weekend updates

I've got several requests to update this thing...at first I thought I haven't really done anything too exciting recently, but I guess that's not entirely true. And I don't feel like studying, so here we go.

Last weekend, not the one that just happened but the weekend before, I went to an outdoor music festival called Raka. It was a trip organized through the international program, so there were probably about 50 or so foreign students who piled on a bus for three hours to go listen to South African music along a river. My mom's response was "oh good lord, you are turning into a hippie", I guess the 2 1/2 years at college in Vermont wasn't enough of a hint? Anyway, it was pretty cool, we were in what seemed to be a relatively remote location. The drive there was crazy, I wish I had my camera on me but it was in my backpack on the other bus at the time. We traveled three hours mostly on windy roads through mountains and it was like we were the only people for miles. Everyone tented along the river, but we weren't roughing it 100%--there were bathrooms and showers, and they still sold food and there was a bar. It was a nice atmosphere, and the music was pretty good. It wasn't African music like you're probably thinking, it was all in Afrikaans, basically acoustic rock to a little heavier rock, and there was one reggae type band called the Tidal Waves that was my favorite, so look them up. I didn't take any pictures because my camera was lost in our tent all weekend. Oops.

Classes have become more routine. My South African history professor is this crazy old guy who smokes like a chimney (halfway through the lecture we get a 10 minute "comfort break" aka cig break and he says he loves the conversations he has when he stands outside and chats with the other smokers in the class). He's a very interesting man with lots of knowledge and stories--the structure of the class is basically: if you want all the names and dates and dry history do the reading on your own, and at the lecture he just rambles on with his stories and social commentary. We watched Thirteen Days last week in my US Foreign Policy class, which is about the Cuban Missle Crisis. Kevin Costner plays JFK's special assistant to the president, and he and JFK and Bobby Kennedy all have overdone Boston accents in the movie and it made me smile. I have an exam and a paper due this week in the class, so I'm actually spending time in the library, which is something new up untill this point. The library here isn't open on Sundays which blows my mind. We loved Sunday library sessions at St. Mike's.

This past weekend we stuck around here. On Saturday we went shopping...nothing cool or unique, just a mall about 20 minutes from here. The few clothes I brought with me are starting to lose their form due to my constant state of sweatiness and the unforgiving washer and dryer in my building, plus I was getting sick of my same 6 shirts, so I wanted some new stuff. It's the first real shopping I've done, and it reinforced my realization that I will not be able to survive as a consumer when I get back home. The exchange rate is a little over R10=$1 right now. I bought a few shirts, the most expensive one was probably R150? So $15. The rest were under $10 I bet. On Sunday night we went out to dinner--we split an appetizer, I got a meal (brought home half of it) and a drink (sorry Dad, a girly drink) and it cost me $10 (including tip). I can get groceries to last me more than a week for about $25-$30. Roundtrip train ride to Cape Town is $3. So basically, when I get home I won't want to eat or drink anything that costs more than $5. I don't think that will end well for me. I saw this story on the NYT homepage today, about how Cape Town is awesome and not too expensive for Americans, aside from the flights. So come visit me!

We're going on an AIFS excursion to the Cederberg Mountains this coming weekend, I'm very excited for that. And I promise I'll take pictures.

go big or go home pt 2

Clearly I was still riding the adrenaline rush from skydiving, because on Tuesday night, I signed up for the Cape Town half marathon.

