I'm the worst blogger in the world..

and I acknowledge that. Sorry. If its any consolation, I thought I'd update since I haven't talked to anyone in a while. Its been a crazy week!! The last day of the Stellenbosch homestay I got the stomach flu..it only lasted about 48 hours but I'm still really tired/achy. On the day inbetween stellenbosch and our last homestay, we stayed at a backpackers in Cape Town. A few of the girls and I went back to Langa to meet a few friends and we all went to a club to go dancing. Unforunately, nobody here celebrates halloween but we did our best anyways. Yesterday we moved into our homestay in the Bo Kaap, which is an area comprised mostly of Muslim coloured families. (The phrase Coloured doesnt mean the same thing here as it does at home..it pretty much means anyone of mixed race like indian, malayan, biracial... pretty much anything that the apartheid authorities couldnt call "African.") We weren't told anything about our families or the area, and we just sat on the steps of a museum as our parents came and picked us up. This is pretty much how SIT functions- nobody knows whats going on, and we just go with it. I was kind of nervous because I was still sick and didnt have the energy to mesh with a new family, and I'm pretty burned out and jaded with the whole homestay process in general. BUT despite all that, I ended up having a really good first night. The Bo Kaap is up on the hill above the city, and the views are incredible. Right above us is table mountin, right below is the city, and beyond that is a perfect view of the harbor and ocean. The flats the people live in are really run down and its a fairly low-income area, so I think thats why the rich white people havent infiltrated yet. (I also suspect they're scared of the muslims and/or cant stand the 4 am call to prayer.) My family is really great. My little brother Gareith is 11 and plays rugby. He's really cheerful and energetic and easy to be with. My sister is 15, and she is also really nice. Her best friend who is always at the house is CRAZY and talks 100 miles an hour and likes to talk about boys and listen to american music. (We've already had a dance party to Justin Timberlake.) My mom and dad and brother in law and the other adults constantly milling around the apartment are really welcoming and engaging. I was planning on going to bed early but ended up discussing the civil war and american politics with some family member of mine until 10:30 pm. Its hard to balance our conversations-- all I want to talk about are South African issues, and they just want to talk about American issues. I cant believe that it is already November... there are so many things I want to do during the independent study period, and I'm freaking out because I know I won't get half of them done. Its also really stressful to realize the amount of research and interviewing I'm going to have to do to make my ISP really good, which is what I want. I'm interested and invested in the issues surrounding HIV+ pregnant mothers. If I'm going to spend all this time on this paper, it had better be really good. I'm going kind of crazy with the group; it'll be nice to move into ISP accomadations with the girls and not have to constantly be with the same 23 people all the time. (I've formed a close relationship with four girls on my program are we are all living together in a house near UCT.) It will also be really nice to sleep in once in a while and be able to plan my own schedule. Tomorrow we have the afternoon off so I will post pictures from the Stellenbosch homestay and my new Muslim homestay.

I still miss everyone. Just so you know :-)

home from the Eastern Cape

Sorry I haven't posted in so long- we've been in the Eastern Cape for a few weeks. Now we are back! I'll try to recap. On Thursday we went to a community outside of Durban called Bayview, which is really well known for its community/grassroots resistence programs. Despite the fact that the ANC has been in power for 12 years, the people in this community are essentially poorer and worse off than they were during apartheid. Nelson Mandela was an unbelievable man, there is no arguing with that. But very few people knew how he would be as a President- they all voted for him out of love for him as a person. Although he was completely negligent of the whole HIV/AIDS issue, he did at least attempt to help the economy a little bit. The current administration doesn’t seem to be doing anything to help the thousands of people in communities just like Bayview. They are constantly shutting off their electricity and water (if they are lucky enough to have these services) and continuously offer empty promises to fix up their run down shacks. Despite it all, these people are gracious and happy and welcome us into our homes simply for the sake of doing it. It really pisses me off that I can’t do more, but being in Africa has taught me that just being there IS doing something. By taking time out of my day to say “I’m here. Tell me what you know, and I’ll tell you what I know”, I am validating their fight. While we were in Bayview we visited a home for abandoned/orphaned infants. One of the babies was HIV+ and nobody seemed to want anything to do with him, so I ended up holding him and rocking him for at least an hour until my group made me leave. His body was so small and frail. I started singing to him and he looked up at me as though he had never heard the sound before, and laid his head on my chest to feel the vibrations of my voice. Can you believe that nobody has ever sung to that child? I’m pretty sure all the kids had TB, but this baby had it the worst. At one point I had to put him over my shoulder and settle the fluid in his lungs because he was going to suffocate on his own phlegm. When I put him back onto his blanket and had to walk out the door listening to him cry, I honestly felt like my whole body was crying with him. My arms and chest felt empty the rest of the day. It is sad to know that he is one of thousands and thousands of babies in this country with crumbling, dying bodies and nobody to hold them or sing to them. (1 down, 999,999 to go. Just watch me.)

