Boulders Beach

For the last week of the program we went to Boulders Beach. The beach is about an hour train ride away from where I live in Cape Town and it's where the penguins live. We stayed in these beautiful hotel rooms and spent the week talking about what we learned on the program and what we were going to do with everything we've learned. It was such a great way to end the trip and get to see everyone in the program outside of the house before everyone flew home. We spent every day on the beach and journaled and played with the penguins.

Now I'm one of the last people at the house. Rivka and I are staying for an extra week and plan to enjoy the beach, visit the Holocaust memorial, look at museums and visit food places that we love in our neighborhood.

Lots of love and i'll write more soon. Cheers.

Canyoning

Last Sunday I went Canyoning. Canyoning or abseiling, as they call it in South Africa, is where you repel down a mountain. It's what people do after they rock climb up a mountain.

We got up at 6:30 and drove about and hour away to an area called Paarl (wine country). We drove up this windy road, geared up (got in the cutest harnesses with bright orange helmets) and drove to the top of a 450 meter mountain. The people taking us up were great. There were 4 of them, Brett, Cas and two whose names I have forgotten. They fed us breakfast when we were getting geared up and talked us through all of the safety procedures.

We had five abseil sites. The first was about 20 meters and pretty easy, although we landed in about 4 feet of water. The second one was even more fun, about 30 meters down and half way through you started going underneath a waterfall. The last two were the best. The second to last was 50 meters up, which is pretty scary and is was a little slippery, but exhilarating when you got to the bottom. The last one was flat and you could jump off the wall a little bit and get down faster. When we weren't abseiling we were climbing down rocks and walking through little rivers. It was exhausting, but so much fun. We had lunch at the middle of the mountain and beers when we got back to the bottom. We got home around 9 and had been on the mountain almost the whole day.

Lots of love to all of you and sorry I haven't written in so long.

Community Engagement

For the last month I have been volunteering at the Direction Action Center for Peace and Memory (DACPM or DAC for short), an organization run by ex-combatants who were part ending the apartheid. I work with a man named Yazir Henri who has done some speaking around the United States and started the organization so that he could be a part of rewriting the history of the people who he fought with for freedom. I work with three other students, Ashley, Martin and Rebecca. I am there four days a week and we have been working on organizing a conference in March.

The conference focuses on the idea of masculinity and how years of violence perpetuates cycles of violence within communities in South Africa. I have been doing a lot of work inviting speakers and getting down the basics of what the format for the conference will be. I am also working on getting the text put together for the DAC website. This is exciting to do because I am able to learn about all of the different program that the DAC does.

Port Elizabeth

Last week was great. On Thursday morning my whole class drove to the airport at 6:45 am and jumped onto a plane to head to the Eastern Cape. There is another University of Washington program in Port Elizabeth. They stay in one big apartment complex, with 2 bedrooms (2 people to a room), a kitchen, bathroom, living space with a TV and a porch. The first day we were there we had a BBQ with the two groups. Each apartment group paired up with students from Cape Town and we all cooked specific dishes. My group made appetizers. We ate and sat around and got to know one another until late into the night. The next day we went to the Steve Biko Foundation. It was a long drive there, we got lost on the way and were pretty late to our meeting. We went to the foundation, Steve Biko's grave and then went to his house. We ate dinner at his house and talked about memorialization and how to pay respect and give acknowledgment to important figures in history. That night we all went out to the clubs around Port Elizabeth in a huge group and around 5 in the morning went swimming in the Indian Ocean. On Saturday, the third, we had a session with Erwin (our traveling artist on the program). We talked about going to the Steve Biko Foundation, did creative exercises and acted out different areas like the Ave, war, prison, a hero's grave and some others. Then we talked about freedom and what freedom tastes, smells and feels like. It was a good way to get to know the other group. We flew out on Sunday afternoon and it was sad to leave because it was so much fun and nice to get to see students from the UW again.

The weather was pretty miserable in Port Elizabeth. It was raining for the first two days, sort of sunny on the third day and then rainy again. We were excited to come back to Cape Town to get back to the sun and when we landed it was pouring rain and it's still pouring. It's funny because we're all so used to Seattle, but have gotten so accustomed to the sun that the rain is horrible.

We're all recuperating today and trying to get back the hours of sleep that we lost while we were away. This week at school we're focusing on museums and looking at how the space constructs the history of South Africa.

