School's out for the summer-NOT

     So, it's July and I have just finished my third day of class. This whole switching of seasons thing is finally catching up to me. It's been cold since the weekend and it even snowed in South Africa. I'm slowly getting used to the no heat in buildings. It seems like the only way I can really be warm inside is to be in the shower. But the water here can be scalding one second and then frigid the next. It's an exciting part of Africa!
     Over the weekend, we went to High Africa. It's this ropes course and conference center. I didn't really feel like I was in Africa. It was a really American concept; team building and meetings. It was fun though. I hadn't been out of the city yet and the drive up to the center was one of the most beautiful drives. There was a tunnel that cut through a massive mountain. It was also so cold up there that I had on all the clothes I had packed for the whole weekend at once. We had to get all 10 of us across various low ropes right after we got out of the van. We're a group of talkers, so that was pretty interesting. On Saturday, we had a whole bunch of expectations workshops. We talked about what we thought before we arrived, during orientation, and all that fun stuff.
     We also decided what sites we're going to do our service at. I'm working at the Brooklyn Chest Hospital, probably with little kids. CIEE has been sending students to this site for 3 semesters now, so there is a good relationship between the two organizations. Last semester, one of the girls set up a Buttons for Hope program. The adults at the hospital have lots of free time, so once a week, a man named Jonathan comes in and makes really simple jewelry with them. The buttons are donated to the program and he sells the products for 10-50 rand. We worked with the adults for about 3 hours and I personally made about 7 necklaces. All the money goes towards improving something more sustainable than just giving the patients the profits. Last semester, the money went towards buying educational toys for the children's wards.
     Today, I just played with little babies. One of them, Zulu, called me auntie and was really interested in my sweatshirt's drawstrings. He also tried to take my necklace. Another little girl would go down the slide and she loved when I swung her up over my head. I don't know that much about TB, but the kids seemed like perfectly happy and healthy kids. I heard some wheezing, but nothing out of the ordinary.
     The hospital's staff try really hard to keep the kids active and maintain a sense of normalcy in their lives. Kids in the TB hospital can stay for any time from 2 months to a year, while most adults stay for over a year. The kids go to school and have after-school programs and can go home on the weekends. The adults just kind of hang out around their wards. I don't think they can really leave the hospital to see their families or have jobs. TB is more contagious with adults than with kids. Whenever I'm inside and around adults, we both wear masks. With the kids, we don't need masks. That's why I like working with them. We're also not allowed to work with the adults. I just wish they had more to do..
     My classes are going well so far. I'm taking Social Research Methods, which will be really useful to use at our service sites and the creation of our projects. I'm also taking Poverty and Development and Afrikaans. Poverty and Development should be a really interesting course that "covers everything all over the world." Anna, our teacher, seems really cool and very passionate about the advocacy work she does. I decided to take Afrikaans because it's more what they speak at my service site. And the schedule seemed much better. So far, I've learned about a history of the language. It was used by the apartheid government to oppress non-whites, but it was also a slave language. Quite complex. Suzalle is a great teacher because she is so interactive. We've watched youtube videos about the music scene. She is all about teaching us about the culture of Afrikaans.
     Here is a picture of the view from High Africa

Here is a picture of some cute kids who followed us around the township. Joel calls her Crusty Girl.

And, lastly, here is a picture of us on the boat back from Robben Island

Robben Island, Take Two

     Yesterday, I went back to Robben Island for the second time in a week. It was actually better this time around. CIEE hires a tour guide for us to do things around Cape Town and Thabo took us to Mzoli's Restaurant on Sunday and around Langa. He also ran the tour of Robben Island. The island is a half hour ferry ride away, and then you drive around in a big bus for about an hour and stop and get out to take pictures, and then you arrive at the prison where you get to see Madiba's cell. Our ex-inmate this time was a lot more interesting. He was accused of sabotage and terrorism because he was a part of the ANC's army. He was on the Island from 1983-1990.
     We also visited Parliament. South Africa has 3 capitals and Cape Town is the legislative capital. We got to sit in on a committee session for about 20 minutes. If you read Mandela's book, this is the building where he secretly negotiated with President de Klerk to end apartheid and release all the political prisoners. I kind of missed my iPhone while I was watching everyone on their Blackberries and iPhones. I enjoy my old school phone though. It doesn't even have a vibrate setting or a color screen. If I get mugged, they will give me back my phone..
     This weekend, we're going on our "Expectations Weekend" with CIEE. We're going an hour out of Cape Town to cabins and ropes courses where we'll conquer our fears. Kind of corny, but still really cool. I like a good ropes course every now and then.

