Moooorreee pictures!!!

Old Biscuit Mill market

Hiking up Lion's Head!

At the top of Lion's Head

Sunset at Clifton Beach

Walking up to campus

Awe bru!

Awe bru! (translation: awesome friend!)

More thoughts: My Michigan accent is disappearing, its kind of cool, I can turn it on and off-code switching ability. Also learning Afrikaans is fun!

The people in my program are like my little brothers and sisters, they are great and I love them.

Things I’ve done:

High Africa Adventure camp in the bush: rock climbing, high ropes, lots of workshopping and teambuilding.

Classes started! I love all my professors and the classes: Poverty and Development, Social Research Methods, and Afrikaans (although I sometimes sit in on the xhosa classes for fun). Still working on getting stated at the Brooklyn Chest Hospital (TB clinic)in the children’s wards. Children are not contagious once they have started treatment, so we are able to interact and play and work with the children with no fear of infection. Had my first day today!

A few of us hiked up Lions Head (portion of Table Mountain, soo beautiful) it was a decently hard hike, but very worth it.

Visits to Clifton Beach for sundowners (going to watch the sun set with friends, food and good times), celebrating birthdays in our program family.

One Saturday morning we went to the Old biscuit mill food market, which was the largest organic farmers market/ foodie fananza I have ever experienced. It was also filled with white people! The most white people I’ve seen in one place since I’ve arrived, it was very odd and made me feel uncomfortable. I can only wonder what returning to West Michigan will feel like. It was almost exclusively white people at this market-but so so very much good food for good prices. I have mixed feelings about this market place.

I’m loving my new church Jubilee and lifegroup which meets on Wednesday nights, have I mentioned how great the diversity is here? A baking exchange was planned after I was asked if I could bake, “Real, American chocolate chip cookies?” and we will all bring what we know, from Zimbabwe, America and different areas of South Africa.

CIEE (our study abroad program) took us to a professional soccer game one Sunday afternoon, this next Sunday they are taking us to a concert at Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens.

I’m learning SO MUCH, I’m tempted to stop telling you all about the things I’m doing all together in order to devote more time to sharing the knowledge and wisdom I’m acquiring. For now I’ll attempt to do both.

Other random things, we have a gardener, night guards, a cleaning woman, lecturers come to our house to have personal meetings with us, our academic advisor and program director meet individually with us once a week to see how we are doing and to make sure we are doing ok, reflection meetings once a week at our house-pizza included, we are SO well taken care of here. Treated like kings and queens. The other day I spent some time talking to Adam the head head boss of all CIEE programs who was visiting from America, so that was cool, he is very happy with the service learning program here.

Having all these wonderful experiences and plush living in contrast with the poverty we work with as we volunteer everyday is heart tearing and mind perturbing. More to come about my service site-in the next learning post.

Learner

Hello again family and friends! Students here are called "learners" and teachers are called educators, just fyi :) I’ve decided on a kind of formant for this blog, one week I’ll give a day by day run down and the next I’ll share my thoughts and things I am learning. How does that sound? I don’t think I can do both each week. There is so very much I have learned since I’ve been here, it’s really hard for me myself to comprehend it let alone pass it along the interwebs back home. But I shall give it an effort.

The Dop system, also called the Tot system. I had never even heard of this before coming to South Africa, and neither had Kelly who I was certain knew something about everything J so here is another “did you know”! While we were driving to High Africa in the bush, one area of a town that we passed through Angela turned around and said, “In this area here, the dop system is still in use” She went on to explain that “dop” stood for alcolohic drink, which represents a cap of alcohol used as a method of payment, so many “dop” per hour of labor. That’s right, workers are paid, in part, with alcohol. The area we drove through, as I was informed from my Afrikaans professor today, actually holds the world record for women who drink the most. Sadly, there is a very high incidence of fetal alcohol syndrome due to this and the obvious alcoholism. Wine farmers started this system of payment for two reasons, one “they could use low quality, surplus wine that had little commercial value to pay the workers; and it resulted in a worker being held captive not by physical force but by the restraint of addiction” This practice was outlawed in the 1960’s, but wasn’t enforced until the 1990’s, and some continue to us this system. It is really quite sad. How alcohol holds so much control over lives. How it is so hard to get out of this trap because there aren’t AA or other support groups available in these areas and jobs are hard to come by and it would be foolish to quit. There is an organization called Dopstop that is working to “enable people to take control over alcohol and other substances in their lives and promote healthy rural agricultural communities in South Africa.” Check out their website: http://www.dopstop.org.za/

