We Were Blessed A Lot -- Thursday

Our tour guide today told us that if you get rained on in South Africa, you've been blessed. If this is true, then all of us could get into heaven 20 times over with the amount of blessing we recieved. I have never been that throughly drenched in my lifetime, but it didnt keep any of us from having an amazing time today!

We started off the day by walking to our tour bus and getting a short driving tour through downtown Cape Town. The rest of the day was spent getting a coastal tour of the Western Cape. We first went to Campe Bay on the Atlantic Ocean. Some huuuge clouds were rolling in, but thankfully they went away. I really wouldn't mind having a house here.

After a few minutes here, we got back on the bus and drove to Haut Bay to go on a glass-bottom boat to look at the seals. I didn't go on the boat, unfortunately. In the frenzy to get out the door in the morning, I completely forgot to grab my seasickness medicine and I didn't feel like spending the entire tour hanging off the back of the boat and not even seeing the seals. So I stayed on land and did a little market shopping and got some presents for my parents to put in their houses. Since they'll be reading this, I can't say what I got, but they are pretty awesome and the proceeds go to a seal protection program..

I didn't like this guy.. he was blowing smoke into his 'pet' seal's face and letting people sit on its back for pictures.

At this point, it started pouring rain. And when I say pouring, I mean a horizontal, face-pelting deluge. (I find out later that it was good I didn't go on the boat. The water got pretty rough, people struggled to hang onto the boat and get inside, and then got sea sick). I had some extra time until my group got back from the boat so I went to some coffee shop and got some breakfast.

After Haut Bay, we drove to the other side of Africa. It was the first time in my life that I touched the Indian Ocean. First time in my life I've seen penguins. All I could think the whole time was just, 'God, how lucky am I??'

We walked around in the freezing water and picked up some sea shells, wrote our names in the sand and loved every second of it.

The next part is my favorite! After lunch we went to the Cape of Good Hope Nature Reserve which is located at the bottom of Africa. Very bottom. As we were driving through the park, we could look tho the left and see the Indian Ocean and look to the right to see the Atlantic. Along side of the road, we came up on a troupe of baboons! Those things are huge and mean looking! We definately were not allowed to have the windows open because otherwise one might jump in and fight you for food.

A big baboon with a couple babies.. can you see them all? Tricky.

I wasn't expecting baboons to be so big, but they are definately almost the size of a lab retriever. With huge fangs the the strength of 3 men.

Now, here is my favorite part of the day! Our tour guide told us about this absolutely gorgeous beach, but that we should really avoid going down to it because the rip tides are so strong that you'll die, it happened. But did we listen? No; this was the one time in our lives to go check it out and we weren't going to pass it up.

Here it is!

We climbed down a million stairs down to the beach, took our shoes off and ran down to the water (but we didnt go in because the waves were HUGE!) There are absolutely no words to describe how beautiful this place is. It's a piece of heaven that I will never forget.

Our time at the beach got cut short when we saw all those dark clouds moving in, and the wind was blowing the sand so hard, it stung our legs reeaally bad. The second we made it back to the trail after climbing those million stairs, the clouds completely opened up and we were introduced once again to that horizontal rain. Except this time, the wind was blowing so hard that some of the rain felt like hail hitting you in the face!

Probably the most safe thing I've ever done in my life.. hiking on trails and climbing up rocks with cliffs no more than 10 feet away in a torrential downpour and wind blowing so hard it could blow your eyes out of their sockets. But it was amazing; freezing cold, wet, tired.. all I could do was smile, laugh and think, 'Oh my god. This is incredible. I can't believe that I'm actually here, that I'm actually experiencing this.' No words can describe how lucky and amazed I feel.

We eventally made it to the Cape of Good Hope, the southernmost point in Africa! We were at the bottom of the world! We saw two oceans at once and pointed out across the water at Antarctica.

District 6 Museum and Downtown -- Wednesday

We walked all the way to class today and holy crap! We walked up a few huge hills and probably 400,000 stairs. It was a trek. We got a lecture from a very good-looking man about the process of ending Apartheid and all the negotiations that happened. It was so interesting to learn how a bunch of different conditions came together at the right time to lead to the end of Apartheid.

The big lesson I took away from today was the importance of realizing the possibility of long-term consequences. Apartheid lasted for only a few decades but the social problems that stem from it will last past our lifetimes. So many public decisions are made without giving thought to the consequences they'll bring and more problems are created than good things.

After class, we went to the District Six Museum close to downtown Cape Town. It's in an old church and pays tribute to the history of the District Six museum and the memory of its former residents. Before Apartheid, the area was a vibrant community of mostly colored residents, but when the government imposed forced removal, these residents were moved to the townships, their houses and buildings were demolished and zoned for white residents only. Not only this, but races were legally forbidden to have any contact with each other. The museum is filled with stories and pictures from the residents themselves so we were able to see the human face behind the history. I could never imagine what it must feel like to be categorized as subhuman and have your home and its memories demolished. It breaks my heart to know what human beings are capable of doing to each other.

