Alumni

I don't really want to write this post since it'll be hard to follow the shark diving. We started with new kids on Monday who were supposed to be ages 16+. We expected about ages 16 to 18 but most are 20+ including one 25 year old. The first day was hard (as expected), made even more difficult by the fact that I was leading it. That meant I planned the games, ice breakers, timing, topics etc and helped keep us on track. But not knowing even how many people were going to show up meant I had to wing a lot of it.

In the end only about 7 people showed up, 5 girls and 2 guys. I think the same was true of today as well. They are all interesting people who want to go on to bigger and better things, which I hope we can help them with at least a little bit. But I get the feeling that they are past this material. Some already have kids, test regularly, know the material. That combined with the fact that we only have 3 days to get to know a very limited number of them, versus 5 days with a bigger group last week, means we won't bond with them nearly as much as our last kids.

Thankfully some of our favorites from the last group, which we have started to call our alumni, have come back Mon and Tues after school to visit. Vuyo and Massi go to the primary school across the street and are the first to show up. For the most part they just sit with us while we have our discussions or planning meetings after class, mooch off the left over bread and sandwiches provided by James House, and comment about us to each other in Xhosa.

Monday after Vuyo and Messi showed up so did C'Ko, Mandla, and Azile. We were so incredibly happy to see them, there were hugs all around. Then Mandla sat next to me and whispered "We came to see you, Natalie." I laughed at him and said of course they did, thinking he was kidding around. Then he followed with "we have a job for you." After our discussions finished I asked him what my job was, and he went over to C'Ko's backpack and pulled out a Life Sciences workbook, which he brought over to me open to a diagram of an eye and asked me to help them with it. I was THRILLED, I can't believe they actually remembered that I said I would help them with their bio homework. And then of course right at that moment our ride got there to pick us up. So I gave them the answers for 2 or 3 of the basic parts of the eye for them to label, and they were left to look up the rest on their own like their teacher assigned. C'Ko came back today and I asked him to show me his homework, which he finished no problem. Then when I asked what he wanted to do upon graduating this year, he said he wants to go to UCT and study medicine. He's planning to start applying for bursaries (scholarships) soon. I can't tell you how much I want that for him, he's so smart and friendly and could do so much in life.

After class Monday our group leader took about half of our group to the Cape Town waterfront, which I didn't realize was a gigantic mall. I found a great Nikon there for a good price, and we did some shopping for sweats and sandals to bring on our adventure tour. We leave for Joburg Thurs, and after that the 2 week tour of eastern South Africa, Swaziland, and Mozambique begins. I'm exhausted just thinking about it. If only our alumni could come too.

Photo cred Tess

Predation

I'll make this brief. Cage diving was AMAZING. Way better than abseiling. We got up at 4am, got picked up at the house at 4:30 and drove for 2 hours to the area with sharks. Everyone slept but me as Tess and I were getting bounced around in the back seat on the bumpy roads. It was dark so we couldn't see squat but on the drive back the South African countryside is beautiful. At least what I saw of it, we slept most of the way back...

We got to a place called Gansbaai, ate breakfast and the skipper briefed us. Then we hopped on the boat and headed out on the water. The sharks have moved closer to the shore so it was only a 15 boat ride out. On the way out we witnessed what they call an Antarctic skewer, where a few black seagulls flew next to the boat and they held chum out for them to grab. Black seagulls are way more awesome than normal ones.


On the way out we saw a common dolphin out in the distance, and on the way home we saw a whale. As if all that wasn't fortunate enough, a total of 11 different great white sharks showed up for us to dive with. Then soon afterwards the skipper yelled "predation on the right! Predation on the right!!" and we watched a great white hunt down a seal. At first it looked like a big foamy chaos, then a small loan fur seal flew out of the water and soon after a great white did the same right behind it. It was incredible, the biologist in me was loving it. Jackiy and I were on the deck cheering for the seal, yelling at him to swim faster. Finally it kind of stopped and one of the crew said the seal got away by swimming behind the shark. We were pretty thrilled.