Last week was the opening of Parliament, and along with that President Zuma gave a speech very similar to The State of the Nation Address. Together a couple of my program mates, security guards and I sat in our living room and watched him give his speech. A couple things he talked about I found interesting to say the least, which were brought to light during our Poverty and Development lecture this morning. Zuma said that that the amount of people in South Africa under the poverty line had decreased, but he also stated that the amount of grants and other assistance had increased; implying that sustainable job growth was not really taking place to draw people up out of poverty. This is something he promised to do, create more jobs, decrease unemployment etc etc… Zuma also spoke about the mining industry, South Africa’s mining assets are valued at approximately 2.5 trillion US dollars! 2.5 trillion!!! Where is that money going, and why is South Africa still in the state of poverty that it is? In one 30 minute car ride we can drive by houses that are mansions on the ocean, with pool and beach and security systems then through inner city poverty and homelessness, then through the townships with shacks, lean to’s and slums. This morning our professor said that at the end of the course, we will more likely be even more confused than how we are now. The more you learn the more you realize how much you don’t know and how much more you have yet to learn.

Whew, that was some heavy stuff. So very much is going on in my mind right now that I want to share with you all, but I can only write in little bits at a time.

In other news I’ve decided on doing my service work at the TB Clinic at Brooklyn Chest hospital! More on what I will be doing there later.

I love you

In Afrikaans: Ek het jou lief.

In Xhosa: Ndiya kuthanda

Chilled

This past week has been very “chilled” as they say here. I’ll just give a quick rundown of what each day held…

Sunday: Went to this church called Jubilee, which is very much like my school church His House! Everyone was so very friendly and there is so much diversity-loved it very much. We were invited for dinner at one of the worship leader’s home, and found out about their student ministry for UCT. I felt very much at home J Later in the day we walked about 5K to Kirstenbosch Gardens, it was a long, hot walk, and I introduced the inspirational alphabet game to a couple of my program mates. Once we arrived…WOW. Every day I am astounded by the beauty this place holds. As my friend Jess said “Every day in Capetown is beautiful, because there is always a mountain!” Going to Kirstenbosch, I honestly forgot about the mountain, and only thought about the flowers, but it’s right at the base of the mountain! I’m not sure if I’ll ever lose the awestruck feeling when I am in the presence of mountains, I certainly hope not.

Monday: Walked to upper campus for UCT’s version of Mainstage, we explored all the different clubs, got some free stuff and listened to a little music. When I say “walked to upper campus” it’s a really big deal, because it’s quite the hike up in elevation, lots and lots of stairs. I visited the Habitat for Humanity booth, the Cycling Club booth, and Mountian and Ski Club (they do lots of hiking, rock climbing and backpacking-not really any skiing…). I’m very excited to get involved in the campus life here at UCT. Later we had a group meeting with Angela (program director, who was actually the first person of color to appear on South Africa television! She is wonderful) and Ronell her assistant. A chill evening consisted of watching Lion King while eating Crunchie Snap cookies and drinking Rooibos tea.

Tuesday: Tour of the Castle of Good Hope and the District 6 museum, then lunch in the Gardens. Later in the day we biked back to Plumstead (where we bought the bikes) and I switched out the plain pedals for my clipless mountain pedals-so much nicer! And what a lovely ride! So good to be back on the bike (even if it isn’t by beautiful Giant) We picked up some wine on the way home to celebrate our bikes, and the fact that the wine is superb here and inexpensive, so many winelands and vineyards.

Wednesday: Walked up to upper campus again to register our computers, which was quite the process. The rest of the day was spent riding bikes! Ben and I biked to Halp Bay, which is over a mountain, and then all along the coast. SO SO SO INCREDIBLEY ASTOUNDINGLY AMAZINGLY BEAUTIFUL!!!! This ride convinced me that Capetown is the most beautiful place I have been in my entire life-and I have been blessed enough to have seen many other beautiful places. But nothing compares to this. I implore you all to visit Capetown at some point in your life. We had about four hard hills/passes to climb, but the descents were breathtaking, the combination of ocean and mountains is almost too much to handle. After a long descent into the city itself, I got a flat tire L and did not have a spare. So we just called a cab to take us back home, luckily we weren’t that far from UCT. That night several of us went to Jubilee Church’s Welcome Braai for stuents.

