Here's the story:

I'm still in Africa.
I'm super busy.
I'm happy.
I'm coming home in 5 days.
I'll write about my last weeks in Africa once I'm home.
See you soon!!

This Week

Sorry I haven't posted in a while, but there hasn't been much going on! Seriously, just normal daily life in PE and homework! We didn't have school last Monday because it was a public holiday, I'm not sure what it was but there wasn't anything really going on for it. So no class and no volunteering left us with a whole day of paper writing! Got another 15 pager done and turned in so that felt good. This week I just had class and homework. We had a potluck on Wednesday to celebrate one of the guy's birthdays. We had a South African braii and it might have been the best pot luck to date. There is one more potluck scheduled and it will be to celebrate my birthday!

I went to underwater hockey on Tuesday and Thursday but I didn't actually play. I've decided that the game is too rough for me, I get more nervous about it than have fun. So I go, socialize and then just swim and do synchro in the open lane. It works out pretty well. We had a braii with some guys from the team on Friday.

We made a miraculous discovery this weekend too. There is a bowling alley really close to where we live and we never knew about it! So last night, about 20 of us went out and bowled a few games. It was just fun to do something like at home. Bowling alleys aren't very common here I guess so our scores we're pretty impressive compared to the other lanes. We were also obnoxiously louder than the other lanes!

I wish today could just be a lazy Sunday, but I am trying to get one shorter paper finished and get started on another 15 page paper due on Thursday! It kinda sucks that the end of my trip is filled with so many papers, but I need to remember that I am here for credit, so I need to do some work!

Hope everything is well at home and that the weather continues to get warmer! Happy May!

Pendla

I don’t think that I’ve said anything about my volunteering in a while L It’s going great there, really fun and I feel a lot better about my experience since I’m in this new classroom. The third graders are so cute and so fun to work with in the classroom. They like to follow us around at recess too. We’ve been teaching one or two lessons a week and reading to the kids a lot more. We’ve also been meeting with our teacher, Nomatemba during break time to discuss the school’s needs and such. Before we came here, we raised a lot of money from events on campus so we just need to decide what to do with it. First, we are fulfilling the requests of the principal to pay the salary of the gardener and a maintenance worker. They have a vegetable garden that is used to supply lunches to students who don’t bring something from home. Paying these salaries helps the school, but it also helps two families in the community as the two workers have children. To put things into perspective, the yearly salary that we are paying these people for a full time job is R7,200 or $720. Things do cost less here, but $720 is a very meager salary to support a family on. It is what they requested though and we can’t spend all of our money on just those requests. We also are buying copying paper for the school and soap for the bathrooms. Depending on how much we have leftover after that, we will buy chairs for the classroom or more school supplies for the children. We also have money allocated in our program budge to host a family night for the entire school. Last year, the group served dinner to over 1000 people. We plan to do that and we will also supply some sort of gift to every student. It will be as simple as a pencil or a toothbrush, but they’ll have fun. There is a committee that is starting to plan this event and the date is already set for our last day of volunteering and my birthday, May 12th!

I am on a different committee to plan a Hygiene Day that will go along with the purchase of the soap. The kids need to be taught about germs and how to keep themselves clean. So we’ll have a morning devoted to this. The other girl on the trip who is an education major and myself are in charge of planning it. Except for having to add another thing on to my list of assignments, I’m excited to plan it.

I also got some money from a teacher at my mom’s school who donated to buy some school supplies for the children here. After talking to Nomatemba about what the class needs and what the students need, I decided to spend the money on making a reading corner for the kids. I’m really excited about this because Nomatemba does value reading a lot and the kids love it too! (I’ve begun to read to them at recess and always get a crowd around me). I’m going to get a big rug and some big pillows to put in one corner of the room so that they will be able to enjoy reading in their classroom. The school has a nice library that was paid for by a different group of CSB/SJU students about 10 years ago. I might also make some posters on how to take care of books, or how to read with a partner and things like that. I want to give this to them sooner rather than later so that I can help implement its usage in the classroom.

I am already getting sad thinking about having to leave Pendla. I missed them when I was gone for the 3 weeks for spring break! Being with them has been a great experience and one of the best aspects of my time here.

Election Day 22/4/09

Yes, South Africa held its fourth democratic election this week! Maybe this made the news at home? I’m not sure. Well I don’t really have a lot to say about it, because I didn’t even follow it (I was writing a paper that was due that day). Election Day is a public holiday here, so people didn’t have to work and we weren’t supposed to have school. But since we of course couldn’t vote, we still had class and had a paper due. Our class was just held at our professor’s house, which was a good time. We just had a normal lecture, but we were served coffee and sat on her comfy furniture. Her dogs and cats went around disrupting our learning too. And afterward we went out for some sundowners, but we didn’t stay long because the restaurant had to close down by 6:00 so they could take their employees to vote. There is a law that if you make your employees work on Election Day, that you need to provide time and transportation for them to vote.

Elections run a little bit differently here than they do at home. Here you vote for a political party, instead of a candidate. There are literally HUNDREDS of political parties that you could vote for, but the main ones are the African National Congress (ANC), Democratic Alliance (DA) and Congress of the People (COPE). The ANC is organization that led to the end of apartheid and the one that I’ve studied most extensively. The DA is the party that most whites in the country voted for. And COPE is a new party this year that branched off the ANC. The elections were almost a joke in that EVERYONE knew that the ANC would win. Well, actually I don’t think that the winner has been announced yet, but I’ll tell you now that they won the election.

Anyway so you vote for a party and then the party chooses who the president will be, usually the president of the organization becomes the president of the country. Thabo Mbeki was the President for the last two terms, he took over after Nelson Mandela. But because of corruption and I don’t know what else, he was made to resign and Jacob Zuma took over as president of the ANC and the country. I think this happened pretty recently, maybe right before we came here. Jacob Zuma is not a favorite, he is involved in corruption and a rape scandal. But because of more corruption, he was never brought to trial. It is all very messed up. So the people knew that when they voted for the ANC, that they were voting for Zuma as President. I hope this isn’t confusing, or that I’m getting the facts wrong. Kate, post a comment if I said something wrong. A problem with this is that since the ANC is the organization that led to the end of the apartheid, it is the organization that the majority of the country supports. They don’t care if their policies don’t make sense anymore or if their candidate is corrupt and uneducated. It is sad, but the majority of the people voting aren’t educated enough to research and find out who the best candidate for them actually is. So the country is stuck with Jacob Zuma who thought he could prevent himself from getting AIDS by taking a shower after having intercourse with someone!

I heard that there were accusations of corruption on Election Day too. I guess in one city, a whole voting station went missing, ballots, pens, the tent, everything. So now, where are those missing ballots, who turned them in? Other places ran out of ballots, so the people waiting in the long lines couldn’t vote. Some voting stations had to close down before everyone who was in line got to vote, I’m not sure if they opened up again on Thursday to let more people vote or not, I just know that was an idea. I guess the main thing is that South Africa is still developing itself as a democratic nation so there are still things to be worked out. One great thing is they have a very high voter turn-out rate, I think it was like 80-85% of the people voted on Wednesday!

Underwater Hockey

I forgot to write about this earlier, but I started playing underwater hockey!! I’ve been to two practices now, one last week and one two weeks ago. If you think it sounds like a very odd sport, then you’re right on! It is one of the weirdest sports in the world!!! I went with my friend Kirby, who played ice hockey. I thought that I would be better off because I have the swimming skills and he doesn’t, but I think the sport needs more hockey skills than swimming skills L. The team mostly has men, some college age and some older men from the community. There are a couple girls who play. The coach is female and she is Kirby’s marine biology professor here. She is very aggressive and mean when she plays, so I’m glad she’s not my professor.

This is how you play. Everyone wears a snorkel, mask and flippers. You have a glove on the hand that you hold your stick with. The stick is less than a foot long and it’s not the shape of a normal hockey stick. It is mostly a straight block of wood, with a little curve on the end that the puck can fit in. You are either on the black stick team or the white stick team. The puck is the same size as normal hockey I think, it made of lead and has a pink rubber thing around it so you can see it on the bottom of the pool and so it can glide easier. There are six people playing on a team at a time, you might have more but they would just be subs. This club isn’t very big though so they don’t have any extra people. That’s why they actually let me play, I’m so horrible at playing but they need me! The teams have forwards and a middle and defense but I don’t think they have a goalie. The defense is the hardest position because if the puck is down there, those players need to stay underwater. They don’t get to breathe as much. I play forward, which is the easiest position. Anyway, of the six players, not everyone is underwater at the same time. Probably 3 or 4 people are underwater. The rest of the people are above water, breathing through their snorkel and watching the puck on the bottom. When the puck starts coming their way, or when they know their players will need a breath, they go down and help with the puck. I usually spend most of my playing time on the surface breathing! But I do go down and touch the puck sometimes, a lot of the time when I go down I don’t even get to touch the puck because other players on my team already are playing with it and they can hold their breath longer than me. But one time I almost scored a goal!!! But someone came down from above me and took it away. That’s the hard part, you need to watch for people above, sideways, in front, behind and even under you. I guess this sport originated in Canada and they do play international against other countries that are part of the British circle.