Part 1

Part 2

After the museum we had a couple hours to walk around downtown before our vans came back to pick us up. So we went to the market!

We didn't have a ton of time there, so good thing we're going back for more shopping soon! We left to walk back to where the vans were going to pick us up and all of a sudden we hear a ton of yelling on the next block and see flashing cop lights all over the place. We are supposed to avoid demonstrations (rule #1 we learned was to not get arrested) so we all had to resist the urge to go check it out. Then a paddywagon drove by filled full with men from the jail who were rattling the bars and yelling some nasty things out the windows, and some people somewhere were yelling 'go back to your homes!' We ended up having to go around the block to get to the vans and here is what we found:

It turns out there was some sort of demonstration taking place at the courthouse and it must have gotten out of hand to the point of police forces coming out to break it up? Still don't know what exactly was going on, but it seems like it had to do with the conflict between the refugees from Zimbabwe and the South African township residents. I hope the problem doesn't get bad enough for our time in the townships to be cancelled because I know everyone in my group is looking forward to that so much. At this point, a lot of us feel just like tourists and we are so excited to go to Gugulethu to go through that experience. So I just hope that the situation stays under control, not just for my group, but also because it's a terrible situation all the Africans affected by it.

This is just so weird to see that as a middle class American. We have demonstrations, but really, people get arrested for trespassing on private property or something minor like that. Just the other week here, a man was burned to death in the street. It's a little different. At this point, I don't have a lot of opinions.. well, no, I do. They just are floating around in my head but I can't really form anything solid yet. I'm just taking it all in now. I'll figure out what I really think about it later. For now, you just get read my day-to-day stuff, nothing too deep because I just haven't figured it out yet. I feel like I'm not really qualified to figure it out yet because I have only been in the wealthy areas of Cape Town, and that is by no means the whole story of this country. I need to see the other side of things before I can form solid opinions.

Right now you see a man in tattered clothes at the harbor and view him as just a poor guy, but I feel as though after we go to the townships, that man would be viewed as a neighbor. Does that make sense? All I know is a privileged life outside of poverty. I don't know anyone who is struggling to survive. But once I experience Gugulethu, I feel like the man in the tattered clothes won't be just another poor person; He'll have a story and a life and a family and a place. Until this happens, I don't feel like my thoughts are solid enough because I just don't know enough.

On another note.. we ate at Nandos tonight! Delicious. It lived up to the hype. Next on my list is to eat at the KFC and see if Ajith was right at all about his claim that South African KFCs are better than American. After Nandos some of us went across the street to a bar called Pig & Swizzle for some drinks and pool. Good times.

UCT and a few Jam Jars -- Tuesday

Today was fun! Last night Aaron told us to go outside when we woke up.. so we did and you will not believe the view we have from our place! You turn around and there's Devil's Peak and Table Mountain! Right there! Pretty sure we woke up the neighbors we were so excited!
We walked to campus at UCT and got a tour.. amazingly beautiful campus. We like buildings at the U that are 'old' and pretty.. but these are old. Like colonial style old. Campus is huge too... they have lower, middle, and upper campuses. To get to the upper campus you have to walk up hill a lot! I ate a ton on the planes and I feel like I burned it all off.

We had sort of our first class where we got a lecture on safety followed by the best clubs and bars to go to... that sort of stuff. Don't worry, the clubs generally are closed Monday nights, so we'll at least get a night off. We walked by the rugby fields! But there was no one playing because I guess it's exam time for them. We walked down this big hill to get down to the main street and the houses here are so cool. They sort of remind me of houses in Florida because most of them are short but interesting-looking. ALL of the houses are surrounded by gates and a lot of them either have some sort of spikes or barbed wire running across the tops of the gates. Some houses even have guards standing by the entrances.

Diane and Ajith showed us the main street and the most important place on it-Nandos. According to them Nandos is a healthy delicious version of KFC. Ajith even said that South African KFCs are better than the ones in the US! We'll see about that, I'm pretty skeptical.
Eventually we went to the harbor and ate at this awesome restaurant called Primi Wharf. Interstudy paid for our food and drinks (thanks!) so I got some sort of ravioli stuff and a Sex on the Beach. They had these drinks there called Jam Jars that are made up of a few different liquors and come in different flavors.. the best is strawberry. They come in big jam jars. They are delicious. And they have Tea Pot drinks that come in teapots!