We had a welcome dinner for the entire CIEE Cape Town program at Moyo's, a vineyard in Stellenbosch. This is my service learning group. We got our faces painted at dinner.

Why hello there!

     Long time, no talk. In case I haven't mentioned it before, the internet here is really expensive and my new house doesn't have it unlimited...yet. For now, I'm walking to cafes, buying some delicious hot chocolate, and using up megabytes left and right. Soon, that will all change. After spending a couple of days in a 4 star hotel, we moved into our house for the semester. 10 people, 9 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms. I volunteered with another girl to share a room. It's massive. Bigger than my parents' closet. It's great!
While we were at the hotel, we just had some meetings and watched Titanic. And we went to see Harry Potter on Wednesday night for $3! I think I'll leave my opinions on that alone and just reflect on the general amazingness of it. We moved into our house on Friday and began to visit some of the project sites that we'll be working at over the next 4 months.
     I came here wanting to work in Yabonga, an HIV/AIDS clinic for children affected and infected with the virus. However, we visited a TB hospital and something there just clicked with me. There are so many opportunities for different projects within the confines of the hospital. The children get shut away from the rest of the world, so there are many different ideas I came up with to maintain some sense of normalcy for them. Funny how things work out. Nothing is set in stone until this weekend though.
     The last few days, I have toured Bo-Kaap, a Malay community set slightly above Cape Town, and visited Langa, the oldest township in the Western Cape. Bo-Kaap is becoming an expensive and trendy place to live with bright little houses. Usually, if you google image Cape Town, Table Mountain and Bo-Kaap show up. That's not the case with Langa. Along one road, I saw shacks without doors and small gated houses. Our tour guide called these houses Langa's Beverly Hills. You needed to have a good imagination. I also tried some traditional South African beer on the tour. It's brewed by the women and drunk by the men. It was passed around in a big bucket and I felt like I was at a vert strange church service. I don't like beer and this was no exception.
     Tomorrow, I'm going back to Robben Island and then this weekend, we're going an hour out of the city to do some ropes courses and stuff like that. Classes and service work starts Monday. As soon as my house gets uncapped internet, I'll be posting up pictures from the last two weeks. It's so hard to believe I have been gone for 2 weeks already. I feel like I should be coming home any day now. Luckily, I have 4 more months! I'm just excited to get into a routine and jump into my service project.

   For now, in case you all have forgotten what I look like. This is a picture of me from Robben Island with Devil's Peak on the left then Table Mountain.

And so it begins..

Today, I left my wonderful hostel for the luxury of having a private bathroom, electronic key, and one roommate. She is arriving tomorrow sometime, so I have my own room tonight! Oh, and chocolates on the pillow. A step up, I must admit. My program officially began today and I met almost everyone. There are 10 people with 4 of us from GW. Everyone seems very nice and so eager to begin. I am so happy to finally meet them. I met 3 of the girls today when I was checking in and we went to Green Market Square. A vender was a very good salesman, but at the end we promised to come back on our last day, November 15. He was trying to sell us little hippos. He said us that because our "green papers" said "In God we trust" that he "trusts in us!"
We briefly went over the plan for the next couple of weeks because classes don't begin until 25 July. Surprise, surprise, we're going to Table Mountain sometime in the next few days. I'm becoming a regular there. A good place to be known! We're going on a tour of a township as well. If the weather keeps up, we'll go down to the Cape of Good Hope, the most southern tip in Africa, and where the Indian and Atlantic Oceans meet. Maybe I'll even get to see some penguins. Tomorrow, we're just having some more meetings and we'll be able to buy a cell phone. Besides Junior 4 Point at Gould (8 days in the winter woods), this is the longest I have gone in a long time without a cell phone. It's been nice, but frustrating at times. If I want to know the name of a song on the radio at home, I can just hold my phone up and it identifies the title and artist. If I want to know something quickly, I can just google it. Not here! I won't have a smart phone here, just a little one to text my friends here.
Tonight, we went out to dinner and it was fun trying to figure out the rand to dollar conversions. It's getting a little easier, but still so much harder than the euro. I'm looking forward to learning even more about CIEE and the service programs we'll be doing over the next 4 months. I'll learn about Cape Town's history, as well as South Africa's. It will be an information packed couple of weeks for me over here, but I'm so ready for it to begin.

