Sunday we are going to Mzoli’s which is a place in a township where you go and there are a bunch of shops and stuff and they serve you meat. Lots and lots of meat. I guess it is a really cool experience to hang out with the locals and eat meat and drink beer. I am pretty excited about it.

Also, the grocery store here, has a WHOLE AISLE for cookies and crackers. And they call them ALL biscuits. Which is so British. It kills me. They have 6 kinds of cereal but a whole entire aisle of tea-time treats. I bought some delicious coconut cookie cracker things the other day…very addicting. And the whole package was 4 rand. Which is about 70 cents US. Excellent!

I talked to a guy at a party the other night who is from Zimbabwe but he is half Belgian and half Zimbabwe-an and he went to the US for the first time last winter. I asked what area of the US he went to and he said (honestly) “New York City, Washington DC, and Toledo.” I was like, “WHAT?! Toledo?!” hahah, so random. I guess he has an aunt in Toledo but it was still hilarious. I asked what he thought of America and he said everything was so big in America! So, naturally, I asked what he meant by that and he said “the trollies in the grocery mart! They were as big as a car in South Africa!” Which I also thought was very amusing. It is always funny to me to hear about someone’s opinion of the states.

Anyways, I better be off…a couple of us are having movie night at a friend’s and I am the movie supplier…so I guess I better not be late!

Congratulations to Dan and Jayne on my little niece! And to the Gibbons on Asher’s baby sister! I can’t wait to meet all the new additions when I get home!!

Love

Some adventures from last week...so much to tell, so little time...

Date: 13 Feb 2011

Time: 14:36 in Cape Town

Days abroad: 21

It’s been a while…10 days..? yikes. I would say I’ve just been too busy to blog but that may not be entirely true. Last week we had a week of freedom before classes start so most of the people in my program took off to do something called the Garden Route. Basically, they drove along the coast of South Africa for a week stopping at various animal parks and tourist destinations. I decided to stay here (in Cape Town) that week and try to get comfortable navigating the city and campus before school gets into full swing. I finally got all registered for my classes about a week ago…and Friday they had like an intro day where we went to classes and the professors gave an overview of the course…I think my classes will be very interesting. I’m taking a little break from my usual parade if science classes and labs…I registered for a sociology class, medical anthropology, health psychology, and intro to politics. It should be cool because all of them focus on South Africa specifically; so, for health psychology we will be talking about chronic diseases in South Africa (TB, HIV, cancer, asthma…etc).

This picture is of Jameson Hall, which is the big main building on upper campus. It is all administration and the library and stuff, no classes are taught here, but it was the campus’ first building. It is gorgeous with the mountain in the background…there are 100 stairs between where I was standing when I took the picture and the front door of the building…I had already climbed 2 flights of stairs, crossed a rugby field, and hiked up a hill for about 6 blocks by the time I got here. My calves are going to be so toned when I get home…

Anyway, enough about boring classes. I did some fun things last week while I was hanging around town…one of the RAs wanted to take us to a Mexican restaurant in a suburb called Clairemont one night (Clairemont is next to our suburb, Rondebosch) so about 15 of us caught the shuttle from campus. The campus shuttles are called the Jammie shuttle and they go all over the place…two go to different places downtown, one goes to Clairemont, one goes to Mowbray (another suburb), they go between res halls, and their main function is to go from lower campus to upper campus because UCTs campus is literally built ON A MOUNTAIN. It is like a half hour hike up a huge hill then up one million stairs from my house which is located near middle campus to the upper campus where classes are held…shoot, I’m rambling…ok, so we caught the Jammie to Clairemont. And it took like 20 minutes to get to the Clairemont mall, ok cool, 20 minutes isn’t bad. Then we walked to the restaurant…it was called something Havana, which made me think maybe it was Cuban…? The waitress called them case-a-dill-ahs. And the case-a-dill-ahs had crazy stuff in them…like pickles. And mayonnaise. So I asked the RA who took us if there are Latinos in South Africa. He laughed…I took that as a no. hahaa. Well, after we were done eating, the Jammie had stopped running for the night so we were just going to call some cabs but a friend of the RA who lives in my house happened to be at the restaurant too so he took 4 of us home…the car ride took about 2 minutes. It was like left turn, right turn, home. I looked at one of the guys in the backseat and I was like..umm, where on earth did the Jammie take us that it took TWENTY MINUTES to get there. It was hilarious. That is how things tend to work here. Also, I don’t think the Jammie has a schedule. I cant find one anywhere. I just go to the Jammie stop and stand there and wait until one that has the name of where I want to go shows up. Sometimes it’s within 5 minutes and sometimes I have to wait 40 minutes. It’s really bizarre.