But yeah, its mainly played just like hockey but underwater! So weird! And I’m not aggressive at all, so I suck. It also is hard because I’m playing against boys that are way older and bigger than me so it’s almost impossible for me to get by them or steal the puck from the. Especially since I don’t know what I’m doing. I can’t do it yet, but some people can flick the puck “in the air” (so to speak), but I can’t do that yet. It mainly just slides on the bottom of the pool. At the deep end and where the pool starts to get shallow are too metal troughs almost. They have a little ramp that goes up to them so you can slide the puck in for a goal. Ooh and another really hard part of the game is after a goal, you have one minute to get back to your side (the goal you’re defending) and then you start playing again. So really, you NEVER get a chance to breath. I think we play two 15 minutes halves or something like that.

So although I suck, I’m still trying something new. It’s fun to play when I’m not scared of the puck or the other players (like that professor!) And it’s good to meet new people too. They’re all very friendly and always ask Kirby and I out for a beer after practice. We haven’t been able to go yet though because we have always had a paper due the next day. I told Blake and Brady I’d play this game with them this summer, but I think it’d be better for all of us if we just stuck to tag or something like that ;)

Frontier Weekend

I had one of the best weekends ever up in the Frontier of South Africa!! We went into the Winterberg Mountains in Adelaide and stayed with host families and did the farm thing! The trip started off with a late start because our transportation was late (very common here) so we had to miss out on our visit at the Senior Citizens home and the tour of the Tomato Tunnel (not sure what that was going to be). We went on a very long drive in two big vans on windy, gravel roads. I was not the only one who got car sick on this trip!

When we finally got there, we welcomed by the over-the-top friendly Winnie, “our new mom”. She and her husband Marness owned a very large farm where they had some crops but mostly mohair sheep, goats and cattle. They also had a ton of other animals like tamed kudu, eland and duikers (all three are things that we look for on the game drives). We first thing we did after lunch was look around the farm. Some people petted the kudu and eland. I almost got tackled by a “tame” duiker that is pregnant and a little anxious. I also chased around a chicken with baby chicks, trying to steal one. When that didn’t work and everyone had seen everything, we went horseback riding. Horseback riding is not one of my favorite pastimes as it involves touching an animal, but I felt a “When in Africa…” moment and so I agreed to ride a horse as long as the farmhand held onto the reigns and walked me. We didn’t go very far, just up the road and back but at least I can say I did that. Other people had a lot of fun and rode numerous times. I’m lucky I had someone walking my horse with me because one kid on our trip fell off his horse while it was galloping around a turn! It was really scary to watch, but he ended up not hitting his head or being stepped on so he was all right. We also walked around a bit and saw impala, springbok (national animal) and fellow deer (a new animal for me to see). Next we went to a cow milking demonstration. Interesting and smelly. It was here that I had my first taste of milk in I cannot remember how long, probably 7 years or so. We were invited to climb down in the ditch between two lines of cows, where they were hooking the machines up to the udders. I got to milk a cow by hand and then squirt the milk into my mouth! Gross! The milk actually didn’t taste too bad, it was just warm and I’m interested to try milk from the store and see if I maybe like it now. The rest of the night we just sat out, looking out into the mountains at the weird farming landscape, watching the sun go down. We had appetizers and sundowners (happy hour drinks). Then we braiied!! A braii is like grilling or cooking over the fire. This night we had poikey (?) which was cooked in a very large cast iron pot over coals next to the fire. The key to cooking this was to cook in layers. It went chicken, noodles and then vegetables and in cooking and serving they were supposed to stay layered. Dinner was great and we enjoyed the food, company and scenery. I was part of 11 people who stayed at Winnie’s farm, the rest of our group went to stay at Marness’s cousin’s farm.

In the morning we were served toasted egg and ham sandwiches and a great tea that I guess we have at home, but I’ve never tried. Roiibos? If you haven’t tried it, find it at the store! I’m pretty sure its caffeine free! Then we got ourselves organized and went on a game drive. It’s just fun to be out in the country, driving around in bakkies (trucks). We all rode in the beds of the trucks that had high railings on the side that we could hold on to. But with 10 people in the back of each one, it was quite a wild ride! I usually got a good, safe spot to hold onto because people think I’m a wuss. But that works in my favor, so I’m okay with it! During the game drive, we stopped at a few pretty lookouts in the mountains to do short hikes. One of the hikes went down to a canyon that we went swimming in. The water was really muddy and there were bugs and crabs in the mud! And the problem with swimming in fresh water, doctors think, is that there may be runoff from the poor sewage systems. I think that’s why at least. But of course, I went swimming anyway. The water was freezing and there wasn’t much to see, but it was still fun. After the drive and the hikes, we went to the big farm and hung out by the pool. The other farm was a very old house and it was a mansion! The farmers there were Francois and Aurelia. Francois showed us his trophy room, which included tons of animals! Any hunter reading this would’ve had a hay day looking at all the mounts this man had! He had zebra, wildebeest, giraffe (I don’t know how that fit in the room cause it really was from neck up!), kudu and tons of kinds of buck that are native to South Africa and other parts of the world! We also saw his gun collection which he was quite proud of. We stayed by the pool and played tennis in the afternoon. Then we went to a sheep shearing demonstration which was painful to watch, but still cool. Francois owns 3,000 sheep and 1,000 cattle! Just imagine how much land he has! He also has the animals like the other farm, kudu, impala, springbok, fellow deer, eland and such, some as pets and some wild. We had a braii again, this time just steaks! But we hardly ever eat steaks or burgers, so it was a special treat! We went for a night game drive that was fun. I saw a lot of animals again, zebra and kudu were my favorite. Then off to bed because we were exhausted.

Sunday we packed up to go home and then went on one last drive in the bakkies to the highest mountain on their land. From the top we could see very far and it was almost all owned by Francois or Marness! Some good group photos were taken from up there. We got back to the bottom and said thank you to our wonderful hosts. I had brought some U of M and Wayzata t-shirts and other trinkets and a couple Nut Rolls that I gave as gifts from the whole group. Winnie started crying because I guess no group had ever given her a gift before (this weekend was organized through the International Education Office at NMMU so many groups have gone through this). I gave each of the hosts a gift and then the bus drivers who stayed with us all weekend got a Nut Roll each! Everyone was so excited! But then we were really sad to leave because we had such a good weekend with these families.

One thing about about this weekend that I mentioned before wasn’t true. These families were not racist at all, I think the group from CSB/SJU who went last year must have stayed with different families because Winnie loved all of us like we were her own children! Something that we did experience though is the concept of land redistribution. This has been a highly debated topic since the time that Nelson Mandela became president. I don’t know too much about it. Just the basics, that all of the land originally belonged to the black population, as they were here first. But the Afrikaners took almost all of the black people’s land and owned the majority. Some statistic like 10% of the population (white) was living on 87% of the land. If you do the math, that doesn’t leave very much room for about 90% of the people. Anyway, just by seeing how much land Francois and Marness owned, brought up the idea of fairness. There were drawings from the San-Khoi people on the cliffs we drove by on Francois’s farm. I think that’s proof that someone lived there before he did.

Then we just drove back to PE and I’ve been doing my school thing since then. Two papers due this week and a four day weekend that will be distracting me from doing the 15 page one! It actually has begun to get colder here, probably 45 degrees at night! It gets dark around 6pm so we can tell that winter is actually coming! Nothing too special this week, just school and homework I think. To all those college students at home: you only have 3 weeks left! So get excited! And to everyone else, sorry you still have to work for over a month L But in case you were getting excited for my homecoming, it is now only 31 days! Absolutely ridiculous!! I’ll post more later!

Going away again

I started school again on Tuesday. It was weird to back on campus after over two weeks off! Classes this week were normal and we didn’t have volunteering because Pendla had their fall holiday break. I turned in one of the three big papers due in this next week, so that felt good.

Last night we went to a play called Ours Was the Dawn. It was a very good play, made us laugh and cry. It was put on by a husband and wife who we have a very unique connection with. Our director, who has been researching South Africa for many years met this couple about ten years ago. I don’t know the whole story, but somehow they became good friends and Gary asked the couple to come to St. Bens and St. Johns to spread the story of South Africa. They’ve been to a couple times now and Ours Was the Dawn is the play that resulted from the very long plane ride over there. Some people from my group saw the performance last year when they came to MN, but it was my first time seeing it last night. After the play we met with them and just talked about South Africa and MN. It just seemed like such a cool connection!

