Plettenburg Bay and Grahamstown

I'm back online! Internet in Stellenbosch was uber pricey, and then upon arriving in Grahamstown we found no better prices. However, we found a place with decent night time rates, so here I am! And thank goodness too, I felt so far away and disconnected from the rest of the world.

ok so RECAP! (and for your sake, Chris, I'll try to be a bit more concise this time!)

So we finished up building with Habitat for Humanity in Mfuleni, the township outside of Stellenbosch. I have reflections on my experience and interaction with poverty, but I'll transfer them from my journal to the web sometime later, so keep your eyes open. Anyway, we bid a nearly tearful goodbye to our Northern Irish friends and embarked for a long drive to Plettenburg bay where we would spend a day before going on to Grahamstown for the National Arts Festival.

I think I've been endowed with superhero like abilities when it comes to sleeping during travel. I slept almost the entire flight to africa, and it seems nearly every car trip as well.

I woke up after about 4 hours when we reached a gas station for lunch. Not only was there a gas station, restaurant, and playground, but a petting zoo as well. Africa is surreal sometimes.

Plettenburg bay was beautiful. The day we had there was a free day so we went about various activities. A few students chose to sea kayak with dolphins, since we were right on the coast, and some sought more of a thrill. Mom, I'm appologizing right now for my decision to join the latter group, I'm not sure what got into me. You might not want to look at the pictures...

This is me, jumping off the highest bungy jump in the world. the highest IN THE WORLD. I couldn't help myself.

This is us! plus a few random people from Ireland (we told them how much we love the Irish) and South Korea.

That was the most terrifying/exhilerating experience ever! Free falling, though it's only for about 5 seconds, is the scariest feeling. I was screaming my lungs out thinking, how the heck did I get mid-air? Is the cord ever going to catch me?

Sooo after bungy jumping, a few of us hiked down to the beach. It was beautiful, but already cold outside (it was about 4 pm) and everyone was wearing sweatshirts. Josh and I however, emboldened by our bridge jumping experience, were determined to test out the waters of South Africa, the Indian Ocean, the closest water to ANTARCTICA I've ever jumped in! And in we went! and then OUT we went. That water was absolutely freezing!

Then we had class that night, wrote some essays, did some reading.

Next day we drove to

GRAHAMSTOWN

So here we are, all up to date! We arrived in Gtown on friday , checked into our rooms (single dorm rooms at Rhodes University - a beautiful English campus. And oh it's so very nice to have a room to myself!) and dived right into the arts festival with a theatre performance of the play "Cissie." Saturday we scoped out the market. Talk about overwhelming! The whole city is buzzing with merchants sellling every African artifact you could ever want, and a pair of nikes to boot! Then we attended a Jazz performance and an extremely upsetting movie premier about a poor, incestuous, Afrikaner family. Today we saw an amazing ballet of Romeo and Juliet (OLIVIA!).

And I've got so much homework to do, so I'll leave it at that for now, but I love you all, and am looking forward to either seeing you in a couple weeks, or hearing from you soon!

Stellenbosch - rain and more rain

Alright folks, due to lack of internet availability, I've been falling behind in my updates! So sorry. I don't know how consistent they'll be this week, Josh and I found an internet cafe today but I don't know if we'll have time later on. Anyway, here's a quick recap of the past couple days.

Monday:
We boarded into the bus and our driver, Desmond, took us into a township about 40 minutes outside of Cape Town. I have no idea how to spell it, but it's pronounced Kye-leetch-ah. The township holds about a million people, mainly in shacks of corrugated tin and cardboard, plastic, wood, whatever is available. We drove to a children's home to drop off some clothing and toys that we had brought, take a tour, and play with the kids a bit. There's about 140 kids there, ranging from infancy to 19. Many of them are orphans, but some of them are simply abandoned by their parents 0r neglected, so they stay at the home until their parents file a missing person's report, a social worker checks out the situation at home, and then the children are sent back.

When we arrived, there were kiddos running everywhere. The most adorable black children in tattered/mix and match clothing, dirt on their faces, running up to us with their hands outstretched asking to be held. One little girl of about 5 came up to me and wouldn't speak, but she took my hand and showed me around. We spoke to some of the older children, young teenagers, who showed us their beds (which, as we saw and according to the American v0lunteer who showed us around, they always keep made and neat) and told us that they enjoy living at the home. There aren't very many workers there, but they seem to really love the children and care about their futures - all of the kids are required to attend school.

