Hello from South Africa

Alright, so I really didn't want to blog but so many of you are asking me what I have been up to.  Therefore, I wanted to make this easier on myself by blogging for all of you.  This blog will be extra long because it includes everything I have done for the last 2 or 3 weeks.  So you definitely don't need to read everything.  Well here you go,

Week 1 - Arriving in Stellenbach

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      Arrived in Cape Town around 11pm Monday night.  We got picked up by David Taylor (Our connection to South Africa).  We arrived in Stellenbach around midnight.  We arrived at our host families houses, my host family brought us to our apartment that we would be staying at for our time in South Africa.  My apartment is located on the lot right next to the host families home.  It is an apartment/loft.  There is a kitchen and bathroom on the first floor and then a loft with four beds.  I am staying with 2 other girls I came on the trip with.  The place is really cute and comfortable. 

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      Tuesday morning we went to visit the schools we would be working at.  The first school we went to was Kayamandi High School.  This is the school that I would be working at.  Kayamandi township is a very poor township, this is where my students come from.  The school is nice, but nothing like the our schools.  After that, we went to visit AFLow Primary School.  This is where 10 of the students I came with will be working.  We got to listen to the history of the school, and the principal was able to provide lots of interesting information to us about all the schools in Stellenbach.  The biggest thing here, is that they just got through Apartheid and so there are still a lot of struggles between the different races.  There is a lot of tension between blacks (people from the tribes) the coloreds  (half black, half white, asian) and the whites. 

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     Wednesday we woke up bright and early at 6am.  We got fetched (they don’t say picked up, they say fetched haha) by our driver and were brought to Kayamandi High.  We were placed with another teacher to help and observe.  I was placed with Mr. Mpokeli (I think that is how it is spelt).  We went to our classroom and I was able to introduce myself to the class.  My teacher then handed them some things to work on and left the room.  We were warned that the teacher might just leave us and not give us anything to do.  So there I sat, on my first day there, with a classroom of 42 students with no plans.  Talk about being really nervous and scared.  The students were so respectful and I didn’t have any problems.  The main thing I struggle with is that all the students first language is Xosa or Afrikaans.  Therefore it is hard to talk to the students.  I finished out the day feeling very tired and stressed because my teacher was with me for maybe 30 min of the entire school day.  Then we got fetched from school and dropped off at our host families.  Tonight was the welcome dinner which would be held at my host family (The Taylors).  The welcome dinner was a lot of fun.  All the other host families and students came and we all got to hang out and get to know the other host families. 

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      Thursday we went back to the schools.  Today I decided to not stay with my teacher the whole day.  I bounced around where I was needed.  It was a lot better day.  Again, the students are just spectacular. 

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      Friday was another good day at school.  I am really started to get the hang of things at this school.  I am now prepared with things to do each day just in case my teacher leaves me again.  Later that night we all decided to go downtown and experience the night life.  We went to two different places and had a lot of fun.

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      Saturday we went on a Kayamandi Township tour. I was expecting this tour to be really boring but I believe that this will be one of the highlights of my entire trip.  It was amazing to see the way the people live in this township.  The township is home to 40,000 people.  There homes are shacks, mostly the size of a bathroom in our homes.  We were able to walk through some of the shacks and see their living situations.  The people are very proud of what they have accomplished.  It saddens me to see these kinds of living situations but at the same time the pride of the people here makes me happy.  The children were so happy to see all of us walking through their township, and they couldn’t get enough of the pictures we were taking.  We were nervous to take pictures but the people want us to take pictures of them, they want us to show the world how they are living and how proud they are.  I got a ton of pictures with the children, they are all so cute.  A lot of the children had big bellies, which is a sign of malnutrition.  But they are all so happy. 

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      Sunday, we went to Robben Island, the Island where Nelson Mendela was held prisoner.  We rode the train from Stellenbach to Cape Town, and then got on a ferry.  The Island is beautiful, except for the big prison that is on this island.  We were given a tour of the island and also the prison.  Our guide in the prison was actually someone who went to the prison.  He was very knowledgable because he stayed there for years.  He is still not allowed to travel outside of South Africa, because many of the prisoners that were held there are still on the terrorist list.  Once we took the ferry back, we were able to get lunch and go to a couple markets in Cape Town on the waterfront.  A couple of us decided to go in a ferris wheel there.  The view from the ferris wheel was amazing.  There is a mountain called, Table Mountain, it is beautiful.  We will be climbing that mountain on one of our holidays.  I got to skype wi the rents tonight.  It was good to see them, especially because they were gone when I left. 

      Week 2

      The start of another new week of school.  We only go until Wednesday this week because the students go on holiday. 

      School went really well this week.  Today I got to sub for a teacher in another classroom.  The subbing situation here is much different from the US.  Here, there actually aren’t substitutes.  The students still go their classroom and one teacher is responsible for both classrooms, crazy huh.  So, since there are 7 of us placed at the High School, they had some of us sub for the teacher that was going to be gone.  When a teacher is absent they don’t need to have lesson plans left behind for the sub.  So, we got to do whatever we wanted to with the students.  We had really wanted to learn some of their dances.  So we thought we would teach them a dance from the US and they could teach us a dance.  So we decided to teach them the cupid shuffle.  It was the best day at school ever.  The students loved it, and kept telling us how much they love us and how much fun they have with us.  They then taught us some of their songs and dances.  It was a great day to end the week.

      Thursday, we left early in the morning to go on holiday.  We drove for most of the day.  We finally arrived in Knysa.  We stayed in a backpackers place for the night.  There was a room of 8 which I stayed in. 