Speaking of cool connections, I forgot to write this in my spring break post. But when I was getting off the boat at Robben Island, I saw a boy that I graduated high school with. I went to school with him for all grades and he was on my Odyssey of the Mind team when mom was our coach! When we saw each other we both just freaked out because it was such a coincidence!! He is studying abroad with Loyola and is going to school in Cape Town. We got to catch up, but then we both had to join our groups again. This seriously is a small world!!!!

Today we’re leaving to go on our Frontier Excursion. We will be staying with white Afrikaner farmers who probably have different views on apartheid and the new government. We’ll see though. The weekend will consist of horseback riding, game drives, hiking, swimming, meeting new people and lots more I’m sure. I’m excited for the weekend because I’ve heard it gives us such a different perspective on South Africa. We are a little worried because we’ve also heard that people in the part of the country we’re going to are racist and we have a couple people in our group who aren’t white. So I hope there aren’t any problems for them and that we can maybe build some bridges.

I’m glad you’re all enjoying my ostrich riding and bungee jumping posts! They were fun to do and fun to write too! I can’t believe I got the place of Grandpa’s ostrich riding wrong! But I guess there isn’t that much a difference between Australia and the Fertile Fair…

Spring Break/Fall Holiday

Okay so here's how you can read the enormous amount of stories I just posted. Go down to where the post is titled "From Scuba to Cape Town" and that is the beginning of my spring break. I tried to break up the posts to make it easier to read, so you don't have to read them all at once.

Also, I want to add pictures to each post but the internet here is not working to my liking and won't let me post pictures on the blog or on Facebook. So it maybe a while for those. But I hope it's not too long and that it is a little bit interesting!

I hope everything is going well at home! Anything new going on since I've been gone? Whats the status in F/M? I want to wish Tyler, Mac, Erin and Andrew Happy Birthdays! There is just another thing to add to my middle child syndrome, all my "brothers" and sisters have their birthdays within 10 days of each other and I'm all alone in May! (I think that was planned.)

Anyway, enjoy this cause I sure did ;)

Bungee Jumping

Saturday was the big day of the trip: bungee jumping. Now anyone in my group would tell you that I did not want to bungee jump, but you know the saying “If all your friends jumped off a bridge, would you too?” And the answer to that is, yes, I would jump off a bridge. Now if you thought the ostrich riding story was fun, this one will be a riot! Okay so I didn’t want to go, but it was only $70 (I think that’s cheap for bungee jumping and compared to sky diving) and this is the highest commercial bungee jumping sight in the world!! (Look up Bloukrans Bungee Jumping on google or youtube if you want to see it). So we pay, get weighed, get harnesses on such and such. Oh, three boys came and joined our group of 9 girls so we had 12 people from CSB/SJU jumping. We were taking a zipline to get out to the jumping site. This is just a huge bridge over a gorge with a small river going underneath it. One side of the bridge looks down the gorge into the mountains and the other side looks out into the ocean. I swear this bridge was built solely for the purpose of bungee jumping because underneath the bridge is a huge platform and that is where we jumped from.

So we’re all hanging out, waiting to go across the zipline to get out to the platform. Everyone is calling what number they want to jump off in the order. A couple people who wanted to go first went across the zipline. Then the man who was in charge of our group, gets off his walkie talkie and starts calling, “Lauren, #64.” Everyone points me out and he goes, “okay you need to get over there now because you’re going first!” I started to freak out saying, no I didn’t want to go first, other people wanted to go first. But this man said that the order was fixed by weight and I was going first! I fought back with him on this point because my roommate Alison weighed one kg less than me, so I tried to make her go first (she would’ve wanted to). But to no avail, I was sent across the zipline ahead of the rest of my friends! The zipline wasn’t that scary for me. The only bad part was you saw how high you were up and what you would be jumping down to: rocks in a little bit of water.

When I got over there, I kind of hid behind the crowd of people (this is a very efficient system and they were doing like 50 people in a group). I hoped they wouldn’t notice me, but they did. So I got called forth and they started strapping me up. I was on the verge of tears again, saying I didn’t want to go and that my friends weren’t there to watch me. By this time there were four girls who had come across and who were trying to get me excited about jumping. Again, a man finally took pity on me and said I could go second. They like to have someone heavy go, then someone light. So this heavy, old man went before me. But I was still the first person from my group, so it still sucked. Anyway, I’m sitting there with a look of complete terror on my face (this was all recorded on camera) waiting till I had to jump. They’re hooking me up and the man says that the more you weigh, the tighter the rope pulls so you’re safer….he’s telling this to the person who weighed the least…basically telling me that I was the least safe out of the group, great! They tie no knots when they’re attaching the bungee to your feet. I got all hooked up, carried out to the edge. I’m standing there with my few friends yelling behind me words of good riddance. I didn’t look down before I jumped, but I knew what was down there. The two men yelled, “5-4-3-2-1-BUNGEE” and pushed me off the side of the bridge!! I made sure I was going head first and I almost enjoyed the free fall. The rebounding wasn’t so bad either, it’s not painful like it looks in videos. But every time I rebounded, I felt like I was going to flip back over, so my arms were flailing all over the place. I don’t know how many times I rebounded, but it was a lot.

When the rebounds stopped and I was just hanging there by my feet, I got a chance to look around and admire the scenery. It was very pretty and not too scary until I looked up and saw how far from the bridge I was. As I’m hanging there, I feel like my feet are going to slip out of the rope and so I’m flexing my feet so I don’t fall! (I was told this is a natural feeling) I also felt like I peed my pants. I was certain that I peed my pants and the more I thought about it, the more I had to go and the more I got embarrassed about when I would have to go to the top. I started wondering where the man was who was supposed to come and get me and I thought people at the top might be able to hear me, so I yelled “Hello?” I got a “hello” back. Then I said impatiently, “Come and get me” and a man yelled back at me “I’m coming!” When he finally got to me I grabbed on to his legs so tightly and we began to be hoisted back to the top. He asked me how I liked it, but I just said I wanted to go back to the top. I was still so embarrassed that I had peed my pants so I was trying to cover that up and ask about a bathroom. Of course though, there is no bathroom on the platform. When we got to the top, they unhooked me and then a man started trying to talk to me, asking about the jump and stuff, all I said was “I really need to go to the bathroom” then I looked down and saw that there was a microphone on his shirt. I figured out that I was being videotaped and it was displayed on a tv for everyone else to see!!! AHHHH! Embarrassing! I immediately went to sit down and told my roommate Emma about the pee problem. She looked down and informed me that I had not peed my pants! I don’t know what I was thinking but I guess it was all just my imagination because luckily, I didn’t!

All in all this was another thing that is checked off the list to never be done again. I watched the rest of my group go and that was more fun. Then we went back and bought tshirts, pictures and dvds of our jumps. We all hopped in our cars and drove the two hours back to PE!

Since I’ve been home it’s been so nice to sleep in my own bed with clean sheets and towels. To have a new bunch of clothes to wear, clean laundry, warm showers, an actual kitchen. All the things you miss from home. I’ve been busy getting re-situated and now I need to kick out a lot of papers again for this week and next week.

Wilderness

Still on Friday we drove to Wilderness, all this time each night we were getting closer and closer to home. When we got there we checked into our hostel which was on top of a mountain over looking other mountains, the city and the ocean. Such a beautiful view again. This hostel was also a farm, yes on top of a mountain! We then went and rented canoes and went canoeing down a river that went from a waterfall all the way to the ocean. Well actually, we started at the ocean end and canoed to the waterfall. Well even more actually, we canoed till the river got too shallow and eventually had to hike the last 45 minutes to get to the waterfall. But this time there really was a waterfall and we went swimming in the pool that was formed at the top and bottom of the waterfall. It was super fun, beautiful and refreshing/freezing! And the canoe ride was fun because you know how I love canoeing! The paddles were weird though and they were one stick with a paddle on each end, like a kayak paddle. It worked though. The hike was easy and it was fun walking on the rocks around the waterfall. Everything is so gosh dang beautiful here, you wouldn’t believe it! Friday night some people went out to dinner, but I opted with the group that stayed on the farm/on top of the mountain. We cooked hotdogs, corn, potatoes, beans and s’mores over the fire. It was a great night for it, pretty cool and a full moon.

