Last week in Cape Town

As of today, I will officially be leaving Cape Town in one week. I knew it was going to go by fast when I got here, but really…I’m leaving already? I don’t really have much planned for my last week, which is how I wanted it to be really. The only things I still need/want to do are go to Simon’s Town to see the penguins and do all of my souvenir shopping.

Tonight we’ll probably go out with some of the people from Milton and say goodbye (blegh…I wish we could skip that part though), then tomorrow we’re going to Long Street to a pub called the Dubliner for St. Patty’s day. I’m mostly just looking forward to tomorrow night cos I’m sure it will be pretty crazy.

I’m working all this week, and I have to put together everything I’ve done and send it to Carly. We’re also planting our garden this week and today I helped to dig one of the trenches (they plant in trench beds here since the soil is hard and there isn’t a lot of water). I’m really excited to get to help with that this week and it’s a good way to finish my time here! I really can’t believe it’s just about done though!

Cape Town has been absolutely amazing and it would be a very, very easy place to live for longer. I’m going to miss the sushi (I’m a little bit embarrassed about how much sushi I’ve eaten here), the hikes, the sun, the culture, but most of all the people.

((I wasn't able to upload this until a few days after writing it, so here's a picture from st. Paddy's))

Stormers game and party at Milton

On Saturday, Whit, Jess (Whit’s sister who’s here for 2 weeks), Liz, Howard and I went to a Stormers game. The Stormers are Cape Town’s rugby team and they’re pretty big here. I have wanted to see a soccer or rugby match since I’ve been here so it was really cool to finally get to go.

When we got to Newlands stadium, we had quite the ordeal finding our seats. After climbing a million different stairs and asking a million different people (who worked there) for help and them pointing us in the wrong direction we finally found someone who knew what he was talking about. The direction he pointed us in was right next to the first place we asked—of course it would be, right?

It was pretty chilly, but we still had a really fun time! It was my first rugby match and it was cool watching it and trying to figure out what was happening. People were waayyy into it and although the game wasn’t very intense (we won like 35 to 13 or something), everyone still managed to get riled up.

After the game we headed to the Milton house (another VAC house) where they were having a braai. We brought Phomudzo—where he was quickly showing off his sweet Michael Jackson dance moves—and everyone had sooooo much fun playing drinking games and hanging out.

Most of the people at Milton are leaving for a trip to Mozambique on Wednesday and Liz and I leave while they are still gone so this party was like our last big hurrah. I’m really going to miss everyone and it’s going to be weird to have to do a big goodbye a week before I actually leave.

Later in the night all of the miltoners brought out a paper banner thing that everyone had signed that said “bye Oregoners.” It was soooo cute and even made me tear up a little (but that’s no surprise). A couple group pictures later we headed out to the bars and then to reload to finish an amazing day off with some dancing (as always). Another 5 am night at reload…couldn’t have been better.

Cape Point

For our last Friday activity we went to Cape Point, which is the southern most tip of Africa (well, I guess it’s not really…but that’s what they claim). It’s about an hour and a half drive or so from obz. You have to pay R75 to get in and I guess there’s some hiking that we didn’t do, which might make that money worth it but I thought it was all a little over rated. Once we got there and parked we just did a little walk up to the light house where the view was pretty, then spent the rest of the time hanging out in the gift shop and getting ice cream and cold drinks at the restaurant. Not totally worth it if you ask me, but I suppose it was good to see and so I guess I would say it’s one of those things that you go to see cos you’re in Cape Town, but you probably never go to again. And that’s all for Cape point. Saw it.

Housemate bonding—table mountain reservoir + beer pong lessons + reload

Two of our roommates are named Phomudzo and Londi. They’re cousins (maybe brothers…but people call their cousins brothers and sisters here so it’s hard to tell) and they’re from Limpopo Province, which is in northeast South Africa. They’ve been living in the Station rd. house for 3 years now while they go to school so they’ve seen tons of interns come in and out of their lives, which I can’t imagine is easy. Unfortunately we haven’t spent much time with them until pretty recently but they are a couple of amazing guys and I am going to miss them a lot when I leave!

Neither of them had been hiking before—with all of the mountains around here, it’s actually surprising how many locals have never been—so we convinced them to hike up to Table Mountain reservoir with us for the day on Friday. For a couple of non-hikers they sure kicked my ass and they absolutely loved it! Phomudzo kept saying he was going to do this every Friday even while we trudged along dripping sweat ha. When we finally got up to the reservoir, everyone was in heaven—I’m sure, this will remain one of my favourite places on the planet for as long as I live. We popped out our lunches and beer and lounged around and swam all day. Phomudzo was like a little kid in the water and kept splashing around and telling us, “take a picture of me.”

We hiked down through Kirstenbosch after it was already closed, which meant we had to walk along the road in the dark trying to hail a cab until we finally found a number and called one. It was a little bit of a bummer to the end of our day, but it was fun to get to be with both of them on their first hike!

Saturday, we went to Mzoli’s again (3^rd time and just as good as the other 2, so I wont go into detail) and when we got back to the house we decided we were going to teach all of our non-American roommates how to play beer pong. Liz and I carried out our desks to make a table and we somehow were able to find cups (small Styrofoam ones that actually sucked) and ping pong balls so we were set! It was like the Olympics—we had someone from Austria, England, Rwanda, Zimbabwe, South Africa, and America all comin together for a good ole fashion game of beer pong. Our Austrian roommate Klemens ended up being super good at it and winning the tournament.

From there we ended up at Reload—what has become our favourite dancing destination—where we finished the night off with more roommate bonding to the sounds of African house. Yes please!

Sunset/full moon lion’s head hike

A few Sundays ago a big group of us decided to hike Lion’s Head to watch the sunset and see Cape Town lit up under a full moon. Turned out, everyone else visiting Cape Town had the same idea, which made for a little different hiking experience. There were so many people hiking up the mountain that a lot of the time you had to walk super slow or basically wait in line until you could keep making your way up.

Finally we made it to the top though and luckily some of the people from our group were able to make it up quickly so they had a nice place staked out for us. Watching the sunset from up there was amazing. It was really fun to get to sit up there with all our friends, pass around a couple bottles of wine, and take in the city we’ve been living in for the past 3 months from on top of the mountain.

After the sun finally dipped beneath the horizon, we decided to try and hit the trail before all these other people tried to do the same. It proved to be much more hectic than we had hoped. Even though it looked like everyone in Cape Town was on top of Lion’s Head, many were heading down at the same time we were and even more were still trying to make their way up. It was dark so we had our cell phones in our mouths pointing the flashlight at the end (a handy little feature I’m going to miss) towards the ground and trying to scale down the boulders and somehow fight against both the others going down and the crowds still going up. It was a mess until we finally got towards the bottom where the ground was even.

Despite the strange experience of hiking with a bazillion people, the view was more than worth it and I would definitely suggest you do it if you ever find yourself in Cape Town when there’s a full moon!