Anyway, in one of the rooms all the babies were taking naps (which the children interupted as soon as they brought us in). There was about 10 children, those old enough to stand, stood in their cribs, peaking their heads over the side and holding out their arms to be picked up. The youngest baby was found abandoned on Mama Rosy's (the owner) doorstep as a newborn, eyes barely opened. There was another beautiful infant girl who was fussing, I went over to see her and gave her my finger to hold. All she wanted was human contact.

Josh won the prize for the most popular. He brought a box of latex gloves and a marker and was inflating them like balloons and drawing faces on them, so the thumb looked like a nose and the other fingers like hair. The kids went wild.

I think one of the greatest tragedies of apartheid is the devastating affect it has had on families. We see and hear story after story of families torn apart because of where they are forced to live (if in a township, many parents commute to work in the cities), the poverty that results, the unemployment, the violence.

Tuesday -
Tuesday we went to Parliament, had a really boring tourguide, and then went and had a fabulous lunch in an outdoor market. Da (my grandpa), you would've LOVED it! Papa Segall ordered us Samosas, potato curry filled pastries, to eat while we waited for our lunch and then we walked to the train station where we all tried some meat pies, and then we followed him back to the market where we ate our lunch of some potato stew wrapped in a tortilla/crepe like pastry. Delicious. I like the way Papa will travels!

Then, since we had a paper due the next morning, and since we hadn't finished reading the book we were to write it on, a handful of us went to an internet cafe and worked and then were up nearly the whole night in the hostel working. The 30 Irish students sharing the hostel with us thought it awfully amusing that we were working so hard during our summer holiday.

Wednesday -
Yesterday, I turned in my paper, and we all packed up and piled on to a bus to make our way to Stellenbosch. Here, we're staying at the University of Stellenbosch, an old Afrikaner (or maybe it was Dutch..) University in the dorms with the Irish students as well as other college age people from Cape Town and various other cities. We're participating in a week long Habitat for Humanity international event. We're divided into 8 teams of about 10 people each, and assigned a home owner or home owner family from the township Mfulani where we work from 8-4;30 each day this week building their homes. It's really quite fun because there's challenges between the teams (we had an Amazing Race like challenge last night. My team won 1st and the prize of an hour and a half more sleep on whatever day we choose! YEAH!), and activities in the evenings. It's awesome as well to get to talk to the kids from Ireland and CapeTown. While mixing cement and moving cinderblocks (all the homes are cinderblock, they found it funny when i tried to explain our wood and dry wall method) I learned that Stuart does not pronounce his name "stoo-ert" but a very quick "styu-irt," which I am still trying to master. I think I say it just fine and that they simply enjoy telling me I'm wrong. I also learned that the South African phrase "just now" means "in about 30ish minutes, maybe an hour" and that "now now" means "i'll think about it in ten minutes." I'm also in awe of the extent of the influence of facebook. It's wonderfully convenient, for whenever anyone would take a photo, whether from Ireland or Cape Town, they woudl promise to post it on facebook so we could share. How cool is it that we will all be able to stay in touch! And when making small talk, the weather is no longer the only subject we all have in common.

Oh
and the food! We took a break around 11 for tea and fat cakes (I don't have a clue how to spell their Afrikaans name). All of us Americans are in agreement that a fat cake is the most delicous thing we've stumbled upon thus far. It's bread that's been fried, sort of like a donut without icing. And you put jam or sugar on it.

There were a few adorable children who peeked there heads out of the shacks around our building site. I think we're going to bring some toys tomorrow so that we can entertain our curious neighbors, and at the end of the week there's traditionally a soccer game between the habitat builders and the children of the township. My brother Christian would be in his element!

We ended the day around 2 because it was raining too much for the cement to set. There was absolutely no complaining from us. The weather here is pretty nasty, cold and wet, more like Seattle winters than Tennessee summers. The Irish kids claim it's warm though, apparently this is similar to their summer weather.

We need to head back to the dorm for dinnner and activities, I'll try to update again sometime this week!

love and miss you all!

Vomitting on the High Seas

Cape Town, Day 4, Sunday

Sunday morning rolled around and Josh, Mary Kay (the chaperoning parent of one of the high school girls) and I made a pilgrimage through the drizzly grey streets of Cape Town (I felt like I had never left Seattle) to St. George's Anglican Cathedral.

In one church service, I saw a clearer picture of true reconciliation than any Sunday school teacher or text book could describe.

