March 11-14

It's been an interesting last couple of days. Honestly, a string of really bad days. Wednesday roles around...the day our group project is due for my crime and deviance in south African cities class. Laura, Katrina and I are all in a group with 3 other south Africans, David, Haseenah and Langa. We had split the project up into sections where the 3 of us did parts A and B, David did C and D and Haseenah and Langa were to do the powerpoint and works cited page. So all of the parts were done, A B C and D and they were sent to Haseenah to be put altogether in order to do the powerpoint. Wed. roles around...Katrina, Laura and I are laying by the pool in between classes and we decide to give our dear friend Haseenah a call to make sure she got everything printed out. She decides to inform us an hour and a half before class that she A) hadn't put everything together and B) needed us to print it out and make a cover page. This begins our downward spiral. So the 3 of us rush to the computer lab to get everything put together...mind you David for some reason did not receive our email 2 nights before with what we had written so he just put down his POV on the topic without seeing what we had written. Therefore, the paper didn't make too much sense. THEN we take a gander at the wonderful powerpoint dearest Haseenah put together. Needless to say, it's shit. There are a ridiculous amount of grammatical errors and there are full paragraphs on there that were not even mentioned in the paper. We get to class and are fuming the entire way through. Once class ends we have a group meeting about the terrible project we are about to hand in. Our friend Langa, mind you, didn't show up for class. We later learned that he was working. Nice. The situation basically ended up with me and Laura confronting Haseenah about the shitty work that she barely did in front of the professor. I have never done that in front of a prof before, but this was warranted. All the annoyance and running around to put this together doesn't translate into writing like I would like it to, but hopefully you get the point of frustration. I then have to write 2 papers that night...

Thursday was going well UNTIL i decided to make the really amazing decision of getting a haircut. I went to the Cavendish mall, which is in a little suburb 5 mins away from us called Claremont. I tell the woman exactly what I want...only a trim and whatever else I wanted done to my hair. She then proceeds to chop my hair off. I can honestly say that she took off at least 2 and a half inches. That may not seem like much but if you knew how short my hair was before, its really damn short now. I know, I know, it's only hair, but to me it is important and it only added to my terrible day before. By Thursday night all I wanted to do was be home sitting around with my family. It was the first time in a long time I felt homesick. 

Today (saturday 14th) was much better though!! Last night we didn't go out because interstudy had planned a full day for us today. We were out of the mowbray mansions by 7:45 this morning to head to the District 6 museum. This area used to be filled with blacks, colored people and whites. Basically, in the 60's the govt. said that all the black and colored families had to get out so they literally bulldozed their houses down and that's when they moved them to the all black and colored townships. It was crazy to see pictures of what District 6 looked like when there were streets, apartments and houses everywhere versus what it looks like now...tons of grassy, run down areas. Once apartheid ended some of the blacks and colored people moved back, but it didn't happen with too many families. 

Next we went to the Langa township, which is one of the biggest in CT. We did a walking tour through it and stopped in a couple of the formal and informal living quarters. When townships were first implemented, the govt split up men from women and children. Their driving idea behind this was to keep the black and colored people from procreating. They thought that if men and women weren't together, they obviously couldn't have more children. Pretty messed up. So the formal home we went into had 3 rooms with 3 beds on one side and 3 rooms with 3 beds on the other side (18 men altogether). Once the govt. let families join back together, there ended up being 3 entire families living in one bedroom. Say there were 5 people to a family...90 people living in TINY quarters. Now, there is 1 family to a room. Still a ton of people living in a very small space. The informal housing is shacks. People have taken container bins and made them into their homes. Who knows how many people live in those...again, terrible conditions and small living space. We got to play with a lot of the kids who were so adorable and exciting to see us and play. Overall though, the experience made me feel plain and simply, weird. Our group had driven in in a coach bus, walked around with our cameras and tour guide, saw the abysmal housing these people live in, played with the kids for 20 mins then left in our coach bus again. It made me feel terrible and uncomfortable. Ideally, I would want to go back there with 1 or 2 people at most but that's just not possible. I would get raped without a doubt and robbed. That's just the way it is. 

After that experience we went to Robben Island where Nelson Mandela was held for 18 years. There's so much history on that, obviously, but I feel like I have written enough and that more people know about Mandela. To cap off my really upbeat day today, I am going to see Slumdog Millionaire hahaha. 

Sorry this post was somewhat depressing, but not everyday can be wonderful. I thought I would give you all a taste of some of the fucked up stuff that is real here. By the time I update next Mom and Dani will have gotten here, which i CANNOT wait for! I am in serious need of family time. We have a lot of awesome things lined up for the 10 days they are here, including a safari so next time I post I know there will be some great stories. 

Love and miss you all.

Stevi

Hello, hello to all. 

Big big accomplishment here in Africa: WE GOT A MICROWAVE! This is really big news...so heres the story. When we moved into our place at Mowbray mansions (this place isn't really a mansion at all, in fact, it is quite the opposite..hence the joke) we were upset to see that we did not have a microwave. But...interstudy (our program) came through all of the apts. and said they were going to get all of our amenities in place within the next week. Welllll a week here in actuality means a month and a half apparently! So about a month into our time here, we complained to creepy landlord Andrew that we still needed a microwave. One day we come home from school and miraculously we have a microwave! Laura, Julie and I were so excited that we didn't have to walk across to our neighbors to heat up food...this was a great thing. 3 days after our microwave walked into our house, we come back from school and our microwave was gone. We didn't see creepy landlord for a couple days so Laura asked the cleaning lady a few days later if she knew where it went...she told us Andrew had taken it back. We were confused. We then confronted Andrew when we saw him in the Mowbray streets one afternoon and asked where our microwave disappeared to. Basically, it was the last tenants who had left it and if you leave something that you bought Andrew just keeps it in the apt. for the next tenants. Well I guess the previous tenant came back and wanted his stupid microwave. So now we are sitting 2 weeks post our 3 day microwave stint and finally got a permanent one! Wooo. Long story, but entertaining to say the least. 