Wine Tasting at Eikendal and Solms Delta

For our Friday activity we went on another wine tasting escapade. First we hit up Eikendal, which is in Stellenbosch. This area is really beautiful (duh, wine country in Cape Town), and the tasting was really nice. The tasting was done indoors, which as you know from my first wine tasting post, is not my favourite. The wines were all really good and I’m regretting my decision to not buy the pinotage there.

Next we went to Solms Delta, which was out near Franshhoek. This winery was even more gorgeous and…wait for it…the tasting was outside! The guy who was giving it though was crazy and it took a million years to get our first tasting. He had some seriously nutty facial hair—like civil war style beard—and was more concerned with seeing who wanted the cheese and cracker plate than startin’ us off with the good stuff.

The high light of this tasting was their Cape Jazz Shiraz, which is a sparkling red wine. It was suuuper delicious (the only thing bad about normal sparkling wine is that it’s always white) and I want to see if I can get it anywhere in the states.

**look how short this entry is! I’m glad I could finally give you guys a break and I’m sorry for making you read medium length novels all the time. However, as I’m writing this I realize I’m just making it longer so I guess I’m not that sorry.

Namibia Series pt. 4—Back to Fish River Canyon then Cape Town

We headed back to Fish River Canyon to watch the sunset on our last night in Nambia. There would be no better way to end the trip really. The things that we saw over these nine days, the incredible beauty, was truly humbling and we were once again forced to feel how very small we are when watching the sun dip below the canyon. While we stayed and took it all in for a while, our time was cut short by a group of loud European tourists who were more interested in talking (shit, more like yelling) to one another than watching the amazing thing that was going on in front of them. It was so irritating that we had to leave.

As we drove back to the campground, leaning out of the window and feeling the warm Namibian air against my face, I had probably my biggest realization of where I was and how lucky I am. For as long as I can remember I have dreamt of Africa, and here I am. As cheesy as it sounds, in this moment I felt more alive than I ever have and I knew that I was where I was supposed to be.

This night was one of the hottest nights I have ever experienced. Usually, although it was hotter than hell during the day, it cooled down to a bearable temperature in the evenings. Not this one. I don’t think it ever got below 80 degrees (which actually sounds cooler than it felt). We all had to take cold showers just to attempt to stop being miserable. Sitting around in our swimsuits, we hoped the temperature would drop even a little bit before morning so that we could sleep. No such luck. I slept for probably a total of an hour before the sun was up and I couldn’t stand sweating in a tent any longer.

After nine days of adventure, laughter, savannahs, biltong, sweat, good people and some of the most beautiful landscape we will ever see…we were headed back with dreams of the chilled Cape Town wind and with some of the greatest memories of our lives.

Namibian Series pt. 3—Dinosaur Capsite and Back to Windhoek

During our night in Windhoek, Samuel and his friend mentioned that they were having their birthday party later in the week and that we should come back down for it. We had so much fun with those guys that we knew it was an opportunity we couldn’t pass up. So instead of going home down along the coast and through the Namib Desert (gives me a reason to go back to Namibia!) we decided to take the same route home—Windhoek, fish river canyon, cape town. Instead of driving all the way back to Windhoek though, we decided to stay somewhere in between for the night to break up the driving a little bit. With no plans, we decided just to take a turn at the first campground sign we saw off the main road a few hours in. Awesome enough, it ended up being called Dinosaur Campground! We had to check in at this fancy lodge up the street and when we were doing so she mentioned there being a lion feeding later that night that we could go to. Uh…yes please.

Our campsite here was absolutely beautiful! It looked out onto this lake/pond thing (possibly sewage reservoir but we were able to look beyond that) and we were completely isolated, which was a nice change from the other campgrounds we had stayed at. We had our own bathroom/shower and a circular wind shelter with a fire/braai pit in the middle. We hung out there for a long time watching once again, an absolutely incredible sunset then headed back up to the lodge for the lion feeding.

We were all pretty nervous as we loaded this rickety old bus type thing and were carried out into the bush. The drive alone was pretty freaky. The perfect setting for a horror film in which the drivers turn on the passengers and we become the lion bait. We got to this concrete bomb shelter barricade looking thing and the driver unlatched a ladder from the back and told me not to move. I’m getting the chills just thinking about it again. Then he came back and was like ok you can come down now. Still freaked out and wondering what he had done to somehow make it safe now for me to move, I nervously went down the ladder and followed him into this concrete barricade. It was dark and quiet and we all sat down on this bench behind a concrete wall with thick steel bars looking out onto a dimly lit concrete slab, now the plate presenting a dead warthog to some hungry lions.

The guys told us we could take pictures and that the flash was allowed (weird enough) but that we should just be quiet. Pretty soon 2 lions and a lioness came wandering out from the trees, licking their chops, ready to tear pumba to shreds. The lioness and the dominant male went in for it first. Tearing at its flesh without much hesitation, while the other male sat beside them patiently waiting his turn.

I wish I had a recording of what it sounded like. The only thing that would have made it worse would be if the warthog had still been alive and squealing. You could hear every bone crunch and its skin rip open. I couldn’t help but sit there and think, “this is exactly what I would sound like if I were being eaten by a lion.” Pretty soon the non-dominant male began pacing around—probably to pass the time as he drooled waiting to get his chance to eat—and came right up to the wall and looked straight into Dan’s eyes. I don’t even know what Dan was thinking, but I just about peed my pants. A hungry lion two-feet away staring at you? No thanks. Finally the dominant male had had enough and he walked away leaving the rest to be had by the other male as the lioness kept on at it. Before they were completely finished the guide motioned for us to head out and load back on the bus. I had never seen anything like that and while I’m not completely convinced it was a wild act (there’s no way they’d be able to feed wild animals like that), it was a crazy experience for sure.

The next morning we headed out to find what gave this campground its name—dinosaur tracks! After a quick puke at the trail head (the reason I gave up on my malaria medicine), we started hiking up to this rock plateau type deal where it seemed like there would be tracks—the people at the lodge didn’t have any information for us besides where to start the trail. There was a lot of wandering around and “maybe this is one,” until we finally found the area where there were some definitelys. It was pretty stinkin sweet to end our wildlife safari adventure with some dino tracks let me tell you! Standing on this rock slab next to huge dinosaur footprints looking over Namibia it was hard not to feel like Little Foot. With a quick, “bye dinosaur campsite. We love you dinosaur campsite. We’ll miss you dinosaur campsite,” we were off and on our way back to Windhoek.

We decided to stay at the same backpackers as before and prepped for the night with a nap and shower before meeting up with Dan’s other friend Ian and catching a cab to the birthday party. The party was a lot of fun and while it was a little awkward at first, after a little social lubricant and people learning we knew Sam and Ian (and weren’t just random white kids off the street), everyone became really interested in talking to the Americans.

