Hey just writing to very quickly say that I’m going away this weekend. I’m leaving here in less than ten minutes to go to Coffee Bay. I don’t know all that I’ll there or what I’ll see, but I’m excited nonetheless! The main thing to see there is Hole in the Wall. Which is a rock formation with a hole carved into it from the waves. We’ll do a three hour hike to go see that. There are four of us going, Joe, Zach, Colleen and myself. I’m very excited. And I’ll definitely be writing about it when I come back and I’ll share some good stories about volunteering this week. I’ll I can say about that now is that the education system at Pendla needs a lot of work.
I hope you all enjoy the snow coming your way this weekend! Winter is almost over so enjoy it a little bit longer till spring is there!! Love you and miss you all!
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Monday, February 23, 2009
Pictures
Here I am at recess with the kids. I almost fell over because they were all pulling on me so hard!
Nikki and I after our mile long river race! I finished in 25 minutes!
Most of my group wearing our International Student t-shirts
Playing in the cribbage tournament, my team made it to the semi-finals.
Getting ready to surf, I'm the farthest on the left...with the big behind!
The kids love to get very close!
My flatmates after going out for dinner for our "date night"
The dung beetle very close up, and yes about the size of a golf ball!
Me with my trusty old surfboard that kicked my butt in the waves! I had so many scratches and bruises from that thing!Okay and for a few updates and responses:
Cassie, law school sounds hard.
Nina, snowmobiling in the front yard sounds more fun!
But I can't believe you all have snow! And every report tells me it is cold in MN? Haha!
Anna and Mac, picking up that elephant dung was nothing. Because when we were at Kate's, we ate dung! Her family plays a game like spitting watermelon seeds...but with pieces of antelope dung! It was all dried out and it didn't taste like anything. But man, I can't believe I did that!
Linda, I talked to some kids the other day about snow. And they were just fascinated by how I talked about snow back home. Most people here have never seen snow. It doesn't even come in the mountains that close I heard.
Oh and I didn't say this before, but what I forgot to pack was slippers...I think that's what I put on the list. I know it wasn't underwear cause I got some on right now....
And for this week's question, it is pretty important to know what they're called. Because when we're in the Combies, and we say, "drop us off at the next light" the driver doesn't know what we're talking about. So that's something we've picked up on.
Umm quick update of the weekend. It was pretty low key, I did a lot of homework. Got a little sun. Swam my race and that was fun. I did pretty well, finished one mile in 25 minutes. I got to talk to the lions club there who were selling brats and such. So that was cool! I asked them if anyone was coming to the International Convention in MN but I guess it was too far to drive or something?
Oh and I put a bunch of pictures up on Facebook too, so check those out if you can. And I uploaded a video of the children at Pendla Primary School singing during the welcome ceremony. Very nice. So go to youtube.com for that. And search the videos with "lauren in south africa." Hopefully that works!! I think I should have 3 videos in there now. And I'm trying right now to get the one of Mac and I singing, maybe it will work this time!! Try this link to get to the video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wR1qEh-3W4
It's getting pretty late here, so I'll just be posting more later. I need to talk about my volunteering this week and such!
Signing off, Lauren
Thursday, February 19, 2009
A Very Long Week
The pictures are from the weekend, I still don’t have the surfing ones yet from my roommate. But I’ll put those up and I think there might be a video of me too. So I’ll let you know where I’ll post that!
This is me with to elephant skulls. They were huge!
And me at the entrance to the park.
My table at Walskippers. It was a cool restaurant I promise, but we took the picture facing the wrong way. The ocean is on the other side!
Me holding a very large piece of elephant poop!
The group of us all searching for animals from tour bus. It looked very weird!
Hippos in a dam. Apparently, they don't like the rain!
These are the two rhinos the park had. It's hard to see the second one because it's behind the first. But I think you can see another set of horns behind the first.
And the elephants. You can't see it in the picture, but there was a baby elephant here too! Now my Big 5 are complete!
Caution: Dung Beetles Have the Right of Way. This is not a joke. They are an endangered animal and they really did have the right of way. One time our bus had to stop and wait for one to get off the road!! But we saw a lot of them in the park because they suck all the moisture out of the elephant poop!
This sign was also taken seriously. Since the lions are free to roam everywhere in the park, you were risking it to get out of your vehicle. We did get out a couple of times though.
First I want to say Hello to Grandpa and Grandma who I think will be the newest readers of this blog after Charlotte and Marty get down to Arizona!