One day I went with some friends down to a place in downtown called District 6 to go to the District 6 museum. I had heard it was one of the must-see things in downtown…so we thought we’d give it a shot. The museum was small but it was packed so full of information…I learned more that day than I have learned the rest of my trip. District 6 was a black neighborhood and in the 60s (under the Apartheid government) all the residents were forcibly removed and their homes were all bulldozed to make room for a white suburb. Crazy stuff. Now there is a plaque mounted outside the museum that they put up in the 90s when Apartheid ended…

Thursday, February 10, a couple of friends and I signed up for shark cage diving! Oh my gosh it was so much fun. A van picked us up at our house and drove us about 2ish hours south to a town called Kleinbaai which is located on the shore of the most densely populated great white waters in the world. On the way, our bus driver talked to us about different parts of Cape Town, mostly things we had heard on our tour of the cape peninsula a couple if weeks ago. But, I did learn as we drove through Khayelitsha (a township outside of Cape Town): that it is the largest township in the Cape Town area and that 1.4 MILLION PEOPLE live there. That is an insanely large amount of people.

Once we got to Kleinbaai, they fed about 20 of us breakfast then put us on a boat and we headed out to sea. We learned that the great whites love to hang out in “shark alley” between 2 islands off the coast because one of the islands is home to about 40,000 seals. If you have seen the discovery channel, you know, sharks like seals. Apparently there are no residential great whites who stay here permanently. Most hang out for somewhere between a day and a week before they migrate elsewhere. They are one of the most nomadic animals on earth. So, the water in Kleinbaai is still a large portion Atlantic and only a small portion Indian ocean current so the water was COLD. Like Oregon Coast cold. They gave us wetsuits and we got in the cage 5 at a time.

The cage stayed attached to the boat and we just did simple hold your breath dives when a shark came around. We had goggles and weights and whatnot and there was a spotter on the boat who would yell “down down down!” whenever a shark came near enough to the cage that we could all see it and we would take a deep breath and pull ourselves to the bottom of the cage. Over the course of the day we saw about 15 different great whites which, the skipper told me, was a really really fortunate day. We didn’t have to wait any length of time for sharks to show up and more and more just kept coming around. At one point, one of the smaller sharks launched itself at the tuna head we were using as bait and missed and got the buoy on the end of the cage where I was. He thrashed violently and his eye rolled back and it was the most terrified I had ever been in my whole life. I thought for sure that I was going to lose an arm. I bought the DVD that the videographer on the boat made of the day as proof in case none of my underwater point and shoot camera pictures come out.

That was, by far, the most exciting day of my week. Friday night a couple of us went to a party downtown hosted by RAG which is an on-campus fundraising group. The party was called the Big Bash, there was a huge stage and a DJ and it was sponsored by Smirnoff so there was a giant bar and tons of students. They closed off a big courtyard park thing in downtown for it…it was crazy but very fun. Unfortunately, a lot of the boys got pick-pocketed while on the dance floor. Several people who live in my house got their keys, phones, and wallets taken.