Anywaysssss. Thursday through Saturday were unbearably hot days. The average temp was about 104 degrees. Out of control. So going to class wasn't really an option. We had a lot of pool afternoons. Thursday late afternoon Laura and I went to Long Street to do a little bit of shopping then went out to dinner at this amazing restaurant called Fork. Momma, Dani and I will def. visit it when they get here in a week! We were too tired to go out that night so we stayed in and skyped with our lovely friends and fam. 

Friday (6th): After we went to our morning classes, Laura and I headed to the pool (again.) We met this really awesome girl there from the states. A little background. Shes 23, and just moved here in October. She was working for an NGO (non-government organization) and was supposed to be here until December. That was until she fell in love with a safrican! And she has been here ever since, now working for this man at UCT (uni. of cape town.) Of course Laura and I wanted to know EVERY detail because that is our plan...to fall in love and never come home. just kiddinggg. No, but really fall in love. Now we know it happened to someone so of course it will happen to us! Friday night we went out for our friend Charlie's 21st bday. We headed to long street after where I ditched the massive group we were rolling around with and danced for 3 hours with my friends Ben, Jeremy and Lul. (other Americans on a diff. program.) I really am such a god awful dancer, thanks judaism. Oh well,  I had a great time anyways. Side note: this night was the hottest night in CT so far...it was like bikram yoga in the nighttime air. 

Sat (7th): Laura, Julie, Aaron, Jackie, Will, Jaime and I had an amazing day. We woke up at a decent hour to go to Camp's Bay (beach) to get some sun. Of course it was 102 degrees out that day...ya know, just a cool day at the beach with no wind as well, also really great. Despite all of this...we laid in the sun for 4-5 hours, nbd. We then ate a late lunch so we could hike up Lionshead, a mountain right next to Table Mountain. We had figured out when the sunset was before we began our day so we planned accordingly. The hike took a little less than an hour and we got to a spot to see the beautiful sunset just in time. We really haven't seen any sunsets since we have been here because table mountain obstructs our view. So this was a real treat...we got some beautiful pictures. If I ever figure out how to upload pics on this blog, I will get them up here. We also got to see some great shots of all of CT. That night Laura and I were super super excited to go to bed because we were skydiving in the morning....

Sunday (8th): ....Skydiving didn't happen, it was canceled. Apparently mother nature wasn't on our side that day. Of course it was blistering hot for the previous 4 days but on this particular day, we had some really great wind blowing all through CT. They said it was too dangerous to jump (safety first kids) so we had to reschedule. Next sunday is now the day. I will be equally excited to go on that day too. Since our plans were squashed for the day, we kinda hung around the Mowbray Mansions with everyone on our program and didn't really do much.

Now its Tuesday night and I had a great accomplishment of A) going to ALL my classes the past 2 days and B) finishing my first group assignment of the semester. I don't think it will turn out too hot because the safricans in our group aren't very on top of their game. Oh well, Laura, Katrina and my part is really great. Tomorrow morning is important..I am going to get my hair cut. Hopefully this Wayde character is as good as my dear friend Aaron has informed me. 

Matt and Seth, you now must come to visit me since I am putting in on my blog. No ifs, ands or buts, it WILL happen. 

Miss you all! Happy Purim!!!!!!!

Stevi

woah its march!

I cannot believe that it is already March 2nd. I feel like I just got here yesterday butttt I've been here for a month and a half....crazy how time is flying. I just want it to slow down so I don't have to go back home. (Not that I don't miss all of you but I will never experience something like this again and I'm loving it so much...you understand hopefully.) Now that school has started the weeks are going by so so fast and it sucks. 

So classes are good when I go to them. I really have been trying my hardest to make it to lectures but the weather and the beach are doing a really great job of pulling me out of those beautiful classrooms. :). Emoticon hahahaha. They loveee those here..I'll get into that later though. Thursday night Laura, myself, and 5 other girls went to this bar called Hemisphere. It is very chic and a little bit of an older crowd. It is in Green Point (also where the new soccer stadium is for the 2010 world cup) on top of the ABSA building. ABSA is the main bank they use here. But you can see all of cape town from the bar and it is an absolutely gorgeous view. Sadly, we had to pay way too high of a cover charge and the people there were older and creepy. For some reason a lot of short men and if I thought they were short then you know they were short! We then headed to Springbok (jug night) for a nice night cap.) Julie hurt her foot that night and couldnt really walk the next morning. Sad. But a good night.

Friday I went to my morning classes then Laura, Aaron, Jaime, Jackie and I went to Clifton beach for a beautiful day in the sun. Went to La Med for lunch. We didn't go out Friday night, just kept it chill. Saturday was a full day. In the morning I went with Matt, Bronson, Owen and Jill to the farmer's market. Every saturday from 9:00 to 2:00 they have this incredible market with amazing food and taste testing. It was amazing food and day until I lost my favorite sunglasses :(. (emoticon! ahah) That kinda put a damper on the next hour. I came home and Laura Julie and I went to Cavendish (mall in Claremont) to get Julie a new camera and an external harddrive for laura. We obviously shopped around for a couple hours after. Saturday night was way fun...we had 4 of our safrican guy friends over. Georgio (Greek friend not Italian, still weird), Johno, Nick and Demetri. We wanted to teach them our american drinking games but didn't get to the liquor store for beer in time (they close at 5 on saturdays...so stupid) so we played some card drinking games and they loved them. Our kitchen counter also broke that night when someone was leaning on it. The landlord fixed it the next day but it was still hilarious. 