Ostrich Riding in Oudtshoorn

First thing on Friday, we stopped halfway through our drive to do a little ostrich riding in Oudtshoorn. The only reason I wanted to do it is because I remember Grandpa telling me about he did it in Australia. Anyway, I was so terrified of that ostrich I was almost crying. All the girls in my group were just laughing at me! The guy tried to make me go first, but luckily I passed that role off onto someone else. Then when it was my turn, I still really didn’t want to go, but since I paid $5 for it I felt I needed to. To catch an ostrich, you put a sack over its head so that it can’t see you and it becomes immediately calm (ostriches are one of the stupidest animals and have the mentality that if they can’t see you, you can’t see them). Then to hop on it, you grab each of its wings and sit kind of on its back, kind of on its butt so you’re almost falling off. Then squeeze your knees around its middle section and lean back! If you know how much I love animals, you can imagine how much I loved riding on this thing. It was seriously the worst, I was more scared of that ostrich than I was of skydiving! I rode it around the pen once, surrounded by other ostriches that seemed ready to peck me to death. Four of the other girls were running around with their ostriches too. One girl got bucked off by hers. I wish I did, but I was stuck on mine because they didn’t tell me how to get off! So I’m just riding this thing around, about to cry, with pictures being taken and such, and I’m yelling to the guy who works with these horrid birds to take me off. While I was trying to get on and while I was trying to ride and while I was asking to get off, these men are just yelling all these commands at me. And everything was contradicting! It was “squeeze your knees,” “lean back,” “lean forward,” “let go,” “loosen up!” So confusing, finally one man felt sorry for me and told me I could just let go and slide off whenever I wanted to. So I waited until I wasn’t completely surrounded by other ostriches and made my escape! As we walked toward the car I said, “There’s one thing I can cross of my list and I never have to do again!”

Mossel Bay

Thursday our group drove to Mossel Bay where we planned on doing shark cage diving. But the outfit was honest with us and said they hadn’t seen a shark in almost two weeks and advised us not to pay the large amount of money to go. We’re going to try and go back in a couple weeks, when “shark season” will pick up. Instead a couple of us went scuba diving and the rest of the group went snorkeling. It was cool, the water was clearer than in PE and there was more underwater life. Our guide brought food down with us and so we were surrounded by fish and even some small, and harmless, sharks came. They were swimming between my legs and stuff, it was cool. We only had to keep our hands in a fist so that they wouldn’t think our fingers were pieces of food. After scuba diving we went out on a jet boat, which I can honestly say I don’t think most readers of this blog who I am related to would have enjoyed (unless your Dad or Mac). It was just a really wild boat ride that went flying over huge swells. We weren’t buckled in at all, just holding on to a metal bar. Yes, I thought I was going to fly out. You had to stay standing because if you were seated when the boat came down on the water you probably would’ve had the wind knocked out of you. It was crazy. We did slow down once though to see a large pack/herd/family? of dolphins that were surfacing. So that was really cool. Afterward we went out to dinner again and then dancing!

Swellendam

Wednesday we woke up early and drove to Swellendam. We stayed at backpackers there that was very large with a lot of people staying there. We were in a room with ten people, so there was us 9 girls and then Nick from Germany. I think he had a good time because we included him in everything that we did. There was also a large family of baboons that lived at this hostel, or in the woods right by it. So we had fun watching them. About half of us went on a hike during the day to see a waterfall, only to find out that there was a drought and the waterfall was no longer existent! It was still a good hike though. Then we went on what was my favorite part of spring break! We went on a “Sundowners Cruise” (sundowner=happy hour drinks). It was a little drive away but in a lake formed from a dam. It was a huge, homemade, double-decker pontoon that took us on a cruise around the lake and down a stream through some cliffs. It was only us and Nick on the boat. We had a great time just going around on the boat and when we got to the cliffs, we took out kayaks and went deep into the cliffs to see a waterfall that was still running! Some people went cliff jumping, but I didn’t. The water was black from the roots of the trees that grow there or something like that. On the way back, the driver stopped and we jumped off the top deck of the boat. It was fun to swim in fresh water (although some people’s doctors warned not to swim in fresh water in South Africa) and of course to jump off from up high. Some girls were scared, but I helped them all jump! We went out to dinner at a seafood restaurant with Nick too. When we got back home we had a fire and made s’mores with weird crackers and strawberry flavored marshmallows, but it was good!

Franschoek

Tuesday morning we rented bikes from the info center in Stellenbosch and biked around the town. It is a very beautiful town and the second oldest in South Africa. It has very old fashioned gutters that line every street with a small cement bridge that goes over the gutter to get into someone’s driveway. While we were biking, we saw our jazz music professor walking around with her family, they were on holiday too. We then biked to another vineyard. The bike ride was beautiful because it is fall here and the leaves were all changing colors in the mountains and around the gorgeous vineyards. Some people returned their bikes then and drove around town for lunch and then to more vineyards. But me and two other girls kept our bikes and biked to another vineyard and had wine and chocolates. Tuesday night we drove to Franshoek (where we had visited two vineyards on the wine tour on Monday) to stay at another backpackers. It was a big house in a vineyard with beautiful mountains on all sides. This was a new backpackers and they said that our group was the first large group that they had ever had. So they made this huge South African stew for us with lamb and it was so good! We only paid $3 for it too! We just sat around after dinner talking and then we went camping! But the camping wasn’t actual camping, because there were mattresses with sheets and a comforter in there and tons of room for our bags and such. But it was still fun to sleep outside with the nice scenery and stars.

Stellenbosch

Monday we picked up our rental cars, early in the morning and drove to Stellenbosch. Stellenbosch is in the heart of wineland country and about 45 minutes away from Cape Town. There is also a university there, so we fit right in! We checked into our backpackers and hopped on a minibus to go on our wine tour from 10-5 (almost a full-time job I know!) We went to 4 vineyards and out to lunch. My favorite wine was a Chenin Blanc (dry white). We saw how wine was made, tasted wines, tasted cheeses and homemade breads, and just had a great time. I feel like an expert on wine now, so this summer I’ll help pick out some good ones for us to taste around the fire. I bought a couple of bottles, but I haven’t decided yet if I’ll be able to bring them home with me or not. After the wine tour we went out to eat at Cubana and had some more Mexican food (something that we all miss). Something scary happened on this night. I guess around 3am some girls who were staying in the hostel decided to make pizza. Somehow, they left the gas stove on and went to sleep. Luckily, my roommate Alison woke up around 5am or so and smelled the gas and immediately went and switched it off. She then checked on all of us and made sure we were still awake because the gas smell was so strong in our room. We told the hostel owners about the problem, but nothing was ever really done. Thankfully, we were only staying there one night.

And on the Seventh Day...

On Sunday everyone else took the bus back to PE while myself and the 8 girls I planned my spring break with stayed one more night in Cape Town at the same backpackers. We took the day easy because we knew we had a big week ahead of us! I went shopping with a few of the girls at some African markets and to a very fancy mall. My only and best purchase was a belly button ring that has the South African flag on it that I probably will never take off again I love it so much! Then the 9 of us started our bonding by going out to dinner in a ritzy suburb of Cape Town called Camps Bay. We sat at a table outside right by the beach and had some great seafood. It was a cold night though, so the restaurant gave us all a fleece blanket to warm up in! I think restaurants in MN should start to give out blankets to cold customers!

Jazz Festival

Friday night and Saturday night we went to the International Jazz Festival. This was THE event in Cape Town, the whole city was trying to get tickets to attend this event. Luckily, we were all planned out and taken care of. There were 5 different stages in the Civic Center, some indoor and some outdoor and we were able to just walk around and listen to all the artists as they overlapped. It was a great time and we heard some great South African artists. Not every band played jazz, some were a lot more contemporary and even rap, so we stuck to those ones. We were way, way the minority and everyone was very friendly toward us so we met a lot of people too. Actually everywhere we go we meet a lot of people. Everyone here is so friendly and as soon as they hear our accents, they want to talk to us, take pictures with us and make plans with us. After the jazz festival, our whole group went out to Long Street, the main spot in Cape Town that had a New Orleans feel to it, for dancing.

Parliament, Robben Island and Lions Head

On Friday we took a tour of Parliament. South Africa has two capitals, Pretoria is the capital for the president and Cape Town is the capital for legislature. I think that’s right, Kate? The tour was interesting and educational, however Parliament was not in session so we just saw a bunch of empty buildings! After this we went to see Robben Island! This is where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned for 17 years (an additional 10 years were spent at other prisons). We got a tour of the whole island, which is only a couple miles off the coast of Cape Town. The island is now home to a village of people, all who work at the museum that was built out of the former prison. We took a bus tour of the whole island and then had a tour of the cell blocks, including the cell where Mandela lived. Our tour guide was a former political prisoner and gave us tons of stories of his personal experiences. This tour was so interesting and educational and when I left I was feeling very sad.

Saturday was a free day, so I spent the morning relaxing and reading. I started reading the popular Twilight series (the one about the vampire love affair you probably have heard about or seen the movie previews). I am caught up in the series and that is distracting me from my school work now haha. Anyway after I read half of my book, I hiked Lions Head with my friend Kirby. Its a mountain that looks like a Lions Head from the profile view. I wanted to do Table Mountain but no one else who didn’t go the other day wanted to and Kirby had already done Table Mountain. So we hiked the mountain that is half its size and right next to it. It was still a great hike and we got to see the beautiful city and a nice view of Table Mountain. Kirby decided for us that we would take the more rigorous trail that required us to use ladders and chains to climb up. So that was an experience! I’ll put up a funny picture of me trying to get up the chains.