Now I know that in comparison to a lot of your weeks, it’s almost comical for me to say that I had a “long” week here. Everything is of course great, warm weather, good friends, nice views of the ocean from my bedroom….but I have had a busier and harder week than normal! So that’s why I haven’t posted and that’s why this post may get kind of long. But I will try and be short and sweet again ;)
So Tuesday I volunteered again at Pendla. My teaching partner, Heather, and I prepared a lesson on nouns and adjectives for the 5th graders. Because the principal is still sick, two of the other CSB/SJU students were put into my classroom. So we took turns teaching lessons, they taught technology and we taught English. I taught twice and both times went all right. One problematic thing is that the students have been taught that everytime they write down something for class, they need to write out the date, their name and the title of the paper in perfect cursive. They even use rulers! To say the least, this takes a long time. Especially since they do not all have their own pens or rulers. So that got kind of annoying and I’m thinking of a way I can get them to not do that while I’m teaching. Because each class is only a half-hour long and I just don’t want to spend 5 minutes of it letting them write their names. We also had recess and that was awesome!! The whole school has a short break in the morning at the same time. So basically, each of the 18 CSB/SJU students just had a flock of children around them. I had the younger crowd hanging around me (probably 5 year olds). They didn’t know English so I had trouble trying to entertain them with a game. But we did a sort of Simon Says, without Simon…I just did fun actions and they all copied me. They also would all, seriously like 30 children, try and hold my hand or hug me at the same time. This amounted to me almost falling over or trying to nicely get myself out of the strong hold. If I knelt down at all, there was immediately a few children who were petting my hair (thinking how soft it was). I am going to love volunteering there so much!!
Tuesday for class we had Senior Seminar with our professor from St. Johns. We all got a free tshirt from NMMU that says NMMU Interational Student. So we decided to wear them to this class, so 29 of us walked in all dressed alike. I say 29 because my friend Kirby thought we were joking when we said we were going to wear them. Tuesday night we had our first group potluck (organized by me). Our flat was the first hosts, so we chose a theme: MN potluck and hosted the meal in our room. All 6 flats participated and we invited our director/professor too. We made tator tot hotdish for the main meal. Other MN favorites people brought were Jello, green bean casserole and snicker salad (with chocolate bars instead of snickers because the grocery store didn’t have any). Then I just did my best to get my homework done because it was really mounted on us this week!
Wednesday morning I slept in. Which means I slept past 6:30. Since it is so light out and the road is so noisy, I cannot sleep in here. But it’s okay because then I get a little time for myself before the rest of my roommates wake up. Class on Wednesday was normal. But getting to class was a trip. The combies are up and running again, the strike did end on Thursday. Although I was told that they only stopped because the army was used as a threat. So another strike could occur at anytime. Anyway, I took the combie to school and had my first TRUE combie experience. We walked out of our apartment and one stopped for us right away. They’re kind of like taxis, but you don’t really have to wave them down. They’ll just drive up and down the same route (NMMU to downtown) stopping everytime they see someone walking on the side of the road. They’ll also just honk at you or yell out their window “Town, Town” to get your attention (this is what wakes me up in the morning). Then if you just glance at them, they’ll stop for you. So a combie stoped for us and we got in. There were three of us, the only people in the combie so far. We pay the man 6Rand, or $.60, and were on our way toward the university. Along the way, the driver stops and picks up two more people. Then we make a sudden stop. We sit there for a minute and finally, the driver tells us to get out and go get into another combie that’s parked in front of us. He said we won’t have to pay twice, but to ride with him. So we go into that combie that is immediately full once we get in. I counted thirteen people in the combie, this is only a little bit bigger than a van! We were all very squished, but since I was the last one to get in, I got a special seat. The seat right by the door is reserved for, I don’t know what to call him, but a guide. He’s the one who yells out the window, takes the money, opens doors, tells the driver when to stop and so on. So I was sitting in his seat and there were no seats left, so he just straddled me. Not sitting on my or touching me, but just RIGHT there. Needless to say, this was a long ride. But we finally made it to NMMU and we all jumped out, saying “Now that’s a combie ride!”
My combie ride today was more comfortable in sitting space, but the driver was very fast and wild which scared me a bit. But that’s what combies do! I have yet to see a white person besides my group ride in a combie. But many of the students from NMMU use that as their sole transportation.
The homework for my political science class today was a ton of work! I didn’t even get it all done, so I hope I don’t get singled out at all in the discussion. We’re all still figuring out how the classes here work. I packed a lunch that I’ll go outside and eat quick (looking out for the monkeys!) and then head off to class!