Pretty soon everyone was ready to hit the clubs, so that we did! None of us had packed for going out so we felt a little underdressed and had to go to a club that wouldn’t mind as much (although Whit’s shorts caused a little bit of a commotion at the door with the bouncer).

I had seriously one of the best nights ever dancing with everyone at the club! Everyone was out there and everyone was dancing. Even though us white kids couldn’t really keep up with the sweet dance moves, they still gave us a chance and nobody really cared that we looked ridiculous. We danced our hearts out until probably 5am and then decided we should head back and get some sleep before our drive again the next day. It sucked having to say goodbye to all of these amazing people we had just met and who had welcomed us in better than I could ever imagine. That’s the hard part about travelling though. Something that somehow doesn’t stop me from doing it all over again.

Namibian Series pt. 2—Windhoek and Etosha

With still quite a long drive up to Etosha we decided to stop and spend a night in Namibia’s capital, Windhoek. This is the city that my friend Dan lived in as a kid, so he called up one of his old schoolmates who gave us a hostel recommendation and met us for drinks.

As we drove up towards the city it began to rain. It was still warm out so the storm was pretty amazing! This whole area is very lush and green (probably helps that it’s the rainy season), and the dark sky lit up the purple mountains creating the most beautiful scenery.

It was really great to meet Dan’s old friend Samuel and his friend and we spent a good part of the night sitting outside under a covered porch listening to the rain, watching the lightening, and drinking Savannahs (cider).

The next morning after another grocery stop we headed up for Etosha. About 5 or 6 hours later we entered the gates of Etosha and pretty soon after we saw our first giraffe! We set up camp at the first campground area, and headed down to the watering hole to wait for the animals to come. Summer time is the rainy season for Etosha, which meant that everything was beautiful and green, but also meant that a ton of animals weren’t gathering at the main watering holes (they could get water elsewhere, and there was a better chance a bunch of people weren’t watching them at those ones). We did see a ton of zebras and springbok at this watering hole though.

It was incredible to be able to just sit at a bench and watch the animals come up to get a drink. Pretty soon we realized that the dark storm we could see far away was now coming our direction. Heavy raindrops soon turned into torrential downpour and we hurried to the car where we decided to wait it out inside. Our tents were already set up and as we sat in the car looking out to a flash flood, we couldn’t help but fear for the state of our tents and the possibility of us having no dry place to sleep. Finally the rain stopped and we were able to get out and trudge through ankle deep water to try and salvage our gear. Luckily the inside of our tents weren’t completely soaked.

For the next 3 days we drove around looking for game and every night we stayed at another campground area along the Etosha Salt Pan. In the afternoons we would be dying of heat and covered in sweat (I’m not joking when I say we didn’t stop sweating for nine days), find our new camp site buy a pack of savannah’s and hit the pool. We then would proceed to talk about how shitty it would be to be one of those animals out there trapped in the heat.

During our 4 days in Etosha we saw:

-Giraffe

-Zebra

-Ostrich

-Kudu

-Springbok

-Oryx

-Wildebeest

-Elephant (even a baby one with no control over its trunk!)

-Hyena

-Lion

-Rhino

-Flamingo

-Warthog

-black mamba

-giant millipede

-giant lizard/ (what looked like a baby komodo dragon)

Dan and Liz are huge bird watchers so we all got pretty into it while we were in Namibia and spent a good part of our trip looking out and identifying awesome birds. We saw some seriously cool looking birds!

I was so happy that we got to see everything that we wanted to see! It was incredible to get to see these animals in the wild (pretty much) and doing what they would naturally be doing!

**side note: I taught everyone about our Schalk family tradition of saying “bye___. We love you____. We’ll miss you ____” whenever you leave some place. So as we drove out of the gates of Etosha you will be happy to hear that we gave it the traditional farewell of “bye etosha. We love you etosha. We’ll miss you etosha.” We also did this for the next few places we stayed from here on out. Thank you Dad for being completely weird (or maybe dumb is a better word) and in turn making me weird too.

Namibian Series pt.1—Fish River Canyon

I can’t believe it’s been a month since my last post! Sorry for the delay…my week long adventure through Namibia left me with no idea of how I would organize some kind of reflection into blog form. First and foremost…if you ever get the chance, go to Namibia…it will change your life.

My housemate Dan’s visa expired on feb 16 so he had to leave the country so that the visa would be renewed when he got back. Perfect excuse for an adventure outside of Cape Town! Dan lived in Namibia for a year in 6^th grade (his dad taught at the law school there for a year) and so we decided to head up north so he could get back there and we could see some of the amazing stuff he remembered from when he was a kid. As you probably figured, the plans all came together pretty last minute but we planned to leave Saturday, feb 13, and get back Sunday the 21. We rented a badass safari truck and scanned the travel books for a couple camping spots up towards Etosha (the game reserve in the north).

Saturday morning, when Whit and Dan got back from the rental place with the truck we were seriously amazed! It came packed with EVERYTHING you could ever need: An ice chest, connected water spout thing, table, folding chairs, all of the kitchen supplies, propane grill, two tents (to be set up) connected to the top of the truck and even bedding (4 sleeping bags, sheets, 4 pillows, 2 heavy blankets). Can you even believe it?! We all decided we would each own one of these things in our lifetime. The ultimate adventure truck.

Anywaaayyyys….we left around 11 that morning and after a (not so) quick stop at a grocery store for just about the only supplies (food) not included with the truck, we were on the road headed north for the border! …about 6 hours later, covered in sweat (little did we know we wouldn’t stop sweating until we got back to Cape Town 9 days later) we finally reached the border. It only took us probably 15 minutes total to get through customs on both the South African and the Namibian side…not too bad. From there we continued up north towards Hobas along the Fish River Canyon.

About an hour or so in we had to veer off the main, paved road and onto a long dirt road towards our campground near the canyon. The sun was beginning to set at this point and as we drove along the dusty road, hanging out of the windows breathing in the Namibian air and trying to capture a few good pictures, we saw what would be the first of 9 incredible sunsets.

Dan had remembered seeing game all over the place so we were glad that we wouldn’t be driving in the dark for too long. As we drove along, all of a sudden we saw a huge animal in the middle of the road. It was a giant Kudu buck! We slammed on our breaks and sat there staring at this beast of an animal for a minute or so and then it ran into the field beside us. Soooo cool! One of the things I forgot that came with our truck was a huge, hand held, spot light. After the Kudu spotting, Whit took control of that little baby and we spent the rest of the drive scanning the area for more animals.

We got to the campground, set up our tents (the easiest tents ever to set up!), and made somedinner then pulled out the chairs and went out into this open area to look at the stars. Namibia is one of the least populated countries in Africa, meaning few lights and therefore the most amazing night sky I have ever seen. I’m pretty sure you could see every single star. And don’t even get me started on the Milky Way! She was doin’ her thang, dancing all sexy-like across the sky, like nothing I have ever seen!

