Safari and Brie at Andrew's

 Our last full day in Cape Town was full of excitement and adventure. Today was our safari day and our chance to see the big five! Now, we didn’t see all of the big five, but we did see elephants, zebras, rhinos, lions, and wildebeests. The elephant story is an interesting one. When we drove up through the grounds a HUGE elephant blocked our way to get to the entrance of the building. We were all shocked that this was happening. The safari guide motioned us to reverse back. Before we knew it the elephant started walking towards us! We were all screaming and Sed even stalled the van! Good thing the safari guide was able to get the elephant under control and it went up a hill alongside us. I don’t think I will ever be that close to an elephant again in my life. The rest of the safari wasn’t as exciting, but it’s hard to top that! After eating a delicious breakfast we all piled into the jeep. First we saw the young lions. They were beautiful. Sadly when we saw the rhinos, they had been pouched a few months before. People used a machete to cut off their horns! They are the only rhinos in the world to survive this type of attack. It was so sad to see. A few of us donated to the save the rhinos fund after the safari.

On our last night we went to a Brie at Andrew’s house. We all had an amazing time playing and dancing with the kids of the neighborhood. It was a blast! My favorite part was when we all made a circle and chanted each person’s name one by one to go dance in the middle of the circle! Ivy had the best moves I think. We even got Erica to dance! It was an unforgettable experience. And of course we lived it up during our last night in Obs.

Soweto Bike Tour

]Today was hands down my favorite excursion of the trip. Our day consisted of a 4 hour, yes 4 hour, bike tour around Africa's largest township, Soweto. As I mentioned in my last post, Johannesburg doesn't have the aesthetic appeal like cape town does. There are no mountains or ocean, but the city still has a lot to offer, especially Soweto. Soweto was the start of it all in the youth's rebellion against apartheid. During the Soweto uprising, hundreds of school children were killed by police officers and they marched in protest against Afrikaans being taught in schools. This was such a problem for them because in higher education mainly English was used. Since black South Africans were only being taught Afrikaans in school, this a took away their opportunity to pursue higher education. During the tour we actually went to the street where the uprising occurred. It was so unreal to me that I was actually there. There was a beautiful memorial there for Hector Peiterson and all the other children who were killed that day.


Also on the tour we stopped in one part of the township and had joburg beer, cow cheek, and pap. Everything was surprisingly good! I loved how we were able to go into some of the establishments in the township. I always try to glance in the shops in Gugulethu on my way home from volunteering but being able to actually see what it was like inside was awesome. We also made stops at Mandela's and Bishop Tutu's houses in Soweto.

Everyone in Soweto was extremely welcoming to us. At one point, a man came up to us and thanked us for visiting the township, saying that "it meant a lot to him at we were there." Riding through the neighborhood, kids would run out of their houses to say hi and give us high fives. I feel like I really got a sense of the culture and dynamic in Soweto and that's why it was my favorite trip thus far.

Joburg Day 1

Johannesburg weekend trip-bike tour and museums, dinner at Moyo
According to locals of cape town, Johannesburg is not a city you want to visit. Nevertheless, I was excited for our weekend trip to Johannesburg. Although it lacked beaches and mountains, Johannesburg had a lot of history to offer. We stayed at a hostel known as Ghandi's backpackers. It's called that because ghandi stayed there before. The hostel was amazing! There was a pool, bar, and the kitchen had stainless steel appliances. All then girls stayed in a room with 16 bunk beds. I enjoyed staying up late and having girl talk! On our first day there we went to constitutional hill and the apartheid museum. What I liked most about Constitutional Hill was the symbolism. Everything had some greater meaning to it. For example, one of the themes I caught was the number 11 because of the 11 official languages of South Africa. The number 11 and the official languages were incorporated everywhere in the museum. It shows that South Africa is made up of different cultures but everyone is included and respected equally. I also learned that the south African flag contains the most colors of any other flag in the world. Also, the green Y-shaped part of the flag represents how the country was once divided through apartheid and now have come together and are united. 

