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.

Shopping, district six, Linda Fortune

Long day! In the morning we went to this craft market and I wanted everything! I literally could have bought everything there. The jewelry was so pretty, I wanted it all. We were able to bargain down prices for things but I always felt kind of bad. I did get some good deals on things (I think) but I didn't want to rip them off or be ripped off.

After shopping we went to the District Six museum and got to meet Linda Fortune. She grew up in District Six and we read her book during our class. She was amazing! I loved hearing all her stories about growing up in District Six and the history behind the removals. She took us to Odekraal, a secret beach in Cape Town with caves! It was so beautiful. The pictures I took don't do it justice. The ocean water was a spectacular blue and the mountains overlooking the beach were breathtaking. Linda talked about how her and her family would go to Odekraal during vacations and live in the caves. It hit me when she mentioned how one time they went there and set up and began cooking like usually and then were kicked out because it had now become a white only area.
Odekraal had such amazing scenery and I can't imagine not being able to experience it because of my race. We climbed through caves and hiked up hills and enjoyed the fresh air. I ate lunch looking out onto the ocean and the rocks...beautiful. It was a perfect day.

And 30 hours later...

I'm finally in Cape Town! What a long flight! From Chicago to DC to Johannesburg and ending in Cape Town. Total trip time from when I left my house to when I stepped into the Cape Town house is about 30 hours. Travels didn't go exactly as planned when I was stopped in customs and had to go to the immigration office and when my bag arrived in Cape Town on the wrong flight. I did see Akon though at the airport so that was pretty cool. Other than that it was fine, the airplane food wasn't terrible like I had expected. Lots of chicken and beef. When we got here I found myself wanting to look at everything. Even though it was 10pm when we arrived here I still wanted to take in every little detail of what I saw. The house we are staying at is really nice! We all have our own room and the living space is huge! Im excited to explore on our first day around our neighborhood, "the observatory" and go to the beach!

Yays and Nays

Top 5 Things I’m Excited to do in Cape Town

1. Working at the volunteer sites and meeting new people
2. Touring District Six and meeting Linda Fortune
3.  Hiking
4.  Hopefully seeing penguins at Boulder’s Beach
5. Just being there!

Top 5 Things I’m not excited about for Cape Town

1. Traveler’s diarrhea
2. Looooonnnggggg plane ride with 6 hour layover on the way back
3. Jet lag
4. Not being able to talk to my parents every day
5.  LONG plane ride!!

Guest Speaker: Dr. Bekisizwe Ndimande

Dr. Ndimande was a guest speaker for class this week. It was really interesting to learn about his experience growing up in South Africa. He definitely got everyone in the class talking and asking questions. I just can’t wait to actually be there and experience Cape Town for myself. It’s one thing to read and hear about it, but I still can’t imagine what it will be like when we actually get there. Dr. Ndimande is going to meet with us again upon our arrival and I’m sure that meeting will be even more intriguing.

Short this week. Too much going on.  

Topic: Children in South Africa

In class this week we watched a file “Age 7 in South Africa”. This film goes through the lives of various children all age 7 living in South Africa. All the kids were really cute and it was interesting to see all their different lifestyles. It was interesting to hear their thoughts about blacks, white, coloureds, and the government at the time. The white and Indian children talked about how townships were bad and how they would never want to live there and the black children talked about how they wanted to be rich and live in the white areas. This shows how the inequalities during that time were apparent to children as well. The condition of the schools in the townships and the white neighborhoods was also very different. Some of the children in the townships could not even attend school. Lastly, I liked to see the differences in languages which the children chose to speak, Afrikaans, English, Zulu, etc. I am eager to watch the following videos as the same children get older and see how their ideas have changed.

This class made me excited to work with the children when we get to Cape Town. I love how children are so open with their personalities and have their own opinions about things. It will be interesting to see the differences between children of South Africa and the United States which regards to how they spend their free time and what is important to them. 

Safety First

We had our safety and health information session so you know what that means…NO MORE EMAILS FROM STUDY ABROAD! YES! In all honesty though, the safety and health session made me really nervous about going abroad. My main concerns aren’t blood borne pathogens, malaria, or getting mugged or hit by a car. My main worry is getting traveler’s diarrhea! I am 97% sure that traveler’s diarrhea is going to happen to me. I just hope I’m not the one person on the trip that is sick the entire time! Also, it seems like Jan always has a new story every week about someone needing to go to the hospital or the group getting stomach flu or something. I’m sure it was not a huge deal though and it’s not like anyone died so I should be fine. I’ll just make sure to bring all my meds to keep me healthy! It also didn’t help that we talked about Amy Biehl in class. Amy was an American visiting South Africa who was murdered by black South Africans who assumed she was a supporter of apartheid. It was sad to here that Amy was killed as a result of anger towards the apartheid system. It is comforting to know that her family understands the anger surrounding her death and have started a foundation to keeps children away from violence. I am happy we have Jan and Jess with us on the trip to inform us of the safe places to go and I’m sure the atmosphere in South Africa post apartheid has grown more positive, although vivid memories of it still exist. 

With all that being said,

My Wish #1 for Cape Town travels: avoid traveler’s diarrhea and motion-sickness