We spent our last day in Durban on the beach/in the ocean all day, it was amazing. The waves are really powerful and fun to play in. Yesterday we flew back to Cape Town to spend 3 final days with our families in Langa. It felt like going home again, which was a strange but nice feeling. My brother Thulani is the subject of a documentary show here called “Whats your story?” so I might be on South African TV in a few weeks! They filmed us eating lunch as a family, and Thulani and I looking at pictures together. He is in a band that plays traditional African music and does some dancing. We went to one of his shows last night which was tons of fun. All the guys are incredibly upbeat and talented. They play drums, marimbas, trombones, and a bunch of crazy percussion instruments. Today we had our farewell homestay party with our Langa families. We sang a Xhosa song acapella, and then a boy on my program taught us a folk/contra dance that we performed for everyone. It was pretty ridiculous. I’m going to miss living in Langa; now that I am finally comfortable and confident enough to walk around alone, we are leaving! I’ll also miss my mama’s cooking. Although I’m not complaining about going to Stellenbosch- we get to drink wine and eat cheese and study all day.

Tomorrow we are having a 4 hour identity seminar with this intense guy that we met a few weeks back during our Direct Action Center for Peace and Memory weekend. (As if we don’t do enough forced existential reflection as it is.) Oh well. I should probably get some sleep. I’ve posted pictures from the rural homestay week/my 21st celebration: http://sallysouthafrica.shutterfly.com

Love and Miss you all. Thanks for the birthday messages :-)

Pictures

http://sallysouthafrica.shutterfly.com

This weekend I am visiting Robben Island and climbing Table Mountain. Big things, kids. I'll update on Monday. Love and Miss.

Weekend in Simons Town

This morning we took a 7 am train back from Simon's town, after a really great weekend of walking, eating, drinking and sightseeing. Some highlights include:

1) watching whales swim and play right off the coast
2) frolicking in the Indian ocean
3) hiking to the lighthouse on the end of the Cape of Good Hope
4) seeing three rainbows suspended in midair in front of us, right above the point where the indian and atlantic oceans meet
5) attending the local pengiuin festival.

we are now back in Langa, where we will continue with our township homestay, language classes and seminar in social change for three more weeks. On Octber 5, we move into our homestay in a rural village in the eastern cape.

Last week we took a tour of the Joe Slovo "informal settlement" which is a nice word for slums/shack town. Joe Slovo is right next to the township that we are staying in. It was difficult to see the intense amount of poverty that the residents of Joe Slovo are living in, but uplifting to see how welcoming and joyful they are.

On Friday I visited one of the local community schools, which serves the majority of the children of living in Joe Slovo. Most of the elementary-age classes I visited had an average of 60 kids in them; one first grade class included kids ranging from age 5 to age 10. The students were incredibly well-behaved and excited to learn, and I was really impressed with their discipline and patience. Discussions with fellow students of mine who visited private, white schools showed a different story, in which the kids were spoiled, horribly behaved and apathetic about education in general. It is very frustrating to see that the kids who want to learn and are willing to put in the effort are the ones who have the worst resources, crumbling facilities and the least amount of teachers, simple because they were black-only schools during apartheid (and still are, unofficially.) Its also difficult to watch these kids struggle to keep up in reading and comprehension, because they are forced to learn in a language (English) other than that which they speak at home or with their friends (xhosa). However, my homestay grandmother cant stop expressing her happiness with the fact that my little sister Tina speaks english fluently. (shes only 5, and learned to speak english at preschool.)

This weekend we'll be going to Robben Island and Camps Bay. I'll post when I manage to get some pictures online.

Thanks again for the emails-- miss you all!

Officially a resident of Langa

Hi all. On Saturday I moved into my homestay in the black township of Langa, outside Rondebosch. I am hoping to post some pictures on Monday when I get to a computer lab on the UCT campus. I live with my mom (who is the family grandmother, she is 71 and wont stop feeding me) my sister who is 28, her daughter who is 5, and my brother who is 23. I sleep in one bedroom, and they sleep in the other. We also have a kitchen, a dining room/lounge and a bathtub for bathing. When I go out walking with Tina the little kids chase me around. its still a weird feeling to have everyone staring at you, wondering why you are there in the first place. This weekend we are going to Simonstown, which is supposed to be a beatiful spot, and one of the most fun weekends of the whole program. I'll update on Monday. Miss you all so much. Email me if you get a chance!!

Here I am...