On the picture front, it seems impossible to find anything compatible with my version of Mac. I guess it's too new? Oh well, I will get them up soon! I am getting sick of only looking at them on a 3" screen.

"Madiba is my real father"

Today, I went to Robben Island with Nimtaz. Robben Island is where Nelson Mandela was held there for 18 years. He was a member of the African National Congress, which had been banned under the apartheid government. I read his biography this past year and it was a really fascinating book. The Long Walk to Freedom was written during his time in Robben Island on teensy bits of paper because it was obviously banned to write  biography of the struggle during the actual struggle. Our tour guides today consisted of one man who had been a currier for the Pan Africanist Congress and another man who had spent time in Robben Island for being a political activist. The first one gives the tours of Robben Island to foreign dignitaries and met Obama a few years ago before he became President. Both tour guides were FULL of information. The leaders of the struggle were kept separate from the younger rebels to stop any influence the older men may have, but the prisoners found ways around this, including serving tennis balls filled with notes between the courtyards. We were shown Mandela's cell, which is very small.
I also went up Table Mountain again and got a totally different experience. The first time, it was beautiful and bright. Today, it was so windy and there was a little bit of a cloud cover. It was still breathtaking. And I went and dipped my toes in the Atlantic at Camp's Bay, a little town outside the city.
What's so interesting about the culture here is that people a little older than me lived through some of the worst parts of apartheid and people my parents' age basically lived through the entire thing. Everyone has this amazing respect for Mandela and the entire struggle. Their political ideology is all about reconciliation. Forgive and move on. It's the Three M's Method: Mandela, Martin Luther King Jr., and Mahatma Gandhi. Madiba is Mandela's clan name and what people call him affectionately. I overheard a man on top of Table Mountain saying that his father had been imprisoned on Robben Island. Naturally, I followed and eavesdropped. He said his "real" father had been. "Madiba is my real father." I'm not the most political person around, but I do know that I can't say that about anyone in our government..
Tomorrow, I meet my classmates, housemates, and roommate! I am so excited that they finally get here. It seems like I have been here forever, while it also feels like my experience here hasn't even started. I can't wait to meet them!

I'm trying hard on the pictures! Don't give up hope yet!

Cape Town- Day 3

Today was another great day. Like I said yesterday, most things are closed on Sundays, so I found a place to eat breakfast and then came back to my hostel. I found a book in the hostel's library and brought it up to the rooftop to read. I pretty much just read the entire day until a new girl arrived in the Hearts Room. Her name is Nimtaz and she is from London, but works in Switzerland. She works for the IOC in their media relations part. She was in Durban for meetings and it was decided that the 2018 Olympics are being held in South Korea! She gave me a little pin and a little dvd. We explored Cape Town a bit and found the Company Gardens, which are from when the Dutch or Brits were here and kept a nice garden near where they lived. It was so pretty.
Tomorrow, she and I are going to Robben Island, where Nelson Mandela was held prisoner, and then to Table Mountain. I'm excited to visit Table Mountain again because it's so pretty and this time, I'll have a bit more time to walk around up top. And the tour of Robben Island is given by former inmates, so that should be interesting. No worries, most inmates were political prisoners during apartheid, so usually their biggest crime was not carrying proper identification or just the color of their skin. I won't be hanging out with any Whitey Bulgers!
Some people from my program begin arriving tomorrow night, so I'm getting really excited to finally meet them. It's so strange to be "friends" with them on Facebook, but not have any idea what their voice even sounds like. Welcome to 2011!

