The Final Countdown

     I remember watching my 8th Grade Winter Term final video set to this song, and many others, and thinking how much fun I had over one term. That winter was one of the best winters of my life. I loved watching a video recapping all the fun I had with my friends doing something that I loved. It's incredible to think that I am wrapping up yet another amazing term. Thanks to the Southern Hemisphere, it's been another great winter!
     We're now cramming in souvenir shopping and sightseeing. Every thing I do, I wish I had found it three months ago! I just don't want to leave. I remember talking to the girls in my hostel back in July and they were telling me that everyone comes back to Cape Town. I remember thinking that they're just proud of the city and that most people don't come back. Well, since I have been here, I have met past study abroad kids who have, in fact, returned. This semester has been so cool. I can't wait to come back. I just need to find a reason..
     It's been a great last couple of weeks. Classes are over. Exams and papers completed. Now, it's all about savoring the last few days here and pulling ourselves away from the relationships we've built at our service sites. I told one of the doctors I plan on stealing one of the babies. And one Grade 7 boy is buying a plane ticket to America with me. It's going to break my heart leaving these kids behind. When we leave for the weekend, they already hug us like it's the end. I am actively ignoring that the last day of service is around the corner. We're taking them to Table Mountain as a final goodbye. Ending on a high note will make everything easier.
     In a few short days, my mom is arriving. I am so excited. We have been talking about this since before I left in July. Now, the time is finally upon us. I can't wait to see her. This is the longest I have ever gone without seeing one of my lovely parents. After going to boarding school and three years of college, you would think I'm used to not seeing my parents. However, I think we all know how much the Rileys love Gould. And at GW, I see one of my parents every month. Weird, right?! It took a trip to Africa to set the record. Anyways, the trip is a much deserved for my crazy mother and we've been planning over email and Skype for about two months now!
     Here are some pictures from my last couple pre-mother weeks! Cheetahs to doughnuts!

Hanging out with some cheetahs..

Tractor=universal appeal to children

Me at the Kings of Leon concert

The new hospital school! New EVERYTHING!

Sithembiso is so excited!

Manenburg Gangster, Hippie, Bankrobber, and Fairy. Note the gluten free Hippie option for doughnut on a string!

 

Ticking Clocks

     Hello.... my title has many meanings. For one, it is clearly needed for blog posts. One of the girl's blogs here is called "My New Normal" and that is so true for me! Another week (or two or three) passes and school, service, and sightseeing are my new normal! Another, is that my time here is winding down. I'll be home in about a month! And the third meaning is I saw Coldplay in concert!!!!!
     School is a weird concept here. It's "hard" only taking three classes with 10 kids. And we all live together. At times, we actually eat, breathe, and sleep a single assignment. Or, five assignments.. Such is life. Typically, the academics of my program are perfectly balanced with my service, while remembering that we're all in this amazing country wanting to explore. My capstone, finding an NGO to bring to the hospital, fell through. Luckily, I had planned for that and am now encouraging reading through three different branches of the hospital. Reading Buddies, where the school aged kids read to the young babies is my what I'm most excited about. I will also have the babies' nurses set aside times each day to read to small groups of kids. And I will have the Occupational Therapists having reading groups with the adults. This should be a more sustainable project, so I'm actually really excited about it. Hopefully, there is enough time to organize it all.
     Sightseeing has taken on a new frenzy. Everyone is realizing that our penny-pinching days from the beginning and middle of the semester has stopped us from experiencing different parts of Cape Town/South Africa. A group is doing two nights in the wine country. We've gone to see cultural movies. Going out to dinner. The beach! And, last weekend, I went shark cage diving! It was amazing! I saw five great white sharks and almost touched one. I was too nervous that it would feel me touch it and attack me. It was actually just like what you watch during Shark Week. The sharks come out of nowhere and look like they're staring you down. I stayed under for about 20 minutes using a snorkel-esque apparatus to breathe. I would do it again in a heartbeat. Maybe when my mom comes...
Here are some pictures from a talent show, the concert, service, my "new normal."

Playing around with Rochelle at BCH.

Emily, Catherine, Bubbles, and me at Coldplay!

Me at my first "real" concert. Hard to beat Coldplay in a World Cup Stadium in CPT..

Chris Martin

BCH Ward 3 Talent Show. Jackson 5, Justin Bieber, Beyonce and more were featured!

Emily getting her hair done!!!

At Clifton Beach 4 with Lion's Head

Working on decorating the library table.

Shark + cage = surreal

 "Fish are friends, not food." "Sara and Brittany are friends, not food."

Naledi, from Zimbabwe, playing with my camera case. Better than my necklace, ring, watch, etc.

Sibongile attempting to climb the slide- a popular past time for the babies of BCH.

