Hello!

A lot has happened since I last posted, so I’m going to try to touch on all of the exciting things happening here. Apologies in advance for the length of this post – it’s been a packed two weeks! I'm really starting to feel comfortable and at home in Cape Town, and I like feeling like I know what I'm doing now. It's so strange to think that we've been here for nearly 5 weeks now, because there's so much that we still haven't done, too. My camera broke a few weeks back, and I just replaced it, so I'll be able to post pictures again as soon as I load them onto my laptop!

Yabonga:

My friend and I started at Yabonga just over a week ago. We are working as interns in the office 2 days/week, and at an after-school program in Nyanga 3 days/week. Yabonga is an organization that works to empower children and families infected or affected by HIV/AIDS. We are working with a phenomenal group 14-16 year olds, and will soon be starting a theater/movie project, where they speak out about issues related to HIV/AIDS, community misperceptions, and “living positively.” We will be playing theater games, discussing social issues, and writing monologues throughout the semester. On the days where we don’t lead our workshops, we will be helping out with the soccer & literacy programs, conducting program evaluation interviews, and workshopping a former CIEE Service-Learner’s career manual.

We are absolutely thrilled with our site. The learners we work with have been incredibly friendly – and they love to laugh at our attempts to speak Xhosa. It’s a great motivation to study our vocab! The office has been an incredibly friendly environment so far and we’re really excited for all of our upcoming projects!

School:

We had our first test in Xhosa last week, which was surprisingly manageable. Luckily we all freaked out and over-studied, planning for the worst. I feel like my vocabulary and confidence has doubled since those intense study sessions! We also have our first Poverty & Development research paper due at the end of next week, so I’ve been researching and beginning my draft over the past few nights. I’m hoping to give my professor a first draft so that I know I’m on the right track for it. We’re discussing development & modernization theory in South Africa, which is actually a super interesting topic. Although of course, I’d also be fine with not writing papers this semester…

Johnnie:

On August 11th, the world lost an great man. My great-uncle Johnnie was one of my favorite people to visit as a child, and we used to spend every April Break visiting him & my Aunt T at their apartment in New York. He has been struggling with cancer for some time now, and I've been missing my family as we all remember the years of fun we had with him. He and T were like another set of grandparents, bringing together that side of the family and keeping close connections throughout the extended family. He was loved dearly and will be missed.

Last Weekend:

Last weekend, my program had a few pre-planned activities for us to participate in. On Friday, we had tickets to a rugby match. It was rainy, and I didn’t understand the sport at all, but we certainly had fun cheering and buying snacks. The Western Province (our team) ended up losing, but it was a very close match. I’d love to go back when the weather’s a little bit nicer and see another game.

On Saturday, we went to a vineyard in Stellenbosch for a wine tasting. The vineyard we visited, Simonsig, frequently wins awards and is known for being one of the best wineries in the area. I can’t say that I’m much of a wine fan, but I really liked the sparkling wines and one of the whites that I tried.

Sunday, I met up with my friend Elena who has been living in South Africa over the summer doing a research project. We cooked dinner together and attempted to make our own spaghetti sauce – which mostly worked. After dinner she and her friends took me to a very cool open mic night. The guitarists were absolutely incredible, and the whole atmosphere was a lot of fun. The restaurant that holds the event every Sunday even has small djembes, singing bowls, and other percussion instruments for onlookers to join in the jam session.

The Strike:

The municipal worker’s strike, which started last week, is a strike mainly in the cleaning sector. We first heard about it when our trash didn’t get picked up. It was a peaceful protest at first, but has intensified over the week. Two days ago, there was a riot in town, and yesterday we were told that it was unsafe for us to go to Nyanga, because rioters were burning tires in some of the townships. Today, again, the after-school program was cancelled, so we’ve spent a lot of time in the office working on our curriculum for the coming workshops.

Today during our lunch break, we went to the mall across the street to get lunch. Shoprite, the grocery store in the mall, was closed, so we were debating the pros and cons of a particular take-away place’s menu when an announcement was made. We ignored the announcement and kept talking, but the workers went into panic mode. The woman at the front counter said they couldn’t serve anyone else and promptly shut down the take-away station, and everyone in the mall started streaming toward the exit. As we left, we saw workers frantically pulling on their coats and locking up. We didn’t know what was happening so we went across the street, got sandwiches, and discussed what could have been announced.

