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.

Mzoli's Meat

When we were on the champagne cruise people began to talk about going to this place called Mzoli’s the next day. I had no idea what it was but I was down for everything. After RSVPing, I started to hear a little more about it. It is a bbq (or braai as they call it in South Africa) restaurant/major party in the Gugulethu Township. Music, drinks, good food, and good company were promised so I had no doubt that this too would be another incredible day.

Andrew—one of the staff members with VAC—picked everyone up from my house around 2 and we headed out to Mzoli’s Meat. While the pictures that we get in the States of townships are mostly of cardboard or metal shacks, Gugulethu (or the part that we were in) was made up of clay or cement small houses. When we got to Mzoli’s Andres gave us a tour, which was really cool to see. Usually you go in to the store part and pick out what kind of meat you want them to cook for you (since our group was so big Andrew had called in that morning and had pre ordered our stuff) then they bring it back to one of the huge bbqs they have in the back then bring it out to your table. Once you choose your meat there’s a back patio for you to sit and wait for your food at. A DJ is set up in the corner playing amazing African house music at full party level. Andrew took us to the bottle store around the corner and we ordered a bunch of beer for our afternoon.

It took a little while for our food to come out but the music, beer, and people watching were enough entertainment to hold us over. Everyone sat there bobbing their heads, swaying their shoulders and the locals all knew the words (when there were any) so they all sang along.

Before too long, trays of bbq meat starting arriving to our table. No exaggeration: the best bbq lamb chops, sausage and chicken I have ever had in my life. I seriously wish I could send you all a piece. Then again I think I would have to send you a tape of African house music and a Namibian beer also for you to get a better feel. Ivy, another woman working with VAC had made a few side dishes for us too so we had this delicious polenta with butternut squash, couscous salad, and a normal salad to accompany our carnivorous feast.

As people continued to arrive, eat and drink things got a little rowdy. Dance moves moved out of seats, conversations got louder, bathroom lines got longer and before we knew it we were out in the street talking with some locals swaying to the music and chit chatting about where we were from, where they were from, what we did, and what they did. Liz and I spent most of the time talking to these two guys Manga and El who were local hip hop artists. El called himself ‘the guy who talks a lot,’ which was a good was to describe him. No topic was off limits, which meant politics and South African hardships were at the forefront to the majority of our talk. Manga and I mostly talked about Tupac and the fact that that’s who my nose ring reminded him of. Needless to say Manga was my favorite and gave me the best compliment everrrrr at the best place everrrrr.

After Mzoli’s we were all about to burst but made our way over to another VAC house for a little party. The girls there made Fajitas and we just sat around talking and drinking wine. It was a nice, mellow way to end our super day of gorging on food and booze the South African way.

day 2: hike, city tour and sunset booze cruise

Spent my first full day in Cape Town in one of the best ways ever I think. I woke up at 8 and went and hiked Lion’s Head (which is a mountain next to table mountain pictured on the left) with my housemates. It was a really beautiful hike and actually pretty tough, especially at the top when it required some minor rock climbing. It took us maybe a little over 2 hours total so it was a really nice way to start the day and the trip in general with amazing views of the city. One of my housemates, Dan, had a car for the weekend (his Dad had been visiting) so it was easy for us to get over to the mountain and on the way back they dropped Liz and I off at the VAC office for orientation.

The people with VAC are incredible and it seems like a cute little family that I’m excited to get to know better throughout my time here. Everyone is extremely friendly, laidback and helpful which makes for a good experience and easy introduction into the country. One of the directors, Oliver, actually went to UO, which is why our school is so connected with VAC in Cape Town.

After a brief sit down orientation where Jon just went over safety and public transport stuff we took a drive down to the waterfront where he put us on a city tour bus ride for the afternoon. While these things are super touristy and a little cheesy, it was cool to get to see the entire city and learn a lot of little facts as we drove around and listened to the audio. As we drove along the beach it was incredible to see these amazing houses and apartment buildings and it really highlighted the terrible disparities that exist. At this point I hadn’t been in to a township yet but driving to observatory (the part of town that I live in) we passed a few townships along the highway, which were pretty disheartening to see. Only being here a couple days it is amazing to see the tremendous wealth and poverty that exist a few miles apart.