After some discussion, Micho, Jill, Alex and I talked ourselves into it. Well, to be more accurate, they kind of talked me into it because I was the most hesitant. I think we might have minor brain damage due to the recent smoke inhalation (kidding Mom, I'm kidding) but we're doing it! Micho runs xcountry at school and has alot more faith in me than I do at this point, because she said she's positive I could do it now if I had to. I know I can run 6-7 miles without puking and/or passing out, which I'm told is a promising start. Jill has done a couple half marathons before, and Micho obviously knows what she's doing, so we have a little training schedule and we'll see how it goes. There are a couple guys in our building we've run with before who are also training for it, so that will help. One minor complication--the race is on April 11, which is the day after we get back from our weeklong Garden Route trip. I mean, it's not like Cancun style spring break, but it's probably not ideal timing...oh well. I guess this means I should cut down on my recent bottle of wine per night habit (again, I'm kidding Deb.) I'm pretty nervous about the whole ordeal right now, but we all just want to finish and say we ran a half marathon while abroad in Africa. And obviously the tshirt is a big motivator.

This afternoon was my first day at the afterschool program at Ikaya Primary in Kayamandi. It was really fun, if a bit overwhelming. We're in a classroom of about 40? 7th graders, where we basically hang out with them and help them with whatever homework/project/assignment they have for the afternoon, and then they get a snack and have some type of physical activity for the last 45 minutes or so. Today was kickball. I'm really looking forward to getting to know the kids--they're a little shy to open up at first, and while they have been learning English for the past couple years there's still a bit of a language barrier. I think they will be entertained by my pathetic sounding Xhosa. I really can't imagine going to school here and not getting involved in or experiencing the township. This is some info on Kayamandi from the website of the township's community development center, and this is a website about the school.

Well, I gotta go get ready to run!

go big or go home

It's safe to say this weekend was the most epic weekend I've had to date. I think the fact that we were still pretty much surrounded by fire until today added to this. I know everyone at home would love some warm weather, but the past few days have been HOT. Too hot. A few days ago it was hot and windy, but not a nice cool breeze--really hot wind just blowing down your neck all day. Then the wind stopped, and things somehow got worse. I feel like I've just been breathing in ash and smoke since Wednesday. Friday and Saturday, I sweat more consistently than I think I ever have in my life. My eyelids were sweating. This was a new experience for me.

So anyway, while gallons of sweat were pouring out of my body, I had a pretty awesome weekend. Friday evening, a bunch of people from AIFS (my program) went out to dinner for a girl in our group's birthday. We ate outside at this nice Italian place in Stellenbosch and got some delicious pizza (although we may as well have been eating in the pizza oven for the amount I was sweating). Then we went to a Bob Marley tribute concert because it was his birthday as well. It was above a little pub/bar place and again, I sweat more than I thought was humanly possibe, but it was still really fun. Everyone was happy and dancing like hippies and there were some guys with the longest dreads I have ever seen.

Saturday I went SKYDIVING over Cape Town with my three flatmates and our two friends Jill and Tommy. It's something I've always wanted to do, so why not do it here? It was amazing and if I have any money left at the end of my trip I'm doing it again.

I don't think I ever was scared, but it really didn't hit me that I was actually going skydiving until they opened the plane door. I also was mistakenly under the impression that you jump out of the plane. You don't. You basically scooch your butt to the edge until you fall out of the plane. Freefalling was AMAZING and I wish it lasted longer, and then when my tandem guy pulled the chute and we floated along, it was so quiet. We got an incredible view of Cape Town and the coast and farmland outside the city. Micho had her camera attached to her wrist (she's gone before so knew how her arms would act...I definietly was too afraid to jump with my camera on me) and took a video while she jumped, so when she puts it on Facebook I'll steal it and post it on here so you can see what it was like.

Today, we had a group excursion to Cape Point and Boulders Beach. Cape Point is on the peninsula at the end of the Table Mountain chain. It has absolutley beautiful scenery (I'd say epic, going with the theme of the weekend), cliffs that drop off into crashing teal waves. We climbed around the nature reserve, which is inhabitated by baboons. I learned that I am actually terrified of baboons. We were told that if you didn't have food, they shouldn't heckle you too much. They did jump on two girls in our group who weren't doing anything to provoke them and tried to grab their bags/water bottles and hissed at them. Other than that they kept to themselves (although we were briefly charged at by a screaming baboon, but I think he was fighting with another one and it had less to do with us). Considering I've freaked out when I thought a squirrel was charging at me in the quad at St. Mike's, I almost peed my pants every time I walked by one.