   

MIA in SA

     Sorry for the infrequent blog posts. I guess since my life here is normal, I don't know why people want to here about it! But then, a combination of a Facebook post from my mother (parents and fb-who thought it was a good idea?) and listening to various internet/technology problems, I remember: "I'm in Africa! I get to work with kids all the time! This is actually kind of interesting to people." At least, to people who have decided to read my blog, I mean.
     So, since my last post, more kids have been discharged from Brooklyn Chest. My capstone is to introduce an NGO that works with adult patients and life skills (If anyone knows of one, I would love some help!). I went to another soccer game. And, I spent a weekend in a township. Also, my friends have officially spread out across the globe. I have one in China, one in Jordan, one in France, some in Argentina, two in the UK, and some back home!
     Anyways, one of my kind brothers told me to put more pictures up and less words. So, I'll follow his advice.

Me with a penguin. I refer to all penguins here as Sparky, in honor of Willy's adopted penguin.

Emily, myself, Joel, and "Bubbles" (Laura) at the Greenpoint Stadium.

The group on our way to Cape Point, Africa's most south-western point. 

We made it! Our driver, Mark, is on the left, and Angela, our director, is on the right.

Enjoying the spring weather at Hudson's Burger Joint in City Center.

I buried Elzino in the sand.

The kids enjoying a rare trip outside of the hospital. For some, it was their first trip to a beach!

The school age kids and their nurses/doctors with Table Mountain in the background.

A cool Vespa.

   

Garden Route!

     Hello! I survived my Spring Break. The fears of not surviving included: being run off the road (left side, that is) by crazy South Africans, being eaten alive on a safari, trampled by an elephant, pecked to death by an ostrich, or something drastic in the Indian Ocean. NONE OF THAT HAPPENED!!! I'll take you all on a brief, day-by-day description.
     Friday: Visit an AIDS clinic for class, but barely take it all in because I was too excited/nervous about renting the car and then driving said car. After a great trip to the clinic, we were on our way. We were supposed to have a Yaris and I was looking forward to getting a Flip video of a Yaris in South Africa to complement Thomson's video of a Yaris in Nica, but we ended up with a nice Honda Civic. Emily, the other 21 year old driver, and I drove around a parking garage for about 15 minutes before hitting Main Road.... We took off for the N2 towards George and arrived in Mossel Bay around 6, just in time for some dinner. Mexican, of course. The drive was beautiful and quite hilly and mountainy. Drivers turned out to be friendly once we got out of the city.
     Saturday: Our hostel man told us of a cheaper safari than the one we had originally planned, so in the morning, we went to Botlierskop Game Reserve for a day of safari-ing and elephant riding. The safari was great. It was only the four of us and the guide, Neil. He took us all around the reserve, which is owned by a private family. We could get out at the giraffes and were about 15 feet away from them. Neil told us that two died last year; one from drowning and the other was struck by lightning. A natural lightning rod, I suppose. The elephant ride was so cool. I had no idea how it would work and I decided not to overthink it too much. Details such as getting on and then steering were pushed to the back of my mind. I was on the dad/husband in the family of 3. Sam is 42 years old. Tsotsie, the mom/wife is 38 and her name means mischievous from her youth. Their son, Chima, means surprise because no one knew he was coming. He is 4 and still in "class" to become and elephant safe to ride. The two adults were saved from a culling program, where they kill elephants to reduce overpopulation.
     Sunday: This was a busy day. We started out at an ostrich farm. They farm ostrich here like we farm cattle. I stood on the egg and sat on the beast and fed it little pellets. I decided to not die of a heart attack by riding it. I can only handle so much bird. After that, we were driving to the Cango Caves, when we passed our other housemates on the side of the road riding camels. Only in Africa.. The caves were amazing. They were quite cavernous. Apparently, they used to hold concerts in the caves until 1994, when vandalism began to ruin the different rooms. Once we finished the caves, we went to the Cango Wildlife Ranch. It was basically a zoo, but way cooler because..well, it just was.
     Monday: We went on a canoe safari in Knysna (pronounced nice-na). It ended up being kayaks, but still fun. I just can't get away from unstable boats on the water. I wore some of my rowing stuff in honor of the day's event.
     Tuesday: We were in Plettenberg by now, our last stop before heading home. Here, we went on a waterfall zipline. It was amazing. The owner of the grounds was great and talked two of the group into doing it. He made it sound all deep and life lesson-y. Of course, they loved it! After we finished, we ate lunch while watching crazy people jump off the highest bungee jump in the world. After watching it for so long, I could almost, kind of, a little bit, slightly, talk myself into it. It was cool to watch people go, but I remained comfortable in the cafe. I also went swimming in the Indian Ocean. Not quite as cool as my dad swimming in Antartica, but he can keep that one to himself..
     Wednesday: For some reason, we woke up very early on this trip. Since all of the towns we visited were summer towns, and therefore dead, nothing was open in the morning, so we began our long, 7 hour ride home. Magically, my camera died on the ride home!
     After we got home, we had the house to ourselves. It was amazing and we took full advantage of it. We basically just ate and slept. It was much needed after having such a busy 2 months. Wow, I have been here for 2 months. I can't believe it's half over!! I have so much to do still!!! Anyways, here are some pictures from the trip. Hope you all enjoy!