After constitutional hill we ate a picnic lunch in the park and then headed over to the apartheid museum. Our admission tickets indicated if we were white or non-white. I thought it was funny because I was white for 5 minutes. It really didn't mean anything we just went through separate entrances. The apartheid museum was huge. There was a whole section on Nelson Mandela. Many of the events in the museum I already learned about in class, but it was interesting to view videos and read quotes of people who experienced the events. There is a sense of community surrounding apartheid. Even though it was a terrible and difficult time for many people, now South Africans view it as a sign of their strength and persistence rather than a struggle. Nico talked to us at lunch about his experiences during apartheid. When telling us stories he always had a smile on his face. Initially I thought this was inappropriate affect, but in the end he explained to us that apartheid showed the strength and bravery of black South Africans in that they were able to fight and overcome their oppression. 

We ended the day with a fantastic dinner at Moyo. Some of us, myself included, went out on row boats on to the little pond on the grounds. We all got our faces painted during dinner and were serenaded by a guitar player. Dinner was fantastic! I ate so much, but my favorite was the butternut squash and creamed spinach! Mmm! 

My Tembaletu Experience

The past few days working at Tembaletu have been unforgettable. Even after such a short time I have fallen in love with the students and staff there. What I love most about the school is that they embody teamwork and compassion. While helping with admin work, I noticed how all staff members, administrators, teachers, and therapists, worked together to get the school up and running. Everyone helped set up desks and chairs in classrooms and organize the school year schedule. What stood out to me the most was the compassion the students have for each other. Since staff is low, the children rely on each other for help when they need it. All the students are pretty independent, but sometimes I would see kids on crutches pushing kids in wheelchairs to the cafeteria. Even some of the older students helped teachers carry desks into the appropriate classrooms.

I learned how to play rocks during break time. It's a lot of fun, but I'm not very good. It's essentially Jacks, but they play with rocks instead. The older girls were really good and would laugh at me whenever I played. It was fun interacting with them and hearing them talk about what music they like and what they like to do for fun.


On our last day, after finishing some admin work, we were able to take the younger kids to the therapy room to play around before the school day ended. You would have though these were your average kids the way they were moving around. And boy did they move around! There were these steps that they loved to just walk up and down on. Even a boy who has no function in his legs joined the fun by crawling up and down stairs using only his upper body. It was amazing to see their energy and smiles.

This was the part of the trip that had the greatest impact on me. After today I realized that all these kids want to do is be kids! They want to run around, scream, and get into trouble and don't want to be limited by their physical disabilities. They have physical disabilities, yes, but that comes secondary. They will always be kids first, disability last. It was amazing to see them be kids.

New school

“There can be no keener revelation of a society’s soul than the way it treats its children.” – Nelson Mandela

Tembaletu, meaning faith or hope, is a school for children with physical disabilities that exemplifies Mandela's words. After an informative observational experience at the Guguletu clinic, Aleisha, Steph, and I began the rest of our volunteer experience at the Tembaletu school today. This school, which is right next door to the Guguletu clinic, provides education for children with physical disabilities. There is one teacher and classroom for each grade level R (kindergarten) to grade 9. The grounds of the school are very aesthetically pleasing, similar to Beautiful Gate. The walls are colorful and full of inspiring words and posters. The hostel where some students stay is welcoming and has a fun and homey feel to it. There is plenty of space for children in wheelchairs to get around with ease and lots of space for expanding. In fact, expansion is in the works for the school thanks to generous donations from the Hillsong church in Australia. In the next year, they plan to build another hostel for children to stay in when school is in session and a sports complex.



Each student has access to physical therapy, occupational therapy, speech therapy, and psychological therapy at the school.  Today we prepared for the arrival of the kids by cleaning up the therapy room and setting up the dining room. During our down time we were able to talk to some of the therapists and learn about how things work at the school. Since staff is lacking, the students are only able to see the physical therapist about once every one or two weeks depending on the severity of their condition. They can receive normal physical therapy and other therapies such as therapeutic horse riding and art therapy. The students who use wheelchairs have two chairs, one for home and one for school, that are constructed efficiently for their height and body type. Everything in the school is wheelchair accessible. The only thing that isn't is the bus that transports the students from home to school. According to the therapists, the driver needs to pick up the first child around 5am in order to get the other kids and everyone to school by 7am. Since the bus isn't accessible, students sometimes have to be carried on to the bus or use their own method to get on. Tomorrow is their first day back to school so we are excited to meet them and get started!