Tonight my flat of 5 girls asked a flat of 5 boys out on a “date.” The 10 of us are going to a seafood restaurant within walking distance. It should be fun and it’ll be nice to have it narrowed down to a relatively small group. Otherwise if we tell everyone we’re going there, we’ll show up with 30 people and that’s annoying.
I hope Charlotte and Marty have a nice time down in Mesa. Watch out for those Big 5 when you’re driving around in the open-air golf cart!!
Is there still rain in MN? Or has it changed to snow again?
Tony and Linda, good to see you on my blog! I’m glad that finally worked!
But today is like a Friday for me, so after this class I'm free for a three-day weekend!
Monday, February 16, 2009
Addo and Schotia
I don’t know why but blogging seems to take forever for me to do. And so it definitely is taking away from my homework time tonight!! Well maybe it’s because I write so much, but I don’t know what to keep out of the blog. So here is my attempt to be short and sweet because I have a lot to do tonight.
Sunday we went to Addo Elephant Park and Schotia Game Reserve. At Addo we toured through the game park in our tour bus with all thirty of us running from side to side looking out the windows. Schotia was similar to the game drives I did with the Kearneys. So I was kind of the pro in the group, because I had “like, done that like ten times.” These two places were really cool though because I got to see the rest of the Big 5. I saw cape buffalo, rhino, lions, hippos an crocodiles. Those aren’t all in the big 5, but those were new ones for me. I got some more good pictures, that I will hold off on posting for another day or two cause I’m going to try and get some pictures of those and me surfing off my roommate’s camera. Oh and the entire day it was raining. So in the bus it was okay, but in the game drive vehicles it sucked. The ponchos only covered so much!! But it was just part of the day so no one complained too much. Except for toward dinner time when we could see our breath! That is way too cold for SA. After the four hour drives at Schotia, we had the South African dinner. I guess the main South African part of it was that it was cooked on hot coals in the ground (like a Braii) but it was kudu stew, awesome chicken, rice, mushroom sauce, carrots, peas and biscuits. Delicious, especially after the cold day!
Today was the first day of volunteering. So half of us went to Aids Haven and my half went to Pendla Primary School. The day started off with the principal of the school fainting and being taken away by an ambulance. We don’t know what’s wrong with her, but after that the assistant principal took over and the day went fine. The children did a welcome ceremony for us. It was a lot of singing. And they were amazing!!! So loud they were booming through the room, and they switched back and forth between 2 parts, 3 parts and 4 parts. Some girls did a traditional Xhosa dance. Oh and all the songs were sung in Xhosa too. It was very fun. Then we got a tour of the school and were assigned to our rooms. Me and another girl got into a 4th and 5th grade advanced English class. So like grammar and reading stories in English I think. I’m very excited because that’s what I want to teach when I’m done with school. Anyway so we spent an hour in the classroom today. The teacher we’re working with is new to the school (has only been there for 3 days) so she is getting orientated like we are. She asked me and my partner, Heather, what we wanted to do in her classroom. Of course, I took the opportunity to say that I want to teach lessons! She said that she would love to have me teach everyday and she would enjoy learning from me! This put me off a little bit, because I kinda want to watch her teach. But anyway, it’ll be an experience that’s for sure. She said that she’s still getting her classroom set up and so she hasn’t really started to teach the students too much or start to learn their names… So the kids were doing absolutely nothing in class. But I walked around and said My name is… in Xhosa. Then they talked back to me in English. It was really cute. I’m sure this volunteering will be one of the best parts of my trip here.
And lastly, in my music class today we learned how to sing a couple songs in Xhosa. It was so difficult! The Xhosa language uses clicks. I think you’ll know what I’m talking about, but just in case, the clicks are like the sound you can make with your tongue if you put it on the top of your mouth or suck in air through the sides of your mouth. They make a different click noise for the X, C and Q. So you can imagine that it is hard for us to speak. But we sang the South African national anthem which is in Xhosa, Sesotho, Africaans and English. Super cool and definitely something I had to learn while I was here!
And yet again, I’ll be posting pictures soon and I’ll tell more later. So much for short and sweet. Well I guess for how much more I could have written…
Thanks to everyone who’s reading this and making comments. I’m going to respond to the comments here because it’s faster for me that way.
Steve, happy valentine's day to you too! I wonder if the flowers I sent you were still good when they got to MN?
Leah, that sounds like a horrible dream! I definitely am coming back! And how dare you mention Rocky's pizza to me while I'm so far away from it!!! miss you too!
Charlotte and Marty, your weekend with the boys sounds awesome. I'm so jealous! And I haven't seen the movie Madagascar, but I really wish there was a way that I could visit there while I'm down here. But I think it's too far to go for a weekend.