Sunday: I GOT MY BIG GIRL BED!!!!!! I had been living in a single, spring box of a bed this entire time. I finally complained because I have been getting back problems and it was probably the most uncomfortable thing I have ever laid on and the landlord got me a new double, comfortable bed! I knew I would grow up coming here. Laura, Julie and I headed with 2way travel (the travel company we are going through for all of the trips we are doing) to Mzoli's. Mzoli's is a restaurant in one of the townships about 15 mins outside of where we live. Basically its BYO everything. So you have to bring drinks, napkins, plates, silverware. All 2way brought was drinks so we had to eat with our hands which actually worked with the vibe there. It is an outdoor restaurant that only serves meat...A LOT of meat. They sit this huge bowl of meat in front of you that has chicken, steak and tons of links of sausages on top. It looks absolutely disgusting but is actually soooo good. A really yummy lunch. I almost lost my purse and all of my belongings in it though because I was an idiot and left it with someone at the table while I went to the bathroom and everyone decided to leave without my purse. Luckily it was still there when I went back! Ah...lapse of judgments...always so fun. The rest of the day I laid in my bed and enjoyed how new and big it was! 

More observations:

1. They don't have salad ANYWHERE on the damn campus. I think I am going to go into business and open a salad bar here, I feel like a lot of people would really enjoy that. I realized I'm really spoiled coming from Boulder where salad is such a main staple. Oh well...a business idea if nothing else. 2. Pedestrians don't matter. Drivers will literally hit a pedestrian instead of stopping. I thought NY was bad but now I've realized that new yorkers at least care for their dear walkers...not so much here. So note to all of you...if you ever visit here expect to get confused at the traffic coming from the opposite direction and to almost get hit by cars 5 times a day! 3. They LOVE emoticons here. Like really love them. Their favorite times to use them are in SMS's (what they call text messaging.) It still makes me laugh when I am texting with a safrican and they will use lol or :) or ;) in their texts. I always make fun of people that do that at home because its just so stupid and corny but EVERYONE uses them here...its not the lame thing to do. Weird. Laura and I have been having a lot of fun trying to keep up with them and sound really safrican in our texts. 

That is all for now. I miss you all still. Momma and Dani come so soon and I can't wait! 

Stevi

2/18-2/24

Now that school is in session, I don't get to do really really exciting things every single day. I have been going to classes and when I have a couple hours break or when I am done for the day I lay out by the pool...tough life.

This past week was a couple of my good friends on the programs birthdays...Bronson and Matt. To celebrate on Wed. for Bronson's we went to Obs and I brought along Steph and her sister Jen and Diane. As always, Obs was a good time...it never disappoints. Nothing eventful happened in the next couple of days. But on Sat. we went to a braii (aka the SA's version of a bbq) at this guy named Alex's house. One of our friends on the program, Alec, had met him somwhere during our first week here and we have hung out with him a lot since then. He was so nice to invite about 15 of us Americans over to his place with his SA friends to eat a ton of good food and drink. His mom Val was really great and hospitable with all of us. Oh! Also...weird coincidence and small world story. So if you have been reading the blog I talked about how i went to that woman's house with Laura and Julie for Shabbat dinner one of the first weeks I was here. Well there are 4 kids in the fam. One of the daughters, Erin, is a first year (freshman) and had met ALex (SA friend) the previous weekend at a party. He had also incited her to the braii when they met so oddly enough we ran into her at Alex's. I thought my world was small at home but apparently it is in cape town as well. Totally weird and nice to see her again. She told us her fam totally loved us and want us back for another Shabbat din...woohoo! We also met 3 SA brothers that were really nice and cute who we are going to go out with this weekend. I only remember the ones our age names..Mario and Georgio. (They are Greek, not Italian, weird huh?) I guess the names don't really translate too well from the U.S. I kinda just want to start calling them Tony for the hell of it. 

Sat. night Laura and I went to this guy named John's 21st birthday party at a bar called FTV by the Waterfront. We met him at the horse races and exchanged numbers. That turned out to be a lot of fun especially because we got away from the American crew for the night and hung out with all SA's. Sunday was probably the most lazy day Julie Laura and I have had since we've been here. We basically slept and went to Cocoa Wah Wah (internet cafe) for 2 1/2 hrs. Nothing too exciting but I guess my body was hating me enough to tell me I needed to sleep the day away. 

So today (Tuesday) I had a full day of school then went to my first day of SHAWCO. SHAWCO is the volunteer program I signed up for that is affiliated with the university. I signed up for the program called Kenstep where I tutor kids in grade 6 English. The program gave me a guide book before I met with the kids to show me what I would be going over with them. Every Tuesday there is a bus that picks up about 25 UCT students and brings them to a school to tutor the kids. It's not in a township but in more of a middle class region of CT. I am tutoring 8 6th grade girls with one other girl from UCT. They are so adorable and funny. All they wanted to know was if I knew any celebrities...Chris Brown, Beyonce and Rihanna especially. All little kids in SA that America is a place where celebrities are walking around on every corner. They were so confused at why I didn't know any...I guess I let down their hopes of me being super cool. Damn. They also wanted to see American money. For some reason I have a couple dollars left in my wallet that I didn't get converted to rand so I was able to show them that. They were really taken aback by what it looked like and described it as being thicker and tougher feeling wise than the rand is. It was really cute to see all of them so excited to meet an American. 