Standing in the cathedral, surrounded by my brothers and sisters in Christ, Black, Coloured, Indian, White, the numbingly familiar words of the opening hym, Shine Jesus, Shine, took on a powerful life of resonating truth.
Black and White stood next to each other, after spending their lives forced to worship in segregation, and implored our God of unity to "shine upon us, set us free by the truth you now bring us." We sang to the Lord of all nations and colors to "fill this land with the Father's glory" to "set our hearts on fire" and to flood this scarred and wounded nation with love and mercy, with the illuminating light of Christ. Recognizing that the light of His love shines in the midst of darkness.

The service was conducted primarily in English, but the scripture readings and many of the prayers, as well as a couple of the songs, were also conducted in Xhosa (the X is pronounced with a click that I have yet to master, fyi) and Afrikaans (my service booklet was printed in all three). The second reading, from Romans, was likely the same passage my home church, All Saints Anglican, read that same Sunday. And across the world, I saw a bit more of the majesty of its message of reconciliation through the blood of Christ.

"For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more surely, having een reconciled, will we be saved by his life."

"Veel meer dan sal ons, nou dat ons geregverdig is in sy bloed, deur Hom gered word van die toorn." (Afrikaans)

I was witnessing this reconciliation before my very eyes, droopy as they were from lack of sleep.
The power of Christ's reconciling love for us si not simply the means by which I confess my sins and am awarded a free pass to life beyond the pearly gates. It is the light that shines int eh darkness of 5 year old "necklaced" children (burned alive with a tire of gasoline around their necks), orphans,AIDS, prison cells, xenophobia, broken relationships. It is the power that brings victims and perpetrators before the altar of one God to share a common chalice and loaf of bread. It is the power to bring healing and forgiveness to a country so deeply divided.

Lord the light of your love is shining,
in the midst of the darkness, shining;
Jesus, light of the world, shine upon us,
set us free by the truth you now bring us,
shine on me, shine on me.

Flood the nations with love and mercy; send forth your word, Lord, and let there be light


Sunday afternoon -
Be wary, the following tale is one of nausea.
After church and lunch, we followed a power walking Dr. Segall down the waterfront of Cape Town where Papa will purchased tickets for our excursion to Robben Island, the island prison where Nelson Mandela and other political leaders were kept.
We boarded the fairly large passenger-ferry type boat that was to take us to the island, and started on our way. It soon became clear that we were in for a few bumps. The bumps however, turned into a roller coaster. Up and down and sideways. We were unable to see the horizon through the gray fog that had descended upon us, so I watched through the window as the waves rose and fell, covering the window complete and then disappearing as our boat decided to tilt on its side. I love roller coasters, really. But it was all I could do during that 25 minute ride not to follow the handful of other passengers who ran, hands over their mouths, to the toilets in the back.The men who work on the boat were passing out barf bags left and right. I just prayed that the man next to me kept down the steaming hot pocket he had just finished consuming when I sat next to him.

Fortunately he did. And I was able to keep my stomach fluids where they belong.

(for the sake of time, I'm about to reign in my loquacious language)
We toured the island by bus. Then we were led by a surviving prisoner through the prison itself, stopping of course at the cell of Mr. Mandela himself.

The timer on the computer is flashing at me, and I have a paper to write, so I'll have to leave it at that for now, I realize I'm a couple days behind in my entries, I'll catch up as soon as the opportunity presents itself.

Love you guys!

Cape Town, day 3

It's Saturday, so no class today. 

I went to bed at 8 oclock last night (my sleeping habits are so out of whack), woke up this morning, looked at my watch and read "7:00am." So I got up, took a shower, wondered why no one was awake yet and why it was still so dark outside, and then wandered back into my room ready to start the day. I happened to glance at Kaitlin's clock when I entered the room, it was 3:30am. Way to get a head start, Kali. I tried to go back to sleep but ended up tossing and turning until papa Will pounded on our door around the real 7am. 

We piled into the bus and took trip down the coast to Cape Point/Cape of Good Hope (the closest I've ever been to Antarctica. One of these days I'll get there). It was absolutely gorgeous, ocean, sheer cliffs, untamed surf. After climbing for what seemed like hours to a lighthouse and down to the point and up to the lighthouse, we climbed down winding stairs in the hillside/cliffside to a beautiful white sand cove for lunch. After about 5 minutes in the sand, the wind decided to be uncooperative. It felt like the heavens were pouring buckets of sand on us. We all quickly relocated to the rocky hillside and sought shelter beneath the crags. Huddled together, with sweatshirt hoods pulled over our heads and bags of potato chips clutched to our chests lest they be filled with sand, we broke bread. 