Penguins, Cape of Good Hope and Cape Point

Thursday morning we left early for a full day excursion on our bus. First we went to Simonstown where we looked a colony of penguins. Can you imagine penguins living in Africa? It was the weirdest sight, almost as weird as the cows on the beach, to see all these penguins lying on the white sand! The Atlantic Ocean is in Cape Town so it is cold enough for them. Babies were just hatched so there were tons of cute penguins to watch. Next we went to the Cape of Good Hope which is the southwestern-most point of Africa. It used to be called the Cape of Storms because the storms kept ships from going around the point and returning. Once a ship made it around the point and lived to tell about it, it was renamed the Cape of Good Hope. It was the windiest day in the world while we were here and we barely could take a step without falling over. I think the combination of strong winds in the country and being on this point made it so difficult, but we just held on to each other and stayed low to the ground to make it out to the point for pictures. Next we went to Cape Point, which I guess I don’t really know the significance of. Maybe it was just the next point down the coast. Anyway there were several hikes to do there and lighthouses to see, so we did that for a few hours. When we got back to our hostel, aka backpackers, we got ready to go out to see a play. The play was called Coming Home and it was about a coloured (a person who is some mix of white and black) family living on a farm near Cape Town and the hardships they faced because of apartheid and AIDS. It was very interesting to see and get that perspective.

Table Mountain

Here we go, “quick” update of my spring break. Which by the way, isn’t spring break…it’s fall holiday. Of course! That confuses us every time too, but I think the South Africans get more confused when we told them we were on spring break. Haha! I’m going to post this in bits so it is easier to read.


From the last post, the Holocaust museum and the Jewish museum were very interesting. The cable car ride up to the top of Table Mountain was cool too. That mountain is so beautiful and it gives the best view of Cape Town. The city, the ocean and the mountains spread out on all sides. Just gorgeous, check out the pictures of course! The group that hiked up the mountain was very tired because it was the hottest day ever and it was a three hour hike. I regretted not hiking with them a little bit, but I still got to see the top and I’ve hiked a lot so it wouldn’t have been that different. We got to see the sunset on our way down in the cable car which was also beautiful. We went out to eat at a traditional African restaurant as a group that night and had great food!! It was kind of like Buca in that there were several dishes that the whole table just shared. Only difference was that we had unlimited supply of all dishes!

From Scuba to Cape Town

My second day of scuba diving was fun. There were big swells out in the ocean, so we weren’t able to take a boat dive like we planned. Instead, we went in the same spot as on Friday. It was very cool again. Saw some interesting fish and plant life. The water isn’t super blue like you would imagine, but it still had pretty good visibility. We were diving around the “6 pillars” which is the big cement legs that used to hold up a pier. Underwater, they are overgrown with plant life. I got to hold a flute fish, which is long and skinny like a flute and has a head that looks like a sea horse. It was moving very slowly, so we were able to catch it and all hold it for a little bit. After two dives and some more skills, I took my final exam and I am now scuba certified for life! So if anyone ever wants to go somewhere, invite me to come along!

All day Sunday and any freetime on Monday was spent working on my poli sci paper…which is finished! Nice to have that big thing check off my list, but the week after spring break there is another one due! I seriously cannot understand how this teacher would enjoy reading 25- 14 page papers. Monday night I had to stay up late to register for classes online in Central time. So that was fun. I guess what was the most fun is that it is the last time I’ll be registering for classes (since I’ll be student teaching in the spring)!!

Tuesday morning we woke up early, loaded our bags and hopped onto a bus to begin our spring break! 10 hours later we arrived in Cape Town. This is supposedly the best city in South Africa, and so far it’s beauty really ranks high. It is a very metropolitan city bordered by the ocean on one side and mountains on all the others. Most notably is Table Mountain, which is flat like a table and often has a “table cloth” of clouds hanging over it. For dinner we went to a restaurant called Cape to Cuba which had a very interesting mix of food. I had a pasta that wasn’t anything spectacular; but other people had enchiladas with all sorts of weird things in them including onion rings and curry. It really was from Cape to Cuba!

It’s Wednesday now, even if this doesn’t get posted till later in the week or once I get home. This morning we went to see the District 6 museum which told another story of a section of town that kicked out all the non-whites to make them move into townships, similar to ghettos. This museum was different than others that we have seen so far in that it had a lot more community involvement. Many of the people who used to live in District 6 contributed to the exhibits, so that was cool.

About half of our group just left to go climb Table Mountain which is a very strenuous 3 hour hike. I chose to go with the other half of the group to a Holocaust Museum and then take a cable car to the top of Table Mountain. We will meet up with the rest of the group up there, walk around on some trails on the plateau, watch the sunset and then all take the cable car down. It should be beautiful. I am still indecisive about whether or not I made the right decision to go to the museum over the hike. I really wanted to do both and if my plan works I will be able to. We have a free afternoon on Saturday, so I’m hoping I’ll be able to hike the mountain then with a couple people who didn’t go today. But if the mountain is covered in the table cloth, which apparently happens a lot, it will be too dangerous to climb. So I will for sure see the top of the table mountain, I just don’t know if I’ll get to hike it.

I just wanted to get some of this written down now, so I don’t have to try and remember later. Or try to post it all at once! Everyone in my group is praying for those at home who are dealing with this new blizzard, and of course the floods in F/M. Sorry your spring break has turned out to be so long Anna!! Nice to have the time off, but maybe not in these circumstances. I hope everyone else is doing well at home. I know that Mac and my dad printed off most of my blog to bring to Grandpa and Grandma in Arizona this week, so they’re getting caught up on all of this too!

Real Quick...

Just writing to say that I'm on spring break now and I won't be able to post for a little bit. Loving it so far! Lots more to post later~

We have a cockroach...

The highlight of this week, I’m sure was the way I was woken up on Thursday morning. I felt something touching my arm and I thought someone was trying to wake me up. I turned a little bit to see who it was, only to see huge cockroach scamper off my arm and underneath my pillow! This thing was huge, like bigger than a golf ball!!! We have definitely heard horror stories about the cockroaches that live in our apartments, but my apartment hadn’t seen one yet! I jumped out of my bed, checked to see that it was only 5:00am and then made my plan of action. My roommate Alison was already awake because she was calling home, so when she saw me jump she came into my room to help me search. In the process we woke up my bedmate Emma (who sleeps in a separate bed about 6 inches away from mine.) We found it hiding between the boxspring and mattress, but when I went to actually kill it, it got away. We spend a long time searching for it in my things and underneath the bed, but never found it. If I think too much about it, I get grossed out sleeping in my bed. But hopefully it won’t come back again!!

Scuba this weekend was very cool. Although you cannot imagine how hard it is to get into a wet suit. One girl described it as trying to put on a nylon compression sock on your whole body. It is just so tight and so thick and then your legs seem so big that they’ll never fit! It requires teamwork to put them on and off. The rest of the gear is very heavy and hard to walk in. We have a weight belt, the oxygen tank and all the other stuff. It just makes me really unbalanced, so I’m sure I look like the biggest doofus trying to walk around. And then I have to put the flippers on!! We did a shore-entry dive, where we basically just walked into the water and swam out. Swimming with all that gear on against the incoming waves was kind of hard. Diving is super fun, after you get past the gut instinct that you need to go up for air. Because once you’re down on the bottom, it is hard to just go back up fast. You might get sick from the change in pressure if you move up or down too fast. We were diving about 15 meters deep. We saw the leg of an octopus coming out from the rocks, a huge lobster with long antennas, sea anemones and tons of fish. We just swam around a lot and then did some skills on the bottom of the ocean. When we tried to stay still at the bottom, the waves rocked us back and forth so much that we had to all link together so that no one would float away on their own. If you get sea sick, you wouldn’t have liked sitting on the bottom!!

I’m going diving again today, as long as the weather cooperates. Not too much progress on that paper, I’ll need to whip that out tonight and tomorrow. Then we only have class on Monday this week and it’s spring break! I cannot even tell you all how fast this trip is flying by. And I know that after spring break, everything will go even faster. Just because we have trips planned for every weekend and there are a lot more papers and such to keep us busy going from one week to the next. I love it! But it is hard to take it all in, I hope I’m not taking anything here for granted. We just keep reminding ourselves, we’re in Africa!

Pendla

Volunteering this week was great. I feel helpful and welcome in the 3rd grade classroom. Monday we taught a lesson on conjunctions. We didn't do it too creatively, but we got the kids involved so I think that was good. During break we played follow the leader and I made the kids do such silly things. They loved it! After break the teacher, I'm not sure of her name yet, taught and it was cool to see how she teaches. She does a better job than the other teachers I've seen here, but she still relies on repetition and rote memorization too heavily.