The diving involved 8mm wetsuits that kept us fairly warm (at least at first) and a giant iron cage that tied to the side of the boat. 5 of us went in at a time, and would stand in the cage at the surface while they poured chum juice and threw bait off the side of the boat. Then the bait guy behind us would yell "Down down down down!" when a shark came around. This was our cue to take a breath, duck under the water and grab a bar to hold ourselves down and watch the shark swim by. Like I said, we saw 11 different great whites come by, they only got the chum bait once and for the most part would just meander by when the bait guy pulled the fish away from them. They were super chill, only one got a hold of the bait and rammed into the cage--I was not in it at the time, but it was awesome to watch from the top of the boat.

The first hand experience:

In all we spent about 3 hours on the boat and saw just about everything there was to see. The crew kept telling us how lucky we were. We decided it was because one of our girls was on her period;she was worried she would attract the sharks, which apparently worked out well. If you ever get the chance, you absolutely must try this.

*All photo creds Catherine, video Ashley

Swagger like us

In first taking notes on all the things I want to tell you about from the last few days, I realize just how much we've done. I'll do my best to keep it all brief and highlight the good stuff, but this will be a long one...
Thursday with the kids was nondescript, except I got to work with the older boys for the most part. These boys are always the most engaged kids there, and we've really bonded with them. So when they started to zone out I suggested we go outside and have them teach us some gumboot dance moves, which they had told us about in passing and I jumped on. Youtube it, it's pretty cool.

After classes we all drove straight to a winery, which Cape Town is full of as the wine capital of Africa. We got a tour, the estate was incredible, and the wine was "earthy"--meaning it kind of tasted like dirt. Or maybe stone. Either way not my fav. I thought it was really interesting driving down the road just a ways from Imizamo Yethu and seeing all these huge vinyards and estates. There were even 'watch for equestrians' signs and people riding their perfectly groomed horses down the side of the landscaped street. I'm not sure how these people can live in such opulance knowing what kind of poverty is just down the road.

We bought some more wine at the grocery store and slowly kept drinking while we waited to go out. We had heard that there was salsa dancing Thursday night at a local fake-Mexican bar called Pakalolo, and were planning to use our tasting buzz going to that. However later that night we heard they didn't do salsa nights anymore, so we hung out talking about American food. This of course led to an intense french fry craving, and a few of us on a whim decided to walk a block (in our sweats mind you) to a pub called Pirates and get some late night fries. Best. Idea. Ever. I can't wait to go back.

We started off Friday by getting up at our normal early hour, though this time it was just Tess and me--we know, we're troopers. That was when we realized we had forgotten to write a response to a kid's anonymous question. They were asking on behalf of their sister, who has just found out she is HIV+. She has a 9 month old baby at home and lives with her boyfriend, and she's worried that if she tells the bf he'll kick her and the child out. Tess and I wrote her a pretty good response letter I think, telling her she's not alone, to have him and the child tested, if it goes poorly to get help from James House, and that you can live just fine with HIV. But our hearts still break for this girl, what a tough possition.

The last day with the kids was really hard for all of us. In only 5 days we have all gotten much more attached than we thought we would. I personally love the group of older boys, like Thobane, C'Ko, Smash, Mandla and Vuyo that have really seemed to bond with us. Also a girl named Azile, who I last wrote about getting tested. We wrapped up the day by all getting in a circle and going around thanking each other. Then the kids got together and sang the most awesome African song for us, which brought most of us close to tears. We kept telling them to come visit us next week after they get out of school, and I really hope they do. Next week we are working with older kids, about 18 year olds who have finished or don't go to school, which we're looking forward to after our bonding with this group's older boys.

Already missing the kids, we went back to the house and packed our stuff up to spend the night out in Cape Town. Our hostel manager, Shannon, had arranged for us to stay in a hostel on the party street in town called Long Street. This street is literally lined with bars, restaurants, and clubs all the way down. The hostel was GIGANTIC and acclectic and just plain awesome. But as soon as we got there we left right away for dinner reservations at a place called Mama Africa's, which serves traditional African food. And of course I had to try the game. Jackiy and I split a mixed grill of crocodile, ostrich, kudu and springhaas which was quite the experience. Springhaas was my fav, it was like a good sirloin, while the crocodile was like a mix of chicken and fish, kudu had kind of a liver flavor to it, and ostrich wasn't too memorable. We'll probably get some opportunities to eat game meat again in Kruger, maybe I'll give zebra or warthog a shot next time.