V&A Waterfront- Day 3

Today was absolutely gorgeous. I don't know why they call this season winter! Since I have been here, it's been sunny and in the 60s or higher. Today, I woke up very late (10:40)! I didn't pack a clock because I am planning on buying one here, except I don't have a plug near my bed in my hostel and I don't want to wake up my roommates. So, I can arrange for a wake up call, which is when the man who works the night shift comes into your room and taps your shoulder, or let my sleep cycle work itself out. So far, I have done both and had lovely days each way. Right now, I'm on vacation!
When I left the hostel, it was too late to eat breakfast, so I had a very traditional South African lunch of tomato and mozzarella bruschetta! After that, I walked along a pedestrian street and finally got a camera charger and memory card reader. I even bargained for them! Originally, the man wanted to sell me the charger for 150 rand and 40 rand for the reader. Somehow, I walked out of there with the charger and reader for  150. I felt very proud of myself. Except when I got home and the memory card reader doesn't work with my version of Mac..
But, the Waterfront was amazing. There are some condos and apartments that make me forget I'm in Africa and instead put me in Florida or something. There are palm trees and canals. It's hard to imagine that barely over 20 years ago, Cape Town was home to apartheid. Which, yesterday when I was driving out of the city, I saw some of the worst poverty I have ever seen. When I was in Ecuador, I saw people living on the sides of mountains with tin roofs, but this was much worse. The houses were the size of people's yard sheds and there were thousands of them. There didnt' seem to be space between them. And this was all from driving on the highway, so I can't imagine what it looks like up close.
As I was walking around the waterfront, it was funny to watch the kids jumping on trampolines, people lounging in restaurants, girls making cotton candy (yes, I got some) and guys twisting their bodies in ways that make me believe bones and spines are optional. It felt like going to Faneuil Hall in the middle of summer. I walked into one of the stores because my camera battery had died and was hoping to borrow a plug of theirs to test out my new purchase and the lady was so nice about it. We began chatting and I found out all about her niece and nephew. Her niece works at University of Cape Town and travels all over the world promoting women in the workforce. I got her card. And her nephew is an urban architect and helped design and build the World Cup Stadium! She also had tons to say about living under apartheid. She's of Indian descent, which made her "coloured" under the apartheid system. She's not college educated because she didn't know she could be. She was taught to go into the hard labor force and said that's why so many store keepers are coloured and workers are black and businessmen are white. She invited me to come back and ask her anything, so I am definitely going to take her up on that.
Tonight for dinner, I went to Mama Africa, a restaurant right down the street that everyone talks about. I may pick the onions and cucumbers out of salads and I might refuse to eat anything that has been near a raisin, but I can now say that I have eaten ostrich, crocodile, springbok, and kudo. Springbok and kudo are both in the gazelle family and springbok are South Africa's national animal. The first few bites were hard because I could really only taste the name. "I'm eating ostrich?!?!?!" "Gazelles and those deer in my backyard look too much alike.." Eventually, I got over that and liked most of it. Except for the crocodile, they were all red meat. It was a good experience and I can now say that I don't really like kudu or crocodile and that springbok and ostrich really just taste like steak.
I'm not sure what my plans are tomorrow. Most things are closed here on Sundays. I'll be drinking hot chocolate because, as usual, it tastes so much better here than at home. And I'll hopefully find a store that sells a card reader that works with my computer. I'm sure Thomson can't stand reading this much without pictures.