Josh wandered off to see the surf up close and collect sponges or something and we almost left him behind, Anika (the Segall's daughter) hid in papa Will's coat, and Kaitlin wandered off to do something, some of the highschoolers tried to play frisbee..that was about it. 

The hike up was long, and exhausting. I think it's quite possible that hell is a never-ending staircase that must be climbed on a full stomach, in the cold and wind. 

We piled into the bus again (we saw a Baboon!) and drove up the east side of the continent to another beach where we were told we could swim if we so desired. While Josh nearly dove in, we all ultimately decided that risking pneumonia this early in the trip was probably unwise. So we walked further down and saw penguins instead. Lots of them. They're such funny little awkward creatures. 

Then we came back and I fell asleep, woke up all achy from our adventures scaling cliffs, and now a bunch of us are at an internet cafe updating our facebook statuses. 

I'm going to write my paper. Now. Truly I am. 

Cape Town, day 2

True to our normal study habits, Josh and I were up till about 3am finishing homework last night, so I began the day slightly groggy. After breakfast we had class in one of the sitting areas of our hostel, discussed S. African history, the book we are reading, and shared some of our creative writing pieces. We each wrote a piece from the perspective of a museum object (from either the holocaust museum or the art museum we visited afterwards), stories have such a unique power of communicating nuanced truth. I'll probably post my piece after I send it to my dear friend Christo for some editing (little does he know that I intend to use him for his superior writing skills throughout this class). It's nice to have smart friends. 

After class we were going to go to Robben Island, where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned, but the boat broke. So we took a walk instead to the District Six museum. District Six was an interracial township nestled into the foothills of Table Mountain. Our museum guide was a coloured Muslim man named Noor. He told us of how much he loved the community of District Six, how he would attend synagogue with his Jewish friends, who would in turn attend Mosque with him. "We are all human beings," he emphasized as he described the tight knit community of intermingling religions and races of his township. In the 1960's the apartheid government declared Dist.6 as a white's only area and tehre was a huge forced removal of all non-whites from the community. Dist.6 was especially viewed as a threat because of its embrace of racial diversity. Noor spoke of watching his home and the rest of his community be bulldozed, of being forced to move farther away from town to a designated "coloured community," where transportation to the city for work was costly and time consuming. While Noor bought a home for his family in his new township, many were relocated to small concrete barracks. Families were torn apart-a black man married to a coloured woman were forced to live in seperate locations. 

Noor prays every day that he will live long enough for his land claim to be filed and for reentrance to District six to be granted, but the list of claims is long, and the government has little money to spend on filing reports because it spends a third of its budget on paying off the debts of the apartheid military. Ironic. 

"It struck me that our history is contained in the homes we live in, that we are shaped by the ability of these simple structures to resist being defiled." Achmat Dangor, "Kafka's Curse"

On a more entertaining note: 

We made dinner. It took us 3 hours to make stirfry for the group, but I feel it was a success. 

Kaitlin's answer to everything was "more oil!" with the excuse "I was raised in the South! This is how we cook!" 

Josh educated us both on the complicated art of rice cooking. "Don't lift the lid! You'll ruin it!"

I just splashed soy sauce on everything. 

The end. 

Cape Town day 1

My friend Ben Stuart took this trip last year and yesterday commented on my entry, saying something along the lines of "Just wait until you wake up and see Table Mountain in all its glory."

That was the highlight of my morning, indeed. After waking up multiple times at ungodly hours of the morning, convinced that it was time for breakfast, (though I was probably hungry for dinner, since that's what time it was at home)I walked through one of the courtyards outside on my way to brush my teeth and looked up to see the beautifully green and impressive Table Mountain, shrouded in white mist. It was like Mount Ranier, only smaller, flat-topped, without snow and with more green...

We took a field trip to a couple different grocery stores in order to stock up on ingredients for the week's meals. I love grocery stores! We are divided into cooking groups, responsible for a couple meals, and had to buy the food for our meals (none of us have ever had to cook for 25 people..that's a lot of food!). Josh and Kaitlin and I are in a group. A few of you have experienced early morning baking adventures with Kali and Kaitlin, and may remember the monkey bread incident. Pray for the sake of the rest of our group that we somehow acquire top-chef-like skills before Friday.  

We then walked through Cape Town and visited a Holocaust museum. It was interesting because, though I spent part of last summer in Poland visiting Auschwitz, and have been to the Holocaust museum in DC. I've either never seen, or never payed attention to South Africa's involvement in sheltering Jews from Lithuania and Latvia. The museum also drew parallels between the Jewish Holocaust to Apartheid. As I walked through the halls and read the quotes on the wall from Germans and Nazi's proclaiming the superiority of the German people, the inferiority of jews, homosexuals, disabled, the voice of Dr. George Grant from 8th grade history boomed in my ears. 