About half of our hostel has gotten sick at the end of this week, and I think it finally caught up to me. I have some mean larengitis now, probably courtesy of Tess, which makes us both sound like pubescent boys on helium. Regardless we both went out on Long St like champs last night. We started off as a group of 7 girls going to Bob's bar where they have 10R shots (about $1.50?). We moved on then to Dubliner's, which was a packed pub with a great live band. It was at Dubliner's that my camera either fell out of my bag or was pinched, and after we searched and retraced our steps in vain I think it was stolen. At the time I was not all that worried about it because all of my pictures are backed up on my computer, and I can always get a new camera. Which it looks like is what I'll have to do. But now I'm beginning to realize that will be more of a challenge than I thought with the stores around here, and I'm starting to get supremely irritated. Cross your fingers that it works itself out soon.


We capped off the night at some trance club where Shannon knew the DJ. It was definitely not my scene so I rounded up a few girls and Shannon walked us up a few blocks back to the hostel. I made it into bed right around 3, not bad when the clubs close at 4 right? And of course we planned a trip to Robben Island in the morning, which may not have been the best idea. Some of us were a little hung over (though by some miracle I was doing fine) and the ferry over to the island was rolling like crazy. A few got queezy, and I now know to bring Dramamine for the shark diving. Robben Island was interesting, the tour was led by a former political prisoner, and it reminded me a lot of a spread out Alcatraz. Now I need to read Mandela's book A Long Walk To Freedom and get some persepective.

Oh, and we saw penguins on the island. Finally!

We were all hungry, exhausted, and incredibly cranky for the cab/walk/bus back. Briana was a doll and offered to stay back in Cape Town with me while I went looking for a shop Shannon reccomended to find a camera. Apparently it closed at 1pm... along with every other shop in the city on a weekend. So we made a couple really large loops around the city together and got to see it in a way no one else in the group did. However I definitely did not feel very safe in downtown Cape Town, though I can't explain why, so I will not be doing that again. Thankfully we made it home without incident via taxi. Pretty adventurous sounding, huh? Longest day ever.

And now I get to wake up at 4am tomorrow to go out cage diving with great white sharks. How epic is that, right? First repelling off Table Mountain, now swimming with great whites? No one can say I'm not making the absolute most of this. And with no camera...

Tutu Tester and condom quizzes

I think we would all agree that today was a monumental moment in our work with these kids. We started off with some really serious discussion topics, like "my teacher wants to have sex with me." I was working with an all girls group today and they were giving us all the right answers. They have led us to believe that they have minimal personal connections to most of the topics we go over, even the basic ones. Every now and again they'll say they know a friend that relates to the issue at hand, but I was beginning to believe that they weren't facing these types of situations yet. Until they wrote the letters...

Before lunch we had everyone write an anonymous letter to Auntie Stella about whatever they wanted advice on. We then read and discussed all the letters in our small groups. And to my semi-surprise these kids can relate after all, since a lot of the letters were about some really heavy stuff. The girls wrote about cheating boyfriends (surprising at 14-16 I think), pressure from their friends to have sex, their best friends sleeping with their boyfriends. There was some serious adult drama in these letters, and they were pretty tough for us to give advice on.

Then some of the guys' letters were even more serious. The most memorable was one which said that his girlfriend had told him last night that she was pregnant, was really angry about it and wanted to have him arrested, and wanted an abortion. What do you say to that?? So in summary it looks like we really are desperately needed here after all.

The girls also got to telling us a lot about some of the customs here relating to sex and marriage. Apparently in order to become men, ~18 yr old boys will go out and live in the bush in the eastern cape for a few months. During this time they build and live in a grass hut, walk around naked and painted white with only some form of wrap around their shoulders, and get circumcised. Yes, this really does happen. Also once girls get married they can only wear skirts. Maybe they'll ell me more later.

