Back to Reality

April 10
Coming back to Cape Town was a pretty harsh reality. I have been completely swamped with work these past couples weeks.
On Friday, April 13, there was a rugby event up on campus called DOWNERS, me and Isabel were coerced into going because the teams were only allowed to play if there was a girl on the field. Rugby is not super popular with the girls here, so we decided to go. It turned out that before every game, your team had to chug a 6-pack of beer. Because we had to play on multiple teams, it became pretty hard to keep playing. We persevered though and made some friends! That night we went out to a party with them, it was nice to not be at bars or with all American students for a change.

April 21
The week after was just filled with more work, I've had so many essays due it's pretty overwhelming. Today was nice because I finally got to go to the District Six Museum which I've wanted to go to for awhile. District 6 is an area in Cape Town where all the coloured people were forcibly removed and put in the Cape Flatts during apartheid. The museum pretty much goes through the whole history of the time period and has a lot of pieces that people have brought back to the museum to put on display. Our tour guide was removed from district 6 so it was nice to get his perspective but also very sad. It's really crazy to believe that something like this happened not so long ago.

Afterwards we stopped at Charley's Bakery, which is a really famous bakery in Cape Town. It was so cute and the cupcakes there are amazing!

The rest of the weekend I'll most likely just be getting work done, maybe going to Mzoli's next weekend. I'm really just excited for this next school week to be over because Thursday, me and 8 of my friends are embarking on a little excursion to the Karoo Desert for Afrikaburn. This is a huge art festival in the middle of the desert and we'll be camping out there from Thursday-Monday. I'm sure many fun, interesting stories will come out of it. We just need to make sure we have enough food and water to get us through the weekend. Me and Isabel are probably going to go get our hair braided for this event, we're prepared to get laughed at in the salon, updates to follow.

It is completely unreal that I only have 6 more weekends after this. Also, my two best friends are coming to visit me 3 weeks from this Monday! I still have so many things to see and less than 50 days to do it all at this point. I will try to go back to actually blogging after this, if you actually just got through all my new updates, I commend you. Hope you enjoy :)

Kruger is Great, no if's and's or BUTT's

April 4-8

On the 4th we flew to Johannesburg and started our journey up to Kruger. A lot of driving but we finally got there. I could go through our days in detail but it's hard to put it all into words. The animals in this park are absolutely amazing. We saw everything from giraffe's, to elephants, to warthogs, zebras, rhino's, hippos, even a leopard! Only pictures will really do it justice. We even saw a green mamba snake one day, which is one of the most poisoness snakes in South Africa.

One day we woke up really early to do a morning game drive. We got driven around in a safari truck and we were mostly just trying to see some lions, but we were not lucky enough. We did see a leopard in a tree though which was awesome. We also saw a huge herd of elephants with all the moms and baby elephants. The babies were so adorable.

In the Cage.. READY!

April 3

We woke up at 4 am and got ready to go to Simon's Town to go shark cage diving! On the boat ride out to Seal Island, we saw hundreds of dolphin's jumping in the waves. It was actually one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen. Then we got to Seal Island where we would put the cage in. Seal Island is just what it sounds like, literally thousands of seals just everywhere.

Me, Isabel and my Aunt Sameena were the first brave ones to get into the cage. Getting the wet suit on was the most difficult, stressful part of the whole situation and it took a good 15 minutes to get that thing on. The water was absolutely freezing. We were in the cage for about 45 minutes and really only saw 2 sharks, 1 was pretty far away too. As soon as we got out, my brother and dad got in and of course, there was 3-4 shark sightings in 20 minutes. We still got to see the sharks jump out to bite the penguin board that they threw out into the water as bait so that was still cool.

We grabbed some lunch on Long Street, stopped at Green Market Square again then went back to our house. A couple of us went back out to see the Penguin Colony that was right down the street from our house!

The view from the back of our house!

Skeleton's Gorge

April 2
Today we took on Table Mountain. We went to Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens in the morning to take the trail up the mountain from there. The trail that we were taking took us up Skeleton's Gorge (the harder of the two, compared to the Nursery trail).

It was a pretty rough hike up because it was just completely steep the entire way and there were a few parts where you had to climb up rocks which water was running down. When we got close to the top there were also a couple ladders that we had to climb up.

The trail was worth it though, the view at the top was beautiful!

After the hike down we were pretty tired and so I took them to Fat Cactus, which is the best Mexican food I've eaten in Cape Town. 