After volunteering, the group took a trip to the University of Cape Town campus. I think we were all thinking the same thing, why didn't we come here for undergrad and the scenery (or lack there of) at U of I is nothing compared to this. The campus was beautiful with the mountains overlooking the city, tall trees and plants, and the buildings full of character. I would take Devil's Peak over the Morrow plots any day.

After a dinner of samosas and gatsby's (the fat sandwich of Cape Town) we got the pleasure of meeting Patti, a UCT professor, and Kate, a UCT PhD student. They gave us information about HIV/AIDS and TB and told us about the stigmas that go along with it. A lot of the information we learned at the Guguletu clinic, but it was a good chance for all of us to hear about HIV and TB from people who research it.

A new side of Gugs!

Today we got moved to a different part of Gugulethu clinic and surprisingly it was very interesting. I think I learned and did more in the 2 hours I was there than the past two days at the clinic. We got to sit in on a counseling session where one of the counselors was educating a client recently diagnosed with TB how to do treatment. It was pretty interesting because I didn't know a lot about tb and I didn't realized it was linked with HIV so strongly. I felt kind of uncomfortable being in the room with the patient with TB but the conselors opened all the windows and gave us masks. It was crazy how they didn't even wear masks themselves! On our 4th day there we finally got a tour of the whole clinic. We went to the pharmacy, trauma, maternity, and adolescent clinics. We saw lots of nice tea rooms :) my favorite was the maternity ward. We got to talk to a women who works for mothers to mother. This is an organization that provides support and education for pregnant women with and without HIV. It was shocking because this woman was HIV positive and had 3 children all HIV negative because she knew the right things to do to decrease the likelihood of her child having HIV. She educated us on the different measures  as well like what medicines to take during and after pregnancy and even during childbirth. It is reassuring to know that there are success stories that women living with HIV can model and learn from. Also in the maternity ward we got to see the labor and delivery room. The room consisted of 8 beds total, 4 for labor and 4 for delivery. Pretty much if you were ready to give birth, you could be doing it with 3 other women inthe room. The bad thing is the number of beds. If a women was read to give birth and all beds were taken, she would have to wait or go to another clinic. Also they only give the pain medicine to women with complications. Everyone else has a natural painful birth. The best part of the day was seeing the newborn baby that was only 6 hours old! The crazy part about it is that the newborn and his mom were getting ready to leave the hospital! After 6 hours! That's one of the big differences with the US is that newborns and their mothers can stay in the hospital for at least 24 hours in the US. Things are so different in this health clinic, but everything works for them just fine. Sometimes I even find myself criticizing the US hospitals. For example, in the Gugulethu clinic people rarely wear gloves. They wash their hands but no gloves. When I volunteered at Carle hospital everyone wore gloves and used hand sanitizer coming in and out of any room. It was almost excessive. I remember thinking I was wasting rubber gloves when I would have to take them off to get the blood pressure machine and throw them away to get a new pair. It's not like I touched anything between the room and the blood pressure machine, but that was the policy. I've learned that there is no definite right way to do things. The Gugulethu clinic could be cleaner and safer, but given the funding and facilities that they have I think they are doing a great job. It's not their mission to have the cleanest and most advanced facility. Like the facility manager told us on our first day, it is the clinic's mission to provide the citizens of Gugulethu township with medicine, education, and support to live healthy and prosperous lifestyles and thus far they have been very successful.

Advancing my palette

We haven't done any tourist things since we started volunteering so I was excited to do some touring. Also, I had never been wine tasting before and I was excited to see the beauty of a vineyard. We arrived at Groote Constanstia just around 10:30 and did a quick tour and learned about the wine making process. We began tasting around 11am. That's appropriate right? (it was 12pm somewhere) The vineyard was absolutely beautiful! The mountains overlooking the vineyard was gorgeous. According to our tour guide the mountains made this a prime location for growing the grapes used for wine because they blocked some of the sun. I don't have much of an advanced palette but I enjoyed the tasting for the most part. I liked the white wines and one of the reds. I know my mom would have loved it there. She's a wine fanatic. The grounds of the vineyard were full of flowers and trees (perfect for senior pictures).