Thursday: Visited Yabonga AIDS clinic again, and then went to Manenburg elementary school to help paint the school all different colors. Yellow, blue, purple, orange and green. So much fun! The rest of the day was lazy, I cleaned my room, talked to many friends from home, journaled and relaxed. It was good. I figured out how to text from gchat and make phone calls too!

And now today! After a cup of tea and Sudoku, Megan and I walked to take out our recycling and then to the store. Then I started writing this post and making some lunch. In a couple hours our program is going to High Africa in the bush, a type of adventure camp, for our expectations workshop. All I know about it is that we will talk about expectations for the semester in our service projects, do team building activities such as high ropes courses, AND something called “the leap of faith” I cannot wait! Now I must eat my lunch and pack for the weekend.

Love and miss you all!!!

Every Day

This post really won’t be in order about things…just random thoughts that I’ve been having.

First, things I’ve noticed about Americans that are different from South Africans:
-We announce our questions, most Americans say, “Can I ask a question?” or “I have a question.” Or “I was wondering…” Why don’t we just get to the point and ask what we want to ask?
-We are obsessed with being tan, why do we attribute darkness to attractiveness? So much so that people use tanning beds and spray tanner? Thandi, my RA, asked us about this last night. She asked, “Why do you like getting so tan?” and the only reply was that it is viewed as attractive. This absolutely blew her away because here in South Africa, especially because of apartheid, paleness is more attractive. The order went white, colored, black. It’s interesting to think about. Tanning.
-We interrupt a lot. All the time. When someone else is talking, people will just interrupt when, if we just wait, we can find out what we had wanted. Patience people patience.
-We want things FAST. Walking, talking, getting picked up, starting a meeting, food, getting tickets to a play, everything we want fast. This goes along with the previous one a bit. I for one am enjoying going at a bit slower of a pace.
I’m sure there are more but I’ll keep ya’ll posted

The sweet potatoes look normal on the outside but here are white inside and not orange!

In other news, our group continues to bond-we have
some really great people here. Exploring Capetown together has been a blast. Taking the train to different beaches and small towns, walking around, grocery shopping, going to the market ANNNNDD the BIKE SHOP!!! That’s right, I now am the proud owner of a mountain bike! It was quite the trying decision to choose mountain bike over road bike, but apparently mountain biking is much more popular around here and is one of the best places in the world to mountain bike! So I’m taking up the sport of mountain biking, first ride tomorrow  I’m also biking the Cape Argus Cycle Tour, a race/ride in which over 30,000 riders participate (including Lance Armstrong) and all the roads in Capetown shut down. It’s world famous and I’m going to do it!! So excited!

This past week, and also next week are pretty laid back because classes don’t start until February 14. In the meantime we continue to visit the possible service sites and try to narrow down our selections. I still have no clue, any advice is welcomed. We have also met our professors (they came right to our house to have a meeting with us! It seems like we are treated like royalty around here). Service Learning CIEE students get many perks that Arts and Sciences CIEE students do not. Our excursions and activities are so wonderful. The mountains still catch me off guard, when I turn my head and there’s the mountain! Right there! So big and majestic and powerful. Soon I will conquer it with my new (used) bike!

That’s it for now, I’m still loving every moment, still stunned by the beauty of it all and still heartbroken by the suffering and need that is surrounding this city and country. Every day.

Pictures

First of all, these pictures are all in backwards order, and I cannot move them without wasting more megabytes so I'm sorry about that. ON to the pictures!!!

These are part of the colony of Jackass Penguins on Boulder beach, we did not spend a whole lot of time there, but it was quite the adventure, and the penguins were so adorable!!!
Enjoying the pier at Kalk Bay, there was a seal in the water but I couldn't capture a picture. It was beautiful!
We took the train to get to the previous two places (Kalk Bay and Boulder Beach in Simon's Town) What a gorgeous ride?! Right along the coast, it looked like you could jump into the ocean.

This is my bedroom, I'm in a double room with another girl in my program. Her name is Jessica and she's great :)This is my house, "Big Chapel" It is very old and beautiful!!
I sit on the porch of our house to journal and blog and spend time with friends. LOVE porches.
Pictures from London! (before I was in Capetown I had a 13hr layover in London, so I explored the city a little)
I met up with Chelsea (another girl in my program) while we both had layovers and we explored together!