Mzoli's: Eating Meat between Cars

April 1

So today me, my brothers, Isabel and my aunt decided to take on Mzoli's while my parents explored some rare flora. My parents dropped us off at the mini-bus station in Cape Town and we all crammed in to go to Gugulethu.
Mzoli's was completely packed because there was a concert there. Literally it was impossible to walk around and we knew the meat would take forever to cook but we stood in the long line and ended up paying the the guy behind the counter a couple extra rand to speed our meet along a little bit. The problem with this was that everyone had the same idea, so it took us 2.5 hours to get our meet. This was the time even with some extra bribing, me and Isabel stood in the back and were giving cider to the guy cooking our meat in the back. When are meat was finally ready we went in to get it and it took us about 15 minutes just to get out of the butcher's  because there were SO MANY people inside. We were crammed between lots of sweaty people, practically suffocating on the way out. When we did make it out we decided that we would just eat our meet on the street and get of there as quickly as possible. We had a nice little conversation with a man that came over saying things about Obama and how he wasn't racist and we were all good people - this is also when we realized we were just about the only white people still there.
Because there was so much traffic we had to walk up along the street to find a mini-bus that would actually be able to get out. We hopped in one and took it to Cape Town. One of the lovely ladies in our mini-bus then directed us towards where there were mini-buses to get to the Waterfront and so we packed in another one and went to the Aquarium. The Aquarium was pretty lame and so we just spent a little time there and then sat on the waterfront. We took a cab back to my house where my parents picked us up and we headed back to our house to braai again!

Old Biscuit and Peninsula Tour

March 31

Old Biscuit Mill was a pretty big success among the Kappes’, I think. We spent the morning walking around and trying lots of different food. Pizza, waffles, eggs benedict and then some coffee to finish it off.

Afterwards we started our self-drive of the peninsula. We stopped at a couple look out points on the way, and in Simon’s Town for lunch. We saw a lot of animals on the way and had pretty close encounters with the ostriches. At the Cape of Good Hope we got out of the car and did a short walk. Then of course took some touristy pictures in front of the Cape of Good Hope sign… Time flew by with all the driving and taking pictures. After we went back home to braai! 

The Kappes’ Arrive in Cape Town

March 30

My parents, brothers, and aunt arrived on Friday, March 30^th in our rented mini-bus that we’d be driving around in. When they got to my house, we unloaded their stuff and then took off to Long Street for some lunch and shopping.

We went to Mr. Pickwick’s for burgers and milkshakes first, and then went to Green Market Square. Quickly everyone learned to bargain and we directly added a large amount to the economy in Cape Town with all the souvenirs we bought. We walked around Long Street for a little bit and then were off to Stellenbosch for some wine tasting. 

 We looked at the cheetah sanctuary for awhile, but we didn’t go in to pet them because it was super tourist-y and you just basically posed for a picture.

 

We then went and tasted some wine inside! None of us like red so we went through pretty much every white wine, each just being slightly worst then the first (Sorry, Moyo, really not a fan of your wine).

Then we headed back to where I live and stopped for dinner at one of my favorite restaurants in Observatory, Gypsy. Afterwards we picked up Isabel and headed to Betty’s Bay where we stayed for a couple nights. It was a very small town on the coast past Gordon’s Bay but our house was right on the water and was really nice. We called it a night so we could get up early for Old Biscuit Mill!

“Nights for Rights” Fundraiser

March 29

This is one of the shirts that we sold at the event!

So, I’ve been slacking extremely on this blog, I will do my best to catch up and sum things up concisely.

So it was finally the day for my fundraiser for my internship at PASSOP. It was a great success! We raised over 5,500R, with our goal being 4,000R. Everyone had a lot of fun and the beer pong was a huge success!

Part of the proceeds were to be going to the Roti boys. Lawrence and Richard Roti are 17 and 13, respectively. Unfortunately, they are both in wheelchairs and unable to obtain the proper care or education they need. Lawrence is thought to have Spinal Muscular Dystrophy while Richard suffers from Cerebral Palsy. They lived with their parents until their father died and their mother became overwhelmingly weak with late-stage AIDS. They were then adopted by their uncles, Michael and Fidellis, who decided it was best to move them to South Africa. Soon after they settled down, Michael and Fidellis were attacked on the street by a man with a screwdriver, and Fidellis did not survive. Now, Lawrence and Richard are left in the care of Michael and his wife Sibongile, who are both unemployed and must care for their own daughter and baby son, as well.

Sadly, one of the boys passed away earlier that week and so the money we raised went directly to helping the family for the funeral funds and other costs.

Exploring Cape Town

It’s been an interesting week, for sure. I should probably be studying right now, but it’s to the point where I don’t know what else I can read, and I’m tired so here I am.

Wednesday we had off from school for Human Rights Day, so I decided that I would go explore Cape Town a little bit. I feel like I’m so familiar with the suburbs around me, but not with the city nearly enough. In the morning, I mini-bussed by myself into Cape Town. We did this in the very beginning so I thought I’d remember where to walk to at least find the Castle of Good Hope so I could orient myself. I just started walking, assuming I’d be going the right way if I followed everyone else and I ended up right where I wanted to be. The next mission was to find Green Market Square, which is a flea market that sells a lot of African souvenirs (many claim to be hand-made, but I would like to have further clarification on this because I had my doubts…). After some wandering around, I managed to find it. Which was great, but I also had no cash so I had to find an ATM before I started bartering. This was a whole new task because it was a public holiday and so banks were closed. I was pointed in the direction of a super-market, which I was told had an ATM inside. This was one of the scarier moments I’ve had so far here. The ATM was asking me for a 10-digit code, which I don’t think I have so I was just confused and was trying to figure out how to use my card and so this man comes up behind me and says he’s trying to help me. I just said it wasn’t working but he insisted that it did and I wasn’t too worried until another guy came over too and were trying to put in codes to make it go through until it asked for my pin. He told me to put it in and I was like I’m just going to put random numbers in so it spits my card back out, which it did thankfully. Then two security guards came over and got them to leave and I just gave up with this machine. I found a much more reliable and not scary machine on Long Street and then wandered back to Green Market Square to look at all the stands. After that I walked on Long Street for a while and looked at some of those shops too. Overall, success and I managed to find my way back to the mini-bus station and got on the right one back home. That night, it was a girl in my house’s birthday, so we went out to dinner at Rick’s American Café* on Kloof Street and then out after to Rafiki’s*. It was a fun night, even though we got a little lost finding Rafiki’s.