After spending time in the affluent area around the vineyard we headed for lunch with mama Thope in a township about 30 miles away. She prepared a delicious authentic South African meal filled with chicken, butternut squash, and fried bread. Everything was delicious. It was shocking to see the dichotomy between the two areas. Although they were relatively close in proximity, it went from expensive houses with manicured lawns to one roomed shacks made out of scrap metal. Mama Thope told us of the history behind her bed and breakfast and where she is now with it. It's amazing that she has been all over the world! I guess I automatically assumed that people living in townships never really left the township. I know I was just giving in to stereotypes and I shouldn't have made that assumption. I have learned so much in the short time that I have been here from the adults I have encountered. Mama Thope, Andrew, Ivy, and Sedick have such pride for where they come from and embrace it every day in everything they do.

Oh yea, and I pet a cheetah.

Day 2 Learning

Second day at Gugulethu  clinic and I tried to go in with a positive attitude. Then Andrew told us we would be in our same areas and I was bummed. Since I spent most of my time at tea yesterday, I knew today would be different, but it turned out to be pretty much the same. We were placed in the HIV clinic which was a small room with two nurses who talked to patients in Xhosa. We observed the nurses fill out the forms with the patients. Occasionally we were able to ask questions or the nurse would come show us a form or something. The importance of confidentiality was always in my mind and I kept feeling like I shouldn't have been looking at the forms they showed us. What I found most interesting were the posters for practicing safe sex and what to do if you find out your pregnant. The posters are similar to what I've seen in the US, but it just felt different. Like when I read them I imagined a person with HIV reading it and seriously taking what I said into consideration. I think in america HIV is one of those things that we think "oh, that can't happen to me." since it isn't as prevalent at home, if we have unprotected sex the first thing you worry about is an std or pregnancy. Reflecting back on it, I am not happy with the way I perceived those posters. I considered them more of a necessity in the African clinics than in the American ones which is not the case. HIV is a serious condition that can happen to anyone if the right precautions aren't taken. I guess because HIV/AIDS isn't the top priority in the news, Americans tend to take it lightly. So far this experience in increasing my knowledge of HIV/AIDS and breaking some of the preconceived notions I had about the disease. 

After volunteering, we heading to one of the wonders of the world to have dinner. Table Mountain is the mountain range associated with Cape Town. It is definitely a must see! As its name suggests, it is literally flat at the top. The view of the city and ocean were absolutely breath taking. When I was younger I always wondered what it would be like to be in a cloud. Now I know! The clouds rolled in as the sun began to set and we were all surrounded by the clouds. It was kind of scary because we couldn't even see the edge of the mountain! We were literally on cloud nine!

Day 1 Volunteering

Our group will be volunteering for the next 10 days at various health sites. 3 of the sites are orphanages working with kids and 2 are at clinics in townships. I was placed at the Gugulethu clinic in Gugulethu. I was kind of bummed i wasn't going to be working with kids but from what Jan has told us, everyone has had a good experience. Well all last night and this morning I was having stomach problems so that wasn't a good start to my day. Apparently there is some stomach bug going around because a few other students are experiencing the same ailments as myself. We arrived at the clinic around 10am and spoke with the manager of the facility. She was great. She talked about the mission of the clinic was to improve the health of the Gugulethu township by testing everyone for HIV and providing birth control and pap smears to women. She explained the importance of teamwork and if one group was lacking them everyone wouldn't be able to work together as a cohesive unit. Her passion for her job was inspiring to me. She said everything she does is for God and she works for Him. She mentioned she was apart of the Soweto uprising and that because she was not hurt or killed during it, God wants her to do something important in her life which is why she feels so committed to the clinic and improving lives. After this, I was very excited to get started. I thought, "wow this is going to be a life changing experience." I was pretty disappointed when I ended up spending half my time there in the "tea room" which is basically the lunch/break room. Although I did have some good conversations with some of the workers in the room, this is not how I wanted to spend my volunteer day. There was some miscommunication on my part on what the tea room was, but she said she would be back for me in  30 min. After a little over an hour I went back to where some of the other student were working. To my surprise, the students were the only ones there. The nurses had left them by themselves to take blood pressure and blood glucose. I guess it was really frustrating and stressful with the lack of communication, the immense amount of patients, and the differences at hospitals in the US. I expected to see workers not using gloves or hand sanitizer, but it was still very shocking. I tried to go into the situation with an open mind, but it was difficult to adjust to the system especially when I wasn't given a job to do. I told Jan and Andrew of the issues I faced at the clinic and I understand that the staff was very busy with patients, but I don't feel like if every day is like this one, I will not learn or gain anything from this experience. With the stomach problems and lack of involvement at the clinic today, I can say that today wasn't my best in Cape Town. My goal for tomorrow is to stay positive, keep an open mind, and be patient. At least I learned one thing today, that the "T room" literally means a room to have tea!