AHHH! Seth and Matt I have been meaning to tell you guys this since I first got here. Well remember how when I told you I was coming to SA, you guys said they are only going to be clicking to me? Welllll there is a language that involves a lot of clicking called Xhosa (pronounced Kosa). A lot of SA's do speak that as another language besides English. Just htought you would really enjoy that fun fact and like to know that people do "click" here. That is all for now...

Stevi

real life has begun

Before I get into my last fews days...a couple things I have noticed that I think are pretty noteworthy. 1. As everyone knows, or maybe not, but knows now, they drive on the opposite side of the road here. Therefore, people walk on the left side and pass on the left side. It is totally weird! As I have been walking through campus, walking up stairs or just shuffling through crowds, you ALWAYS pass on the left. I keep forgetting, so I walk to the right, and almost always have an awkward encounter with someone's face/body/feet or whatever happens to come into my pathway first. If they didn't know I was American before the weird encounter, they def knew after. 2. All the girls are skinny and don't work out. Trust me, I have been in the gym daily and don't see any of their skinny asses in there. I am going to learn their secret by the end of my time here. 3. Instead of saying hey, whats up? or how are you? Everyone says howzit? It's pretty funny to hear, but I'm catching on...I haven't actually used the phrase myself but I always laugh when I hear their accents and the word. They also use words like dodgy and keen. Like "Are you keen on partying tonight?" It makes it sound like partying is high class hahaha.  4. People are asking me for directions!!! Little do they know I am directionally challenged but that is besides the point...they must not think I'm American. Woohoo for fitting in! 5. They don't have paper towels in bathrooms. Instead, they have ONE hand towel for every single person that comes through that bathroom and decides to be so kind to wash their hands. You know when you are in a touristy restaurant when they have paper towels for you. But in general, its pretty nasty to wipe on that one towel so instead I just don't wash my hands.... (just kidddingggggg). 

Those are just some rando observations though...

So school has officially begun. We had classes on Friday but no SA's go, which we were aware of. The school basically has it for first years (freshman) and any new students (us) to find out where their class venues are. Two of my professors didn't show up, so that was a total waste of time. But Monday we officially started classes. I am really loving some of my classes. I'm taking:

Crime and Deviance in SA cities

Religion, Sexuality and Gender

History of Anti-semitism 

The new millenium through the historical perspective

They are really interesting so I GUESS I will go to class...    In between classes people sit outside of a building called Jameson hall that have a ton of wide steps in front of it called the Jammie steps. I was told today that the first chunk of steps is designated for first years, the second is for second years, 3rd for third years and so on. It felt very mean girls esque since it's like tiered seating. I decided to go against the grain and sit with the first years...I'm such a badass. Well not too much else exciting has happened except that the Yacenda's are here! So I am going out to dinner with them tonight on Long Street at a restaurant called Fork which I have heard is very yummy. Also, Semester At Sea arrived in Cape Town today so I will be seeing a lot of familiar faces and showing them around this incredible city for a fews days! 

That is all for now...COME VISIT EVERYONE! It's only an 18 hour plane ride...really, its nothing.

Stevi

a failed and accomplished past days

So when I last left off I was really confused at what I was going to be doing for the next couple days. The plan was to rent 2 cars (8 people altogether)  then head to a small whale town called Hermanus for the day and night then go to Gordon's Bay to go to these Chrystal Pools which supposedly were so beautiful and at the top of this mountain then stay there the night and head home on Thursday. Wellllll, that was the plan, and plans obviously don't work out in Africa...

So on Tuesday morning Aaron and Will went to get the 2 cars for the trip. Neither of the knew how to drive stick so they practiced for approx 2 hours that morning...def not enough, but they got the hang of it pretty quick. Around 2:00 we headed out to Hermanus. We pulled out...first stall of the day. They became quite common and comical and Aaron had a really amazing attitude about the whole situation while sweating and getting nervous in between. In retrospect we should have been more nervous to be driving with him since 1. He had driven stick for 2 hours before we departed and 2. We were driving on the other side of the road. I won't talk anymore about the driving but just know it was hilarious. So we get to Hermanus (took about an hour and 15 mins) and got to the hostel. WOOP! First hostel of my life! We went to town, walked around, ate dinner, then headed back to the hostel and spoke with some people there. If you want to meet the weirdest/coolest/most interesting people in your life, stay at a hostel...it was so fun to talk to these rando people. The next day we hung around and left Hermanus. You may ask...what were they doing there? Well, Hermanus is a whale town basically with amazing whale watching BUT it is not whale season right now...which we knew, it was just an easy stop on the way and something to see. An entertaining time at the hostel if nothing else.

We then headed out to Gordon's Bay where there are these pools called the Chrystal Pools. Not too many people around CT know about it so it seemed pretty secluded. There are 3 different pools. the first you have to hike about 45 mins up to get to and the 2nd and 3rd you have to hike another 45 mins. We were all super excited and ready to go but mother nature wasn't on our side that day...she decided to send us gale force winds that you could barely open doors in. Soooo, no chrystal pools for us. We went to a secluded beach where it was once again to windy to even lay and enjoy the beauty of the scenery so we left. We did an impromptu stop in Stellenbosch (where all the wineries are) to walk around town and have some food. We ate at a great restaurant called 5. Then we headed back to CT. So our plan didn't work out as we hoped but it was nice to travel around for a couple days if nothing else. 

Today (thurs. 12), we walked around campus to figure out where all of our classes are since school does start tomorrow!!! I am actually oddly excited to get onto a set schedule. We then worked out, sat at the pool then went to Cocoa Wah Wah for some lunch. A pretty relaxing day. But, valentine's day is in 2 days so happy love day to all you love birds. Love and miss you all!!