A & E in Alaska, the answer to what I think is your sarcastic question is that I did not have school on Friday. So my outfit is not blog noteworthy.
Anna, when do you have to leave to go to your next school? Plans for this summer? I heard a PR rumor that you were possibly coming to town...?
Sunday we went to Addo Elephant Park and Schotia Game Reserve. At Addo we toured through the game park in our tour bus with all thirty of us running from side to side looking out the windows. Schotia was similar to the game drives I did with the Kearneys. So I was kind of the pro in the group, because I had “like, done that like ten times.” These two places were really cool though because I got to see the rest of the Big 5. I saw cape buffalo, rhino, lions, hippos an crocodiles. Those aren’t all in the big 5, but those were new ones for me. I got some more good pictures, that I will hold off on posting for another day or two cause I’m going to try and get some pictures of those and me surfing off my roommate’s camera. Oh and the entire day it was raining. So in the bus it was okay, but in the game drive vehicles it sucked. The ponchos only covered so much!! But it was just part of the day so no one complained too much. Except for toward dinner time when we could see our breath! That is way too cold for SA. After the four hour drives at Schotia, we had the South African dinner. I guess the main South African part of it was that it was cooked on hot coals in the ground (like a Braii) but it was kudu stew, awesome chicken, rice, mushroom sauce, carrots, peas and biscuits. Delicious, especially after the cold day!
Today was the first day of volunteering. So half of us went to Aids Haven and my half went to Pendla Primary School. The day started off with the principal of the school fainting and being taken away by an ambulance. We don’t know what’s wrong with her, but after that the assistant principal took over and the day went fine. The children did a welcome ceremony for us. It was a lot of singing. And they were amazing!!! So loud they were booming through the room, and they switched back and forth between 2 parts, 3 parts and 4 parts. Some girls did a traditional Xhosa dance. Oh and all the songs were sung in Xhosa too. It was very fun. Then we got a tour of the school and were assigned to our rooms. Me and another girl got into a 4th and 5th grade advanced English class. So like grammar and reading stories in English I think. I’m very excited because that’s what I want to teach when I’m done with school. Anyway so we spent an hour in the classroom today. The teacher we’re working with is new to the school (has only been there for 3 days) so she is getting orientated like we are. She asked me and my partner, Heather, what we wanted to do in her classroom. Of course, I took the opportunity to say that I want to teach lessons! She said that she would love to have me teach everyday and she would enjoy learning from me! This put me off a little bit, because I kinda want to watch her teach. But anyway, it’ll be an experience that’s for sure. She said that she’s still getting her classroom set up and so she hasn’t really started to teach the students too much or start to learn their names… So the kids were doing absolutely nothing in class. But I walked around and said My name is… in Xhosa. Then they talked back to me in English. It was really cute. I’m sure this volunteering will be one of the best parts of my trip here.
And lastly, in my music class today we learned how to sing a couple songs in Xhosa. It was so difficult! The Xhosa language uses clicks. I think you’ll know what I’m talking about, but just in case, the clicks are like the sound you can make with your tongue if you put it on the top of your mouth or suck in air through the sides of your mouth. They make a different click noise for the X, C and Q. So you can imagine that it is hard for us to speak. But we sang the South African national anthem which is in Xhosa, Sesotho, Africaans and English. Super cool and definitely something I had to learn while I was here!
And yet again, I’ll be posting pictures soon and I’ll tell more later. So much for short and sweet. Well I guess for how much more I could have written…
Thanks to everyone who’s reading this and making comments. I’m going to respond to the comments here because it’s faster for me that way.
Steve, happy valentine's day to you too! I wonder if the flowers I sent you were still good when they got to MN?
Leah, that sounds like a horrible dream! I definitely am coming back! And how dare you mention Rocky's pizza to me while I'm so far away from it!!! miss you too!
Charlotte and Marty, your weekend with the boys sounds awesome. I'm so jealous! And I haven't seen the movie Madagascar, but I really wish there was a way that I could visit there while I'm down here. But I think it's too far to go for a weekend.
A & E in Alaska, the answer to what I think is your sarcastic question is that I did not have school on Friday. So my outfit is not blog noteworthy.
Anna, when do you have to leave to go to your next school? Plans for this summer? I heard a PR rumor that you were possibly coming to town...?