Tuesday we finished our lesson on conjunctions with a game we made up. That worked pretty well, anytime you tell children they get to play a game at school they get excited! I was thinking on this day, as it was so hot in their classroom, about how once the schools in MN start to get hot that the kids go crazy! Once summer gets close, hardly any learning gets done in many classrooms. But here, they deal with that all the time. But the kids do good, they're used to it. They wear sweaters and high knee socks! Sometimes the teachers make an announcement to the class telling all the kids to take off their sweaters. I don't know why, but I'll be sweating hot in a t-shirt and most of the kids still have their sweaters on! The teachers think it's weird too I guess. After break we decided to take a picture of each student with their name written on the chalkboard behind them. You should have seen how excited they got! They were laughing so hard each time someone else had their picture taken and then they were so shy when it was there turn. I made them say "chees" and show their teeth and that was of course the funniest thing of all!

Today is my last day of class this week, whew it went by fast! Nothing too exciting though. Tomorrow I will be devoting myself to my large political science paper that is due on Tuesday. Scuba diving Saturday and Sunday (I'll definitely have things to write about that!) And already on Tuesday we leave for Cape Town (the biggest and supposedly the best city in South Africa). We'll be there as a group for 5 days. Then Sunday our spring break begins. Me and 8 other girls (3 of my roommates and then 5 from the flat below us) are taking a tour of the Garden Route. That is the coastline from Cape Town to Port Elizabeth. Some of the planned events are wineland tours, shark cage diving, bungee jumping (I'm not sure if I'll do this one), hiking, mountain biking, horse back riding, scuba diving....this is going to be an expensive trip! And busy!

Glad to see that Jessie and Anna made it back safely! How is everyone's reality hitting as spring breaks end? Well Mac and Mom, you still have yet to start! Have fun in Arizona!! If you are looking for things to do, ask Kay about maybe booking a ticket to the TrailRiders Rockettes!!

Political Rally

Hello blog readers! This is the blog writer, not complaining about poor internet service, but posting nonetheless.
The Human Rights Day activities this past Saturday were quite the experience!! We drove to a town about an hour away, Uitenhage for the events. Once we got off the freeway, the streets were lined with people walking to the stadium. There were COPE (Congress of the People, the new political party formed of ex-ANC members) and ANC (African National Congress, the ruling political party) members all walking to the "freedom day events." I put that like that because instead of commemorating the people who died to secure their freedom, this day was more of a political rally. I guess both the ANC and COPE booked the stadium in Uitenhage to hold their days events. Obviously, they are opposing parties and couldn't both be in the same place and this became a legal issue. So 2:00am on Saturday, the judge decided that COPE would get the stadium and the ANC would have several hours to relocate and replan their event. So when we go there around 11:00 all the ANC members were just hanging out in a field next to the stadium, and this is where the political rally/Human Rights Day events occurred. When our combies were driving through the mass of people, everyone was cheering because we were white supporters coming. When we got out of our combies at the field, we were just stared at (not in a mean way). But it was fun, everyone was super friendly and excited that we were there. Once they found out we were Americans and not able to vote in the April 22nd election, they didn't care as much about us. We hopped in on some dancing and singing, listened to a speaker who spoke on a makeshift stage. The day was just full of meeting people and visiting with them. Super fun!

We were all super tired after that, so I took a good long nap. Then went out to dinner at that weird pizza place, but stuck to just plain cheese this time. Saturday night we went to a jazz concert. I stayed for several songs, but then went home to bed!!

Sunday was my first day of scuba diving! We had several hours of movies to go through and quizzes to take for the "classroom" part (really it was held in our flats, watching from a computer screen). Then we went to an outdoor pool on campus for the first in water sessions! It was really cool to be able to breathe underwater! Although the pool was so murky and gross, it had algae growing in it!!!! But it was still fun and we at least had mouth pieces in so we didn't drink the water. I did pretty well on all the skills and am ready for 4 ocean sessions this weekend on Saturday and Sunday!

I'll post more later, gotta run to class!!

The Last Week or So

Get ready for the longest blog ever…I know you think it’s impossible after all of my previous long-winded posts but this might be the mother of them all!! I should’ve put the pictures in between them to break it up a bit, but that just worked out to be easier. On that note, I’m going to aim for quick snipets of my going-ons here.

Volunteering Update: Last week I didn’t go to Pendla on Monday because we had just gotten back from Durban. Tuesday was just an ordinary teaching day. First period went by with no teaching done by Ms. Mkrola. Second and third periods were both with the 5th grade so Heather and I taught an improvised lesson. Fourth period was supposed to be math with a different teacher who never materialized, so we kept teaching. At recess a girl who was bleeding was following me around so I took her inside to try and get a band-aid. Ms. Mkrola told me the school has no first aid kit. This is going to sound bad, but I purposefully ditched this child because there is a possibility that she could have AIDS or another disease. I found out later that there are band-aids in the office. But we need to work on getting gloves and sterilizing equipment.
Okay and here is where I need all of your help!! I am in charge of a recess planning committee. This is because we don’t know what to do with the 500 children at recess. Of course they can entertain themselves, but they mostly like to hang on us for the whole 30 minutes (usually closer to 45 because of the lack of clocks). I just need to compile a list of activities that CSB/SJU students could engage the students in. The older children already play netball and soccer so they’re pretty much set. The problem is the younger children like to be with us, but they don’t know English. So it is hard to teach them any games. If you could, next time you comment, add any ideas of recess games that we could play that don’t require a ton of directions or supplies. The ages would be 5-15 years old. I already have things like ring-around-the-rosy, follow the leader, simon says…Thanks!

This week at Pendla was different. Ms. Mkrola was gone on Monday, so we followed around another teacher and two St. Bens students. We taught a little bit and watched that teacher teach. She does a better job with the students, but her main method of teaching is rote memorization. Tuesday we were informed that Ms. Mkrola may be fired from her position at Pendla. Apparently she mainly comes only on Monday and Tuesdays when Heather and I are there to teach for her. The rest of the days she says she has a sick child. The principal doesn’t want to fire her because it took them 2 years to get a new teacher assigned to that classroom from the government. Firing her would possibly make them without a teacher for another two years. (South Africa has good policies, but delivery takes forever.) So to make things easier and make our experience better, we were reassigned to a 3rd grade classroom. This was a great switch and immediately we felt more situated. The 3rd graders are of course adorable and excited to have us in their classroom. The teacher is a lot more organized and able to teach. The only downfall is that most of the teaching is done in Xhosa. But we are still able to help. For instance, math was occurring while we were there. She gave us some things she needs typed up on a computer and printed off and a lesson on conjunctions to teach next week. The school has one computer and a printer that sometimes works. Most of the teachers don’t know how to use the computer. Pendla is going well now, even better than before.

Last week nothing really exciting happened during the week, just normal classes I think. I definitely have gotten into my routine here and consider PE home now. Friday we went on a group excursion to Grahamstown and KingWilliamstown (both are names that will probably be changed like that street sign). We took a coach bus, Grahamstown was about an hour and a half away and KingWilliamstown about two and a half. The topic of the daytrip was land distribution. During apartheid something like 10% of the population owned 87% of the land. In Grahamstown we were taught about a battle between the Xhosa tribe and the English. Then we went to an old jail that has been turned into an art studio for Xhosa traditional art. Both were interesting stops. Then we went half way between the two towns and met with the mayor of the municipality and some members of the African National Congress (ANC, the political party that Nelson Mandela was president of and is the current ruling party). They talked to us about land distribution. Next we went KingWilliamstown to the home of Steven Biko. He was the head of the Black Consciousness Movement and was brutally murdered by the police during the apartheid regime. Our events went a little long so we didn’t have much time to spend here and we had to skip our last planned event. We then drove back through Grahamstown, where 12 of us were dropped off at an old prison, now a hostel. We went out for dinner and then went to bed early at the Old Gaol Hostel. It was a cool place, but too dreary to stay very long or have any fun!

In the morning we woke up early, took a shuttle and then a taxi to Hogsback. Here we stayed at a hostel called Away with the Fairies. The town is up in the Hogsback Mountains. There are three mountains that look like the backs of hogs (with hair on their back) kind of like Camelback Mountain in Mesa. It was so foggy when we got there that we were standing in the mist! We got situated and then went for our first hike. It went in a big loop to and from the hostel with two waterfalls along the way. It was a great hike, although the fog made the ground very wet and the mud slippery. It looked like a jungle there, it was very beautiful. The waterfalls were also amazing and so was the climb through the rocks to get to them! They were called Bridal Veil Falls and Madonna and Child Falls. That night we were all so tired for our close to 20km hike that after dinner we just went to bed.