We woke in the morning to baboons ransacking the camp garbage cans and searching for any food people had left out. That’s right, raccoons shmacoons…in Africa you get Baboons trying to get into your stuff! It was seriously crazy. They looked so much like people it was weird. Dan was out making breakfast and one teenager-sized one came right up to the table and he had to bang some stuff together to try and get it to go away. The big ones were pretty freaky lookin, but the little bubbas were adorable!

Before heading up to Windhoek (the capital of Namibia and our next destination), we obviously had to stop by and have a look at Fish River Canyon. Looking online, nobody seems to know or agree on if this is the 2^nd largest canyon in the world or 2^nd largest in Africa…or neither, just a claim to keep tourists coming. Regardless…it was the biggest damn canyon I’ve ever seen and most definitely the prettiest! We were absolutely blown away by the sight as soon as we stepped out of the car and hung around for quite a while before deciding we should hit the road once again. We also decided that we would stop here again on our way back to try and catch the sunset at the canyon. ::foreshadow to future post::

Homestead and Project Lungisela

On Tuesday I got to visit another site in Khayelitsha for work. I went to this place called Homestead, which serves as a home for boys who previously lived on the streets in Cape Town. After living on the streets and in shelters, Homestead offers them a place where they are given a bed, food, and adult support from the staff. After two years living there, the boy’s situation is reassessed to see if their home has improved or if there are other options for them. If there is not, they can stay for two more years before being assessed again. They boys can only stay there until they are 18 though, and this is where Mamelani is involved. Mamelani works with boys who are towards the end of their time allowed there (17 years old or so) as well as those who have just moved out. This is the Project Lungisela that I learned about on my first day of work.

I got to sit in on a meeting they had for about 6 of the guys in the project. They all went around and talked about good things that had happened in their lives in the past week, some of the things they wanted to work on in the next year, and what they felt was their biggest challenge.

They all were very open (even with me there!) and you could really feel how great of a program this was for the guys. The group serves as such an incredible source of support for them and a way to be able to grow in their lives when it is so easy to just sit back and let life happen to them instead of taking some control over it. They all seem to want so much for their lives but the circumstances in which they have been placed in, community influences etc, have created so many barriers. Clinton and Gerald provide these guys with not only positive adult influences who they can go to with their problems, but people who are there to provide the tools and direction these guys need to go forward with their lives. Right now they are working to create individual plans with each guy for the year. These plans are very detailed and include set timelines for goals to be met so that the guys are held accountable. They also include individualized goals and the ways that they plan to reach these goals. Most of them included getting a job as one of their goals—followed with a step by step plan of what they must do to try and achieve this—but some of the other goals were more personal like one boy said he wanted to get to know himself better over the next year. With Gerald’s help, they decided that he would keep a journal, beginning Monday, that he could read over to help to achieve this goal.

Setting goals for the year (as well as long term goals like what do you want to do/be in the next ten years) is good for the guys in getting them to think about the bigger picture of life and setting up detailed plans to achieve these goals make them achievable and more concrete.

As they met individually with the guys to make these plans, I was taken on a tour of Homestead by a kid named Cairo (or something along that line…I’m still trying to understand the accent). There are about 60 boys living in the home and there are maybe like 6 different dorms (rooms) with bunk beds for the boys. Each dorm has a leader (one or two) that is an older boy and is in charge of the room. Some of the rooms have pictures hung on the wall. One room Cairo said all the boys like soccer and rugby so the wall was covered in magazine pictures of soccer and rugby players. Another room I noticed there was a bed along the wall that had magazine and calendar pictures of girls in swimsuits. It reminded me of my friends’ rooms in middle school and high school. Boys are boys no matter where you go around the world.

Aside from offices, there is also a kitchen, dining room, tv room and laundry room inside the house. Outside they have a garden in front, and in the back yard they have a lawn to play soccer, a cement patio and wall where they play soccer or some game with a tennis ball and a structure where I guess they have punching bags up sometime for muay thai training. It seemed like a really cool place for the guys.

Cairo has been living at homestead for six years he said. I asked him how old he was and he said 17—he looked like he was 14 though. He asked how old I was and when I said 21 he was surprised and said I looked young (shooooot…boy was tryin’ to get some). He also asked if I had aboyfriend and proceeded to tell me how in South Africa age was not important. So anyways, I’m shacking up in a boys home with my new 17 year old boy Cairo. He was wearing these white thick framed plastic sunglasses with the lenses popped out and had one headphone in the whole time listening to music, and occasionally mouthing along to what I assumed was Neo after he told me that was his favourite singer. A couple times he would go to talk with a friend or something and when I went back into the room to sit in on a talk Gerald was having with one of the guys, Cairo would come back and stand at the door waiting for me to come back out. It was really cute.

I was talking with one of the older guys as we waited for them to finish up the meetings and he was asking me questions about America and stuff. One of the things he asked me was if we have shacks like they do. Looking outside the window, I saw a world of homes in conditions that if people lived in them in the States we would consider that person homeless. I said there weren’t very many. I didn’t know how or want to tell him that nothing like Khayelitsha exists in the States. In all fairness I know there are places of extreme poverty at home, I just haven’t experienced it and for that I know I am truly lucky. He went on to say yeah, and that he knew it was a lot about the government in South Africa. They have just finished this 6 billion dollar soccer stadium and yet driving through Khayelitsha you wouldn’t believe the way that people have to live. The priorities are truly skewed. The millions of people who watch the world cup will see the wonderful stadium, the gorgeous beaches and mountains that surround it, but they will never see the people of South Africa living just outside the city who are barely able to survive.

Reload and Mzoli's round 2

::flash back for a continuation of Friday night::

After getting back from hiking, and still feelin’ the buzz of our mojitos, we were ready to go out. So we did. Later on in the night (we had separated from some of our housemates) Liz and I got a call telling us to meet everyone at this place called Reload down the street, where there was apparently a crazy dance party going on. Our roommate Phumudzo came and met us back at the house and we headed over with our friends Alec, Stephen and Yunus. It ended up being the best night out so far! Liz, Ashley (our other housemate) and I were the only white girls in the packed bar/club where crazy awesome African hip hop/dance music was blaring and every single person in this little place was jammed together dancing their hearts out. It was incredible and so much fun! We left at about 4:30 am sweaty and danced our way home deciding we were going there every weekend from here on out. Ammaaaazzziiiinnnggg.

::flash forward to Saturday::

Woke up at 10 am. Tired. We had made plans with Andrew the day before to go to Mzoli’s again with him so that was the plan. Despite our hangovers and lack of sleep that’s what we would do. Rally and get ready for another party. (life’s exhausting over here I tell ya!)

This time we went with a much bigger group (we’ve gotten quite a few new interns since the last time we went), and when we got there, there was no dj! Without house music shaking your entire body as you eat, I was worried this time wouldn’t be as good as the last. We got our beer, got our food (soooooo freeeaakkkiing delicious!) and finished still hoping a dj would show up. Mzoli’s didn't disappoint, and although it was after we had finished eating, a dj soon showed up ready to get people up dancing. It was exactly what we needed to energize us and get us going after still feeling the effects of the previous night.