After our bus ride we met everyone from VAC at this German bar along the waterfront, drank some beer and then boarded a yacht for a champagne cruise for the evening. It was AMAZING, although I don’t really know how a champagne yacht cruise couldn’t be. It was fun to get to mingle with the other people in the program, watch the sunset and get to see an entirely different view of the city. Afterwards we went to another bar for some food and drinks (yeah, people in South Africa are big on partying ) then headed back to the house.

I seriously couldn’t have asked for a better first full day in Cape Town and while I know everyday wont be so ideal, it got me so incredibly excited to explore and live in this city

The adventure over here

***spoiler alert: I made it***

My plane from Portland was scheduled to leave for San Francisco at 4 pm, so in true Katie fashion I obviously didn’t finish packing until about noon that day. I figured that since my flights to and from Ireland last fall were such horrible experiences, the travel gods would have to be helping me along this time so have no delays, missed flights or lost luggage. “Will anyone with a connecting flight to London Heathrow from San Francisco please come up to the counter.” Sweeeeeeeeeeeet. So I went up to the counter and the small little man behind the desk informed us that due to snow storms in London our flight might be canceled. Of course it would be snowing in London cos when the hell does it ever snow in London? So they had booked us on one hell of an alternate flight to get us to Cape Town. Instead of San Fran to London to Cape Town, we would be going San Fran to Chicago to Washington DC to Johannesburg to Cape Town. Getting us in to Cape Town around 10:30 pm January 7 instead of 10:30 am. In the mean time our plane to San Francisco was delayed 20 minutes—which turned in to be an hour. Before I had left I knew that there was going to be another girl on my flight from UO who actually was friends with my old roommate Nano. When we were called up to the desk and overheard that we were both headed to Cape Town we made the connection that we were “Nano’s other friend going to Cape Town,” so I had a travel buddy which ended up saving me.

Sooooo, thanks to our delayed flight in Portland we landed in San Francisco at 6:40 and our flight was scheduled to depart at 7 pm. We had no Idea where we were supposed to go or if our London flight was canceled or anything so as soon as we landed Liz (the other girl from UO on my flight) and I ran to the monitor saw that our flight wasn’t canceled or delayed and hauled ass across the airport to the international terminal. I seriously have never sprinted so fast through an airport with so much anxiety. It kind of felt like the amazing race minus the amazing part. Huffing and Puffing we (I still have no idea how) made it on the plane. I sat down in my seat all sweaty and asthmatic and remembered that the nurse at the health center had told me to bring my inhaler. I also remembered I didn’t. But at least I had made it on the plane.

Ten hours later, I had gotten about 2 hours of sleep, watched the movie paranormal activity while trying not to look like a wimp (followed by about 10 minutes of the movie Cars so I wouldn’t have nightmares), watched the end of slumdog millionaire like 3 times and finally had arrived to the snowy wonderland of Heathrow. We had about a 6 or 7 hour layover there so we grabbed some food and napped on the airport benches (the best sleep I got for 2 days) until it was time to board for the third and final leg of our trip. I knew that the flight from London to Cape Town was long but I didn’t realize it was 12 hours long. I knew I was going to die. There weren’t individual screens on this flight and they just played an episode of 30 rock, ice age 3 and pay it forward, however they made up for it with pretty good plane food and free beer and wine (scooorrreeee). However, despite the free booze, the flight was absolutely miserable and I slept for maybe an hour or so and my body was in soooo much pain from sitting for so long.

We got off the plane at about 11 am Cape Town time and were greeted by Sly and Jon from the Volunteer Adventure Corps group (the group that my internship is through) and they took Liz and I to our house where we unpacked then went out to a bar called Stones with Jon where we drank some beer and played pool. That night we watched tv with our other roommates (just the Americans are here right now because the South Africans are still on their summer holiday) Dan from Oregon also, Ashley from Virginia, Whit from Massachusetts, and a guy named Rob who doesn’t live with us but is with VAC and is over here a bunch. A couple of other people came since then but you’ll have to wait for future posts to hear about them. Annyyywayyyys, moral of the story is I’m finally here, I love it already and I’m impressed if you actually read through all this. The recap of days 2 and 3 will probably (hopefully) be shorter although those 2 days have been two of the best days of my life!