Friday I went to PASSOP after my two classes and got a lot of random assignments done. My boss had previously asked me to be his “date” to go to the movies with him and his cousin, who has Down syndrome and his cousin’s girlfriend who also does. He called me earlier Friday to tell me that they were going that night, and I wasn’t going to say no to that since his cousin requested that he brought a date and he’d asked me as a favor. It was pretty special to see his cousin and his girlfriend together, they were absolutely adorable. We saw the Lorax by Dr. Suess. All in all, it was a little bit awkward but great.

That night we went out on Long Street with intentions of going to a Spice Girl’s themed party but the cover was too much, after we thought we were getting in for free because my two friends dressed up like Posh spice and David Beckham and we started a Spice Girl’s sing-a-long on the street.

Saturday I got up pretty early and a couple of us went to Old Biscuit Mill for breakfast. I got the best eggs benedict I’ve ever tasted and some white sangria, which was great. That night was another friend’s birthday and her dad was here and they share the same birthday so we all went on a sunset/champagne cruise with about 20 of our friends. It was a little cold at some points but so beautiful and we got to see some seals and a penguin out in the water. Again that night we went out to Long Street to celebrate her birthday.

Today I just went to a braai after the soccer tournament between the different programs here. After, we walked up to Rhodes Memorial for a little ceremony a friend organized. About a year ago, her friend passed away in a car accident so she organizes this and everyone releases balloons in the air to remember special people that have passed away in our lives. It was really sweet, and also it was my first time up at Rhodes Memorial even though it is so close to where I live.

Today it hit me that at the end of this week, it will be my halfway mark here on Saturday. So scary/crazy. I really cannot believe how fast it is going, even though I feel like I say that a lot. I have been so busy and always doing new things so time has just been flying and I feel like I won’t have time to do everything I want to do. My family is also coming in only 5 days! Even though I do love it here, it’ll be great to have a taste of home. Sometimes it does dawn on me how much I miss just America in general, home, and my friends. 

Lions, lions, lions... OH MY!

On Saturday, taking Laura’s advice, I organized for a group of 7 of us to go to Drakenstein Lion Reserve where we would camp out with lions for the night. I had fairly high expectations, which were met and surpassed.

We rented a car and took off at around 1:30 towards Stellenbosch. It was a little confusing at the end finding the place but we found fairly quickly and checked in and met our host, Jan (Yan?)... We put our stuff away in our tents and then were free for the afternoon to spend some quality time with the lions. There were lions EVERYWHERE and I got some really beautiful pictures of them. They are actually nocturnal so a lot of them were sleeping during the day, but I still managed. I learned some fun facts about the reserve though. To start with, all of these lions were rescued from dangerous or potentially dangerous situations. Some were abused, kept as pets and starved, or rescued from poaching (One lion had a deformed jaw because he was abused and had his jaw broken). When taken to the reserve, which is completely privately funded- not backed by South Africa at all, they are tested with the new cubs to see if their personalities match up to see which can be placed in the cages together. One lion, Simba, was extremely aggressive and so had to be kept in a cage by herself. She’s the one roaring in mostly all of my pictures. They are fed 3 times a week, dead chickens, because it is illegal to feed them live animals because the animal would have no chance of survival in the cage with the lion. The lions are fine with it though because they’ve always been fed dead animals because they’ve always been in captivity and so don’t even know how to hunt. Lions in the wild only live to be about 10-12, but in captivity live longer til about 18. Simba was super old- 21, and this probably added to her poor attitude. There were also holes in the ground everywhere, which I thought were snake holes. I asked Jan about them though and it turned out they were only field mice holes, but these mice attracted snakes. He told us that the snake he saw often, the Cape Cobra, was extremely dangerous and if bitten, you would die within an hour. There is a anecdote though, so you would just have to make it to the hospital within the hour.

That night, Jan braai-ed for us, and there was tons of meat, potatoes, salad, and garlic bread. It was a great meal during the sunset and we followed it up with some rooibus tea (my favorite). One of the most amazing sights was the sky this night. I saw the Milky Way, Southern Cross, O’Ryan’s Belt, Mars, and even a shooting star. We laid out under the stars for a while and then took our lanterns to sneak up on some lions in the dark – very scary. A lion ran up to the cage and roared in the complete darkness and we all screamed. We eventually “went to sleep” except I wouldn’t really say that because we were up all night with the lion’s roaring. Apparently when one does, the others will follow because they are fighting about “ownership” of the land and being the most dominant. There were literally lions 4 feet from our tent so it was extremely loud and the tent was actually vibrating.