Robben Island and Minstrel Carnival

 On our agenda for today was a visit to Robben Island and attend the minstrel carnival. Robben Island is the prison Nelson Mandela was held at during his jail time during apartheid. In "A Long Walk to Freedom" we read all about his time in jail. While there, the political prisoners weren't allowed to talk about politics or write political paper. While in prison, Mandela wrote a long walk to freedom and hid his work in a garden in the prison.  We were able to see this and Mandelas cell. His cell only consisted of a bucket and a blanket on the floor. We passed by the limestone quarry where the prisoners would work. Our tour guide told us that when the prison no longer needed the stones, they would still make the prisoners dig for rocks as punishment. One of our tour guides was an ex prisoner so it was interesting to hear about his experiences. Overall the experience at Robben island was a good one. I learned many interesting stories like how one guy tried to copy the master key and escape from the prison. I really liked how the tour stressed how Robben island wasnt a reminder of the struggles of apartheid but more of the strengths and gains that were made to get to the end of apartheid. 

 We ended the day going to the minstrel carnival. This was a lively parade of individuals of all ages dressed up I'm bright costumes marching, singing, dancing, and playing instruments. It was really exciting! The carnival is in celebration of the new year and has roots in the minstrels from America that came to South Africa. Opposite from minstrels in America, they whitened their faces with white face paint and glitter and imitated their masters. The bright costumes were so cool and it was great to see the excitement in everyone. We got to take pictures we some of the people in the parade. The children were the cutest thought dressed up in their little outfits. It was a great way to experience the lively culture in South Africa.

Good Hope to start off the New Year

I have been looking forward to this day since I found out I was accepted to the study abroad program. On our agenda was to visit cape point and see the penguins at boulder beach. Penguins are my absolute favorite animals, so I was really excited to see them up close on the beach. First we arrived at the Cape of Good Hope before almost anyone was there thanks to our driver Sedick. He's the greatest! The view was absolutely breath taking. The pictures I took don't do the scene justice. It took us almost 45 min or so to reach the top because we stopped at took so many pictures. Once we got to the top it was just nice to look out over the edge and admire the beauty around us. I could have stayed up there for hours. We were on the most south western point of Africa! I never thought I'd say that anytime in my life. What I liked the most was how Ciara found a paper lodged into the lighthouse tower. Of course we all thought it was a secret treasure map or something like that. Turns out it was just a piece of paper but we all wrote our names on it and put it back in the crack. So now a piece of us is still left at the top forever...or until some other student group decides to unlodge it from its space. We climber another mountain next to it and on the way down we ran into these rock dassies, little fuzzy fat rodent things. Of course I screamed when one ran right in front of me. I guess the little families were cute but I still was not a fan of them. We ended our experience at Cape of Good Hope with a delicious lunch compliments of ivy by the rocks by the beach. It was perfect!

After leaving the Cape of Good Hope we made our way to boulders beach. There were a lot of tourist there so it was a bit crowded. I was expecting to be able to go on to the beach and have the penguins just come to me. Unfortunately it was more like a zoo. The penguins were still really cute so I enjoyed it.

Lastly, we rung in the new year as a group at a bar in Observatory. I had so much fun! My group is amazing and i really enjoy their company. We drank, danced, and had a fantastic time. At midnight we counted down and took Springbok shots when the clocked turned 12. Best NYE thus far.