Right now there is a group of high school students from Isilimela (a school in Langa in the townships) who are here to bake cookies for a bake sale for the Hands for a Bridge program. The students are sining Justin Timberlake right now, it's pretty amazing. The Hands for a Bridge program brings students from Roosevelt High School in Seattle to Cape Town to meet students from Isilimela and Belleville for two weeks. The students from Roosevelt will be coming on the 16th of this month.

Hope all is well in the states and lots of love from Cape Town.

Black Outs

We had a our first night time black out last night. There have been a few daytime black outs where they cut out power to certain neighborhoods for 2-3 hour periods. In some of the farther out regions they can have their power cut for the whole day. Last night we were all sitting around getting ready to go out and the power flickered a few times and then just went out. Apparently the power throughout all of Cape Town went out at the same time. So we stayed in, lit candles, had our friends over and hung out in the dark. It was a pretty fun night. The power came back on around 2 in the morning.

It can definitely be challenging to be without power. The restaurants can only serve cold food, the grocery store runs on a generator and we're not supposed to open our fridge because we'll let the cold out. The power outages have been in the papers a lot and I am pretty sure they're also being published in newspapers in the states.

But, I'm safe and happy and I hope all of you are doing well.

Horse Races

I had an amazing weekend. We went to the horse races on Saturday after we went shopping the day before to find dresses that would work for the occasion. The theme was plum, patterns and metallic. I had a black dress with silver stripes and lots of jewelry, including feathers in my hair. We got picked up by my friend Tim and Tessa, Mallory and I all went to the races and met up with his friends. We started with gin and tonics at noon because the goal of the races is to drink and place bets. There were so many outrageous dresses. It was amazing. The people who dress up for the contests have some of the craziest outfits I have ever seen. There was a woman who had a multicolored chiffon dress with a gold jumpsuit underneath held together with gold rings and a huge matching hat. She made it into the newspaper the next day. We headed home in the evening and went to a few after party BBQs because the crowds were so big at the event. It made me think of a little less ritzy Kentucky Derby, which only makes me want to see the one in Kentucky.

School has been going really well and my community engagement project is fantastic. I am really happy here and still love my roommates.

Lots of love to all!

Horse Races

Today I'm going to the horse races. They are a huge deal here in South Africa and resemble the Kentucky Derby. Tessa (my roommate), Mallory and I are all going with some of our friends from here. We went dress shopping on Long Street, and although we are not all completely themed - the theme is plum, metallic and patterns - I think we all look pretty stunning.

I will try to post some pictures up from the races if I can. It is really expensive to put pictures up because it it slow and uses lots of megabytes. The internet here is pretty inexpensive when do anything that is megabyte intensive.

We finished our third week of school yesterday and I am pretty surprised. The time has been going by so quickly. We are going to Port Elizabeth in two weeks. AND we are MEETING Archbishop Desmond Tutu THIS FRIDAY!!!! One of the volunteers from the program we worked with the first week, the DAC, has worked since our first week here to make sure that we get to meet him. Our house got a personal invitation from his personal assistant. We will meet him after he does service at St. George's Cathedral.

Our house situation is going really well. I am having a wonderful time with everyone and have made really great friends. Tessa is my roommate, we share a room, and she is fantastic. We spend a lot of time together and laugh pretty much all the time. She's a crazy work out girl who drags me to the gym and makes sure I do all the fun stuff here. Mallory is another girl I spend a lot of time with. She is in a sorority at the UW and studies psychology. Alena and Mary are roommates and they are amazing. Mary is sarcastic, flippant and fantastic because she always has a good way of making people laugh and doing it through her sarcasm. Alena is super laid back and always brings a sense of calm to the group. I will slowly but surely try to fill you in on people as the group goes.

The way we can fit so many people in this house is that is a hostile when we are not here, but the house was designed for our CHID program. It is sort of two houses joined together. I live in the side of the house with two bathrooms, a kitchen, the living room, the front door and the jacuzzi. There are 5 bedrooms on this side of the house. Then you walk through our kitchen and walk to the patio. That is where is other part of the house starts. They have a bigger kitchen, one bathroom and 4 bedrooms. It's a great set up for all of us.

Food here is great. I have been eating out a lot, but we have two grocery stores within 5 minutes from our house, one that is right around the corner. We have lots of good food places in the area that we go to, but we also try to venture out and try new food throughout the city. We ask the boys we've been hanging out with all the time where they recommend and have already gone to an amazing steak house that cost $15 US dollars for steak and drinks. Money here definitely goes farther.

Thanks for all your responses back to my posts. It is great to know that all of you are reading this.

Lots of love!