Jeffrey's Bay
Okay, so as I said, this was a very big and busy weekend for me down here in SA. Starting off, Thursday’s class was awful! Well not the subject so much. South African politics are of course very interesting. I learned a lot just in this first class. I did feel a little bit lost though, but I found out that even the political science majors from CSB/SJU felt lost because the professor didn’t really explain anything. She also outlined a massive amount of homework to be done for this class. There is a lot of reading for each class (which I guess I should’ve expected from hearing about Cassie’s classes) and two large research papers and a portfolio to be completed along the way. Since this is the class I didn’t want to take, I’m pretty upset about the large amount of work. Although, that pretty much ensures that I will be taking this class as a pass/fail.
Friday was the big day for the start of our first trip outside of PE. We woke up early to pack and get ready. Got the rental car from the airport; the car was a classy Camry. The price of this, split 5 ways, was only $9 a person. So actually, very affordable for us to rent a car for future weekend trips. I didn’t end up driving at all. But I would like to one of the times we go somewhere. Only one of my roommates, Emma, can also drive a manual. It was about an hour drive to Jeffrey’s Bay.
When we go there we went straight to the hostel. It was such a cool place and the best find! It is on a penisula, so it’s kind of on it’s own. It has tons of rooms, a cafeteria style restaurant, surfing lessons (and many other extreme sports), a beach house, a bar, internet, pool tables, and everything. We got the grand tour of the place then at lunch there.
After lunch we went surfing. We had missed the lessons (only in the morning) so we were relying on one of my roommates who had lessons before in Hawaii. I first just watched three of my roommates surf and was in awe of how hard it looked! The waves in J-bay were a ton bigger than by our place in PE. They would just take you off your feet. Finally, it was my turn to try to surf. I never actually stood up on the board, but I was able to catch a few waves and ride them all the way to shore. Even that little bit was amazing! Because you’re riding on top of the waves, lying on your stomach, with your arms out in the wind. It just feels like you’re flying over water! It was sooooo cool. But the waves were so big that if you didn’t catch a wave right, or if you weren’t on your board, you were just demolished by the waves. The board was attached to my ankle, so I wasn’t ever scared of drowning or anything. But what did happen is, I would get tossed and turned underwater by the waves and run into my surfboard. Consequently, I have tons of bruises and scratches all over my body! All in all, surfing was a good experience and I would definitely try it again.
After surfing, we just hung around the hostel talking with our group (there were 21 of us who went) and people from other countries. Then we got ready. Our rooms were super nice (way more than you would’ve expected from a hostel) and we all had a refreshing shower. There were 5 of us staying in a 3 person room, but it worked out all right. Then we went out to dinner as a group of 21. We went to this great place called Walskipper. It was literally right on the beach: with an open wall facing the ocean, white sand for the floors, small huts for the bathroom, and a huge firepit in the middle. We all had a great time, I feel like our group is really starting to come together. I shared a seafood platter for two with a friend and got to have lobster, crab, linefish, prawns, and calamari. A little expensive for South African terms, but worth it! Umm than Friday night we just hung out at the hostel and met people from all over the world. I got to practice my German a bit with a couple from Berlin.
Saturday it was rainy and cold, so we ate breakfast and checked out of the hostel. Then we went shopping in J-bay. They had a Roxy and Billabong outlet store that we looked at, and many other cute shops. We had icecream for lu nch there and then we were on our way home. The drive back was slow because it was raining. But we finally made it to PE and as long as we had a car, we used it to go to the grocery store.
Saturday night was Valentine’s Day and although my room planned on going out, we were all too exhausted from the weekend. The surfing was really hard on my body and I just felt so tired. So one roommate made dinner for us and one of the boy’s rooms and we just had a low key night. We worked on reading for homework and then went to bed early! So not too exciting for the holiday, but it was all right.
I don’t have time right now to write about our big day we had on Sunday. But tonight, after class I will get back on probably and finish writing about the weekend and post some pictures!!
Friday was the big day for the start of our first trip outside of PE. We woke up early to pack and get ready. Got the rental car from the airport; the car was a classy Camry. The price of this, split 5 ways, was only $9 a person. So actually, very affordable for us to rent a car for future weekend trips. I didn’t end up driving at all. But I would like to one of the times we go somewhere. Only one of my roommates, Emma, can also drive a manual. It was about an hour drive to Jeffrey’s Bay.
When we go there we went straight to the hostel. It was such a cool place and the best find! It is on a penisula, so it’s kind of on it’s own. It has tons of rooms, a cafeteria style restaurant, surfing lessons (and many other extreme sports), a beach house, a bar, internet, pool tables, and everything. We got the grand tour of the place then at lunch there.