Finally, we wrapped up our work an hour early to take the kids down to the mobile clinic to get tested. It was entirely optional, but these kids don't really have anywhere better to go so a quite a lot of them walked all the way down there with us. It was called the Tutu Tester, a mobile clinic run by the Desmond Tutu Foundation and supported by USAID that travels around the area and I think stops in Hout Bay about once a month. They test for HIV, diabetes, TB, and body mass. On the walk down there all the kids were saying there is no way in hell they would get tested, even if we did with them. Most of them said they were too terrified (yes, they used the word 'terrified'). I tried to tell them it was easy while working to not push or persuade them. I am fully aware that they were not terrified by whatever the procedure would entail, but rather getting the results. HIV is very prevalent here, like the rest of Africa, but still stigmatized.

Thobane in the red, Azile in the gray
One of my girls, Azile, was open to getting tested from the beginning. She is awesome, always super involved in conversations and has a really good head on her shoulders. We were so proud of her for being brave even when none of her peers were. She even had to tell a nurse she was 16 instead of 14 in order to get tested. We all stepped right up and got measured and weighed for our BMI, then sat and waited to go into the mobile clinic for our HIV and diabetes tests. And of course all of the kids who so adamantly refused stuck around and watched us sit and wait.

The test and clinic was super simple. It was a simple finger prick for blood to use in an HIV test strip and blood glucose tester. A nurse asked a bunch of questions about sexual history, family history, current health etc, and I was given a clean bill of health. Then came kind of an unexpected turn: part of the test was to test whether I knew how to use a condom. Seriously. There was a wooden penis sitting on the table and the nurse handed me a condom and told me to put it on. I told the group about this at our meeting tonight, and no one else had to do it! (But no one else had my nurse) Seeing as how I will probably have to teach this in the very near future to a group of kids that have never seen a condom, it was a good confidence boost. And you know me, anything for a good picture; of course I asked the nurse if I could take a picture before I left to "show the kids what it's like."

As we started going in one by one and emerging proudly with our finger pricks, slowly the reluctant kids started stepping up to get in line. Thobane, who you could tell was genuinely terrified of getting tested just by the look on his face, eventually worked up the guts and agreed to do it. We tried to be as supportive as possible and Tess invited him in with her to watch as well as went with him while he got tested. We could not be more proud of him. His buddy Smash, who I wrote about earlier as the most outspoken kid in the group, was also adamant about never getting tested. He said he couldn't live with knowing he had HIV, and would rather just not know. He also walked down to the clinic with us, made fun of it for a little while and then left to go home. He came back about 15 minutes later and said to me "Natalie get this: when I got home, first thing my granny said was 'let's go down and get tested.' I told her no way, she can go by herself." I teased him for a while about leaving his grandma to go get tested alone, especially as he was hanging out with us AT the clinic. But after I emerged from my testing, he was sitting and waiting for his turn. Poor kid was so nervous, but once again I am so incredibly proud of him for being brave and making that choice. Once we were done some of us took a picture with our post-test bandaids, which is thus far one of my favorite photos for so many reasons.

Without a doubt today has been the most moving experience here. I am so proud of each and every one of them, and of our group for setting an incredible example. Maybe we are getting through to these kids after all.

Bananas

The last few days we have begun to get the swing of things. On Tuesday we arrived at James House at 10am, the scheduled time for us to start, but we had to wait for about a half hour for any kids to show up. Ultimately not a lot returned for the second day, which I probably wouldn't have either. Only 3 of the 5 kids in my group came back, so we joined up with another group for the day and started off by playing the human knot icebreaker where everyone grabs hands and has to untangle themselves. At some point during this game both Tess and I ended up with blood on our clothes from some kid with a cut. After 2 years of working with blood at the Hutch this was definitely not my first encounter with foreign blood on my clothes, but I know that here blood is high risk so it freaked me out a little bit. Needless to say today we did our first load of laundry.