We decided to “wake up” or give up sleeping at 6 am to watch the sunrise. This was again a beautiful sight, with the lions all around us.

In the morning we stopped in Observatory for breakfast and made it back just in time for our rental car to get picked up. We were going to a concert at Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens in the afternoon so we planned on taking naps but that didn’t happen so we went to the concert really tired. I thought I didn’t know the band but it turns out that they are the background singers in Waka Waka Africa by Shakira; they’re called Freshlyground. It was a great concert atmosphere. Everyone was sprawled out on blankets on a huge uphill lawn drinking wine. We brought along some sandwiches, cheese and crackers, and random cucumbers and blueberries but it was a great little meal. Everyone danced when they played Waka Waka which was so fun.

Today I went to my class and then took the bus to Claremont to shop a little with a girl in my house, Dani. It was a lot of fun and we found some great stores. Afterwards I was off to my Wynberg for my internship at PASSOP. We did some more planning for the event, I input some surveys and just talked to Braam about how he was “forcibly removed” this weekend while protesting against the ANC leader- Malema. It was funny to read the articles online about it, but also very interesting to read his letter to the ANC to complain about how he was denied his right to give his opinions and freely express. Tonight we went to Mama Africa* which is a great restaurant in downtown Cape Town on Long Street that has authentic African food and live music. It was really good food and was just such a fun place to be and eat. Definitely something you have to experience while here. I only have 3 more days of class this week because there’s a public holiday on Wednesday – Human Rights Day, which I am so thankful for because I am still catching up on sleep from this weekend. On the day off, I will hopefully be headed to Green Market Square where they sell a bunch of African trinkets and souvenir things but it’s pretty flea-market ish. It’s Dani’s birthday that day too so we’re probably spending the day on the beach relaxing. That means tomorrow I actually have to start doing work because I have so much due next week before break!

Tomorrow’s the first day of spring at home, which means that fall is officially starting here tomorrow! Not too worried, because “cold” here is 65 but it’s still so weird that it will be fall. Also hard to believe tomorrow marks 2 months in Africa. So, so crazy.
Figured out how to put pictures in here, yay!

Adventures and Buckets of Meat

When I read other peoples’ blogs I get a little overwhelmed and feel like I don’t update this nearly enough – but, I’ll try to be inclusive and concise.

On Thursday we knocked one more thing off our Cape Town bucketlist and did the full moon Lion’s Head hike. The climb up seemed harder than my first time, but getting to the top was definitely well worth it. The sun was setting on one side of the mountain and simultaneously the moon was rising on the other. I climbed down to where the cliff went straight down and got some great shots and panoramas of the mountains. The hike down was a little scary because it was really dark but Beth had her nifty headlamp, which was pretty helpful for all of us stumbling down the mountain in darkness. Afterwards, I rushed home to get ready and went to the tennis club party, which was pretty interesting. We then piled in a cab with some people and went to Claremont where I had my first Tiger Tiger* experience. This is a club in the mall, a lot of techno was played and it was pretty fun. Waking up for my 8 am was not easy in the morning with 3 hours of sleep.

Friday was pretty laid-back. I spent a couple hours at PASSOP and we’ve gotten pretty far with my event planning for our fundraiser. We’re going to have it at a bar downtown in Rondesbosch called Pig and Swizzle*. It’s pretty stressful having to plan a big event for PASSOP but I’m excited for it. Braam, the guy in charge there drove me and 2 other interns home and we got coffee with him first. For dinner I had a recovery meal at a really good Mexican restaurant in Mowbray called Fat Cactus*. Again, had to rush home to go back out. We went back to Claremont again but went to Tantra* first then to Stones*. Stones had some specials but both were pretty empty. We tried Tiger Tiger again but no luck, so we called it a night.

Saturday we went to probably one of my favorite towns I’ve been to so far in Cape Town (and another place crossed off the bucketlist). Kalk Bay. It almost looked like a little Italian town with all these cute Bohemian stores and craft places with the water on the opposite side. Getting there was a little bit interesting we had a scary minibus situation in Wynberg and it was pretty difficult figuring out where to go because no one was understanding our English. Then we got on the train to finish off the second half of our trip and finally ended up there. It was a great day walking around and I got a couple cool bracelets and headbands (loving the headbands here). After Kalk, we turned our house into a mini-frat party and set up beer pong for the first time. Then it was off to the soccer party, which was not much of a party but fun nonetheless and we got pretty weird. We taught all the South Africans how to play flip-cup as well.