After we were done eating, we went to the waterfront, took a group photo and walked for a while. The harbor is so pretty. You can look across and see Robin Island and faroff mountains and then you turn around and see Table Mountain. Everywhere you look is gorgeous! There are a ton of stray cats too...didn't expect that. They look a bit crazy too, like they might bite. I saw at least 8 of them walking around today. They were in the weirdest places, too.. like on the huge concrete wave breakers and hanging around in the hotel parking lot next to a Porsche. As we were in the mall looking for hair dryers and adapters, we spotted Lisa and Bianca from America's Next Top Model... long story short, Nate and Cole managed to get their numbers and an invite to Lisa's 21st birthday party tomorrow night. Haha they were so giddy about it, they went and bought new shirts to wear out. So we'll see how that one goes!

I guess I don't have a lot else to say besides the basics because we havn't had that much of a culture shock yet.. Cape Town is so westernized that there hasn't been anything that is completely different than what I am used to. It will be interesting to experience the huge contrast between Cape Town and the townships, especially when it comes to the disparities in wealth.

That's all I got for now..I'm thinking upcoming posts should be better once we start getting into less touristy activities and my brain starts to turn back on. Until then, sorry for the scrambled mess of thoughts.

We Made It!! --Monday

Well, we got here last night! I have no idea when, though.. my concept of time wasn't working after 30 hours and some 8,000 miles of traveling. We flew from Minneapolis-New York-Dakar, Senegal(refuel)-Johannesburg, South Africa-Cape Town!

First off, gotta tell you that Rev Run was on our flight from Minneapolis to New York-pretty sweet! Sara got a picture with him, so once I get it from her, I'll post it.
Once we got to New York, we had a 7 hour layover so we filled up with food and hung out in the food court for a few hours. The food on the flights was surprisingly good.. minus the somewhat soupy scrambled eggs with wierd mushrooms. The South African Airlines planes were pretty awesome.. we each had a tv in our headrest with our own choice of movies and we got free drinks! But the wine wasn't very good.
The airport at Johannesburg is crazy! We had no idea where our luggage was going but we finally found it, but then there is a ton of construction so we had nooo idea how to get to our next flight. Then some nice porters led us through the airport and then demanded lots of tips so they could buy some drinks after work. We ended up giving them alot of money.. oops!

We got into Cape Town sometime in the evening/night and met up with Aaron, Kate, Sephimo and Ajith. Then we went to our houses...my house is for student housing so its pretty bare bones compared to our other house across the street which is a bed and breakfast. We didnt do a whole lot last night, just ate pizza, took showers to get the plane grime off, hung out and went to bed.

Pictures!Flying into New York

Yay! So excited!

Almost Time To Go!

12 hours from now, I'll be up taking a shower and getting all my stuff together to go to the airport. AAHH! As you probably know (since I havent shut up about it for the last couple months), I'm going to Cape Town, South Africa with 16 other students and our teacher, Aaron.

I get asked a million times what we'll be doing there. Well, here it is: Our class is called 'Cross-Cultural Leadership Contexts of the AIDS Pandemic.' In the mornings we'll be hearing from a ton of guest lectures to learn about the history and current situation of South Africa, especially surrounding the issue of AIDS. They'll also talk to us about the work they do within the township communities. We'll spend most of the afternoons in Gugulethu (a township just outside of Cape Town) working with the Rainbow after-school program helping out with an orphanage and disabled children.

But it's definately not all work! We'll have time for some entertainment, too:

• Check out the Waterfront (Cape Town's harbor area)


• Go on a safari


• Get a tour of the coast (we get to go on a glass-bottom boat and see seals and penguins!)


• Head out to the Winelands for some taste-testing


• Aaand, weather permitting, we'll get a tour of Robbin Island (where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned), go sandboarding (like snowboarding but with sand), shark diving, and hike around Table Mountain (that's where the baboons are..aah!)

One of the weekends we'll also be partnering up and going to Gugulethu for homestays. We get to sort of live like a township resident for a couple days, which should be pretty interesting. Oh man, I'm getting excited just thinking about all this stuff! So there's the basics of what's going on.

I obviously super excited to go but I'm also pretty nervous. Never in my life have I seen someone struggling to survive or stood within 1000 feet of a house made of scraps. I've never had to face a truth like that. There will be a lot of difficult things that we're going to come across while we're there and this blog is meant for me to tell you about those experiences-both good and bad. So enjoy your reading, leave me some comments and I'll see you in 3 weeks!

**I want to thank everyone that donated money.. here's a list of everything that you helped to purchase for the JL Zwane Community center:

• 21 rain jackets


• 15 shirts


• 27 pants/shorts


• 1 jacket


• 200 condoms


• 114 pairs of socks


• 8 bras


• 192 pairs of underwear

This is the pile of donations.. I couldn't get it all in one suitcase (George, you were right), let alone keep it under 50 lbs, so it isn't all coming with me (most of it is, though). The rest will eventually make it there either through Open Arms of Minnesota/Kevin Winge (who does work in the townships) or other groups traveling down there. No worries!