View from our safari. This reservoir provides all the water to Mossel Bay, our first stop. 

Two zebras, just loving each other.

Zebras. There is a baby one in there somewhere.

Chima, the surprise elephant. He would run backwards. So funny.

Sunset in Mossel Bay

Standing on actual ostrich eggs!!

My newest pair partner!

Ziplining. Maybe I can talk my mom into doing it in November?!

All of us at the end of ziplining.

   

Tot siens

     That's "good bye" in Afrikaans. The language I'm taking here. And also what I'll be saying to Cape Town until Thursday! See, while all my friends' statuses are about one of two things; going abroad or going back to school, my status will soon read "Garden Route." That's what I'm doing on my second spring break of 2011. My first one was, of course, last March and mostly consisted of wet spandex and van rides. This one will be quite different. No 5am wake up calls, unless we decide to do a morning safari. I'll get wet at the beach or ziplining down a waterfall. Instead of me running, I'll ride an ostrich. And instead of driving a big, white, sketchy van, I'll sit on an elephant. I don't have any substitutes for hours spent overtaking/overwhelming Panera though. Simply too unique to compare.
     This past week, I have really understood what it's like to live away from home. Everyone else is just starting up a new school year and I've almost completed half of mine. This was the first week I've really felt far, far away. My old summer house is being sold soon. My dad is on Gould's orientation, which I was doing this same weekend 6 years ago. My mom is becoming closer than ever to my childhood best friend's family in my absence. It's all just very strange. When I left, and since I've been here, nothing at home has changed much. Now, life is moving on and, for some reason, it's surprising to me. I guess it won't be July when I get home..
     Back over here, things are picking up rapidly. My capstone, the independent project I have to implement at my site, is about to be concrete. I'm thinking about bringing an NGO into the hospital to either help promote literacy through their new library or find one that caters to the needs of toddlers in order to make the nursery school a more sustainable idea. I'm excited to start researching organizations and get to know the people who run them. Can you say interesting and amazing?! I'm really growing attached to the kids at the school as well. They were all so sad to see us off today because they know we're not coming next week. I don't want to think about how hard it'll be in November. But, at least, one little boy can count to 30 now!!!

Here are some pictures from a high ropes course, "family dinners," avoiding homework, touring, and memory lane!

I'm assuming I'll make many faces similar to this one in the next week..

Elephants, ostriches, left side of the road driving, etc.

Emily and I at Marco's, traditional African restaurant. 

I have since tried caterpillar; tasted fishy, but also weirdly crunchy.

Using Social Research Methods books to help complete a Jillian Michael's workout.

Not quite like a 5 Alive workout..

Laura G, Emily, and me at the aquarium in the frog section.

SHS/HYA soccer days.

Me, Alexa, Taylor, Leah, and Lauren

   

It's that time of year

     First off, sorry for not posting in such a long time. It's just I have this funny thing called school and it gets in the way of everything else I want to do while I'm here, like blog about my current life! And school gets in the way of getting to do cool things while I'm here. Maybe, I should talk to my professors about it?
     Classes started about a month ago, which means that this week is the normal week to have papers and tests. When I'm at GW though, I can usually just buckle down for a day or two and git 'er done. Here, I would rather go to the aquarium and see divers feed sea turtles and stingrays, or go back to Old Biscuit Mill to have a nice Belgian waffle with bananas and chocolate sauce. I don't want to be stuck inside all day writing a paper about modernization and dependency theories. Especially when I can sum up a 4,000 word paper into 35: two theories, one thought up by the West during the Cold War (modernization) and the other thought up by developing countries in response (dependency). Neither work very well, typically because of poor implementation. The end. Luckily, this is what I write about at home, so I can look at two years of paper writing to fluff it up a bit!
     Since I had a lot of work to do last weekend, of course I decided to go to the aquarium. Like I said, it was mostly to watch the divers feed the animals. There are tons of fish, turtles, stingrays, and sharks in this one tank. I really wanted to see them feeding the sharks, but it was the wrong day. Instead, the divers fed the turtles and the stingrays. Stingrays' mouths are on the bottom of their body, so the divers literally place the food in their mouths. And the turtles get so hungry and aggressive, the divers hide their food behind a little board and quickly toss it into the turtle's mouth. I also got to see penguins, my best friend's and brother's favorite animal. I went home and youtubed penguins afterwards. So cute!
     A lot of kids are getting discharged from Brooklyn Chest in the next month. It's so exciting, but sad because a lot of new kids are coming. On Monday, one little girl, about 1-2 years old, would not stop crying so I walked her around the ward. It turns out, she could still see her mother signing all the papers she needs to admit her. It was heartbreaking. Of course, today when I saw the same little girl, she was perfectly happy. We got to sit in on a doctors' meeting this morning and learn about the new cases. It was interesting to learn about the kids' home lives and how they were infected and their past medical history. I didn't know that the stigma that comes with having TB can be just as bad, or worse, as the stigma of having HIV/AIDS. People here seriously don't talk about it.
     I don't have a lot of pictures to show you. I went to a soccer game in Green Point last week, so I'll get those up soon.