Sunday was my first Mzoli’s experience. We started the morning trying to hire a mini-bus to get us to the township Gugulethu. After this was unsuccessful, we crossed the bridge to the other mini-bus station and had to sit in the mini-bus for what seemed like hours because it was so ridiculously hot. When we got there, our driver pulled over and we were in the middle of a township. He told us this is where Mzoli’s was, and even though it looked doubtful we got out and wandered down the street hoping to find it. Mzoli’s is kind of a restaurant, but really what it is is a big tent with tables. There’s mist hoses on the ceiling and also great music playing the whole time. Food wise, you walk to this basically butchery and order a whole bunch of meat that’s extremely cheap. You have to bring all the plates, napkins, and snacks and you just drink out in the tent while they prepare all the food. After about an hour they literally bring you a big plastic bucket of meat and everyone just eats with their hands. It probably sounds weird, but it was such a fun day and I can’t wait to go back, knowing what to expect the next time around. As is with most things here, you throw yourself in having no idea what is going to happen and you learn as it comes.

Today I spent a lot of my day at PASSOP. We took a trip to Braam’s house because he has air conditioning (one of the only places I’ve been so far where this is a reality) and because he had a new puppy. I got a lot of random jobs thrown at me but it was nice to be in the conversation and find out more about the refugee situation here. I learn so much every time I go there. Afterwards I had an interview for a summer internship over skype phone (very awkward) and then spent the night at Cocoa Wah Wah* which is our coffee shop downtown (Free wifi!) to study for the test I have in the morning. Yes, I actually do do school work here.

It’s really nice that it’s starting to feel like home here and that everything is becoming so familiar. I rarely feel uncomfortable in minibuses anymore and I know that when walking to campus alone in the morning to walk pretty slow where students drive by – You need 3 students to park in the Upper Campus lot so kids will drive by to pick someone up so that they can get into the lot. Today was one of those days so that was nice. I love that I can get around now, knowing where I’m going for the most part and what form of transportation to get where. 

R&R: Rugby and Robben Island

I’m just going to start with Friday because my weekdays are pretty consistent at this point. Unless I go out on a Thursday, my Monday-Thursday nights are pretty useless due to my 8 am class. The most exciting my day gets is going for a run or out to a nice place to eat. I am going to start making some lists of bars and restaurants though to pass on to future Cape Town-ers.

Friday I got out of Afrikaans early after our quiz (which I aced) so I flew right to PASSOP. The day there was pretty non-eventful, I just read through a proposal and sent some e-mails to figure out how to register an NGO in the US – not easy by the way. Afterwards I had rugby practice and this practice was a lot more helpful. We actually learned the technique from two ladies that play in bigger leagues and played a couple games with some of the boys at the end. Afterwards we made a great dinner and then got ready to go out. We were going to go to Long Street but two boys in my program were going to a basketball party so I went there instead. It was pretty fun; the house that we went to was huge. Overall, it was an okay night that was cut short because I had to go to PASSOP the next morning.

Saturday: Longest mini-bus taxi ride of my life, of course when I actually have to be somewhere at a specific time they decide to spend 20 minutes in a town on the way trying to persuade people into their mini-bus. I was pretty frustrated but I always forget that everyone here runs on “Africa Time” so even though I was 15 minutes late, the director of the organization that was driving us had still not arrived. Safe. So, the plan of this day was to go to a township where a lot of refugees from Zimbabwe are and talk about PASSOP and what we do and to get them to sign up to be members, receive newsletters, and set up workshops. There was also a woman’s group being formed because PASSOP received some funding for that purpose so the next time we go the women there will have a plan for a project that they want to do. They had a ton of ideas and skills so that should be exciting. 8 of us had to cram in a station wagon on the way to the township, which was a very uncomfortable 30-35 minute drive. I told the director that I was used to cramming into cars for pick-ups for socials at Penn State and he was pretty amused with that whole situation. When we got there, the director and me were the only white people since everyone else from PASSOP was black, and so were all the Zimbabweans obviously. (Sorry for throwing the word “black” around. I don’t mean to be offensive but they’re very open with race here so it’s just something I’ve gotten used to) The meeting was pretty uncomfortable because they were not speaking English the entire time – turns out the director speaks this Zimbabwe language, but oddly doesn’t speak Afrikaans or Xhosa which are the bigger languages in Cape Town. People seemed to really care about the meeting but I later found out that the turn-out was a lot lower than expected. There was also this one really drunk, obnoxious guy that kept coming over and yelling nonsense. After the meeting he would not leave me alone and multiple guys from PASSOP had to lead him away from me. Anyway, they gave me this massive camera to film the meeting, which I did the entire time only to find out that there was no microphone attached so I had only recorded picture. I felt like an idiot but was reassured it was not my fault because there would be no way for me to know that. The ride home was not as bad because one guy took a taxi home. Also, the director drove me home, which was great because I didn’t have to get a mini-bus back. He’s a real interesting guy. That night we were going to a rugby game- Cape Town team Stormers against the Sharks. Obviously rooting for the Stormers, we pre-gamed for the game and then painted our bodies with “S-T-O-R-M” letters. The game was so much fun and we somehow snuck into the section really close to the field and managed not to get kicked out the entire game. The Stormers won and so we chanted along the street the entire walk home.  It was a long day, but I still decided to go out. We wanted to stay pretty low key so we went to a bar in the next town over, Observatory, to the bar Stones* which is one of my favorites. I actually played some pool for the first time there with some South Africans so that was cool.