"Ideas have consequences!"

There was a quote in the museum from Heinrich Heine of the German Post (1797-1856). He remarked that "where one burns books, one will in the end, burn people."

Ideas have consequences. 

The notion that people can be categorized by physical characteristics into fictional "races" began as only an idea. Hitler's thought that Germans could be defined as superior because of the size of their heads and the color of their eyes began as an idea. The notion that black is lesser than white, that English is superior to Dutch - ideas.  

How do these ideas birth hatred and genocide? Is it through the willing acquiescence of individuals? "Not to act," Bonhoeffer exclaims, "is to act. Not to speak is to speak." It was not only Hitler who killed the jews, but the men and women who turned in their Jewish neighbors, and those who simply sat and watched from the comfort of their parlors - those who kept silent. 

Getting there

I'm in Africa!

My day started at 3:45 am when we arrived at the airport (Kaitlin and I had yet to go to bed). And it continued...and continued...forever. I slept the entire 6 hour flight to NY. It's wonderful how time elapses so much faster when you're sleeping.
Our next flight, the non-stop to Cape Town, actually wasn't non stop. After 8 hours we landed in Dakar to let off some passengers. I slept most of that flight too. I did wake up during landing, and wanted to step off the plane just to check another country off my "to visit" list, but we were told to stay on the plane.
And then, get ready, this is super exciting.
A herd of lions, accompanied by a supportive band of hyenas, boarded and attempted to hyjack the plane! I would have stopped them, but I had once again succumbed to slumber.
I guess the lions are pretty air savvy, because we landed in Cape Town another 8 hours later.

Sorry it's not a more exciting story.

Once we landed, we cleared customs. There was slight confusion when each student was asked for return flight intinerary ( I guess they don't want us to stay too long. It's probably wise of them...). None of us have said itinerary. "Return?" we asked, with puzzled expressions.
Fortunately, they finally accepted Dr. Segall's master itinerary which had all of our names on it.

That was the closest to an adventure we came.
Our driver Desmond (not Tutu, or from Lost) met us and drove us to the hostel where we are staying. (The view, in the dark at least, seems to be quite impressive. We can see the table top of Table Mountain from our windows. I bet that's where Simba lives - Pride Rock, here I come!)
And then we ate food.
I stepped out on a limb and chose an exotic African dish.
Pizza.
"Lion's head pizza," actually, which consisted of neither lions or heads.

And now, since I only payed for 30 minutes of internet, I think I'll leave you with all these exciting stories to dwell on. Perhaps tomorrow will be less dramatic and adventurous, maybe I'll get some sleep for once. We can only hope.

On the verge of adventure

I feel that I am being very ambitious in my hopes to consistently update this blog. I apologize ahead of time for the slacking that may ensue on my part, or the dry and droll entries which may serve as poor excuses for educated writing.

So with the disclaimer as my preface, I suppose I begin my first entry. 

I'm still slightly exhausted from the fatigue of finals and moving out of the dorm (my roommate, Laura, and I own way more stuff than I ever thought could fit in a college dorm room). But I have had a restful 2 days with Laura's family who has been so kind as to feed me and let me sleep and provide me with hours of good conversation and entertainment. They're such a blessing! I have been somewhat homesick this week, though. It's an unfamiliar feeling that I haven't really experienced since I unsuccessfully spent the night at my neighbor's house when I was 10. Watching all my friends go home to their families and summer plans, I wish I had some time to spend with my parents and brothers, but I guess I'll hold out for another month.

Josh picked up Kaitlin and I and we went to Dr. Segall's (the professor leading our trip) house for our first class today. We discussed the book Age of Iron which we just read, as well as the trip itinerary. I'm trying to relax all I can tomorrow, because once I get to the airport a 4am Tuesday, I'm not going to have much of a break till July 12. Our calendar is packed with class time, museum visits, habitat for humanity,visiting an orphanage, safaris, writing papers and reading books - I'm a little intimidated by the intensity of the trip, but so excited to have such a wonderful opportunity! 

Also, some potentially exciting news: Kaitlin is pulling some strings, and it looks like we might be able to personally meet Desmond Tutu! 

My least favorite activity in the world is packing. Specifically packing light. However, I've procrastinated long enough, and need to bite the  bullet. 

I love you all,

take care!

Kali