Struggling a little more than last time to get through the beer, I found myself watching everyone around me a lot more. Mzoli’s is this incredible event every weekend. People are dressed in their hippest gear, posted in the street drinking, eating, talking and dancing. Dancing like I have never seen anyone dance before. Everyone has the best moves in the world and are able to move their bodies in ways I could never even dream of! These three little boys came by us and started busting out incredible dance moves. They were probably like 8 years old, pulling out Michael Jackson’s best foot moves and even gracing us with an epic crotch grab here and there! Dancing is such a big part of African culture so kids are basically born dancing and you could really see that in these boys. Everyone circled around them and by the time we finally left they had collected quite a bit of money. I would have paid big bucks to see these little boys though, and they totally deserved it. Seriously the best dancing I have ever seen!

When we left we decided we were going to take power naps and then wake up and try to go to reload again. 10:30. that’s when I would wake up. 10:30 came, I laid in bed listening to see if anyone else was up. Reset my alarm for 11. 11:00 came, opened my door, all the lights in the house were out and nobody made a sound.

Reload and Mzoli’s had beaten us down. Saturday night would be a night of 12+ hours of sleep and that was ok with me.

Boomslang Cave

Friday afternoon the VAC team hopped a train and headed for Kalk Bay to hike the Boomslang Caves. Kalk Bay is on the other side of the cape, where the water is warmer and the beaches are less crowded (maybe bigger…which could explain them feeling less crowded). Needless to say, the beaches over towards Simon’s Town (in the opposite direction from Cape Town) have become my favourite. Annyyywaayyysss there was a huge group of us cos a bunch of Americans have come over to start their study abroad at UCT (University of Cape Town) and they have some connection to Oliver and Sean (the directors of VAC) I think because during their time here they go to school full time and get set up with a part time internship. Regardless, they came on the hike with us. ((haha sorry this is like the most rambled blog entry yet))

The hike up to the caves took about an hour and once again, as always, was seriously gorgeous! The views were especially pretty because it was right along the beach. Once we got up to the caves we tried to get the flash light (or torch as they call them here) situation sorted out. Only a few people had flash lights so there was like one for every five people…the rest of us had our cell phones (proving to be pretty inaffective).

We got on all fours and headed in to the small entrance of the cave. It was completely dark in there and without a flashlight immediately in front of me it was a little scary trying to ‘nam crawl my way through without hitting my head on any rocks. After a short while we finally reached an area where we could start to make our way into a standing position. Soon enough we were in this huge opening in the cave big enough for everyone to stand and walk around. It was still pitch black (duh, it’s a cave) but there were candles set up around in that area to light and make it easier to see your way around. We hung out in there for a bit then headed towards the exit (luckily big enough to be able to walk the entire way instead of crawling) ooing and awing at all the awesome rock formations around us. As we exited the cave there was seriously the most gorgeous view (I know, I know, you get it, it’s pretty here) of Simon’s town and the beach!

We followed Sean and Carsten down the mountain…the alleged short-cut, which ended up being a hike through the bush. My friend Liz was right behind them and kept hearing them be like, shoot this is the way we always go that ends up being wrong, oh well. We were off the trail, pushing our way through prickly bushes and around trees and twigs not wanting to be pushed out of the way. After a lot of “ouch” and “shit, watch out for this branch” and marco, polos to try and find which direction they went, we finally connected up with the path that led to the road. An hour later, our legs scratched raw and them laughing at leading us in totally the wrong direction, we figured out it was no short cut.

The whole way down we kept reminding ourselves that Cape to Cuba was our next destination…nothing would make this worth it but some mojitos. As we sat there sipping our incredible drinks in the beach front, Cuban-esque cabana, I decided that I love this place…and mojitos.

Khayelitsha, Sakumlandela Primary School, and the very good day at work

On Tuesday I had such a good day at work! I arrived at 8 and drove out with my boss to Khayelitsha—one of the townships that my organization does a lot of their work in—to visit a school that we have a program in.

Khayelitsha means “new home” is xhosa and it was created in the early ‘80s under the apartheid regime. It’s now the biggest township in Cape Town and home to over a million people (although there’s no way to get an exact number since people are moving in there every day). It is one of those townships that you would see in a picture with shacks made of tin scraps, plastic and whatever else they can get their hands on. There is no electricity and limited water faucets that provide the water for large amounts of people in an area.

The school we visited is called Sakumlandela Primary School and it is for grades R (kindergarten) or maybe just 1-9. Most primary schools only go up to grades 6 or 7 so this one is unique. This is a really good school I guess and my boss said it’s because of the amazing principle there. Education in South Africa is not free but Sakumlandela is an example of a no fee school that allows impoverished children to attend school.

Mamelani became involved in this school almost two years ago, thanks to an existing relationship with another organization at the school. The existing organization identified many student cases that needed to be addressed and needed help meeting the needs of the children. Mamelani hired a man to become a counsellor at the school so that everyday there was a source of support for the children and teachers are able to refer children to him. Mamelani pays the counsellor’s salary so that it is of no cost to the school. The aim of this program is to provide holistic support to keep kids in school. Each student that is referred is assessed to provide the kind of support that they need (this included material support in the form of stationary, uniforms or other supplies that the student cannot afford). Through a holistic approach, Mamelani understands that intervention is undermined if you only work with the children and not the whole situation that has made this child vulnerable. This is why, included in this program are home visits and weekly parent meetings and workshops.

In Khayelitsha there are many obstacles that stand in the way of children and a proper education. The morning we got there the women who works with the other organization, a good friend of my boss, found out that a girl in grade one was hit and killed by a truck on her way home from school the day before. While she was very upset, she said that things like that happen quite often and through doing some research I found that traffic safety was included in most curriculum from grade R. While accidents like this happen in the states, so much of the high occurrences of them here is due to the lack of a system to provide safety and protection for school children causing survival to be a very real obstacle to education.

Included in survival is the high rate of abuse that occurs in many homes in Khayelitsha. A bad family life and no support for education is probably the greatest challenge with keeping kids enrolled and motivated in school. Many kids get a late start with their education or take a long time to get through it so there are kids who are 18 years old and in 7^th, 8^th, 9^th grade. While there is obviously a challenge in keeping an 18 year old motivated to finish primary school with the other kids in their classes being so much younger, another major challenge at this age is making sure they have a good living situation. A major reason for a child being old for their grade is a lack of support at home. For many, if this is addressed at a young age they can be placed in foster care where they will receive the support that they need to finish school. However, foster care ends at 18, so it is unlikely to be placed when you are older, like 14-17. This makes it extremely challenging because an alternative option for intervention must be created to make sure that the needs of the child are being met and they are able to finish their schooling.