Photo cred Tess
We went over peer pressure and STD's with the kids in the morning, which was a pretty basic start to the day. I also heard a quote that seems to be a common saying here during some condom discussion; the boys kept saying that you wouldn't eat a banana without peeling it first, or you wouldn't eat a candy with the wrapper on. Horrible as it was I found it really entertaining. We then went on to spend the rest of the day talking about pregnancy. We asked them to make a list of questions about it first, and these kids know almost nothing about it besides you get fat and as Riri put it "when you're pregnant all you want to do is clean and sleep." Hahaha sure, something like that. My group discussed the issue of telling your parents if you get/get someone pregnant, and everyone overwhelming agreed that they would be terrified to tell their fathers. Mandla said his dad's reaction would be "congratulations! Now get your things and get out." That sounds pretty normal to me, but it was still kind of funny. Finally there was a guy named Smash who is without question the most outspoken kid in the group. Smash is a little bit of a player, and started to tell us about his two girlfriends which we then managed to discuss somehow in every conversation. Thank goodness for him because he kept things interesting.

Although we are constantly pushing the use of condoms, the kids reminded us yet again that they don't really know how to use one. We thought about doing a demonstration since Tess and Meghan had brought bananas for lunch, but we didn't have time today. Hopefully that will happen in the next few days.

At lunch Tuesday instead of hair braiding, we tried to learn how to dance from some of the littler girls. They were doing the coolest African dances, and we tried to follow them but it was a hot mess. I have some great videos of it but the internet isn't good enough to upload them.

After our day at James House we drove to nearby Chapman's Peak where you can see the whole of Hout Bay. There we watched the sun go down over the western cape and got some AMAZING pictures. Plently of "glam shots" as Erica says, as well as a few fun ones. There was a railing that reminded me of the Titanic, so of course I had to take a picture on it. These are the incredible results.



Photo creds Tess and Catherine
Finally, roommate bonding has reached a whole new level. I told them about butt huts, where you put up blankets around your bunkbed to make a little hut, and we now have butt hut parties at night before bed.

And as if constant poop talk wasn't bonding enough, my roommates and I have reached a new level of comfort with each other. Tonight as I showered they took turns coming in to use the toilet, brush their teeth, and get ready for bed. It was like being back in the Chi O bathrooms and kind of made me miss home. Though with the apparent bedbug infestation I would much rather be here.

Auntie Stella

It's 7am here in beautiful Cape Town, and I am at the table drinking my morning tea with my roommates journaling next to me. This is so far a routine for us, started by yours truely. Though we leave around 9:30 for James House we enjoy getting up early in the quiet morning to pack ourselves lunches and slowly nibble breakfast and tea. And yet at home a 9am wake up is a struggle. What is it about me becoming a morning person as soon as I leave the country?

Before I tell you about our first day volunteering I would like to share with you our new obsession: poop. Ever since our day on Table Mountain my roommates and I have been discussing the state of our bowels like we have known each other for years. Some of us have been more fortunate than others since landing in Africa. Nonetheless we manage to work some talk of constipation into almost every conversation, which has provided us boundless entertainment, and hopefully makes you smile a little bit too.

So far as we can tell we are only minimally sore from climbing and abseiling yesterday, which was surprising. Throughout the afternoon today I realized I was only sore in strange parts of my right arm, which Jackiy pointed out was the arm I repelled with. Next Sunday is cage diving with great white sharks, I wonder what will be sore after that...

Today was our first day volunteering at our projects. We are working at a center called James House which caters to kids and families from Imizamo Yethu, the local shanty town we visited. They do a numer of different things, including take in a few kids that have special home circumstances or offer programs, a playground, and food to school kids and orphans. We are working with a program meant for older teens to discuss basic sex and drug education. To do so we are using a program called Auntie Stella which lays out scenarios using a Dear Abby q&a style. A lot of the stuff is really basic material that we covered in junior high health. But other scenarios specific to African culture will be a lot more difficult for us as facilitators, like 'my teacher wants to have sex with me, what should I do?' and 'I was raped, now what?' We are definitely not anywhere near those yet, but it's going to be challenging.

However our first day was pretty basic. We had a meeting an hour before heading to James House and went over each hour of the day. We played some icebreakers with the kids, broke into groups and started with the issue of difficult parents. Tess and I are working with a group of 5 kids, ages 13, 15, and 18. I learned early on that these kids do not have normal lives and you have to watch out not to assume things--like that they have parents. It was kind of a slow start since they understood that not getting along with your parents at age 15 is normal (thank goodness), but then we shocked them with the next topic: "should I sleep with him?" Then a couple of them got pretty quiet and didn't seem able to relate all that well. I was surprised that they didn't even have friends dealing with these things and talking about it... or maybe they just weren't comfortable opening up yet. We'll get them over that soon.