Stevi

 

the latest and greatest...

There's not too much to talk about since Laura last posted. But you get to hear about it anyways! 

So by Sunday basically everyone had left for their respective trips minus us. So the people left were Me, Laura, Jackie, Aaron, Jamie, Will and Megnaa...well there were a couple more but we don't really hang out with them. It has been really nice without everyone hear because now i can sleep at night without having my hourly wake up of loud people outside. So anyways, Sunday...Laura and I had a lazy morning of getting up, eating breakfast, then going back into our separate rooms to read by ourselves. We are so cool! We headed up to the pool where laura sat and i worked out then sat with her. Pretty exciting. Later that afternoon we went to the Kirstenbosch Gardens with a big group of us. Every sunday they have concerts there...people bring picnics to this huge grassy area. The band was how can i say this nicely...a ghetto version of Dave Matthews. aka...not very good. But, all of us still managed to have a great time despite the music. The view was beautiful so that made up for it. That night, Jackie, Laura, Aaron, Will and I went to a restaurant called Buena Vista Social Cafe in Green Point. It was hands down the best food I have had since I've been here. Yummy Cuban food..it was also a salsa club. The people were absolutely incredible dancers. I thought of you Jesse and Aunt Nikki...you would have loved it. 

Monday (9)...Once again, we had a lazy morning then went to the volunteer fair on campus. It was one of the most overwhelming experiences. There was so so much info every 5 steps with new and exciting clubs to sign up for. I signed up for SHAWCO which is a volunteer club where you teach kids math, english, and other fun things. You go for 3 hours once a week to the school where your put into a classroom with about 10 kids. I'm pretty excited about this, it will probably be one of the more eye opening experiences I will have. Laura, Jackie and I also signed up for the latin ballroom club. WE ARE GOING TO LEARN HOW TO SALSA!!!!! YAAAAA. We headed down to Cocoa Wah Wah (internet cafe) for a couple of hours. Laura and I (once again) said we were going into our rooms to nap for a couple hours and ended up both finishing our books. Some things never change...     We all got together for dinner at Jackie's where we cooked some chicken and pasta with meat sauce. Tough meal.

Tuesday (today!)....Laura, jackie, jaime, aaron, will, megnaa and i are heading to the Chrystal pools for a couple of days. We rented 2 stick shift cars (which the boys are out teaching themselves how to drive as we speak) and are heading out. The pools are about an hour away, so it shouldn't be too bad of a drive. I am just happy I'm not the one with other people's lives in my hands. I'm actually not even 100% (around 25% sure honestly) sure of what we are doing in these next couple of days since the boys planned this trip (the boys here are so on top of their stuff...so impressive!) I guess in the next blentry I will let you know! Until then. Kisses and hugs to all!

Stevi

a special shout out take TWO

yo yo yo another birthday shout out to a ms. judy duhl (or doody jewel as they used to call her back in 2nd grade)

i love you mommala

a special shout out

HAPPY HAPPY BIRTHDAY NIKKI WHITE!!!!

Laura Mac makes a comeback: 19th of Jan-7th of Feb: TIA. This Is Africa

WHAT UP YA’LL!?!? DJ Laura in da house. Stevi has been taking over the blog and I haven’t read through all of her entries because I am lazy so I will hit you up with the most exciting stuff and hope I don’t overlap too much with Stev. Which means I’m going all the way back to the day everyone arrived – 19th of Jan. WOWZERS LONG BLENTRY (Karen, I hear you call them blentries, too?).

19th of Jan
Everyone arrives. 3 boys move in next door and one of them dates a girl that goes to Colgate (I knew this before hand) but its funny that they’re next to us. I went out to dinner with my fam since everyone was unpacking and stuff and I was so excited to come home and sleep since I thought everyone would be jetlagged and stuff, so I get back at like 11pm and meet some people and then we hear people are going up to the 7/11 for basic groceries so my roommate Julie and I get our wallets and we walk outside and the OLs (orientation leaders) throw us in a cab. We wind up at Tin Roof, a UCT (uni of cape town) bar. It was tons of fun and great bonding for the Americans. We also get our first taste of how gorgey SA people are, UGH they are beauty.

20th of Jan
We get a basic tour around our town and our first step is the AIDS clinic. Thanks, Puhmla (our O.L.). If we turn right off of our street we’re in a ghetto-er neighborhood. But if we turn left we go towards a nicer area with a MALL (WOOT!). There is also a nicer supermarket (that sells Heinz, thank god). And to give another example of how incredible SA ppl are, the manager of the grocery store let one of the workers walk us back with a cart so we didn’t have to carry our bags all the way home (like a 20 minute walk). Stevi FINALLY gets in from her adventure in Senegal at like 12am and I show her off to all of the Americans when we get home.

Campus:

21st of Jan
BORING orientation stuff and a mini tour of the campus, which is BEAUTIFUL. All of the buildings are like a light brown brick, covered in ivy, everything is green. Oh, and there is a mountain backdrop. This country sounds so ugly, right? Stevi, Julie, and I go to Camps Bay for a little beaching but its sorta late when we get there so we get drinks at the restaurant Caprice where I went with my family because everyone that goes there is beautiful (like my fam and all the hottie SA manboys). We go out in Observatory (called Obs. I knew I picked the right country when I learned they abbreviate here). This one bar had 4 different areas including a rave and a beach. It was so cool.