Another cool program going on at the school is their school garden. 6 or more bathtubs are used for worm bins and there are many beds providing flowers, herbs, and veggies to be used in the school food program, which provides meals (sometimes the only meal they will receive for the day) for the students. I was so impressed by the garden and I realized that community gardening and school garden programs is an area I would definitely like to become more involved in as far as possible careers go. I think it’s an amazing way to get children involved and invested in their nutrition. It also provides an incredible sense of community through a sustainable method of growth while providing the essential needs to individuals and communities alike.

The whole reason we were at the school was to meet with the Department of Social Development so that they could ask final questions to help them to make a decision regarding their funding of the program. I was so excited to get to sit in on a site visit like this! It was an opportunity to get to see the stuff I’ve been learning in school carried out in real life. In my Aid to Developing Countries course that I took in the fall, we did a simulation over the term where we had donor agencies and countries and as a donor agency my group had to come to a decision about how much funding we were providing each country. It was really interesting and as I sat in on this meeting I couldn’t help thinking about this class. I sat there as they met trying to write down everything I could!

The people from DOSD seemed kind of rushed, which was a shame and they seemed to ask very basic, logistical questions, which made Carly (my boss) and Monika (the project director for this program) a little disappointed. They had hoped that the people would want to talk to people working at the school to see the effects of the program and stuff like that, but instead they seemed to be more interested in budgets and the basic workings of the program. They left the meeting not feeling too great about how it went and not expecting too much funding to come from them, which is a shame. Having been my first experience with anything like this I had no idea how to tell how it went and I was just pumped to have been there! If the DOSD decides to provide any funding it will go through around the end of March.

We went back to the office and I finished my day off as normal, but I was still so excited to have gotten to visit the site and sit in on the meeting (even if it was brief and potentially not so great of a turn out). I learned so much about this program—and once again fell in love with it—and the kind of things that organizations are doing to provide the kind of ongoing support that is crucial to children’s lives.

The perfect Sunday afternoon

Sunday a big group of us headed for the aquarium. There were so many amazing fish and sea creatures there! We spent quite a lot of time wandering around checking it all out and being amazed by all of the strange and beautiful fish. There is a penguin pool type thing outside and there were 3 girls (in matching polos so I assume they worked there) who were sitting out there with the penguins happily perched in their laps! It was amazing and I decided my new life mission is to cuddle a penguin! They are so cute and I want one soooo bad! I was seriously standing there watching them, giggling and swooning and dreaming about what I would do to get to hold or better yet own one of those little guys.

After the aquarium we met up with some other people and went to lunch at this really nice restaurant on the water front. I had the most amazing grilled calamari and steamed vegetables and some nice cider to wash it all down. From there we headed for the beach—after a quick mission to find some kind of a ball to throw around.

We went to Clifton beach number 4, which was absolutely gorgeous. I guess some days it is totally packed but we were lucky to find it not too crowded (probably helped that it was late afternoon by the time we got there).

Aquarium, drinks, lunch, and resting on the beach. Not a bad Sunday. Not a bad Sunday at all.

Table Mountain reservoir

Saturday we had been planning to hike back up to the reservoir up on Table Mountain. Last time we hiked it we paid to get into Kirstenbosch National Botanical Gardens, but this time we wanted to find a way to get on the trail without having to pay to get in to the gardens. We convinced a mini bus (a mini van turned into a taxi that crams people in for a cheap ride) to take us out to kirstenbosch (which is a little bit of a drive out and not on their normal route) where we thought we saw a trail head before. The driver didn’t really know where we were going so we got pretty lost and had to stop at a gas station so he could get directions. After talking to the guy at the gas station and explaining to him what we were trying to do, he directed us out to Constantia Nek. This was a pretty far drive out so we threw in a good tip for the mini bus driver when we got there.

Looking at the trail map it looked like we had a long way to go and that it would take us quite a bit longer to get to the reservoir compared to if we had left from kirstenbosch. The trail from kirstenbosch is about an hour-2 hour hike straight up the mountain but luckily it is pretty well shaded and it’s an interesting forested hike to do. This one was called the Jeep trail and it was paved the whole way, which was pretty weird. Instead of stairs and ladders it was more gradual but it was in direct sunlight the whole time and extremely hot during the middle of the day when we were hiking.

It was intense for a little bit but when we finally got to the top of the ridge it was a nice walk for about an hour to get to the 3^rd reservoir (the one we had been to at the top of the trail from kirstenbosch). Once we got there we unloaded our picnic, put the cider, beer and wine into the water to chill, laid out soaking up the sun and played around in the water. It was just about the perfect day.

We thought we had read that the gardens closed at 6 pm so around 5 we started scrambling to get everything together and quickly hike down towards kirstenbosch to hopefully get out in time before all the taxis left. As we got down towards the bottom of the trail we started running until we got into the gardens and noticed so many people still there relaxing and walking around. Not acting like the park was closing. We asked someone if the park closed at 6 and they informed us that no, they weren’t sure what time it closed, in other words we had run for nothing.

Despite our sunburnt bodies we all couldn’t stop talking about what a good day it had been and hopefully we’ll be able to get up there again sometime soon!

Crystal Pools

Last Friday VAC organized a trip up to Crystal Pools for us. Before leaving that afternoon a few of my housemates and I went in to town to do a little shopping. There’s this amazing bead store that we spent quite a bit of time in and then we went to the African Women’s Market, which is like a three story warehouse paradise! More jewellery and crafts than you could imagine and while we only spent about an hour in there I could have easily spend a week…and my life’s savings. While I should have been looking and buying souvenirs for people I just ended up buying some awesome jewellery for myself (priorities people). A lot of the stuff was overpriced, but I guess you can do some bargaining…if you’re not a wimp like me. I’ll definitely be making a trip back there towards the end of my time here once I have a better idea about the kind of money I have left to blow.

The hike to crystal pools is about an hour or hour and a half drive from obz so it was cools to get to drive around and see more of the country. Once we got there it was about an hour hike to the pools. It wasn’t too tough of a hike, just really rocky so it was hard to tell where we were supposed to go and we got a little lost a couple times.

I think we hiked up to the third pool (or maybe the second…I don’t remember), which was absolutely beautiful! Considering I describe everything here in this same way, I hope it hasn’t lost meaning.

The water was incredible and felt so good to swim in. It was a little chilly stepping in at first but as soon as you got all the way in and started swimming it was perfect! There are boulders and little cliffs all around so you can jump off into the pool. From the pool we were at I guess there’s like a 24+ meter cliff that goes into the pool below but nobody in our group did that jump (at least not that day). Some guys we were talking to the night before were telling us how some girl got paralyzed jumping off that one cos she landed wrong. Needless to say, I just swam. No jumping for me.

After swimming around for about an hour or so we hiked back to the van and made our way back to obz (after a quick pit stop at a bottle store near by to prepare for our night of course).