We broke for lunch for an hour, and helped pass out food to all the kids including some really little ones that live there. There was a soccer game going on in the dirt yard that we sat on some tires in the playground and watched. As I walked into the yard a little boy came right up to me and hugged my legs, and I knew I had made a friend. His name is Afrika and he is a total ladies man, sitting and eating with us as we watched the big kids play soccer. He's 5 but tiny enough to look 3, and probably doesn't know English because he hasn't said a word to us yet.

As we're sitting there one girl comes up to us and asks if she can play with our hair. Then a few more come up and ask the same thing, and withing minutes there is a line of about 7 of us all sitting on tires with small girls braiding our hair. It was too precious for words. Hopefully we get the same treatment tomorrow.

(Afrika is sitting in the middle of all of us)
Tomorrow we will be going over all the different STDs and discussing topics around pregnancy, like "my girlfriend is pregnant" "could I be pregnant?" and "I don't want this baby." Now's when it really gets going, we'll see how the kids do with it.

*Photo cred Erica

Shanghai wedgie

Here's where it really starts to get good. Yesterday we did what every tourist to Cape Town must: visit Table Mountain. But of course we couldn't just do things the easy way and take the cable car up, we all decided to hike up. Just looking at this rock it doesn't seem possible to do anything but climb up it because it quite literally looks like a table. But with assurances that there was a trail that would take at max 2 hours my room of 4 girls decided to hike it.

But as if that wasn't cool enough, we did one better. The 4 of us also arranged to abseil (repel) down once we got to the top. As such we stuck together and climbed the gorge trail that started at the base of the mountain and went steeply up, while the other girls not abseiling started at the botanical gardens and hiked sideways over to the mountain (~5 hours). I don't know how they did such a long hike, 2 hours almost killed us.

Though I'm so proud of us for doing it, this was the hike from hell. At the end it was about 1.3 miles, which seems like so little to us; however it was 1.3 miles almost straight up. And not just on any trail, but on a giant stairway made from uneven rocks and boulders. It was like being on a broken stair machine for 2 hours. Less than a quarter of the way into the trail we came across a fork where we could continue or take a path to the cable cars, which we briefly considered. But we couldn't wimp out then!


We tried to take it slow and let people pass us. Eventually we ended up hiking with the same group of people, who would pass us then stop and we would pass them. The second half of the trail was super steep so we would all go up a vertical section, then everyone would gather and make a pit stop on a landing before the next push up. Tess and I ended up splitting up from Claudia and Jackiy, mostly because we just wanted to get it over with and hauled some major ass up that mountain. We made it in about 2 hr 10 min.

The top was deceiving in that it wasn't all that flat on top. Kind of disappointing. But the views were INCREDIBLE, you could see all of the cape. Once we bought some more water and ate our sandwiches we made our way straight over to one edge to find the abseiling. I thought about chickening out once I saw the ropes going over the edge, but at that point I was so spent I didn't really care. That is until we went up to the edge...

Our guide guy was really good looking and super sarcastic, so he helped us relax a little bit. Claudia was joking with him about having a crazy wedgie from the harness, which he then aptly named a Shanghai wedgie and was the quote of the day. Tess and Jackiy were going to go first, followed by me and Claudia. But when it came time to go over the edge Jackiy got freaked out and couldn't do it--that meant I was up. I have never been more terrified in my life, we were repelling down 112 meters to another landing and then hiking back up, but repelling about 3000 feet above the rest of Cape Town. Needless to say I absolutely DID NOT look down. Right over the ledge I freaked out and begged them to pull me back up, but they couldn't... I was not very good at the repelling, I had a hard time keeping my legs under me and I definitely kissed some rock once or twice.