Oh! Also! A friend of mine in the program got mugged the other day. In the middle of the afternoon. In broad daylight. Scary! She is in a homestay and she walked home one day and she was waiting for her host-mom to buzz her in the gate and a guy walked up to her and showed her his knife and politely asked her for her phone and her wallet. Of course, she gave them to him and he walked away. Poor girl, I would’ve just died right there but she is so calm about it. The RA who took us to Mexican food, Faraih, told me that the muggers here are all really polite. They will just show you a knife and ask nicely for you to give them your things. They wont ever grab you or chase you down or anything. So, I guess that is good. If I’m going to be mugged, I would rather the mugger be polite and not really mean and threatening…right? I don’t carry anything with me that is worth taking. Usually just my cheap pay-as-you-go phone and like 200 rand in cash…which is about 28 US dollars. If he wants my $28 badly enough to show me a knife…he can have it. This explains why I haven’t taken massive amount of pictures…I am too scared to take my camera out if I’m going somewhere for the day…that is just one more thing that somebody might want to take…

Next weekend my RA is planning on taking us to Mzolies which is a township where you go and they give you a huge beer and a lot of meat to eat. They have a giant Braai (barbq) going all day and they just serve you meat. Tons of meat. Apparently it is like the ultimate experience that everyone has to do when they come here. Also, next weekend, we are going to Robben Island. Which is the island where Nelson Mandela was held as a prisoner until the prison on the island closed and he was sent to a max security prison in Cape Town. It should be an exciting weekend.

I fell like I have so much more to tell but theis post is already like a small novel. I also feel like the things I say on here cannot do justice to Cape Town…it is hard to capture the essence of a city on a blog.

I hope everyone is doing well in the states; I miss you all very very much. I need to go start some readings for school…homework, gross.

Enjoy the photos!

Love

I love this continent

Date: 2/3/2011
Time: Africa Time
Days Abroad: 11

I just had a meal that rivals all other meals I have ever eaten. My small group last week won a free dinner at a place called the Africa Cafe....seriously a transcending experience. It was all you can eat homestyle dishes from all over the African continent. Let me tell you, they know how to make their flatbread in Mozambique. and their dips in Ethiopia. oh my gosh...
So...when we won this meal we were all like 'woo-hoo, whatever' (third place got $10 worth of internet vouchers each, which, at the time seemed like a godsend since we'd been cut off from the world wide web for the better part of a week)...after tonight...we no longer regret getting first place. Our waitress came in when we got there and said she would be bringing us several courses and when we were finished we were allowed to ask for more more more of whatever dishes we liked. I tried everything (yes, even the fish...). and there was not one thing I tried that I didnt like. It was incredible. There were these little ball thinks rolled in sesame seeds and I missed the waitresses explanation so I asked my RA what it was and she said..."i dont know, the sweet potato cheese what-what" haha. So I ate it...it tasted JUST like cereal...so bizaare. like...cinnamon toast crunch plus apple cinnamon cheerios but in ball form...crazy.
My favorite by far was the flatbread...and the ethiopian dips. Amazing.

Anyhoo, not much going on here this week other than dinner...I pre-registered this morning...which means I stood in the SCORCHING heat for 2 hours to get one piece of paper signed for registration tomorrow...and I hear registration is terrible terrible...like 5 hours of lines to get signed up for 4 classes. Funny thing...they tried online registration a couple of years ago and they thought the lines were EASIER. South Africans are funny that way. After pre-registration, a boy named Jeff tried to convince me to hike Table Mountain again with him...I told him "you're dreamin'"...Jeff is funny, because he lives in Fargo...so he has that accent...dontcha know? hahaha, I love it.

It has been blazing hot the last two days...and today there was zero wind. For the first time since we've been here...none. It was like Houston in August...the air was still and filled with moisture. Which made the line even more fun. Then, at like 6 o'clock, it thundered and lightninged and rained for like an hour and a half. But the air didnt cool down AT ALL. it is still one billion degrees. and it is 11pm. I actually dont know what the temperature is...the humidity throws off my ability to figure out how hot it is....because it makes it like 15 degrees hotter feeling...

Well, I'm off to bed down here in the southern hemisphere....just waiting for the phone call that my small niece has arrived (yes, I think that is phone-call worthy news...even if it costs $2 per minute. Please and thank you to someone)...
Love