August 22, 2010
Okay sorry everyone it has been so long since my last post!! It's hard to compete with elephants & bungy jumping lol but since then i have just been going to school and enjoying being a 21 year old in Cape Town :) Last thursday, the 12th, i started Shawco, which is a volunteering organization where we go to the Masizame orphanage and teach kids either math, english, or life skills. It was sooo cool to be able to be a teacher for those sweet girls, im working with the 7,8,9th graders so they were ages 11-15 .. their schools run a little different with ages i guess but i already love them to death! we had to help them make collages from magazines that described them & i was making one too & I wrote my name in bubble letters, and then they saw and got so excited and asked me to make them all ones with their names on it so they could hang it in their room :) it was so sweet how happy they all were! They are such bright girls.. over 3 of them were fluent in 3 languages! It so heart breaking that these beautiful little girls dont have parents though :/ but i will be with them until i leave in jan. so hopefully some how i can help make their lives a little better because they have already done so for me!!!
Friday, my roommate Kaitlyn, and friend Leya went out for Mexican food at this place called “The Mexican Kitchen” on Long Street, which was AMAZING, I love the food here lol and From Saturday morning until Sunday evening we had an Arcadia excursion to Langa, the oldest township in Cape Town. Saturday morning, we took a 3 hour tour of the township and saw places where people made this really cool pottery and jewelry and then saw the really poor side of the township which was unbelievably sad… I mean I can’t even imagine how people live like that, 3 families crammed into a room smaller than my bedroom.. it really made me think twice about a lot of things I take for granted in life. After seeing that I can’t even tell you how much I appreciate the things that have. The crazy thing is, these people seemed so happy and were excited to see us when we were touring through their homes. It’s kind of ironic the whole “township” tour… but it gives people the opportunity to see a different lifestyle. After the tour we were dropped off with our host families for the night! My friend Racy and I were paired off together with a house mom named Ester who was a 60 year old nurse and her 24 year old daughter Langisha who had the most adorable two year old son whose name was Iza. We had the most fun playing with little Iza, and Langisha took us for lunch and to her friends house and we walked around a bit, then they dropped us off at her cousins house where we sat and watched tv for like 3 hours with a few other of my Arcadia group members. The first night was a little weird because we all thought we were going to be getting family interaction, but it felt more like we were being baby-sat which kind of stunk. But Langisha fetched us eventually and took us back to her house where Ester cooked us a delicious dinner and briefly spoke with us while trying to get little Iza to bed. The next morning (Sunday) Langisha cooked us a great breakfast and then we walked around the township a little more and met a few more of her friends. Ester made us lunch and after eating we were on our way back home. It was really nice of them to have us stay in their home, just a little awkward at times because they didn’t speak English in front of us when they were having conversations around us and it just felt like we were kind of a burden all weekend. But the families were really kind and im sure it was just a culture difference. All in all it was nice to get back home to our Highstead flat!
Monday-Friday last week I was busy doing lots of school work, reading, and writing papers mostly. Thursday, Shawco was cancelled, so that was a bummer but it was my room mate’s 21st birthday so we had made reservations at the fabulous Mexican restaurant Panchos in observatory! We had an absolute blast there! After dinner we took a cab to this club called the Fez in Green point and had an eventfully fun night!! Love all the people here, everyone is so nice!! Friday was a beautiful day outside and we went over to the Mowbray house and had a braai with the whole Arcadia group. We met some really nice South African guys the night before and they met up with all of us at the braai and then all 15 of us went to their house and hung out and had a great time! Still celebrating Kaitlyn’s 21st of course!! Saturday morning, Gary’s nieces Nicole and Lauren (who both live in CT, 2 minutes from me) and some of their friends came to pick me up at 9:45 am to go to the biscuit mill market!! AHH LOVE that place! We all had the BEST food as usual! And did a little shopping around the adorable little shops! After the market, Nix, Lauren and I went to the Cavendish mall and bought movie tickets for later on that night because we wanted a quiet evening in ☺ And there is this amazing clothing store here called YDE.. oh my word I want to buy everything in that store but sadly their clothes are so much more expensive here than back home.. so ill just live with the terrible wardrobe I brought with me haha. Later that night Nix and Lauren’s cousin Kerry picked me up and we met Nix at the movie theatre and saw Step Up 3d haha so corny but great dance movie! It was fun hanging out with them, they are so sweet!! After that I came home and passed out so early.. such a long weekend but had so much fun!!
Sunday- Today we watched the two huge towers that are a big part of Cape Town’s city scape get blown up because they haven’t been used in forever. Not really sure why they blew them up, but we hiked up the mountain to the Rhodes memorial to watch along with hundreds of other Cape Town people. It started to rain on us but we toughed it out lol. Now time to bury myself in homework because mid terms are coming up and then the first of my spring breaks this year! We are hopefully going to Mozambique!! But I will let everyone know when we make final plans!!
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