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

Coffee Bay/Hole in the Wall

Okay I had an awesome and busy weekend! I'll recap that, answer some questions and then talk about this coming weekend!

Thursday we left right after class and went to the airport to pick up the car. The airport is only a few miles away so it's not too far. But I'm sure you can imagine how loud the airplanes can be when they fly right over our apartment! And PE has one of those landing strips where the plane has to fly out over the ocean, turn around and then head back in to land. There were four of us, Joe, Zach, Colleen and myself. Which ended up being the perfect amount in a car for a long car ride. We drove half way to Coffee Bay and stayed at a hostel, or a Backpackers in Chintsa. This place was good, but we went to bed almost right when we got there at 11:00 and woke up very early in the morning.

Friday we woke up, checked out and then went for a walk on the beach. This town was in a nice little bay so the beach was very nice. We took some pictures and then were on our way.
I drove this morning. It went well. I never tried to drive on the right side of the road like I was worried about. But I did continually switch on the wipers instead of the blinker because they're in different spots. I also stalled the car one time at a stoplight, or a ROBOT! Calling them robots is weird because it makes them seem like they're alive or something. There was about 70km of road that we took off of the highway. This was the worst road you could EVER imagine. We were warned from the people in Chintsa to beware of potholes and animals but we had no clue how severe that warning was! The road was littered with potholes. There was rarely anywhere you could drive without hitting one. So this was pretty stressful for me and I ended up switching so that Joe was driving. We lost two hubcaps on this road (luckily we saw them fall off). And the animals!!! WOOH! When we were warned of animals, I of course thought of kudu and springbok and all those animals I’d seen wild before. But no, the animals to look out for were cows, horses, donkeys, sheep and goats. The region we drove through is called the Transkei and it is where Nelson Mandela grew up. During the apartheid regime, it was one of the “homelands” or something comparable to an Indian Reservation. So this area has been able to maintain its heritage very well. It is in a mountain region, or at least very big hills (our car almost didn’t make it up some of the hills). The hillsides are filled with colorful huts where Xhosa people live. In this area, there isn’t running water or electricity. Almost no one has a car, so we also needed to be careful of all the people walking in the road. There were some beautiful views on this drive and if it wasn’t for the potholes and animals, we could have really taken it all in.
We got to the Coffee Shack Backpackers and were hot and tired. So we went to the beach. It was no easy feat to get to the beach here! We had to cross a river walking on rocks because it was filled with waste from the village. Then we had to walk up a hill and across a stretch of beach. Then we walked up some shaky steps, over fence. Through a forest and campground, through another fence. Down the road and onto the beach. Swim across another river thing (but this one was fed by ocean water), holding our belongings on top of our heads. And then you’re at the beach! Children were following us along the whole way, but we just kept telling them we didn’t have money and they’d run off for a little bit.

For dinner we went to a Xhosa village. This was arranged by the hostel and they sent an interpreter with the group of 10 of us who went. We got a tour of the yard. Apparently all those animals we saw would be herded into a fenced in area at night. We saw how they cook the food on coals in a special enclosure. And we went into the headman’s hut. This is where dinner was because it was the biggest. Some young girls danced for us while the rest of the people from the village sang. We tried Xhosa beer which was made from Maize. It was all right, but not my favorite. We drank from odd containers and passed it around. The females were made to sit on the ground, while the males were given benches and beds to sit on. This wouldn’t have been that big of a deal if we weren’t there for three hours! I was definitely ready to stand up when we left! We ate a traditional two course meal there. The first course was sugar bean and corn soup (kind of). It needed a lot of salt. The second course was pap, which is ground up maize. It was very good and then it had a store-bought gravy on top. After dinner there was more dancing by boys and girls (the girls were topless, and some a little too old). Then they invited/made us dance too. The dancing was pretty hard, lots of shaking of the hips and butt! When we left they followed us in the car for a ways singing. This whole night cost $4.oo.

Saturday we went for a hike to Hole in the Wall. Well we drove to the town of Hole in the Wall and then went hiking around it. It was a great day with the most beautiful scenery. The landmark Hole in the Wall is a very large rock only a little bit off the coast that has a hole in it (like the shape of a mouse hole in a wall). The hole was formed over time from the waves hitting against it. We climbed to the top of a very big hill/mountain and had a gorgeous view of the village, the ocean and the hole in the wall. Again to get to the hole in the wall we had to go over the river and through the woods, and on and on. But it was cool. We took some pictures so it looked like we were IN the hole, but the waves were too big to actually go into the hole. We also went to a beach that was around here and we were laying out, sun tanning, with cows!! The cows were on the beach! So to pick out a spot to lay down, you had to first of all stay far away from the cows, and second of all, watch out for poop!

Sunday we drove home, it ended up being about 7 hours total and Joe and I took turns. The others did homework in the backseat. Since we got home, I’ve been exhausted and stressed out about homework! But I’m not going to stop seeing everything I can just because of a silly little thing like school! I’ll post some pictures from this weekend later too.

So I have this paper due Tuesday, today, and one due on Wednesday. Those are taking over my time for now. But then bright and early on Thursday we leave on a group excursion to Durban till Monday! I'm too busy to even think about it! Durban is further up the eastern coast. I think it'll be about a 2 hour flight. And I'm not sure what we're going to do there, it's all planned out and paid for though.

I hope everyone is doing well, I’m really sorry to hear about all the snow you’ve gotten this last week! I hope the shovelers in the group aren’t too sore!

Happy Belated Birthdays to Jessie, Dar and Steve! Both the Iowa party and the Hamel party sound like they were fun this weekend! I wonder if cake was served first at the Gustafson party too?

Mac I hope you had fun at your retreat this weekend! Sorry I didn’t get to talk to you on Sunday! And I hope synchro is going well!!

Nome-Beltz Junior High students: I would not advise anyone to feed the monkeys at my school! The monkeys can be very mean. If they see you have food, they might attack you and scratch and bite. So it’s probably best to just keep your food hidden when they’re around. But I haven’t seen them yet this week! Make sure you check out a post I’ll be putting up soon about what school is like here!

I know that I told a lot of you this winter before I left about my boss at St. Bens, Cynthia who was sick with cancer. She passed away this last week at home in Holdingford. She really meant a lot to me as we worked together every day for two years. I miss her now and I will miss talking to her a lot next year when I go back to St. Bens. Please pray for her son and daughter who no longer have her with them.

Quick note:

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!

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

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!

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...?

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!!