When we got back to work, our boss told us that she had also been in the mall when it happened and that she had been worried when we didn’t come back to work after the evacuation. She’s not sure exactly what happened, but the people who were evacuating said that there was a bomb scare in Shoprite, probably related to the strike. Luckily, the whole place was evacuated, and it seems that the situation was well under control. It’s definitely interesting to live in a place where public demonstrations escalate this way. It makes me laugh to think about how different this is than the protests we see in Washington, DC – the people flood the metro and GW’s campus with their signs, do their thing over by the White House or on the Mall, and head home after a couple of days.

The coming week:

My roommate from freshman year is paying me a visit for the coming week, before she has to head back to GW for the school year. She flew in today, and I left work for a bit to meet her at the airport. I’m beyond thrilled that she’s here and can’t wait to show off all that Cape Town has to offer!

A few quick stories!

I've been very proud of my adventurous eating here, so I thought I'd put up a quick update. Today my house went out for our weekly "family dinner." It was raining, so we decided to splurge on Marco's African Place in Bo Kaap. Three other girls and I shared a platter of crocodile tail, warthog & springbok with a side salad and two desserts. It came out to about 17 USD each... which was amazing. The food was really good, the live music and dancers were great, and overall we had a fantastic evening.

Myself and the other girl who are working at Yabonga are in a bit of limbo right now, because we won't be able to start our work until next week. Until then we've been visiting everyone else's sites. On Tuesday, I visited a juvenile detention center in Ottery. We played team-building and getting-to-know-you games with the teenage boys, which made for a very fun afternoon. Wednesday, I paid a visit to Brooklyn Chest TB Hospital, where three of us played with pre-school aged TB patients. The day was a little hectic because several nurses were out that day and the toy closet was locked, but the children were adorable and we had a lot of fun with them.

Today I paid a visit to a high school in one of the townships. They're in a really tight situation there, because the classes often have 40 kids in them, but they're so tight on teachers that all of the administrators are also teaching, and oftentimes teachers don't show up to classes. One of the girls who is working at the school and we literally found classrooms of kids with no teacher in the room and taught impromptu English classes throughout the day. She has already learned to come every day with English exercises prepared for exactly that situation. I also helped her prepare & run her after-school English program with eight absolutely fantastic grade 11s. I have to admit, I had never appreciated South Windsor's school system as much as I do now. As much as I want to start at Yabonga, I'm glad that I had the chance to see a bit more of my housemates' service sites too.

We've also done lots of cool things outside of our service work. Last Saturday alone, we went to Old Biscuit Mill in the morning, spent the afternoon at the Waterfront, and went to an indie rock concert that night. At the Waterfront we saw the Real Housewives of Atlanta filming their vacation episode!

Commitment to Community blog post :)

I haven't posted in a while, so here's the first entry for my scholarship blog!

Hi!

I am very excited to be kicking off my new blog with a little bit of experience in South Africa behind me already. Even though it's the 31st of July, I've already been in my program for three weeks now! It's winter here in the southern hemisphere, but most days are still in the 60s and 70s

when the sun is out. This semester I'll be studying with CIEE's Service-Learning in Cape Town program, which has already proved to be a fantastic choice. Our program has just ten people, and we live together in a big house right across the street from the University of Cape Town. We're taking three classes (Research Methods, Poverty & Development and our choice of Xhosa or Afrikaans). We also volunteer 15-20 hours a week at a local NGO or school, and end the semester with a major capstone project. I chose to take Xhosa, a local click language, and am very excited to start mastering the new sounds - although it certainly is a challenge!

I chose to come to Cape Town because I knew that I wanted to be in Africa, and the service-learning program was more like my major at home than any other program I could find. Human services is a service-learning based nonprofit management major, and our research methods class will even count towards my degree. I also thought that it would be interesting to do service in a country where history is still being made, so post apartheid South Africa certainly fit the bill. We've already visited a number of townships, including Khayelitsha, Guguletu, Manenberg and Langa.

After two weeks of orientation, tours, sightseeing, and settling in, we started classes and service work last week. I was struggling to choose between Young in Prison, which works with youth in conflict with the law, and Yabonga, which works with children and youth who are infected or affected with HIV/AIDS. I visited both sites this week, and even took part in a drum circle at Pollsmoor Prison! However, I have decided to go with Yabonga. After spending some time in the townships I couldn't imagine working anywhere else for the next four months. Yabonga hosts after-school programs for children, youth and adolescents in a number of townships, including Khayelitsha. I am hoping to do most of my service in the field, although I am excited to see the inner workings of a foreign NGO as well. I'll be going in next week to work out the specifics of my project and hours, so I hope to have a clearer idea of my plans soon!

< Our two-week orientation ended with a weekend at a high ropes course. This was the Burmese Bridge - 15 meters in the air!

>

On Sunday, we attempted to climb Table Mountain. We got lost, but we did see some zebras along the way!