Table Mountain

Sunday our goal was to make it up to the top of Table Mountain. After a morning of researching trail options we decided to take off from Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens. We convinced the taxi driver to let us squeeze 6 of us in his little car (despite there being a fine if the police catch you with too many people in the car) and headed towards the gardens. It costs a small fee to get in to the park and we didn’t have time to walk around it but from the little I saw it was absolutely gorgeous and I am definitely going to go back so that I can walk around the paths through the different gardens.

We hit the trail—the skeleton gorge hike—at about 11:00. It was a really steep hike almost right off. A lot of stairs, some ladders, and a lot of boulder climbing and navigating. Luckily, the majority of it was shaded otherwise I’m sure I would have died. The scenery was amazing though. It was forested and then you could walk out towards these clearings where there was an incredible view. Close to 2 hours later we got to this reservoir/lake. I can’t even express how big of a relief it was! It was surrounded by a sandy white beach, fairly isolated and just what we needed to cool down from the first half of our intense hike.

Drenched in sweat we found a shaded cave to eat our lunches in then cooled off in the lake. The water was cold, but after 2 hours of stair climbing it felt soooo nice. By this point I had run out of water, so when the guys we met there said we had about another 2 hours to go until the restaurant at the top of Table Mountain (where the tram goes) I wasn’t sure I would make it. I was already hot, sweaty and super thirsty and we were only half way. Great. The guys said we had about an hour of climbing to do still then it was about an hour of easy walking along the top until we got to the other side where the restaurant was. Great.

The first hour of the second part of the hike was brutal. No shade. Sooooo hot. Soooooo thirsty. Sooooo wanted to die. We kept thinking we were at the top, then there would be another intense climb to another peak. Finally we made it to the top though and we could see the restaurant and knew that our thirst could be cured in a feasible amount of time. The view from the top was indescribable. You could see EVERYTHING! The mountain I hiked the first day, Lion’s Head looked like a little mound of dirt.

As we got closer to the lodge type thing there were people in dresses and nice sandals who obviously hadn’t made the journey like we had. I think I looked like I had been hiking for a week. Covered in dirt and sweat. Yumm yumm.

Once inside we all bought about 3 super expensive drinks. Water, slushy (I poured mine before it was ready though so mine was just red syrup. Delicious red syrup), and a beer. 3 or 4 hours of hiking was worth it. After sitting for a while and talking myself out of buying another red syrup, we decided to fill up our water bottles in the bathroom sinks and venture down the mountain.

There’s a path that goes straight up (or down depending on which way you’re goin) a gorge. I think it’s the most popular path because it’s the quickest (takes only around 2 hours) but it goes straight up and, while it’s cool, you don’t get the awesome forest hike that we got. Or the reservoir pit stop. We went down that way though and my stupidity and lack of skill in climbing down rocks and boulders was put in to full practice. So dumb. I was waaaaayy behind everyone else as I wimped out all the way down twisting my ankle whenever I could and smashing it on a rock as I manoeuvred down at a stupidly slow pace. I eventually made it though. To my surprise even more than anyone else’s really.

About 6 or 7 hours after we had begun, we caught a taxi back to the house. My legs started to feel sore about an hour later and are still sore today. I also was dehydrated for 2 days after. Haha so while climbing table mountain sounds like a badass adventure as you can see I did it in the most pathetic way. It was tough though and I survived (which is actually something considering that same day an elderly man fell off the mountain and died apparently). I will definitely do it again before I leave though (at least once more) only I will have way more water this time and be mentally prepared for stairs galore and overall epic-ness of the hike!

Biscuit millin' and Beachin'

On Saturday most of our housemates took a walk over to The Old Biscuit Mill. It’s located in a part of town called Woodstock, about a 20-30 minute walk from our house—close to my work actually—and has a bunch of little shops, boutiques, a couple cafes and every Saturday a CRAZY food tent. After walking through the shops we headed for the food area where food stands create a path through a massive tent. Hand made bread, smoothies, cheese, dips and dried fruit everywhere. From this tent you can walk into another food tent that has restaurant style booths set up with food from all over the world. I got an incredible ostrich burger with guacamole and tziki sauce on it and washed it down with a nice hard cider (while not as popular as it was in Ireland, South Africans are down with the hard cider too…which I’m definitely down with). I also bought a loaf of amazing wheat, barley and rosemary bread, which I’m still working on. While pretty expensive, the shops in the biscuit mill have a bunch of really nice jewellery and gifts and stuff. The food was definitely the best part though.

A weird thing that I noticed, which also shows how I have changed already, is that once we got inside of the biscuit mill there were TONS of white people. I didn’t even see any black people in there until we got to the food area and even then I think there were about 10 or so. Observatory has a lot of white people living and working in it, I think partly due to its popularity among international students and interns, but I have really gotten used to being a minority here. What was so strange about the dynamics of the biscuit mill was that it’s located in Woodstock. That part of town is regarded as pretty sketchy, and pretty poor. Walking over to this expensive area of whiteness we had to step over homeless people baking on the streets, which was really disturbing and once again displayed this weird, troubling, disparity that exists everywhere here.

After getting back from the Biscuit Mill we hopped a train and headed for the beach. It was about an hour train ride over to the other side towards Simonstown. We got off the train and realized we had gotten off a little early but the walk to find the perfect beach was soooo beautiful and well worth it. We decided to stop at Fish Hoek. This beach was fairly empty but incredibly gorgeous. A big part of why it was empty was due to the fact that on January 12 of this year (like a week ago) a man was eaten by a shark at this beach. No joke. All they found were his goggles. It didn’t faze us though…if anything it made it more exciting to be there. It was pretty windy but it was nice to relax, lie out and catch a little late afternoon sun. Pretty soon we saw a guy kite boarding, which was really incredible. It looked like so much fun and we watched him get some pretty good air!

We caught the last train back around 6 or 7 and despite not seeing any sharks or shark attacks I did get a little color, which is a step towards my goal of looking like an African by the time I come home.

Wine Tasting

On Friday afternoon, the VAC team set up a wine tasting tour for anyone who wanted to join. We caught a van and headed up to Constantia and visited two wineries. The first winery we went to was Groot Constantia. It is a comercial winery, so really big and mechanical as to how they gave tours and tastings and all that. We got a tour, which was cool to see how they made wine there then had a tasting where the woman taught us how to smell and breathe and drink our wine.

The area up there is incredibly beautiful and we kept hearing that High Constantia, the winery we were headed to next, was a lot smaller and intimate so we were all looking forward to that. One of my housemates, Whit, is interning at High Constantia too, so we were excited to get to see his place. This winery was more like a little emtied out house with a back porch that we all got to sit on while they poured LARGE glasses of wine for us to drink. It was nice to just get to sit, relax, chat and drink delicious wine in a gorgeous setting. If I ever own a winery that’s how I’m doing it. I bought a bottle of Malbec that was really good. I think other people bought some wine too. Again, if I ever own a winery that’s how I’m doing it…liquor ‘em up, let ‘em relax and they’ll be more likely to buy the boooooze.