I don't remember saying anything besides "help!!" "omg am I done yet? where's the bottom?? Tess am I close?" and probably some other choice words. I guess the guide at the top started laughing after I went over because my reaction was really funny, but I don't remember saying anything too entertaining. Just flipping out. I was a total baby about it, which I am fully aware of, but at least I did it.

The 'secret' part of this abseiling was when the rock face ended, the guides at the top lowered us down. So for a good few hundred feet we were hanging there while the guy at the top controlled the rope. Some of us didn't realize this for a while and thought we were still controlling our descent, and I really did think I was going to die. Tess turned around and watched the amazing view while being lowered, I just stuck to staring at the wall trying not to panic. I'm glad we did it, I'm so proud of us, but I will not be walking down a cliff ever again. At the bottom while we waited for Claudia and Jackiy we got to chat with the worker helping us off the rope. His name was Xolani, and like I said you click the x. He taught me how to click correctly and a few more Xhosa words that we have since forgotten.

At the end we were all exhausted and smelled incredibly rank, but it was a day of adrenaline and pushing ourselves further than we thought we could all in the name of tourism. Pretty cool, right?

*All photo credits to Tess and her awesome camera :)

Molweni

Tonight I'm still not on my writing game, we are all too tired to function after the most intense day possible. I promise soon these posts will get less dry and more clever.
To start, I'll give a brief update on living arrangements and volunteers. We are living in Hout Bay which is about 20-30 min outside of the heart of Cape Town. The beach and mountains are incredible here, and we live in a nice little neighborhood across the street from the beach. We are living in what is technically a hostel (called a backpacker here) that holds about 12 people. Since there are 9 of us, which is a strange number, I got odd man out and put in a room where 2 guys not volunteering with us are living along with our project leader Ashley. Both of the guys are ok and Ashley's nice but I didn't like feeling so removed and being the only one getting up the first morning. So after the first night I moved my stuff into a different room with some of my fav girls here where there was an extra mattress. So far that is working out well and we're all bonding. That means I am now living in a room with Tess from Boston, Erica from Chicago, Jackiy from somewhere in Canada and Claudia from Miami by way of Venezuela.

On our first full day our project leader had arranged for us to get a tour of the local township by a resident named Afrika. A township is kind of like a shanty town where the local poor all live together in either shacks or gov/habitat for humanity-built homes. It is just like the setting in the movie District 9, like I was thinking it might be. There is a HUGE township called the Cape Flats that sprawls around the airport, but the local one is called Imizamo Yethu which if I remember correctly means 'our struggle together' in Xosa (the local language, and the x is pronounced as a click!) This place was incredible, it was set up for about 2,000 people back in '91 but has turned into closer to 20,000 people all piled on top of each other. It can't sprawl like the Cape Flats because it is nestled right into the hillside, which means it has amazing views. So does the hill directly across from it (where our neighborhood is), which our colorful tour guide kept interchangeably referring to as California or Beverly Hills. It was really interesting to see how wealth and extreme poverty literally live right next to each other here, which is a general characteristic of South Africa.

Before going we had been told that this township is surprisingly safe, especially for white people. They give tours and like to show people how they live, and with Afrika we all felt welcomed. It really did seem like a good place to live, everyone was super friendly and Afrika said hi to literally EVERYONE walking down the street, often in varying languages. He taught us some Xosa, which we all promptly forgot except for "molweni" which means hello. He offered to write these words down for us, which I really hope he does. We walked through most of the township all morning, and Afrika even brought us down to the construction site where they are building a school for the township. We all got hardhats and everything and the construction workers seemed pretty enthusiastic to show us around. Multiple guys came out of their clapboard houses to take pictures with the group of cute white girls. Also plenty of little kids kept coming out and getting really excited to have their pictures taken, and half a dozen dogs came out to greet us and try to get some attention. It really was amazing.

Then we ventured up to a different section of the township further up the hill that Afrika called "notorious." By this I think he meant the rougher side of town. Thankfully he kept us safe, but you could tell it was different just by the way people looked at our group. Halfway up the street some super cute kids got excited about us taking pictures of them and came to interact with us, posing and taking pictures with us. They got pretty rough and kept trying to grab our cameras which made us pretty nervous. Then one of the older boys there walked up to one of us and lifted up his shirt, exposing a pellet gun in his waistband and asked for 10 Rand (only about $1.50). I think that's when we decided to leave... But at least we got some great pictures.