22nd of Jan
More orientation stuff. Including a woman who came in and explained how the library works. The same speech we got as young 7th graders at Edgemont High School. Stevi even fell asleep. Then we had our last McDonald family rendezvous with Julie and Stevi (my roommates.. duh) at two wineries. I slept during the car rides in the trunk of our car. Then we ate dinner at this little restaurant called Amici. It was attached to a hotel behind Long Street, and it was wack. Dinner took about 3 hours cuz the wait staff was SO slow and Jude was really not into the whole place. They came with her “summer salad” that had some sort of fish on it that was not advertised on the menu. She got in a fight with the waitress, which we all thought was hilarious (of course). We also almost left the restaurant because the service was so horrible (even though my food was GREAT) AND jeffy ordered a martini, it came and sucked, so he went up to the bartender and taught him how to make a martini. Usually my fam just roles with the punches, but “what makes this night different from all nights?” Who knows, I never went to Hebrew school.

23rd of Jan
Today is the day my family decides to leave me in Africa, which is sad BUT I got to climb a mountain. Our entire program climbed one of the harder routes up table mountain and it was AWESOME. Similar to all of Cape Town, the mountain and scenery was incredibly beautiful, as were some of the SA guides who led us up the mountain. The whole day took 6.5 hours hiking up and down with breaks at different points. I felt like superman. But female.

View from top of Table Mountain:

24th of Jan
I wake up feeling like POO – I can tell I have something wrong with my throat (prob strep), but I don’t want to miss out on the fun so I go to the beach with everyone. We went to Muizenberg, which is a beach on the Indian ocean side meaning the water is warm (its also a surfing beach for beginners AND where everyone gets eaten by sharks). Because of said illness I pass out for 4 hours even though Stevi tried to wake me up like 3 times. This not only leads to feeling worse from the sun, but I also get a BAD burn on the back of my thighs, which still look like snakes losing layers of their skin (sexy). Anywho we leave around 530 even though we are told not to take the trains past 6 and go to train station. Just as we are walking up a train leaves so we have to wait for the next one. At this point I am feeling HORRIBLE, like can’t support my body weight or even my head. And this is not the place you want to lie down for a siesta. FINALLY the train comes after about 43 minutes, and 10 minutes into the ride I run towards the door, but don’t make it in time to open it and I throw up all over the door, floor, and two SA guys’ shoes. I apologize to Team America and go back to my seat feeling much better. Finally we get to the end of the 40-minute ride and come to our stop at Rosebank. About 20 people need to get out and after about 12 leave, the doors close and the train starts moving. Aaron says “HELL NO” and forces the doors open and hops out. Then a few more Americans do so. Stevi, Julie and I are left and the train is really speeding up so Stevi and I jump at the same time, get our limbs caught, and go rolling around. Julie dives over us and also falls, but Stevi and I hit HARD. Instead of helping us up Aaron reaches over and pulls Stevi’s dress down. That’s what friends are for. We leave hysterically laughing because – as we always say, “T.I.A.” – This Is Africa, and what else can we do? And of course 1 minute outside the station I throw up about 7 more times. Then we walk home, me covered in regurgitated cough syrup, and Stevi and I sporting some badass battle wounds. Nothing like a day in Africa.

25th of Jan
I am sick as a dog, but it’s a Sunday and SA’s don’t work on Sundays because they are all at the beach. I lay in bed all day. Other people went to a tattoo convention in the city center though, which sounds SO cool.

26th of Jan
Julie sends me a text at 7:00am saying she feels like poo too. (rhymes). We make doctors appts and Stevi comes along because she is a kind soul. Turns out Julie has strep, and I have strep AND tonsillitis. I would say I am the winner here, but Julie doesn’t actually have tonsils. We get a prescription for FOUR different meds (anti-biotic, pro-biotic, throat lozenges, and this stuff to gargle with for the pain), which all added up – without insurance – to about $18. Isn’t Africa just dandy?

27th of Jan
I am feeling MUCH better, what with all 93 medications I was prescribed, so Stevi and I did an errand day. We brought our laundry to the Laundromat where they kindly do your laundry for you at a fat fee of $5. Then went to an internet café about 15 minutes away and checked out the mall that was a little further. For those of you that have snuck away to SA at some time in your life may have seen Mini Buses driving around. SA doesn’t have a national public transportation system so these private companies (gangsters) own white 10-person vans that drive around to different parts of Cape Town Proper (CT and suburbs). In each van sits a driver and a yeller who lean out the window yelling their end destination “CAPE TOWN!” At first us sexy ladies thought they were just trying to cat call to us, but it turns out they just want our money and would take a fat old man over us if he paid. Good for our self esteem. Anywho, at this point we understand the system and hop on and off of these to go to towns along Main Rd, which is what we live off of. It is about 5-10 rand to anywhere in Cape Town, which is amazing because that is 50 cents to $1 American. You just have to be ballsy enough to ignore the stories of people getting mugged at gun point in these things. But hey, T.I.A.
I guess I forgot to mention previously that for the past few days the keypad outside of our apt has been broken. We’ve been propping open the door with a rock (safe. NOT.) but when we get home the rock was moved and the door is locked. We have no idea how to get into our apt so we go nap in our friends next door until we hear glass shatter really loudly. We run outside and it turns out our friend and neighbor Jon has punched out the window – WE’RE IN!! Of course, if you remember to the early days about our creepy landlords, we had been told every day that the lock would be fixed as well as the window, but it took a WEEK for them to fix everything. T.I.A.