Sunday: We woke up really early so that we could get down to the waterfront for breakfast before our tour of Robben Island.  The place we had breakfast was great and overlooked the waterfront. Then we took the ferry over to Robben Island. The ride was a lot longer than I expected and took about 30-40 minutes. We stood outside on the back of the boat and took some pictures because it was a really amazing few seeing Table Mountain from that perspective. The first part of the tour there was a guided tour through the prison. Out tour guide was a former prisoner there, which was pretty awesome except for the fact that he was extremely monotone and I hate guided tours. It was pretty powerful being there nonetheless and I got to see Nelson Mandela’s cell. I don’t know what I was expecting it to be, but it was very ordinary and anti-climatic; it looked just like all the other cells. After that we took a bus tour of the island. After, we took the ferry back and had an excellent meal at this sushi place called Beluga that has all half-priced items on Sundays (all sushi, sushi menu items and drinks) and that was great. We came back to the house after and just hung out.

Last night we went out to dinner at a place called Gypsy* in Observatory for someone’s birthday and it was the CUTEST place. It was very rustic and reminded me of the decorations of the store Anthropology. There were only 5 appetizer choices and 6 entre choices that were all written on a chalkboard on the wall – no menus. It was very unique and so, so good. Tonight we also went to a cheap place in Observatory called Hello Sailor*, again such great food. This week I have 2 papers due on Thursday and an exam in Afrikaans so it’s a pretty hectic week. Tomorrow I’m going to have to get a lot of work done because I’ve only done one essay. I would have so much work to do on the week Penn State has spring break. I also went on a great 50-minute run today to a town a couple towns over, and I’m so happy because I’m actually getting back into shape like I wanted to. That’s it for now! Cheers!

Pick-up Trucks and Sweet Chilli Sauce

Friday:

In the afternoon a couple of people in my house were talking about this event on campus called “sixes and sevens” and we thought it sounded pretty interesting so we decided to go. I’ll do my best to describe it. There are teams of guys that all dress up in ridiculous costumes; i.e. diapers, trash bag dresses, capes, etc. Before the event, every team chugs a bunch of beers and food coloring, then the races begin. Everyone takes a lap around the track and then chugs a beer at the start line. The whole idea of this is to throw up weird colors – which I knew would be disgusting, but it got much, much worse. Not only do they throw up but the goal is to throw up on other people. So, they would all tackle a guy to the ground and then stick their fingers down their throat to make themselves throw up on the person… so. Disgusting. Then they started doing tricks like wheelbarrow style but spinning the other guy by the legs as he threw up in circles. So weird that this was allowed to happen ON CAMPUS, right on the cricket field. Fortunately, we had to leave early to go get ready for the home stay. We didn’t have much time so I rushed to get my stuff together and we walked over to the bus. I really am so into immersing myself in this culture and getting to know the people, food, language and everything about it but I was just not looking forward to this weekend at all. We don’t get much time to do things because of school, so the weekend is the time we can explore and travel and I just was not into the idea of spending mine in a stranger’s house. I was wrong though, I made some great friends and a couple that I know I’ll be seeing a lot more of this semester. When we first got to Ocean View it was extremely awkward. It is a colored neighborhood so we were very out of place with a huge group of white kids walking down the street to the high school where we ate dinner. The kids were pointing, laughing and waving at us – they don’t see white people there very often. This is when I met Ann, in the awkward setting of sitting down with someone that you’re hoping you’re going to like because you’ll be stuck with them for the next 48 hours. As soon as I said hi she pulled me in and gave me a big hug, I knew that this weekend might not be so bad after all. Ann, me, and my CIEE partner, Sarah, all left early – led by Ann, who wanted to get home faster so that we could go out. We jumped in the back of her husband’s pick-up truck and rode over to their home. It was small, but had all the necessities… it really puts into perspective what you actually need and what you could do away with. Life there is so simple. Sarah and I slept in the other bedroom they had, that contained also the freezer and acted as a storage place for Jerry’s, her husband, work supplies. He’s an engineer. The room I think used to be her daughter’s, btu she passed away a couple years ago and Ann never really told us what happened. We quickly we offered beer after beer after Ann drilled us about what kind of alcohol we drink. Then we headed over to her sister’s house where 2 other CIEE students were, as well. So many of her family members were all there, it’s pretty awesome how close they all are and how often they’re with each other. Every time our glasses we empty, Jerry would make us a new drink and we spent the night dancing in a circle with everyone to rap, and Mexican music. It was really fun. Ann made us some tea when we got home and we went right to sleep, directed to sleep as late as we wanted and that breakfast would be ready whenever we got up.