Afterwards we hopped a double decker hop on-hop off tour bus to get into Cape Town proper. The plan was to buy tickets to see Robben Island, the prison where Mandela and other political prisoners were held, for the next morning. When we finally got there we only had about an hour until the last bus, so we decided to just buy tickets online and get some lunch. Neither of these things happened once we got distracted in a craft market where most of us bought these amazing paintings. As such we decided to get home, skip making dinner together and go out to a seafood restaurant on the Hout Bay beach. The food was so good, especially after only having one meal all day. We are going to lose so much weight here making our own group dinners and packing lunches.

I can't explain how exhausted we all were that night, I'm not even totally sure why. Maybe it was jetlag, maybe it was culture shock. I still kind of feel it, but tonight I have a definitive reason. But that next...

Here we go

Entry numero uno! I have a feeling that this first recount won't be all too entertaining as most of it was spent uncomfortably stuck in an airplane seat. But in the spirit of my Italy blog (natinrome.blogspot.com) it will probably pick up tomorrow. The following are small snip-its that I jotted down at various points in the journey, which is going on 30 hours thus far (very little of which was spent asleep...)

The flight to NY was unremarkable except for the rather large black woman sitting next to me, whose pink velour-clad thighs I got very cozy with as they spilled over into my seat. The flight was pretty ghetto all around mostly because they had the old school TVs in the middle of the plane for everyone to look at. And of course on said ghetto TVs they played nonstop Lincoln adds in between random Office and Glee episodes. Not exactly an encouraging start to 24 hours of plane time.

Even New York was a little bit of a culture shock. I managed to catch a glimpse of a few genuine guidos as well as more Hacidic Jews than I have ever seen before. This might have been because the flight across from our gate was going to Tel Aviv. I tried really hard not to stare but they had the sickest hats, I couldn't help it. For some reason there are also a bunch on the flight to Africa, though I can't figure out why.

I got into JFK at 6 am, where I waited for my bag for a good half hour and meandered my way up to departures. The South African Airways check in was closed until 730am, so I camped out with a group of 7 other volunteers I found sleeping on the floor next to it. Then more of us kept trickling in, and you could spot us a mile away with our rolling duffels and sleeping bags. Which, by the way Mom, everyone has brought their own sleeping bag! Even though my volunteer placement said we didn't need them I am feeling so unprepared--probably because I have had the last 10+ hours to think about it. Thankfully I have found a girl named Tess from Boston who is volunteering with me and is also sleepingbag-less. Now we can be cuddle buddies if we get cold haha.
As I write I have sat in my current seat for about 7 hours. That means we are about to fly over Senegal and have another 8 hours to go, but I am trying not to think about it. My ass is numb and my knees won't unbend. But I'm sitting on the aisle (YES!) next to two hilarious girls, Molly and Annie from Oklahoma and North Carolina respectively. Both will be living in Cape Town, but not with me.

The Dramamine is working (thank God) but unfortunately I'm not all that drowsy... I am considering taking more but not until after the next food service, which I am too hungry to sleep through.

...And of course the food didn't show up until the last hour of the flight. It was breakfast (at midnight Seattle time), which included surprisingly good french toast with blueberry sauce, a mini croissant, fruit salad and yogurt. So far I have been really impressed by SAA's food, it almost makes up for the ungodly long flights. As does the movie selection; in the 15 hours I slept maybe an uncomfortable hour or two, spaced out with 4 different movies. I know, I know, I'm not sure how I could sit through 4 movies in a row either...

Right now we are on our third and final leg of the trip, which involves a 2 hour flight to Cape Town. When we landed in Johannesburg it was a brisk 2C (~35F), and the sunrise was absolutely amazing. Definitely Lion King status. Also coming from Seattle it seems so brown and flat here. Looking out the window right now one could mistake it for some midwest state, all tawny and patchwork like. Maybe Cape Town will be more lush.

Tomorrow when I'm rested and sharp again I'll tell you all about where we're staying and everyone here. THAT will be entertaining...