Hermanus- Day 2

Today, I did one of my favorite summer activities: whale watching! I remember going to Grandma and Granddaddy's house in Boothbay, getting some "pink flavored" ice cream and going on the Pink Lady to see the humpbacks.
Well, this trip was a bit different. For starters, Hermanus is about an hour and a half out of Cape Town and there is no public transportation there, so you have to sign up for a whale watching tour. This little South African lady named Lisa picked me up at 8:30 this morning and then 2 other "backpackers" from another hostel. She took us along the scenic route and we stopped three or four times for pictures and toilet breaks. The 90 minute ride stretched into almost 3 hours. She mentioned that once we got into Hermanus we would have the option of going on a boat. This caught us all by surprise because we thought it was all included in the price. After a brief dispute between the Austrian girl, Evana, and Lisa, we all had to pay for the boat ride. Apparently here in South Africa you don't always need a boat to see the whales.
The boat was not big and ferry-like. It looked like one of those small luxury boats you see tied up to Georgetown waterfront or maybe the dinghies in Nantucket to get to the "real" boat. The waves were massive. My mother and Unc most definitely would have been sick the entire time. It's the very beginning of breeding season here. The whales that are the most popular are the Southern Right Whale. They got their name from being the right whale to hunt, back when whale hunting was legal, in the Southern Hemisphere because they're slow and fat. We were able to see 3 Southern Rights and got about 60 feet from two of them just floating in the shallow waters. We also saw one Bryde's whale, pronounced like Brutus, which is very rare because they're so shy. We caught one glimpse of him and then he was gone. A seal and penguin played around the boat for a bit. And then about 50 dolphins came to visit. It was amazing. The water was so clear that you could see them racing the boat.
I'm having some technical difficulties with getting the right cord to connect my camera to my computer, but as soon as I get one I'll post some pictures. It's a bit unnerving watching my battery slowly get lower. Unfortunately, or maybe not, they don't have a big Best Buy or Wal-Mart that sells everything. Today, I went into a Kodak store and FujiFilm store. I had no idea those even existed.
I think tomorrow I am going to go to the V & A Waterfront. It's a working harbor that also has some great shopping and cafes. I'm getting antsy for my program to start. Traveling alone can be nice most of the time, but also kind of lonely. But, soon there will be pictures! I promise!

Cape Town- Day 1

I made it! I'm alive! My flights to Cape Town weren't that notable. I didn't sleep going to Amsterdam, instead I watched two movies and the funny German lady next to me. Then, I arrived in Amsterdam and went back to my eighth grade ski trip to France where Kelly, Caitlin, and I all washed our hair in the airport sinks. It seemed much more eventful then.. My trip from Amsterdam to Cape Town took almost 12 hours. I slept for the first six, but then it was kind of a letdown to wake up and still have six to go. But, I made it and that's all that matters.
A little bit about my program:
It's a service-learning program, so the classes I'll be taking will have a service oriented syllabus. I'll also work at an organization for the entire time I'm here (mid-November). My choices are working in an elementary school. high school, prison, TB clinic, or HIV/AIDS outreach for youth. I'm leaning towards the HIV outreach or the elementary school. I am also going to be taking a language, either Afrikaans or Xhosa. I'll be living at the University of Cape Town in a house with my fellow classmates. There are 12 of us all together. I just found out Harry Potter is coming here before the States and my classmates want to go, so I think we'll get along great!
I'm staying in a hostel for the first 6 nights because my program doesn't start until 12 July. I've only stayed in hostels in Spain with my friend Hilary. This hostel is VERY different from those. The hostels in Spain were only for pilgrims on the Camino de Santiago. I'm staying in a girls' only room, which is decorated in hearts. This hostel has a bar and it is full. The people who work here at Penthouse on Long are great. The street it's on is really similar to M Street in Washington. They call and reserve your spot on any excursion you want and make sure you're not getting cheated.
Today, I did the most touristy thing I have ever done. I got on one of those double decker red busses that are, apparently, in over 100 cities and you can get on and off whenever you please and as many times you want. It was the most convenient way to see the city and to get to Table Mountain. It's the big flat mountain that serves as a backdrop to any picture of Cape Town you google. I took the tram up for R180, about $27. The views were beyond stunning. I'm not the biggest scenery picture person, but I just couldn't stop taking pictures of the mountains in the distance, the water that was actually endless, and the spread of Cape Town below me. It blew me away. There are two smaller peaks on either side of Table Mountain, Lion's Head and Devil's Peak. Lion's Head is a popular hike after Cape Tonians get out of work to watch the sun set and the moon rise. I can't wait to do that.
Tomorrow, I'm going on an excursion about an hour and a half out of the city to whale watch. It's the very beginning of their breeding season, so hopefully I'll see lots of baby whales!