Saturday:

We got up around 10:30 and started to get ready for the day. A shower is never something I really saw as a luxury, but in their bathroom they only had a tub and a toilet. No sink, no shower. It was certainly interesting to “shower” in a tub, but I pulled it off with little difficultly. This day was so much fun. First we stopped at Ann’s mom’s house, met her, and picked up Ann’s niece. The three of us sat in the back of the pick-up truck (my new favorite ride of choice) and we toured all around the cape, stopping at various places along the way like Chapman’s Peak and Fish Hoek. After we went to Imgoff’s Farm, which is kind of a flea market with lots of interesting little shops and craft stores. I got a cloth wall hanging that’s painted and has giraffe’s on it. I had told Ann I was looking for some original jewelry and I couldn’t really find it there, which is when I found out that Ann’s sister makes jewelry! I was so excited. It was a long, but wonderful day. This night Ann and Jerry had a Braii for their 15^th wedding anniversary. SO MUCH FOOD. I actually made a pasta salad for the braii that turned out to be pretty good, I was very impressed with myself. There we also samosa’s there which are I think a Muslim food that are like some beef mixture in a little fried pasty which we dipped in sour cream and sweet chilli sauce – BEST THING I’VE EVER EATEN. Again, drink after drink, and we just sat around the fire with some more of Ann’s family talking about different things that we do and say in our cultures. They thought the idea of State Patty’s was hilarious, and I was disappointed to hear that Halloween is not really celebrated here. They also said that they couldn’t even pick a favorite holiday, because they spend them all the same way, and that was what we were doing that night. Ann’s sister also brought over some of her jewelry and it was all so pretty and cool. We ended the night again with tea and watched Saw V, interesting movie choice but I love scary movies so that was great.

Sunday:

In the morning, breakfast was prepared again and we went over to Ann’s sister’s to buy some of her jewelry and stop by her house. The whole morning she was preparing lunch, so when we got back we just hung out for a little and then ate. It was so so good and I’m now obsessed with sweet chilli sauce and rooibus tea. I bought both today from the supermarket. At 3:00 we were supposed to go back to the high school to take the busses back to campus and we took some pictures with Ann and Jerry and said bye after exchanges phone numbers, e-mail addresses and facebook names. Five minutes later, Anna comes back over to us and goes, “girls, want to just stay with us for the day, and we’ll drive you back later?” At this point she hadn’t asked our director but we said yes of course and jumped right back in the pick-up truck. We drove with them to pick up Ann’s other sister from work and then went to her house. Her house was in Bellville and was really nice; it was also the first place I’ve been in that had air conditioning, which was a plus. We hung out and watched the Manchester United soccer game and just talked to them. At around 7, they drove us both home and we made plans to go back soon and to learn how to make the samosas, which I’m ecstatic about. It was a girl in my houses’ 21^st birthdays so my house went out to dinner at Camp’s Bay to a really nice restaurant. Amazing chicken burger and margarita’s. Afterwards we went to Goldfish again because it was their last concert of the summer and also we were pretty much just under the club. We got a picture with Goldfish too after they performed which was cool. Both back and forth our fun taxi driver from the other weekend, Evie, drove us and blasted some more music.

Monday:

Today was very hectic, but great. In the morning I had to get up early and go to the grocery store to buy some more air time for my phone because I’d run out early the night before and had no way of contacting anyone. Then I went to my first and only class of the day. After, I went to my first real day of my internship at PASSOP. This meant that I would have to get all the way to Wynberg by myself, which at first scared me a little bit but I know I’ve gotten pretty confident with public transportation and it was during the day. I actually took the campus bus to a town closer to Wynberg so I would just have to take the crazy mini-bus one stop. I even remembered exactly where the office was and went right up. I met the program coordinator today, David, who is probably about 24-25. He’d been in a surfing accident the day before we came to take a tour of the office so I hadn’t seen him then. We sat down and had a meeting about PASSOP and what it does, and how I would relate and help them with fundraising. I have some pretty big jobs on my plate, but it was awesome showing him THON’s website and telling him about all the fundraising we do. He was so impressed with THON and really liked the THONline donations, which we might try to replicate on their website. Anyway, I’m going to be in charge of figuring out how to set it up so that people can make donations directly from their website (no idea how to do this) as well as register them as an NGO in the United States so that they can get a tax return number to make it easier to receive donations from the States (also, clueless). Right now I’m just supposed to research so that I can ultimately work with them to finalize it and figure it out. I’m also in charge of organizing and heading 2 fundraising events before I leave, which is more what I’m really excited about. It was really cool knowing that what I do here at PASSOP will have a lasting impression there and really will make such a difference in their organization. After I spent about 2.5 hours there, I made my way back on the mini-bus which was again, not scary at all (getting so good at this!) and got back to Rondebosch just in time to change and head to social rugby club. We got there super early, and so we just hung out with the guys who were setting up. Today we learned how to play rugby from some of the guys on the second-string team and one actual rugby player who didn’t go to the away game tonight because he’s injured. It was a little difficult to pick up on because I kept thinking of it like football, and it’s nothing like football. We also only played touch rugby today because we’re just trying to start a girl’s intramural team and none of us knew how to play. I think they were pretty amused by us. I got a little messy because I dove for a pass, which I was told was good because he said I was starting to ACTUALLY play some kind of real rugby. It was so hot today too, so after running (rugby involves SO much running) for over an hour we were all so sweaty and hot. The one guy says, “Come on over here, we have some drinks for you.” We run over thinking that it’s water, and they hand us all beers. Not as refreshing as I had had in mind, but we took them nonetheless. I still always feel so weird drinking on campus; it’s so normal here because everyone in college can drink. Since the game was away, they played it on a big projector screen in the rugby club (they have a bar in the sports complex just for the rugby team) and we went in and watched for a little bit. Touch rugby and real rugby are very, very different sports. Real rugby is so much more scary and hardcore. We played barefoot too which was so cool so I just walked home that way, I absolutely love how that is s normal here. Tonight I just went grocery shopping and Reinhard (our RA) made us the African version of sloppy joes… again, so good. I am in love with the food here. And everything else here too. 

