Midsemester Break Trip

During our mid-semester break from school, 16 of the students in our program took off on a cross country trip for a week and a half. 4 other students chose to camp up to Victoria Falls, and another student went to Durban to visit friends. 

Our trip began by getting picked up at 4 am in what we affectionately nicknamed the aquarium due to its floor to ceiling windows. After a day of driving, we arrived late afternoon in Knysna, where we spent our first night in a backpackers where we had a braai and spent a quick night before driving on to our next stop. By 8 am the next morning, we had arrived at the world's highest bungee jump. Although I chose not to participate, I did go out on the bridge (which was terrifying enough for me) and helped the jumpers get pumped up to loud music. It was certainly an exciting way to start the morning. After bungee jumping, we continued on to East London, where we stopped at Cintsa to stay at Buccaneers Backpackers for Saint Patrick's day. The backpackers was very secluded but well populated with plenty of people at the bar and a drummer who seduced both Kevin and Erin into dancing. We also enjoyed an authentic Xhosa meal for dinner, which was incredibly delicious. The next morning we took off for Coffee Bay, by far my favorite place on the trip. After arriving late afternoon and hiking up a hill for the sunset, we headed back to the Coffee Shack backpackers for another delicious Xhosa meal and a fire. The next day we finally got to settle down and spend the whole day in one place. The majority of the group opted to take a hike to hole in the wall, a beautiful three hour hike along the beach and hills amongst the cows. Coffee Bay is very rural and picturesque and it was fascinating to see the small huts. After enjoying delicious open-fire grilled "toasties" and a quick swim, we took a open back truck back to our backpackers for our surf lesson. Devin, Claire S., Charlie, Anne and myself spent two hours hitting the waves with an instructor. To my delight, we were all able to stand up fairly easily and were exhausted by the end of the lesson. To round out a perfect day, Charlie, Devin, Claire S., Johan, one of our guides, and myself took a hike to White Clay for seafood dinner. The dinner was delicious but the true highlight was the post-meal star gazing on the restaurant balcony and later on the walk home in the pitch black night in what seemed like an area away from all civilization. The following morning, we left for Durban, to meet up with Claire P, where we enjoyed another delicious meal all together, an overnight at the Happy Hippo backpackers and a morning swim on the beautiful beaches of Durban, which felt very different from Cape Town; the Indian influence could be seen very clearly. After departing Durban, we headed to Johannesburg for two nights. After arriving late the first night and heading straight to bed, we spent the next morning on a tour with visits including Soccer City (a world cup stadium), the apartheid museum (one of the most moving visits of our trip, our two hours was not near long enough), a tour of Soweto (South Western Townships) and a visit to Nelson Mandela's house. After another delicious braai courtesy of the boys, we went to bed early to depart to Kruger, our last stop. Our stay in Kruger Park lasted two nights and featured a night wildlife drive, numerous day drives, swimming, sitings of the big 5 (elephant, lion, leopard, buffalo and rhino) along with zebras, monkeys, countless impala-like creatures like spring boks and water boks and kuda, giraffe, hippos, snakes including the extremely poisonous black mamba, baboons, hyenas, warthogs (pumba!) wildebeest, and many other creatures. It was definitely a highlight of the trip.

By the time we left Kruger back to Joburg for our flight back to Cape Town, we were all tired and ready to be home. It was a great surprise to see the four Vic falls girls in the Cape Town airport and to be picked up by Melikaya, our program director and Pearnel.

The bridge the bungee jump took place off of

The aquarium

Coffee Bay

Sunset in Coffee Bay

Hike to hole in the wall

Beach soccer

Hole in the wall

Soccer City with Claire S

Apartheid museum

Nelson Mandela quotes (not sure why this is sideways...)

Soweto tour

Nelson Mandela's house

Monkeys in Kruger

Wildebeest and Zebras are often found together

Giraffe!

Elephants up close and personal

District Six Museum

A week before spring break, our whole group went to the District Six museum. District Six was a vibrant, predominantly colored neighborhood, although it featured many unique populations that was later leveled during an apartheid push removing non-whites from urban areas. The museum was successful in recreating the vibrancy of the community and what typical life was like. Especially important was that we were accompanied by Pearnel, our driver who takes us to our service sites and school, who grew up in District Six.

Pearnel signs his surname, Wentzel, to the map

The museum

Spring (fall) break!

Starting tomorrow, I will be on a week long mid semester trip without internet.

When I return I promise lots of updates!

Lotus Park Revisited

This Wednesday I headed back to Lotus Park, the informal settlement we went to last week, to help with enumerating dwellings. SUN Development and the City of Cape Town are working to number all the houses in Lotus so they can set up a mail system and map the settlement. I spent all day photographing numbers that we painted onto houses and the houses themselves. The system was a little hard to follow; some houses already had numbers, some had numbers but needed new ones, and some houses were completely unmarked. Going around Lotus for 8 hours was certainly eye opening. Some of the houses are completely hidden and we had to squeeze between buildings to access them. Many people were wondering what we were doing and some of the other enumerates spent the whole time explaining what we were doing. 95 percent of the day, I didn't hear any English, just Xhosa. It was an exhausting day but quite an interesting experience.

On Saturday, I was back in Lotus again for a photo shoot for Dead End Production (DEP) Family, a collection of rap artists Claire S is working with. Claire had invited Erin to take photos of all the groups for the website she is developing. Charlie, Bridget and I tagged along to assist with interviewing, carrying equipment and safety. It was so much fun to see the groups in their element, they were all dressed and ready for their photos and knew exactly how to posed without direction. We hurried through the photos because the artists were very concerned with us being in Lotus too late. Below is a photo of all of us (minus Erin the photographer) together at the end of the day. I also got a CD filled with DEP videos and music!

DEP fam

Narrow ways through Lotus

Enumerating. The red painted number (B76) is what we were doing on Wed.

More views of Lotus

Volmoed

This weekend we left Friday straight from school for a weekend retreat in Volmoed (pronounced Full-mud) to meet with John De Gruchy, the author of Reconciliation: Restoring Justice. Located just outside Hermanus, the best place for viewing whales (unfortunately they are not in season until late July), Volmoed was incredibly picturesque and in wine country. We were able to hike, see tons of baboons, and spend quality time together. Highlights include swimming in a waterfall and stargazing in the field.

Baboons at the water

Getting up close and personal

The Waterfall

Wine grapes at lunch

Our delicious lunch

Climbing on the rocks

 A reflection spot

Standing on top of an underwater cave when swimming on the waterfall. Look for the rope swing right to the left of the waterfall

Mizolis and Rugby

I apologize for the delay in posting, last weekend I opted for pick up soccer and writing a paper instead of heading for the internet cafe so now I am playing catch up. Last weekend we had a huge braai at our house for the Stanford house as well as friends from school and service. I invited Amanda and Isabelle, the Canadians, and Julia the German from Saartjie Bartman, as well as our soccer/drum circle friends. It was a great night and involved a lot of food. Saturday was a relaxing day before we headed out to see a professional rugby game, our local franchise the Stormers, who played a team from Australia, and won by a nervewreckingly small margin. On Sunday morning we left around 10am to go to Mizoli's, a very popular (and touristy) restaurant in Guguletu, a township. The restaurant serves basically only meat (delicious delicious meat!) and features live music and big crowds. It involves lots of drinking and eating and lasted until 3pm. When I got back, I was able to go play soccer for two hours which was the perfect way to end my weekend. (Mizoli's photo cred. goes to Emma!)

Meat at Mizoli's

Dancing and music

Emma's order

Stormers rugby

My Mizoli's order

Where you bring your meat for braai