28th of Jan
Train to Muizenberg (shark beach), but it gets WINDY there. Like abrasive windy with the sand. So we leave really quickly. Julie and I go to the mall with our friends Elena and Hannah and spend some of Jude’s hard-earned bucks. We go out but Stevi Julie and I are so tired we retire early and SLEEP.
Today was boring, so I will elaborate on this TIA saying I use so much. Basically it is Africa’s easy way out of treating us like poo, but it really works. Any time ANYTHING goes wrong, we just say “TIA,” and it just makes everything okay because we are across the globe and we can’t do anything about it. It also makes us laugh, and laughter makes everything okay. So when supermarkets close at 430pm or when trains leave you bloody and throwy-uppy, you just gotta laugh and blame the mother country. Get it? Got it. Good. Moving on…

29th of Jan
We wake up “early” (930) and go to the beaches all day. Clifton beach is right near Camps Bay where all the beautiful people hang out, and the beach is.. beautiful. I know you guys are annoyed by that word and you don’t really believe everything is as magnificent as it sounds, but you better believe it. And if you don’t, come visit and I’ll prove it to you.
This day was great, but I’ll stop bragging because most of you are really pale right now while I am busy soaking up the rays every day. We ate lunch at this restaurant that many people had partied at on Sunday (because Sunday is obviously a huge going-out night..) but I was too sick to do. We also saw people hang-gliding off of the mountain to a landing park right near the restaurant, which gave me new ideas on how to spend J&J’s money. We went out to this bar called Springboks where they advertise a Thursday night “Jug Night” where you get a huge pitcher and get to fill it with anything for R45 ($4.50). We were all like, YEAHHHH ITS SO CHEAP, WOOOOOT! Until we realized that they put about .25 of a shot of alc in this pitcher and fill the rest with sugar. RIP OFF. So we just danced the night away on a sugar high.

30th of Jan – The Day of Tourism
Stevi, Julie, and I decide to be tourists for a day and do the Hop-On/Hop-Off bus around Cape Town. We stop at the South Africa Museum and read about some history and make fun of the nudey plaster models portraying African village life. Then we look through the animal exhibit. Next we stop at the SA Jewish Museum so we can convert Julie to Judaism, but as we were walking around we finally admitted to each other that we all actually hate museums and could no longer pretend to smile and nod at the exhibits. We hop on board the bus and let it take us to Camps Bay because we would much rather learn about the human body (tan and muscular on this beach) than the Jews. We ate there and took the bus back and slept the night away. Who knew museums could take so much out of you?

Me, Julie, Stevi at SA Museum:

31st of Jan – Horse Races at The Met
This day was FUN. We knew we were going to the races so we all bought big, floppy hats while we were in Camps Bay the day before. We were scared we would look silly in these hats until we arrived to see that this year’s theme was “Disco Ball.” SAs don’t go to horse races to bet on horses, but instead to enter fashion contests for the best costume fitting the theme, which meant there were couples EVERYWHERE wearing the most ridiculous outfits I have EVER seen. If and when I upload pics, you will understand.

We were also told we should get there early so we arrived at 1030 only to find the first race did not start until 12:30, so what did we do? Ordered drinks of course. And took pictures with the outfitted people. And made sexy eyes at hottie SA guys. And then we were warmed up enough to spend money so I put R10 on five of the nine races, which is $1. AND I won two of those races!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! But I did a swing bet, so I only won R44, so I didn’t net any money, but hey – who’s counting!?
We did the horse races with a group of seven girls, and we left around 430 to go back and shower because some of the boys had bought tickets for the horse race after party and we wanted to go with them. We showered and got all pretty and I put on the same sweaty dress and then we went to the party. At first we got lost and got denied from all of these smaller, private parties, but finally we found the main area and it was CRAZY. Actually a little too crazy so we left kind of early and called our favorite cab driver Steve. About 7 of us were in a cab and we had left some behind, but 3 more wanted to come find us. We waited on the phone with them forever and finally they found us – with a LARGE Irish man in tote, wearing none other than a full kilt outfit. Of course. I kept yelling “AMERICA ONLY AMERICA ONLY!” but this guy came in the cab with us anyway and got dropped off on route to our home so we were safe. Then we had a small get together in my friends apartment where a few of us sang showtunes with champagne bottles as our microphones. It was a grand old time at the time, but now I am known for belting Gwen Stefani tunes off key. WOOPSEY.

1st of Feb (FINALLY)
Interstudy (my program of 47 wonderful Americans) arrived on Jan 19th obviously, but the rest of the American programs (bringing the America count to 300 peeps) arrived on 31st of Jan. They really cramped our style bc at first we were a novelty with sexy American accents (not so sexy, but still different), and now we are just a huge group of annoying, rowdy Americans, so us interstudy kids SHUN the others.
Today was our first day of UCT (Uni of Cape Town) orientation for all SSA (semester study abroad) students. We were all forced to meet at the bus stop at 8am to sit on a bus for the entire day with a tour guide. It would have been amazing and awesome when we first got there, but I seriously could have given half of the tour (because I’m so acculturated *hair swoosh*). It was also a pretty crazy after party the night before so sitting on any moving object was hard for most of the cool interstudy kids, and most of us slept through the tour. WOOPS. We stopped at Boulder’s beach and saw penguins, ate lunch at a coloured community center, and then climbed to the tip of Cape Point and the Cape of Good Hope. The lunch was really cool because some kids in the community have a program where they learn to dance, so we got a break-dancing performance!!! It was so good. Although the head of the community center was this heshe who looked sort of Native American, but wore the WEIRDEST OUTFIT – a black leotard with a thong (which we had the pleasure of seeing when it kneeled down), and these hand-made jeans that were four pairs of jeans sewn together. A picture is also needed here – I’ll work on it.

