Back to School, Back to School

It’s been a long first-week of school. To kick off the week last Sunday, we decided that we would climb Lion’s Head. We took a cab to the bottom of the trail and started our 3-hour hike. The beginning of the trail was pretty easy and wide but as we got closer to the top we had to climb up some rocks. When we got to the top we were all pretty tired but it was well worth it – an amazing view of Cape Town from the top of the mountain. This was just a practice round though, this weekend we take on Table Mountain or Devil’s Peak, which are both pretty long and strenuous hikes that will take about 7 hours each. Sunday night everyone in my house went to the Goldfish concert in Camp’s Bay and it was a lot of fun. Goldfish is kinda techno-mix-up music, it’s hard to describe… but definitely worth looking it up. I really like two of my classes: Poverty, Globalization, and Development is one and the other is: Gender, Sexuality, and Politics in the context of South Africa. Both very interesting and I love my professors. I don’t love how often classes meet here though, which is 4 or 5 times a week. Also the periods are all in hour increments so you will have class for 45 minutes than 15 minutes to get to the next one. It seems like a high school schedule. The third class I was supposed to be taking was “Traditional African Religion”, which I thought would be interesting but I was horribly mistaken. It was a double period lecture and the teacher was literally reading off a piece of paper. Also, most of the things he said I just completely disagreed with so needless to say, I am no longer taking this class. I switched into two other classes instead. I’m taking Afrikaans which is a national language pretty closely tied to Dutch. This makes it a little easier for me because Dutch and German are similar in a lot of ways and I can already see a lot of overlapping words and sounds. I am also taking “Crime and Deviance in South Africa” which is a class pretty much filled with Americans and a lot of my friends. It has been pretty boring so far but I’m hoping it gets more interesting. Being on campus is pretty overwhelming. Since all the classes switch at the same time, there are always hoards of people grouped and walking and talking—it’s so loud and totally not what I’m used to. Not to mention, everyone here has such good fashion sense. Literally everyone is so beautiful it’s not even normal. I’m going to have to go shopping (Sorry, mom, I will control myself). Campus is so gorgeous too. I have to take pictures but I’m going to do that on a Saturday or Sunday, as I’m trying to conceal my American-ness as much as possible and walking around campus with a camera is definitely not a way to do that. There will be pictures on facebook at some point next week and you will be amazed that this is a college campus; ivy everywhere and Table Mountain just chilling behind it.

Even though I have my 8 am, I survived going out last night and still made it to class. A couple of us went to Long Street and stopped at a few bars, we met these guys that just opened a skate store and they showed us this other bar. Tomorrow we might go to this skate competition they invited us to: Ultimate X (which is their lamer version of our X Games). Should be cool.

Yesterday I also went to my internship for the first time. One of the guys in charge, Doug, picked us up in a van from lower campus and we made our way to PASSOP which is in Wynberg just a couple towns down from where I live. They’re an organization combating the inequality with refugees here in South Africa. (Check them out: http://www.passop.co.za/) We pretty much just got a picture of what the organization is about and the current refugee problems here. A lot of people get turned away and are asked completely inappropriate questions about why they were forced out of their country. It usually is something very personal about them being LGBTQ or domestic violence and it makes them feel really uncomfortable. The people basically try to make it seem like they are lying about why they had to leave their country. I also learned that South Africa doesn’t have born citizenship like the United States. If you are born in the South Africa, it doesn’t automatically give you citizenship. One of the volunteers at PASSOP came here and is trying to get refugee status and had a child in the mean time. Both are at risk of being deported. All of the people there seem so genuine and I’m so excited to get involved there. I’m specifically an intern with fundraising but they say our internships are really flexible and we can work with what we’re interested in so I’m hoping to get involved with the new LGBTQ area specifically.

This weekend I’m hopefully heading to Old Biscuit Mill tomorrow which is this awesome flea market (I think I mentioned it before) but I’m gonna try to take some pictures of it tomorrow. Last night the skate boys told us this is the “hipster flea market” and that we should go to the one in Holt Bay instead. Maybe we’ll take the advice, maybe not. It wouldn’t hurt to give Holt Bay a chance. Also this weekend is THON – big shout out to all the dancers and volunteers. I’m so sad I can’t be there this weekend, but I will be watching on live stream and I know it will be as amazing as ever. I was so excited to find out that Action News will be there this weekend! ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14gWVeANWUw&feature=youtu.be )
I’m trying real hard to keep this thing up to date but I just do not have the patience to sit and write about everything often so I hope I’ve been doing a good job of capturing my experiences thus far. I cannot believe that next Tuesday marks one month here. Time is going way too fast, may just have to cancel that return flight home (is that possible dad??)

Peace, love, and Cape Town.