Sunday morning we woke up early to get another hike in before we had to get on the road. This one took us to two more waterfalls. Instead of jungle, it was more like forest with pine trees and such. One of the waterfalls was called 39 Steps because the rocks were formed like a staircase. This made a perfect spot for climbing and playing in the cold water! Then we took a combie, then a taxi, then a bus, then another taxi to make it back to our flats. It may have been cheaper to arrange rental cars! But oh well, we didn’t have to drive ourselves through the mountains at least.

Again just an ordinary week of class. I had my first test in music class, it was pretty easy. But we’ll see when I get my grade! We went to a jazz concert on campus that was cool. We also all went to a rugby game on campus that was fun, although NMMU lost big time. These nighttime events made me not do very much homework this week but I survived. I finally got internet to work at my flat and have posted a lot of pictures on the blog and on Facebook, so check that out. I haven’t posted any Hogsback pictures on my blog yet, but they’re on Facebook if you can get there. I hope to post some new videos too. This Saturday is Human Rights Day so we will be going to some events, including listening to Nelson Mandela’s ex-wife Winnie Mandela speak. Sunday I start my scuba diving training with classroom learning and two outdoor pool dives! I also will be starting on 12 page paper that is due the day before spring break!

I’m glad everyone who’s had a spring break has been enjoying it! Cassie and Drew down south on their hiking trip makes me jealous…Anna and Jessie finally connected to my continent with Megan…Erin and Andrew viewing the Iditrod(sp?)…and everyone else enjoying the warm MN weather! To keep up with my lateness on birthdays, down here I’m still celebrating Kay’s birthday and Grandma Neal’s birthday!! What’s new at home? Have Ben and Kelly bought a house in Plymouth yet?? How’s the quilting business going Charlotte? I got my hair cut and dyed today and I maybe a little too blonde now! So look for that in any new pictures I post!

Umm okay well that wasn’t too long! Took me a while to write because I forgot everything, but hopefully you enjoy it! I’m going to watch a move and then get to bed because I think we’ll be outside all day tomorrow for Freedom Day events. Good night everyone! I hope you all have good weekends!! And for all you Companeros fanatics, in case you didn’t see on Suzie’s profile or in case you’re not friends with her on Facebook…Laura is turning 50 this weekend!!!

Boring Blog

I know this blog has turned a little bit boring over the last week, and unfortunately it will continue to bore its readers with the same-old posts for another few days. Internet has become a bit of a problem for me. Usually I'm able to post from my flat, but the internet has been down there for the last two weeks. The school's internet is too slow for most websites to load in the half hour I have here. I got on today, but only because I have an extended break. It's all just frustrating! But I'm planning on going to an internet cafe this weekend. So I'll post then about volunteering, events last week and this week and my hiking trip to the Hogsback Mountains this past weekend! And of course, I will finally post pictures of Hole in the Wall, Coffee Bay, Durban and the Hog's backs! Hope everyone is doing well! Our weather was pretty similar yesterday as it got quite cold and you with your warm spell! Weird, but we'll probably start overlapping more often as you move into spring and I move into fall! Okay I'm sending my love over there right now and I'll post later! Thanks for reading this!

Pictures from Hole in the Wall and Durban

Birds of Paradise flowers are everywhere down here.

Dad, I bought you a new fishing boat. Maybe you can take me and some friends out fishing this summer?

The city of Durban from the water, while out on the Shark Net tour.

Safely back on the ground, me with Joe.

On the way down...

Flying through the clouds, best feeling!

Best skydiving picture ever!!

Climbing to 10,000 feet, this took about 20 minutes.

The tiny little plane! I was sitting in the back of the plane and the two men had their feet on me. That's Martin with the bald head who jumped with me! The door is on the left side and wide open!!

Getting ready in my jumpsuit, notice my butt guard!

The girl skydivers!

Since the new government took over in 1994, South Africa has been going through and changing names of EVERYTHING from colonial names to African names, or neutral names. This is one example, Queen St. was changed to Fishmarket St. They keep both signs up until people get used to the new names, but you can see the red line going through queen.

The traditional herbs being sold. The love potion was kept in a separte bag in the back!

The HOLE in the wall! I swam almost all the way into this, didn't bring my camera with unfortunately.

On our hike, we climbed that mountain/hill behind me. In this picture I also walked into some sort of poison ivy or something and had a burning leg all day!

The cows on the beach! We layed down with them a while later.

Hole in the Wall from far away. Its on the right hand side of this rock.

The drive down to hole in the wall.

This is what we got to drink the Xhosa beer out of. Just passing it around with people we don't know....

The girls dancing for us. This inside the headman's hut, which is the largest in the village.

Durban

The weekend in Durban went great. Although I am exhausted because there was hardly any downtime. I got back this morning at 9:30 from the airport. I called Rory to leave a message in the middle of the night (it would have been around 2:30), he answered and was wide awake because he was driving down to Sauk to catch a truck to North Dakota again. They’ve moved on from Rolla a little bit and are now working in Foreman. The timing of my phone call was impeccable and we finally got to catch up because all my roommates were sleeping and he was in the car! Anyway, here’s the play by play of my weekend. To put the weekend into one statement is: I feel a lot more cultured.

Thursday, we arrived in Durban. This is one of the largest cities in the country with the biggest port in Africa (6th in the world I think). It is a very beautiful and urbanized city. But it of course also has the townships outside of the main city. We stayed at a hostel here, called Surf ‘n Dreams. Although it was nowhere near the beach. It wasn’t the best of accommodations. It was in a house, so the owners lived there too. And they just seemed to despise having us there! Just not the type of people to own a hostel. Anyway Thursday we went to the Temple of Understanding. Which is a Hindu temple that was built in part to recognize apartheid. A man there discussed the temple and described Hinduism for us. The temple was very beautiful. After the tour, a group of dancers came to perform for us outside the temple. They mixed African Zulu tribe traditions, Hindu and Indian traditional dance forms. The result was very beautiful and interesting to watch. They had performed at Nelson Mandela’s inauguration and also at this private performance for us, so we felt very special. For dinner we went out to an Indian restaurant. We were the only people in the restaurant and they had a buffet for us. Unfortunately all the food was too spicy for me, so I mainly ate rice and tortilla like bread. Which was still very good.

Friday morning we went on a walking tour of the “oriental” part of Durban. The tour was kind of funny in the fact that we really only saw the mall and then every market possible. It was a lot of walking. One cool thing we saw was a traditional healing market (the largest in Africa). I think it was a mix of Indian and Zulu healers. (A sidenote, in this part of South Africa Zulus are the main group of people. In Port Elizabeth, Xhosa is the main group. Durban also has the largest Indian population in the country.) The healing items they sold were tree barks, tree leaves, roots, animal body parts, and animal blood. It was very weird, but interesting. Of course it had a smell to it. I could have bought some love potion! During our freetime this day, we went shopping in the mall and in one of the nicer markets. I bought a dress to where for one of the August weddings! Friday night we went out to eat and to a jazz concert. It was fun to listen to the music, but our food and drinks took hours. Some people never got their food. It was quite a hassle. I can honestly say that I have not had one server here who would make it under the strict governance of Companeros management! This was also my roommate Alison’s 21st birthday so we celebrated that in style at the jazz concert.

Saturday morning we went to the KwaMuhle Museum. It was about how the apartheid system worked in Durban, mainly how it affected the Indians. This was very interesting and applied to a few of my classes. I love it when something I learn in class helps me understand something I see in a culture here, or vice versa.

We had freetime again today. And you’ll never guess what I did!!!! Saturday morning, a group of people organized a trip to go sky diving. I never really thought about it, but counted myself in. So 11 of us piled in a taxi to drive about an hour to Pietermaritzberg to go sky diving! Since I didn’t plan it in advance, I didn’t get too nervous. I just didn’t think about it. I watched several people go ahead of me (11 of us went). When it was my turn I started to get a little nervous, but still not too bad. I put on a jumpsuit and a harness and walked out to the plane. It was tandem sky diving, so I was going down hooked up to Martin. My friend Joe and his tandem were going at the same time as me. The plane was tiny, only a four seater. But it had no seats. It also had no door. Luckily, I sat in the back and the three boys crammed in in the front. Climbing up to 10,000 feet we had beautiful views. I took lots of pictures. It was a cloudy day, so the clouds looked a little like snow. There was a bumper sticker in the plane that said “When people look like ants, pull. When the ants look like people, pray.” I memorized this advice. All of a sudden, we were at the right altitude. And I really mean all of a sudden, the whole prep and jump happened so fast there was no time for me to think about it! I was hooked to Martin at four points. He had two parachutes on his back. There was also a computer to set off the parachute in case he had a heart attack or something. Just like that, Joe was out the window, I didn’t even get to say good luck or good bye. Then just like that, one foot after another my legs were out the window. I tucked in my elbows and 1, 2, Martin pushed us out! We started off in freefall, which lasted about 35 seconds. But I barely even remember it. Martin said it would feel like 5 seconds to me since it was my first time. I put my legs toward my butt and arched my back and we started to do flips. After about two flips I think, Martin hit my hip 3 times. This was to signal me to pull the cord for the parachute to go off. I was not paying attention and so confused though that I didn’t pull it. Thinking of my safety first I’m sure, Martin pulled the parachute for us both. It went up and it was yellow!! The parachuting down was my favorite part because it felt like you were flying like a bird. You could control your movement with handles on the parachute. You could make it standstill, where you literally don’t move. You could make it go straight down really fast. Or you could spin it downward, which was my favorite. I was taking pictures and just not coordinated enough to steer the parachute, so Martin did that. This part lasted about 6 minutes in the air. The view was beautiful. I could always see the landing strip and Joe’s parachute below me. When I got closer, I saw and heard all my friends waiting at the small airport for us. The landing was a little rough. We hit on our feet first then slid on our butts. Which is what we are supposed to do, I just hurt my ankles initially a little bit. As soon as we had all gone, we hopped in the taxis and rushed back to Durban because we were going to be late for the ballet!