After lunch we went surfing. We had missed the lessons (only in the morning) so we were relying on one of my roommates who had lessons before in Hawaii. I first just watched three of my roommates surf and was in awe of how hard it looked! The waves in J-bay were a ton bigger than by our place in PE. They would just take you off your feet. Finally, it was my turn to try to surf. I never actually stood up on the board, but I was able to catch a few waves and ride them all the way to shore. Even that little bit was amazing! Because you’re riding on top of the waves, lying on your stomach, with your arms out in the wind. It just feels like you’re flying over water! It was sooooo cool. But the waves were so big that if you didn’t catch a wave right, or if you weren’t on your board, you were just demolished by the waves. The board was attached to my ankle, so I wasn’t ever scared of drowning or anything. But what did happen is, I would get tossed and turned underwater by the waves and run into my surfboard. Consequently, I have tons of bruises and scratches all over my body! All in all, surfing was a good experience and I would definitely try it again.
After surfing, we just hung around the hostel talking with our group (there were 21 of us who went) and people from other countries. Then we got ready. Our rooms were super nice (way more than you would’ve expected from a hostel) and we all had a refreshing shower. There were 5 of us staying in a 3 person room, but it worked out all right. Then we went out to dinner as a group of 21. We went to this great place called Walskipper. It was literally right on the beach: with an open wall facing the ocean, white sand for the floors, small huts for the bathroom, and a huge firepit in the middle. We all had a great time, I feel like our group is really starting to come together. I shared a seafood platter for two with a friend and got to have lobster, crab, linefish, prawns, and calamari. A little expensive for South African terms, but worth it! Umm than Friday night we just hung out at the hostel and met people from all over the world. I got to practice my German a bit with a couple from Berlin.
Saturday it was rainy and cold, so we ate breakfast and checked out of the hostel. Then we went shopping in J-bay. They had a Roxy and Billabong outlet store that we looked at, and many other cute shops. We had icecream for lu nch there and then we were on our way home. The drive back was slow because it was raining. But we finally made it to PE and as long as we had a car, we used it to go to the grocery store.
Saturday night was Valentine’s Day and although my room planned on going out, we were all too exhausted from the weekend. The surfing was really hard on my body and I just felt so tired. So one roommate made dinner for us and one of the boy’s rooms and we just had a low key night. We worked on reading for homework and then went to bed early! So not too exciting for the holiday, but it was all right.
I don’t have time right now to write about our big day we had on Sunday. But tonight, after class I will get back on probably and finish writing about the weekend and post some pictures!!
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Strike Day 4
Oh my gosh, Happy (one day late) Birthday to Brady!!! What are the birthday plans for the boys this weekend? Is he going to have a party? Can he make us another video?
Well, no one thought it would go on this long. But today is now the fourth day of the Combie strike. People all over the country are feeling the effects of not having this form of transportations. All the bus stops are full of people seeing if there is anyone who would pick them up. Many of the staff for our flats haven't been able to get to work the past few days. Since this is the first week of school, even students haven't made it to class yet.
To add to the problem, there was an attack on the train tracks last night. I really don't know too much about it yet, but it seems to be affiliated with the strikes. Someone cut a piece out of the tracks early Thursday morning. A train going on the tracks saw the missing piece and was able to slow down, however a few of the wheels were still derailed. It was just a minor accident. But they were lucky because passenger trains also travel on those tracks. Actually most of the people who live in the townships take those trains to come into work in the city. A group of the maids for our apartments got stuck at the train station this morning. The owner of the flats went to pick them up, but now they don't know how they'll get home at the end of the day. They already are prepared to spend the night away from home (although one of the cleaning ladies told us she has children at home she needs to get to). It's just too bad that this is all because the World Cup is coming to SA!
We took private taxis and our professor's cars to class again today. And remember, today was supposed to be my day off! But instead, here I am in the computer lab, waiting till it's time to run to class. I made a really great lunch, I tried my hand at marinating chicken. I just used whatever we had in our fridge (not very much cause it's a tiny fridge)...ketchup, mustard, garlic, soy sauce, and sugar I think. But it turned out really well and now all my roommates are asking me to make that for them too. I already planned to make dinner tonight for my flat though and I'm using one of Mac's recipes for terriyaki shrimp and my mom's rice pilaf. Should be good!
Tomorrow is our first weekend trip! A lot of people from our group are going to Jeffrey's Bay this weekend. Since it was easier, my flat planned our trip on our own so that we didn't have to coordinate with 20 other people. The plan is to go to the airport via private taxi tomorrow and pick up our rental car. Then start driving toward Jeffrey's Bay (about an hour away.) Along the way we will stop at Seaview which is a game park where you can play with lion cubs and such. My roommates haven't gotten to do this yet, so it should be fun. Then when we get to J-bay we'll drop our stuff off at a hostel called Island Vibe. This is supposed to be a really nice hostel with 300 degrees of ocean view. In the afternoon, we're taking surfing lessons!! I'll let you know how that goes. The rest of the time there will be spent touring the city and seeing what else it has to offer! Then we'll be back on Saturday night.