2nd of Feb
Unlike America, there are not nail salons on every corner of every street. This would be fine if we could at least find ONE place to get our nails done. We went to the mall in Claremont (a few towns away) and found two spas that did nails. While in each of them four employees sat doing nothing, we were told we had to make appts before we came. AKA twilight zone episode 32: we can’t get our nails done.
Then we have to go to our next American orientation thing (ugh) called the PTEEP test, which is a test that proves we can think and learn in English. And to think, we didn’t get a review book beforehand! And of course, being that this is Africa, the test proctor took SO long to explain the test including the explanation of how to fill in a circle on a scantron sheet. She also walked us through writing our initials: “You see my name is Carol Anderson, so I would write “C” for my first name “Carol” and then “A” for my surname “Anderson.” Stevi looked at me and goes, “oh so when we were labeling our groceries this morning, that was called “initials”? Hmm, I guess we did study.

3rd of Feb
Happy birthday to Sarah Leiner!!!
Not to take away from your birthday glory, but today is the day I tried SURFING!!! Stevi and I went to the beach with some guys who had gone surfing before, so we all rented surfboards and Stevi and I went out hoping we would just figure it out. We basically just stood in the water giggling at the waves for 20 minutes before the boys found us and told us what to do. It was one of the most fun days I have had here in Africa. Surfing is FUN. But its also HARD. Once you catch a wave the water is moving pretty quickly so getting to a standing position is not easy, especially since my board hadn’t been waxed recently meaning it was really slippery. I did ride a ton of waves in on my knees, but Stevi stood up a few times!!!!! YAY STEV!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

4th of Feb
Since my life is so hard here, we decided to take a beach day at Clifton.

5th of Feb: Wild Goose Chase
For all of you elders out there, class registration in America is quite simple. You log into your school’s database online at the allowed time (usually by class year) and type in a few numbers of the classes you want, and then you are done. Five minutes of clicks of a mouse and your schedule is planned out. Not the case in SA. We are reminded of SA’s third-world status when we hear about registration.
We had to pre-register for courses when we applied to the program and some of these courses were approved, but most were not. I also did not want to take ANY of the classes I originally asked about, not to mention some of the classes I was approved for don’t actually exist anymore (3rd world). So this was the day that we had to “figure shit out” all day. First, we went on a wild goose chase looking for a course catalogue so we could simply find out what classes are offered. We ran around campus and finally gave up and went to the office of the American program we are on (interstudy) and found that there was ONE course catalogue there. So we all sat on our computers guessing courses we may want and then looking in the one book so see what time the class was offered. FINALLY after 3 hours we had a list of classes we may want to take that are potentially not conflicting time-wise. Next goose chase involved running to the heads of each department and getting signed in to these courses. Eventually, Julie Stevi and I got 4 classes we are excited about, and one that the 3 of us are taking. I celebrated with a four-hour nap.
My courses: Organisational Behaviour and Research (business psych course that won’t transfer to Colgate but im SO excited about), Ancient Mythology, Critical Thinking (philosophy course), and Crime and Deviance in South African Cities. If only I knew where on campus these classes were…

6th of Feb: Registration Day
We were told this would be the day from hell because we had to register for classes not online like in the US but on PAPER. We got up early and were up on campus at 830 for registration at 9. We were first on line and since it was only study abroad kids, we finished in an hour, including getting GHASTLY photo IDs that I will not be showing my new SA boyfriends that don’t exist yet anyway.
Stevi, Julie, the two boys next door, and I decide to work out so we try to go to the gym, which we were told was free, but they wouldn’t let us work out (TIA) so Stevi and the boys went up to the Recreation office to buy memberships and Julie and I just ran on the track. It turns out it is free for us internationals but we needed to get vouchers, which Stevi and Charlie now have. Jon lost his somewhere along the walk back to the gym so he gave up and went to the mall instead. What’s nice about going to school in heaven is that there is a pool right on campus for students. So after our hard workouts we all dove into the pool and then read our books next to it, while also looking for hottie first-year guys swimming nearby.

7th of Feb: I’m all caught up!
Since we have been here for going on 3 weeks now (although yesterday was MY one-month anniversary in SA!!) some people decided to take trips this week. Many people went to the Garden Route on the eastern side of the country and will be back in 4-6 days. A group of our favorite guy friends went to NAMIBIA for SIX DAYS. We really miss them already, but we have to make do without them : (
Stevi and I ate breakfast at our friend Aaron’s place with Jackie and Jill (Jack and Jill). Then the four of us minus Jill went to Clifton with three other guys. It was SO hot today that I actually had to lie under an umbrella for an hour. I also saw this amazing hot pink bathing suit (SAs call them “cozzies”) and asked the girl where she got it. She said there was a store in the mall at the V&A Waterfront (touristy area that the McDonald’s stayed in). The seven of us went to the mall and I got a cozzie (WOOPIE!) and then the girls stayed for dinner at Balducci’s – a GREAT Italian restaurant that my fam ate at when they were still here.
So remember how beautiful and wonderful it is here? Well it hasn’t rained once, until tonight. And it poured for like 20 minutes. I mean POURED. Luckily Stevi and I were still in our cozzies at this point (around 743pm) and we see Aaron outside running around in his pink american apparel underroos so we run outside and start a dance party in the rain! Ugh you just cant predict this kind of fun. About 10 of us were out there dancing and singing in the rain (Oh, I just know Jude broke out into song on this one) in our bathing suits. It was beautiful.

WOWZIES. It feels grand to be caught up on this thing. I apologize profusely for repeating so much of what Stevi probably already wrote, but not really because I feel like a million bucks being all caught up. Hopefully I can get to an internet café soon and add a ton o’ pics. Until then.. all my love, and remember: T.I.A.

Smooches,
L