The ballet was the infamous Russian Ballet. We were only 15 minutes late, although we didn't look the best. I surprisingly enjoyed the ballet, the dancers were amazing. Afterward we went out to eat for Mexican food. The restaurant was called Taco Zulu and was good. Pretty close to normal Mexican food, although no comps. And the service was extremely slow again, we didn't get home till 12:00am.

Sunday I got to go out on the shark boats, which wasn't as cool as I made it sound. I guess the shark boats don't take on passengers on the weekend or something, so we were in a different boat watching the shark boat. There is a problem with sharks in Durban, so they have nets enclosing the beach. There actually are many separate nets that overlap, so boats can get through, as well as dolphins and fish. But the sharks come in from out of sea, so they don't know the nets as part of the habitat and can't figure out how to get through them. 1-2 sharks a month get stuck in the nets. That's what we were looking for. We didn't see any, but it still was really fun. Just being out on a boat was fun. There were huge waves and some people got sea sick. But I took dramamine beforehand just in case. After this the group split up, I went on a nature hike in New Germany, a little outside of Durban. It was a fairly easy hike and enjoyable to be outside. Durban is (in my opinion) the hottest city in SA. It was really hot this weekend, so the hike was hard in that respect. We saw lakes, pretty views from hills, impala, and blue duiker (like a really, really small deer kind of). They also had snakes in cages. I got to hold a python (like a boa constrictor). We also saw this python constrict and eat a mouse. Kind of gross, but cool. Then we went out to eat at the Mexican restaurant again. It's pretty rare to see that here, so we wanted to take advantage of it. Sunday night we went to a comedy show. The man was very talented and funny. We didn't get all the jokes because we don't know everything about SA yet.

Oh and I think this was Saturday night, that the first crime happened in our group. Sometime in the middle of the night, someone got into the hostel (it is all fenced in with electric fence) and stole money, cameras and cell phones from the boys. The 10 boys were in a room that was the extension from the garage. The shady hostel managers never gave them a key for their room. It happened while they were sleeping. It may be a blessing that they didn't wake up because then there could have been violence. 4 of the boys didn't have anything stolen because they were in the back of the room. The 20 of us girls were in the main house and although we didn't have keys for our individual rooms, we did have a key for the house. It was very sad.

Then Monday we flew home. As always, I'll have to post pictures later. The internet doesn't work at our flat at the moment, so I'm at an internet cafe. Tomorrow we have volunteering and school so I'll be able to go on again there.

Thank you for all your thoughts about Pendla school here. Mom, I will try and think of something that you can do. We do have a large account of money that we raised before we left that we'll do something with for the kids. Half of that has to go to the AIDS Haven, which has their own needs too. We'll see how tomorrow goes!

SCHOOL

What would it be like to go to school at Pendla Primary in Port Elizabeth, South Africa?

· You would have to walk a long distance to school every day. If you’re young, the roads you would need to cross would be too dangerous for you.

· You would start school with prayer (at a public school).

· Your hallways would be outside. There would be no air conditioning, so you’d have to keep all the windows and doors open, even if it’s raining.

· As a white student, you would be the minority. Or more specifically, the only white person in a 5 mile radius.

· Your teacher may be late for school. Or she may not come at all. If she doesn’t come, plan on being put into another grade and just trying to follow along for the day. If you don’t know anything about what that grade is learning, you can just sit on the floor in front of the chalkboard for the day. There are no substitute teachers.

· There would be between 30 and 50 students in your class.

· Where would you sit? Your chair would be broken in some way. The legs might not be attached to the chair part, so you would fall off if you weren’t paying attention. The back of your chair may be broken off, so there is sharp jagged plastic to watch out for. You might have a chair that is much too small for you, like 1st grade size chair in a 7th grade room. You can write your name on the back of your chair in chalk if you want to try and have the same one each day. Your chair might be taken away if your teacher needs one to sit down in or if there is a guest in the room. Then you should share with another student or just kneel for the time. Chairs are not necessary for learning.

· Your desk would be wooden, like the ones you think of in a little house on the prairie school house.

· You would wear a uniform.

· Your teacher may not be knowledgeable in the subject she is teaching you.

· Name, date, school subject and title must be written at the top of every piece of paper. In perfect cursive. Straight. Use a ruler to make sure. You’ll have about ten minutes of class time to do this, so don’t hurry or anything.

· You’ll switch class subjects every thirty minutes. But there are no clocks and your teachers do not have watches, so don’t expect for that to happen on time. There are 11 thirty-minute periods in a day. Everyday your schedule will switch, don’t expect any sort of routine. You may have English 4 times in one day, but all different and spread out periods. Your teachers also probably will not know what class to be in at what time.

· The little kids still love any attention from the older “cooler” kids and love to give hugs and get high fives.

· The teaching format is lecture. Your teacher will talk, you will write notes. She’ll ask a question and as a class, you will recite the answer or repeat after her. You will not have a chance to play games or do any sort of hands on activity.

· There is no art, gym, computers, special education or science experiments.

· You would have a Xhosa class and an English class. You would try and teach anyone who comes into your classroom your first language, Xhosa. And you would giggle when they can’t make the same noises with their mouth as you.

· Your school wouldn’t have a lot of extra money, so your teachers would give you no form of worksheets, handouts or printed tests.

· There are no overheads, whiteboards, Smartboards or projectors. The chalkboards are old and cracked. It is very hard for you to read what the teacher writes on the board. You and your classmates are in charge of getting the water to dip the chalk into and wiping the chalkboard off for your teachers.

· Your homework is probably a little bit less than schools in the US.

· If you misbehave, you may get hit with a hard plastic stick on your hands. This is against the law.

· Your school notebooks are given to you by the government. Maybe your other school supplies too. At any point your teacher can take your pencils, markers or pens to keep and use for herself. You will constantly be short pencils and erasers and forced to share and borrow from your classmates.

· At recess you can play netball (like basketball) or soccer. Both with deflated balls. You sing songs and love to dance at recess. You get way over the top excited when your picture is taken and when you get to look at yourself on a digital camera screen.

· Your smiles warm the hearts of American college students.

Note: this is ONE school in South Africa. There are many other schools that are more well-off. But most schools in the townships are about the same.

So after reading that, you probably can start to sense some of the things I love about my teaching experience here and some of my frustrations. I go back and forth with loving it and hating it. It is rarely the kids that are the problem, more the teachers I work with and the school system in general. Monday I came home really down on myself and thinking, “Why did I ever think I would want to be a teacher when I grow up?” I seriously began thinking of how I could get out of my major at St. Bens and do something else. I don’t think it was THAT horrible, the bad day was amplified by being stressed out about my papers, tired from being gone all weekend and sad about my friend dying. Tuesday was better and I think every day will get better as I get used to it and the teachers get used to me. On Tuesday we taught a good lesson. There was a double period (an hour then) and we were able to teach new vocab words. To review them, we played charades. The words we acted out were twigs, refreshed, strength, argue, contest and slightly. I think the 4th graders loved to see my teaching partner and I act silly and they got to participate and be loud in class. They don’t get to do that very often.
I’m leaving for Durban in a couple hours. I’m pretty excited about the weekend. It will just be cool to travel with the thirty of us. I know we’re going on a walking tour, a hike, on shark boats and to a ballet. And a lot more stuff to keep us busy for 5 days.

I hope you all have great weekends!! I promise I'll be posting more soon, sorry it's been kind of sporatic.

Anna, how did you like John Hopkins? Is it a pretty school? What’s the area like?

Some people have asked about my address…no I’m not begging for letters.
Lauren Neal
Langerry Holiday Flats #11
31 Beach Road, Humewood
Port Elizabeth 6001
SOUTH AFRICA