Early Sunday morning we are leaving to go to Addo Elephant Park and Schotia Game Reserve. I'm excited to go here because I think I'll for sure get to see the rest of the Big 5! This is an excursion that is a mandatory part of our trip and our study abroad fee pays for this. We'll be at Addo during the day and then go to Schotia for a night game drive and a traditional South African feast (I'm not sure what that will be!) So don't be surprised if I don't post for a little while. I think I'll be on the go until Monday!
I hope you all have good weekends!!!!
Well, no one thought it would go on this long. But today is now the fourth day of the Combie strike. People all over the country are feeling the effects of not having this form of transportations. All the bus stops are full of people seeing if there is anyone who would pick them up. Many of the staff for our flats haven't been able to get to work the past few days. Since this is the first week of school, even students haven't made it to class yet.
To add to the problem, there was an attack on the train tracks last night. I really don't know too much about it yet, but it seems to be affiliated with the strikes. Someone cut a piece out of the tracks early Thursday morning. A train going on the tracks saw the missing piece and was able to slow down, however a few of the wheels were still derailed. It was just a minor accident. But they were lucky because passenger trains also travel on those tracks. Actually most of the people who live in the townships take those trains to come into work in the city. A group of the maids for our apartments got stuck at the train station this morning. The owner of the flats went to pick them up, but now they don't know how they'll get home at the end of the day. They already are prepared to spend the night away from home (although one of the cleaning ladies told us she has children at home she needs to get to). It's just too bad that this is all because the World Cup is coming to SA!
We took private taxis and our professor's cars to class again today. And remember, today was supposed to be my day off! But instead, here I am in the computer lab, waiting till it's time to run to class. I made a really great lunch, I tried my hand at marinating chicken. I just used whatever we had in our fridge (not very much cause it's a tiny fridge)...ketchup, mustard, garlic, soy sauce, and sugar I think. But it turned out really well and now all my roommates are asking me to make that for them too. I already planned to make dinner tonight for my flat though and I'm using one of Mac's recipes for terriyaki shrimp and my mom's rice pilaf. Should be good!
Tomorrow is our first weekend trip! A lot of people from our group are going to Jeffrey's Bay this weekend. Since it was easier, my flat planned our trip on our own so that we didn't have to coordinate with 20 other people. The plan is to go to the airport via private taxi tomorrow and pick up our rental car. Then start driving toward Jeffrey's Bay (about an hour away.) Along the way we will stop at Seaview which is a game park where you can play with lion cubs and such. My roommates haven't gotten to do this yet, so it should be fun. Then when we get to J-bay we'll drop our stuff off at a hostel called Island Vibe. This is supposed to be a really nice hostel with 300 degrees of ocean view. In the afternoon, we're taking surfing lessons!! I'll let you know how that goes. The rest of the time there will be spent touring the city and seeing what else it has to offer! Then we'll be back on Saturday night.
Early Sunday morning we are leaving to go to Addo Elephant Park and Schotia Game Reserve. I'm excited to go here because I think I'll for sure get to see the rest of the Big 5! This is an excursion that is a mandatory part of our trip and our study abroad fee pays for this. We'll be at Addo during the day and then go to Schotia for a night game drive and a traditional South African feast (I'm not sure what that will be!) So don't be surprised if I don't post for a little while. I think I'll be on the go until Monday!
I hope you all have good weekends!!!!
Strike Day 3
1. this one was posing for the camera
2. the monkey who ate my chips
Then we had our lunch break, and unfortunately, I still have yet to find a good place to eat on campus. It seems the cafeteria that I thought we were supposed to go to is just for grad students and faculty. So we’re left with a fast food type restaurant that we tried and it was gross. Then today we tried another place and had another gross lunch. There is a café in the international student office, but people who’ve gone there had to wait over an hour for their food. We don’t really have that much time. I think I’ll have to start bringing my lunch or something.
But on our lunch break today…I finally saw the monkeys on campus!!!! They seemed to be the same kind of monkey I saw on a game drive with Kate. But we heard people talking about seeing them on the upper campus. And while we were sitting on the grass, we saw these monkeys (4 and one baby wrapped around the mom’s tummy) make their way down the stairs with tons of students! It looked so weird. Then they were on the railing. One girl got kind of surrounded and had to throw her apple and slowly get out of there! Apparently the monkeys are known to attack (bite and scratch) girls who have food. One of the monkeys crawled into the garbage can and pull out the bag of chips I had just thrown away!! Obviously I had cleaned that bag out pretty well, because then he threw it on the ground. So monkeys are the ones causing the litter problem in SA! Oh it was just so much fun. And we were in the elevator to get to class and we asked some other students if they saw the monkeys. They said with an almost bored expression, “the monkeys are here every day.” But exciting for us!
