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!!