Boulders Beach is famous for its penguins, and seeing those was pretty cool. We also got to swim, and even though the water temp. was equivalent to Maine beaches in June, I was so happy to get in. As someone in my group said, people pay money to swim with penguins at SeaWorld and we were doing it for free (well, kind of). It was really nice to get away from Stellenbosch for the weekend--I feel like everything has been this constant smokey haze and I've been sweating ash out my pores. So ankle-numbing swimming was very refreshing. And I tried Springbok for lunch because I was already doing crazy things this weekend--it's like a kind of antelope. I didn't love it, but I didn't hate it.

While I had an amazing weekend here, I got a couple of pieces of really unexpected/sad news from home, and I feel bad that I am so far away. I feel pretty disconnected and a little guilty knowing that people important to me at home have had such a different past few days than I have. I haven't been gone too long yet, and I'm already reminded that (obviously) time hasn't stopped back at home, just because I'm not there.

Anyway, I'm going to attempt to upload the millions of pictures I took today. The link to my Snapfish album (for those of you without Facebook) is on the left side of this page, I think. I've started writing postcards, and most likely if you're reading this, I'm sending you one. Unless there are a bunch of randos reading my blog that I am unaware of.

only you can prevent forest fires?

So those mountains from my pictures? They were definitely on fire last night.

I'll backtrack a little: Micho and I were leaving history around 4pm yesterday, and when we walked outside we both noticed that it smelled like a bonfire. As we walked down the street towards home and could see the sky and mountains better, we noticed it was really hazy. So hazy and smokey, actually, that you couldn't even see some of the mountain peaks. Then we notice that little gray flecks would occasionally fly by our faces. So something big was definitely on fire, we just weren't sure what.

About 45 minutes after this, Micho Jill and I left to jog to the gym for an exercise class. By this point, the air was really heavy and there was more ash flying around. It was really hard to see/breathe, and even though it's like an eight minute run, I was really out of breath by the time we got there. During the class, ash was blowing in the open windows and getting all over the mats. We walked home after, and the sky was the craziest color I've ever seen. The sun was just a little neon pink circle, and it seemed like the whole town was being enclosed in a wall of smoke.

We poked around a little online because no one seemed to have any idea what was going on (and we don't have TVs), and we found out that some brush fires had started a ways from Stellenbosch but because of the wind, they were spreading. We went out to dinner and to listen to open mic night at a place in town, and when we were walking there, it seriously seemed like the apocolypse. It was so windy and we couldn't open our eyes at all. The walk home was way clearer, the smoke had moved on and we could see the stars. But then we got home and looked up at the mountains and they were actually ON FIRE. It was like looking at a ski mountain from a distance, only instead of ski trails, it was paths of flames. I don't really know how to describe how close it was to us....like I said, we're about an eight minute run/15-20 minute walk from the gym, and the mountains are right behind the gym.

I found this and showed my mom when I was Skyping with her last night, which was probably a mistake. I made her a little nervous-- her exact words were "I think I'm going to throw up". But I told her that there was alot of buildings between the sports complex and where I live, and they definitely wouldn't let us burn to the ground. And we didn't. This morning everything was just still smoking but the fires were out. It's probably going to take like 5 showers to get the smell out of my hair. I think this whole thing was probably less exciting for people from places like California, but raging forest/mountain fires aren't really common in New England. My crazy experience of the day. Hopefully my mom managed to sleep last night.

In other news, I just bought a season pass to the Stellenbosch rugby games. Rugby is huge here and I guess the Maties (what Stellenbosch students are called) are really good. There are 5 home games, it cost me R50 ($5) and we got free gym bags and shirts. Now I just need to get some face paint. Also, I can't take credit for that first picture, I stole it off Facebook from someone in my group.