      Then Friday morning we left to drive to Addo National Park (which is a game park, basically where we get to go on a safari).  We arrived in Addo and went out for our first game ride.  It was a ton of fun.  We didn’t see that much because it was raining out and the animals hide when it is raining.  But we got to see warthogs, elephants, buffalo, kudu (an antelope looking thing), and jackels (fox looking things).  That night we all cooked dinner together. 

      Saturday morning we woke up really early.  The game area opens at 6am, so we were there first thing in the morning because that is when you can see the most animals.  We finally got to see zebras today!  Today we saw warthogs, zebras, kudu, elephants, heartabeasts, eelands (another type of antelope), dung beetles, tortoise, jackels, ostrich and buffalo.  After the morning drive in the park, I went with 4 others horseback riding through the park.  This was absolutely amazing.  We were right next to the animals on horseback.  We weren’t just walking or trotting either.  We were cantoring and galloping through the park.  It was amazing.  Then we were on our way back to the stalls and we were cantoring.  When all of a sudden my horse got spooked and bucked me off.  I fell of the horse and rolled off to the side so the horse wouldn’t step on me.  I scraped up my arm and felt really sore.  But I got back on the horse and walked back to the stalls.  Good thing I am okay though, my arm is healing very quickly J.  Then that night we all went a night safari thought he park.  We didn’t see as much on this ride but we did get to see hyenas and jackels eating an eeland carcass.   Our driver went right up next to them.  We were so close, it was amazing.

      Sunday morning we left Addo to go to Tsitsikamma.  We drove for a couple of hours and finally arrived.  Tsitsikamma is another national park but it is not a game park.  It is on the shore of the Indian Ocean, it was so beautiful.  The first night we all hung out and played a lot of Euchre and relaxed. 

       

      Week 3

      Monday we stayed in Tsitsikamma and went to a canopy tour place to go zip-lining.  It was really fun.  The view was incredible up in the trees.  Our guides taught us some Afrikaan sayings which made it even better.  After zip-lining we went back to our cabins and had a Braai (a barbecue) with everyone.  Afterwards we hung out again and rested.

      Tuesday we stayed in Tsitsikamma and went hiking.  There is trail that you can hike down along the coast.  The hike leads you to a very pretty waterfall which you can jump off from.  It was quite a hike itself getting to the spot where you can jump off from, but it was worth it.  Also the water that is in the waterfall is from a glacier so the water is ice cold.  I jumped off twice and each time the water took my breath away and I couldn’t say anything, it was quite funny, and fun.  Then we had to hike back to the cabins.  After we got back from hiking we were eating lunch and some baboons came from the woods and were rummaging through our trash can, haha.  Then later that night we went to a restaurant called Marilyn’s 60’s Diner and all ate dinner.  It was a ton of fun because we got to control the juke box and do a lot of fun dancing.

      Wednesday we left in the morning to go to Mossel Bay.  On our way to Mossel Bay we stopped at Bloukran’s Bridge where a lot of us went bungee jumping.  I was really excited to go bungee jumping.  We got out to the bridge and the workers there chose who go first based on your weight, and I was chosen to go first, ahhh.  That is when I got really nervous but really excited.  It was really fun being the first one to go.  After we all went bungee jumping we arrived at a backpackers place in Mossel Bay.  We all went out to dinner to a seafood restaurant and hung out.

      Thursday we left in the morning to go to Cango Caves and go cave spurlunking.  The cave was really cool and we went on the adventurous tour.  We had to crawl through tiny tunnels, there was a tunnel at one point we had to army crawl through.  It was a lot of fun.  Then we left cave spurlunking and went to an ostrich farm.  Ostrich’s are crazy birds.  They are so big and scary.  We got to see ostrich eggs and stand on them.  The eggs are very strong.  Then there were 4 people who got to ride an ostrich.  I chose not to because I had already fallen off my horse in Addo, I didn’t need to fall off an ostrich.  I did get to sit on an ostrich though.  Their feathers are very soft.  After the ostrich farm we went to a local festival.  This is where we ate dinner.  I had pizza in a cone, it was very different but also very good.  Then we walked around and looked at everything in the market.  There were a lot of cool things.  It kind of felt like Shipsy sometimes. 

      Friday was a free day for us to explore Mossel Bay.  This is the day we had planned on going sky diving.  We left at 7:45am to go sky diving.  There was 13 of us that decided to go.  We were going up in the plane as pairs.  I went with my roomie at the Taylors, Libby.  Libby and I were the first couple to go.  So we crawled into this tiny plane and had a 25 min plane ride until we reached 10,000ft.  We finally got to 10,000ft and Libby jumped out first and I followed 10 seconds behind her.  It was crazy, we got to a few flips right when we jumped out.  You free fall for about 35 seconds.  The free fall is insane.  I am so glad I decided to skydive in South Africa because the scenery was incredible.  When we were in the plan we were flying over the ocean for a little bit.  We got done sky diving later in the day so we all took showers and got ready for dinner.  We all ate together and then the manager of the backpackers place took some of us out on the town.  It was a lot of fun. 

      Saturday we left early in the morning to head home to Stellenbach.  It was a long ride but we finally made it home around 6pm.  When we got home, there is another student staying at the Taylors right now and it was her 21^st birthday.  Even though the drinking age here is 18, they make a big deal about 21^st birthdays because it is the age they can vote.  So we had a big braai, and all her friends came to hang out and eat.  It was great.  Then we headed home for some much needed rest after all the things we did on holiday.  Tomorrow we go back to the schools, and I am very excited to go back.


      Pictures

This elephant was walking right next to our van, we could have reached out and touched him :)

Me jumping off Bloukran's Bridge (the highest bungee jump in the world)

Kayamandi Township - This is where all my students live

Kayamandi Township Barber Shop

My apartment for my stay in Stellenbach, South Africa

Some of my students at Kayamandi High School