Mamelani

The organization that I’m working for, Mamelani, was started five years ago by a then 23 year old woman named Carly (my boss) and has really turned in to something great. I had found a quote about a year or so ago that says “I am because we are.” It’s a Ubuntu philosophy that expresses how we are all connected to one another. When I was sorting out my internship possibilities after my original placement in Malawi fell through, I went to the Mamelani website to see what they were all about and found this quote on their website as a main philosophy that they try to always work under. Talk about a sign!

On my first day I sat in on a meeting (5 hours long) that was with the director Carly and two guys, Clinton and Gerald, who are in charge of the Project Lungisela, which works with formally homeless male youth. The project is really inspiring and it was amazing to hear about the close personal relationships they have with each person in the program. While I haven’t learned too much about the other programs that they’re involved in, I really have gotten the feeling that Mamelani supplies these workshops and programs for women and youth lacking strong support systems. Through Mamelani they are able to gain those support systems that are crucial to their lives.

My first jobs have been to compile a pamphlet/booklet about the women’s health collective workshop that they did in May, find contact information for soup kitchens in 2 different townships and find contacts for people doing updated training on the Child Care Act. Every Tuesday I am going to meet with Carly to go over what I’ve done any questions I have and figure out what other projects I can do.

The people I work with here are really great too. Our building is a big school building so my desk is just in an emptied out classroom with another woman named Monica, and four women who run the wellness program. Some days either the wellness group or Carly and Monica will make lunch for everyone in the office, which has been a major treat. There also is a mosque across the street from my building so everyday at around 1 o’clock you can hear the call to prayer, which is really beautiful and a nice little addition to the middle of a work day.

I have already learned so much about some of the thought that goes into development projects and some programs that can work well in getting communities involved and I know and am excited to see what else I am able to learn throughout my time here.

http://www.mamelani.org.za/

Finding my way to work

Earlier last Tuesday I went with Jon to meet with the director of my internship site. It was a low key meeting, we just talked about hours and stuff like that. Monday through Friday 9-5 (African time—which means a little after 9 to somewhere around 4:30) I’m here at the Mamelani office in the Wesley Training College.

Finding my way to and from work was a little stressful the first couple of days. When Jon drove me to the site for our meeting he realized that it was close enough that I could walk. Just take a left at the robot (what they call traffic lights here) and keep walking. Seemed easy enough. On Wednesday for my first day of work, Andrew came and picked me up at 9 am to help me with public transport. We got on a train went one stop down to Salt River then walked around for like 20 minutes or more trying to find the place. Nobody knew where Durham Street was and all I knew was that it was a yellow building. Finally when we found it Andrew was like, “oh this is close, Jon should have given me better directions and said we could just walk here.”

When I got off at 5 and was walking out, the security guard at the building (mr.forgess) asked if I knew how to get home and I said kind of, to which he gave me the same “turn left at the robot” directions. At the first robot I went to turn left and saw that it just led down some tiny little street that looked like a dead end so I went up to the second robot and didn’t know where to go. Instead I just decided to follow a big group of people to see where they were going. The area that my work is in—Salt River—is a little sketchy, so everyone just said to walk around like you know where you are going. I was absolutely lost but I was marching around like I knew exactly where I was headed. The group I was following ended up leading me back to the train station and from there I figured I knew how to get home. That was until I saw like 6 train lines and had no idea which one went back to Observatory. After a quick call to Jon and finding a security guard to ask I found my train.

There are regular train tickets and metro plus tickets. The regular tickets are more like cattle cars where people are packed in and the metro plus tickets are generally a little safer and roomier. I had bought a metro plus ticket but of course made my way onto a regular cart in the middle of rush hour. I was packed into this smelly, sweaty cart hugging my purse really glad that it was 100 degrees out that day and that I had no idea what I was doing. Made it off finally though safe and in one piece.

The next day at work mr.forgess asked how my walk went and when I told him I ended up just riding the train he drew me a map. Since then, it has been a nice little 20 minute walk to and from work every day. It’s a good way to start and finish my work day. No more aimlessly wandering the dodgy streets. No more being shoved into sweaty cattle cars.

Molo!

One of the biggest cultural changes for me being here is rarely hearing English spoken when walking around the streets. South Africa has something like 5 official languages-English, Afrikaans, isiXhosa, isiZulu, and Sesotho. I don’t know for sure, but the impression that I get from being here is that Xhosa is the most common for the black South Africans in Cape Town. Every Tuesday evening from 5:30-6:30, a lady named Ivy comes to the VAC office and teaches a Xhosa lesson. If you don’t speak Xhosa you pronounce is co-sa, if you do speak it, it’s pronounced (click)co-sa. I can’t do the click though. Anyways, last Tuesday I went to my first class. Ivy is a really great teacher and class was a bunch of fun. We just focused on greetings so here it is:

Molo! sisi/ bhuti --Hello (sister or brother as a sign of respect)

Ewe! sisi/bhuti—Hello (ewe also means yes)

Unjani?—how are you?

Ndiphilile. Wena unjani?—I am fine. How are you?

Nam ndiphilile. –I am also fine

The women in my office at work all speak Xhosa and on my first day my boss told them that so they had me tell them what I learned…I was super embarrassed but actually impressed that I had remembered. Next class I think we’re starting to learn the national anthem which has at least 4 different languages in it –one of them being Xhosa, so that should be fun. It’s really fun to listen to people speaking Xhosa to hear all the clicks and stuff because they’re noises that I have no idea how to make so it will be interesting to see how far I get with these Xhosa classes. Who knows, maybe by the time I get back I’ll be a Xhosa speakin’ clickin’ machine.

Devil's Peak

After a laid back day of shopping and exploring Obs (I’ll try and remember to do a post later about the neighborhood I’m living in—observatory) the next day we decided to venture out on another hike. A guy at a bar in Obs told us that we could walk to devil’s peak from our house so that’s what we set out to find. It took us a good little while of urban hiking and getting lost before we finally were on the right path. We hiked up to Rhode’s Memorial, which was pretty cool to see, with a good view—although I’m finding that as soon as you get a little bit higher than the buildings anywhere you get an amazing view—then went from there.

I thought this hike was a little tougher than Lion’s head. It was shorter but it was all stairs so it went straight up which was exhausting! I’m not used to doing a hour and a half on the stair climbers…but with all this hiking down here watch out…3 months from now these buns of steel are gonna be able to take you down! Finally we got up to this fort about ¾ of the way to the top of the peak and hung out there for a bit. The view was, again, incredible, but it was a little windy. I thought I had to be back by 1:30 to meet with Jon for my internship so we didn’t have time to make it to the peak but since we discovered how close it is to our house I’ll be making another trip up there soon hopefully!

A bunch of the VAC crew went out later that night. They usually have margarita Mondays at this Mexican restaurant in obs but they hadn’t renewed the reservation so we went to this place instead that had half priced cocktails and 2 for 1 pizza deals. Score.