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.