Then I went to SA literature and that was a great class. We discussed short stories that we had read. I’m really enjoying learning about the South African culture in all of these subjects. But now that we have the syllabi for all these classes, I’m noticing that a lot of assignments are culminating in the first week of March. So I’m going to try and get ahead in my reading so that I’ll have time to work on the papers too.
Tonight we had a welcome dinner at the Catholic Church. It was really great. You might be amazed to know, but the church ladies who serve meals at the churches at home actually look and act the same here! Three older ladies served us chicken curry and rice for dinner. It was great. The priest was new to the parish and he is from Ireland. He was very glad to meet us and complimented the US on all their work to help Africa. He said that the US may not be right in the Iraq war, but that we are the country that does the most to help others and that we should be proud to be Americans. There were also black students from NMMU there who are a part of the Catholic organization on campus. Most blacks and whites here are Christian. And there is also a large Muslim population. They told us that many blacks still have their tribal religions, but are Christians too. They invited us to events and mass going on at school. After dinner we went out with these students to a club and had fun dancing to American and South African music.
But that’s all for today. Let me know if I’m writing too much. These posts seem to always get longer than what I mean them too and I don’t want them to take too long for people to read.
3. my first day of school picture
The strike went on for the third day like expected. We got shuttled to class. The first class was community service. We’re taking that as a workshop and mentorship while we’re volunteering. It also sounds as if we will be trying our hand a community development, which would be an awesome experience! In this class we were supposed to introduce ourselves with our name and one surprising thing we’ve found since we’ve been here. One girl, from MN but not from our program, said she was most surprised that there was ice cream in South Africa. Most of us just covered our eyes and looked down because we were so embarrassed!!
Then we had our lunch break, and unfortunately, I still have yet to find a good place to eat on campus. It seems the cafeteria that I thought we were supposed to go to is just for grad students and faculty. So we’re left with a fast food type restaurant that we tried and it was gross. Then today we tried another place and had another gross lunch. There is a café in the international student office, but people who’ve gone there had to wait over an hour for their food. We don’t really have that much time. I think I’ll have to start bringing my lunch or something.
But on our lunch break today…I finally saw the monkeys on campus!!!! They seemed to be the same kind of monkey I saw on a game drive with Kate. But we heard people talking about seeing them on the upper campus. And while we were sitting on the grass, we saw these monkeys (4 and one baby wrapped around the mom’s tummy) make their way down the stairs with tons of students! It looked so weird. Then they were on the railing. One girl got kind of surrounded and had to throw her apple and slowly get out of there! Apparently the monkeys are known to attack (bite and scratch) girls who have food. One of the monkeys crawled into the garbage can and pull out the bag of chips I had just thrown away!! Obviously I had cleaned that bag out pretty well, because then he threw it on the ground. So monkeys are the ones causing the litter problem in SA! Oh it was just so much fun. And we were in the elevator to get to class and we asked some other students if they saw the monkeys. They said with an almost bored expression, “the monkeys are here every day.” But exciting for us!
Then I went to SA literature and that was a great class. We discussed short stories that we had read. I’m really enjoying learning about the South African culture in all of these subjects. But now that we have the syllabi for all these classes, I’m noticing that a lot of assignments are culminating in the first week of March. So I’m going to try and get ahead in my reading so that I’ll have time to work on the papers too.
Tonight we had a welcome dinner at the Catholic Church. It was really great. You might be amazed to know, but the church ladies who serve meals at the churches at home actually look and act the same here! Three older ladies served us chicken curry and rice for dinner. It was great. The priest was new to the parish and he is from Ireland. He was very glad to meet us and complimented the US on all their work to help Africa. He said that the US may not be right in the Iraq war, but that we are the country that does the most to help others and that we should be proud to be Americans. There were also black students from NMMU there who are a part of the Catholic organization on campus. Most blacks and whites here are Christian. And there is also a large Muslim population. They told us that many blacks still have their tribal religions, but are Christians too. They invited us to events and mass going on at school. After dinner we went out with these students to a club and had fun dancing to American and South African music.
But that’s all for today. Let me know if I’m writing too much. These posts seem to always get longer than what I mean them too and I don’t want them to take too long for people to read.
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