If asked to join a bachelor party, always say yes.

So, here I am again. I told myself I would write again semi-early in the week so that my next post can be strictly about the homestay this weekend. We’re leaving on Friday at around 6 pm and staying with a family in Ocean view where is a nearby township. We’ll be with one other person from CIEE and I’ve heard such good things about this homestay so I’m really excited, and it doesn’t hurt to have a weekend off from going out either.

I guess I’ll start with Friday. We did end up going to the Yacht Club Party, which started with us standing in a huge crowd pushing to get on the buses that would take us to the party, that we were told was on a “lake”. I didn’t get on the first bus because there were just way too many people, even though the second bus we got on was still packed and I had to stand smashed between people. We honestly didn’t really know where we were going, and we only started questioning this when we got close and the area looked a little shady. Later I met someone from the Yacht Club that told me that this was the most dangerous part of the Cape Flatts and the area where the most murders occur in Cape Town…. But that I shouldn’t be scared because they had tons of hired security guards… but still not to leave the area, unless I was getting back on the bus to leave. Anyway, the party was fun/funny. It was like a frat party outside by a swamp (definitely not a lake by any means). People were shot-gunning, funneling, and there was a bar where you could get a drink, beer, or cider for 10 R which is like $1.25 so super cheap drinks. I met so many UCT students from South Africa so that was awesome to talk to them. Overall, a good night minus the murder-city we were partying in. Hurray Yacht Club.

Saturday we went back to Old Biscuit Mill (the flea market I’m obsessed with) and wandered around all morning. There was this one stall where this man makes these shoes that are literally so awesome and unique, obsession is an understatement and this week he had boots, too! I had to try them on… and so consequently fell in love with them. I didn’t have enough cash so he told me I could go to the ATM and he’d save them for me but then the only debit card I had with me was not working (Thanks, Dad for sending me another useless card. At least it didn’t get eaten this time). So, I went back to the stall cash-less, and sad. This guys goes, “You can just take them”. My response... “Excuse me… what???” He let me take them without paying! He told me that he trusted me to give him the money later and just gave me his phone number, without any of my information I just walked away with the boots. People here seriously shock you everyday. They are so open and trustworthy and this guy just blew my mind. They were expensive (comparatively, for how cheap everything is) and he made them by hand! I’m going to transfer the money to him this week but it boggles my mind that I could have just taken them. Afterwards, we took a trip to Clifton Beach, my first time there. Again, shocked, beach after beach is more beautiful than the previous. It was so nice outside and we stayed for about 3 hours. This day we also met a great taxi drive, Evie, who we called all day for every ride. We liked him because he blasted American Pop music and let us put the windows down. Made it feel like summer at home, but he was really awesome. I won’t go into details about my night because I know that I will get yelled at by everyone for what we did that night. All you need to know is that we were parkouring (The Office style, aka jumping off random things and screaming parkour) down Long Street, which is like the main road in downtown Cape Town, and then we joined a bachelor party. We might have climbed over a barbed wire fence at some point, but it was all in good fun, promise.

Sunday was a lazy day. I wanted to hike Table Mountain that day, but it just wasn’t going to happen. I sat in the coffee shop most of the day just doing homework and reading. I have 2 essay responses due on Thursday! Real work… not okay at all. All night I watched THON on the live stream and cried through all of the final four hours. Totally worth it. So proud of what was accomplished this weekend and year at Penn State after all that happened this year. Truly amazing. Monday was just typical school. Last night we went to see the movie Safehouse at 10:50 and there was absolutely no one in the theater. In South Africa, you’re also allowed to bring candy and drinks into the theater! The movie was really good and it took place in Cape Town so it was cool to see a lot of places that we recognized. Definitely recommend it. Today was a long school day as well, I spent a lot of time in the library reading and doing my essays. Tonight Isabel and me went on a run to Claremont, which is a couple towns down, took about an hour. My plan of getting in shape here is actually on its way and working! Tomorrow night someone here is turning 21 so there’s going to be a big party, but I’ll see if I’m up for it after classes. These 8 am’s are killing me. Nothing too big for the week planned, besides that and the home stay. Classes are going really well and I actually like them, besides the homework. So the next time I’ll be writing I’ll fill you in on the homestay!

Lesson of the week: If asked to join a bachelor party, always say yes.