Sara and me at the aquarium, at the Nemo exhibit.

Western Province: Jou Lekker Ding

You cool thing

Women, Wine, and Picnics

     So, so much for updating you all on a more regular basis. I just get caught up in a lot of different things during the week. Sunday night blog writing is an excellent way to put off some homework though..

     I was actually pretty busy this week, considering I was only in class for 3 days. Since Tuesday was International Women's Day, classes were cancelled both Monday and Tuesday. On Monday, Sara and I went to service in the afternoon. Another girl in the program, Emily, tagged along because her site was closed for the day. It's so much fun bringing people to Brooklyn Chest. Who doesn't love playing with little babies?! Tuesday was actually Women's Day. People here treat it like the big deal it is. All the men wished us girls well. We celebrated by going to the Company's Gardens and having a picnic lunch. It was a beautiful day, so I just wandered around outside and some of the others went and explored some museums. It was nice to be apart from everyone, if only for a few hours. It can get a bit hectic living, learning, and servicing together. For dinner, David and Joel, the two boys in the house, cooked us a lovely meal in honor of Women's Day. I'm definitely bringin the seriousness this holiday is celebrated with back home!
     Wednesday and Thursday brought normal classes. We had a guest lecturer talk to us about the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) that attempted to help heal a deeply split South Africa after the abolition of apartheid. Basically, victims of apartheid were given an opportunity to publicly tell their story. At the same time, the perpetrators of apartheid were able to request amnesty in exchange for their honesty in telling their stories. There are many different views on the success of the TRC. This is a trend I'm noticing in SA; mixed reviews of the post-apartheid government and how successful they actually were at alleviating the massive amounts of inequality that was so evident during apartheid.
     Service was pretty exciting this week. One of the girls, Asive, was discharged on Friday. Sara and I brought in lollipops for celebration. It's a great thing when the kids are discharged, but I can't help but feel sad at the same time. In many situations, life at the hospital is much more stable than what the children face at home. Balanced meals, no violence, no drugs or alcohol, mandatory school, and friends around all the time are things that might not be so available at home. On a lighter note, all those years in elementary school learning how to type on those silly programs came into use when I caught a boy "hunting and pecking" instead of proper "asdf jkl;" finger placement. I began to teach him how to type properly and he loved it! I have never felt like such a proficient typer before last week!
     On Saturday, CIEE took us wine tasting. I am not the biggest wine lover. In fact, I usually take a sip of my mom's and make the same face I've made since I first tried wine at church. This changed yesterday. I actually found two kinds I like. One of them is called Cap Classique. It's champagne, just not from France. Typical French won't let other people use the same name! I learned that vintage basically just means the year it was made, not that it IS vintage. We also learned about the process of making wine. Apparently, some of the best oak to put the red wine in is from America! Woohoo! All I could think of when we were in the wine cellar, was the wine barrel lid my mom sells as a lazy susan.
     We also went to a rugby game. It was raining and the men's white shorts were completely disgusting before they even finished warming up. I loved it. Rugby players are actually just monsters. Their thighs, arms, and necks are just too big to be normal humans. I just don't believe them! Apparently, doping is totally taboo in rugby. I read in the paper last week that 19 university players had tested positive and the union is punishing them very severely.
     Here are some pictures from this week! Enjoy!

The ladies enjoying our home cooked meal!

Me at Simonsig, where we had our wine tasting

Getting excited to watch the rugby game!

At the Company's Gardens for our picnic. They have massive dinosaur-esque birds there. Not so relaxing for me..

James Lebron..

Sara out with the kids during their recess. Antique rollerblades=stressful, but fun, time for the two of us..

At the vineyard, part of the separation process. It was a little too science heavy for me. But, they do have a four year degree in wine-making here!

New lazy susan product, Mother?

My new drink of choice!