.. finally in Capetown! For the past week we have been in the Northern part of the country for our program orientation. There are 23 students on my program (four guys and 19 girls) and three staff. Our academic director is named Shane, he is from Ireland and is quite a character. Sometimes when we ask him questions he pretends to be sleeping. Nomuwethu is like our group mom; she is from the Eastern Cape of South Africa and is our Xhosa teacher. (yes, I can officially confirm that the language I will be speaking is a click language.) Our third staff is named Nokutuli; she is a bit younger than Nomuwethu and is like a sister to us. She is also from Africa. Our first few days were spent in a backpacker (hostel) outside Jo-Berg, where we got to know eachother better and sat through a lot of debriefing sessions on topics such as health and safety. We went to the apartheid museum which was very intense, but I'm really glad that we went on the first day. It was a reminder that this country is still very much effected by apartheid and its after-effects. It has only been twelve years since South Africa became a democratic, one-man-one-vote country, and the system of apartheid is still very much an issue here.

On Wednesday we went on a safari in Kruger national park which was AMAZING. We saw elephants and giraffes and hippos and rhinos and pumba the warthog and even two leopards, which are apparently very rare and difficult to spot. (hahaha get it? spot..) The backpacker we were staying at outside Kruger was quite...unique. There were frogs in the shower. The two guys running the place were drunk all day long and kept forgetting to make our meals. On the day I mistakenly wore shorts (which we were advised was OKAY) the owner stared at me and said "I haven't seen legs in 8 years." On our last night Alex turned 21, so we bought him a bottle of Jose and celebrated South African style with our local van drivers. Yesterday morning we woke up early to go to Constitutional Hill (an old prision in the inner city of JoBerg) and Constitutional Court (the legislative branch of the new South African government). It was a very moving and intense experience. That afternoon we flew from Jo-Berg down to Capetown. It is strange to remember that in other countries flying is an everyday occurance, and requires little to none of the ridiculous precuations we deal with in the states. By the time we were on the bus to our hostel outside Capetown it was dusk. The city at night is absolutely gorgeous. The lights seems to go on forever. Every backpacker we have been in so far is always a new and exciting surprise, and this one was no different. The room we are staying in is about the size of a connecticut college double, and is accomodating myself and TEN other girls. Its like a mix between a 3rd grade sleepover and a brothel. Needless to say, some of us had wine with dinner and the amount of giggling that went on in that room is beyond description. It will be quite a change to move into our homestays with our families and all go back to sleeping alone. This morning we woke up and had a debriefing on the purpose of experiential learning, and then commenced our first real assignment: the capetown drop-off. This consisted of each of us leaving the hostel, getting into a very squished minibus (taxi) with 8 other South Africans going into Capetown, and then getting dropped off at some random location in the city. And now, here I am.

Finally being in Capetown is a very exhilirating feeling. From many points in the city, you can look up and see table mountain looming above you, and look down and see the waterfront and the ocean. The houses that are built into the mountain are all painted bright colors, as are many of the buildings in the heart of the city. Tonight we are going out to dinner on Long St. which is often compared to Bourbon St. in New Orleans, and will probably go out dancing after. Tomorrow we move into our homestays in the township of Langa. My family consists my mama (single mother) my sister/sisi who is 25, my brother/bhudi who is 19 and sings, and a 3 yr. old grandchild. Rumour has it that my mama is the village cook and loves to bake. Rumour also has it that exercise is a very bizarre habit here, and there is nowhere safe to go jogging even if I wanted to. (This means, Georgia, that we will possibly be going to healthpoint when I get home. or not.)

On Monday we will finally establish some type of a routine, in which we will live at home in Langa with our families, and take the bus in everyday to Rondebosch to attend language class, our seminars on multiculturalism and social change, and our seminar on beginning to plan for our independent study. Rondebosch is the city in which the University of Capetown and my program office are. As of now, I hope to do a practicum/internship involving prenatal care and infant healthcare. However, our ISPs do not begin until November 6, so I imagine that may change a bit. I'll most likely be living in a flat in Capetown during that time if anyone wants to come visit me over thanksgiving!!

The juice here is 100% natural and absolutely delicious. Kids call their friends their "China". Stoplights are called robots and packies are called bottle stores. People drive on the left side of the road, and everyone operates on 'african time'. This pretty much means that everyone and everything is going to be late, but we arent allowed to be ever because we will screw up our overly packed program schedule.

I have not yet been bitten by a mosquito and gotten malaria, nor have there been any spiders in my shoes. However, we have been functioning pretty much in a bubble up until now, and this will most likely all change when we move into Langa tomorrow.

We have only been here a week but it feels like much longer. I really like all the kids in my program, and living together 24/7 and sitting on top of eachother for 4 hour van rides has really brought us close.

I miss home and all of you very much and think of you guys all the time. Its sad to me that I won't be home for my favorite season; the crisp new england air, the changing leaves, buying new sweaters, going to soccer games on harkness green, thanksgiving.. these are things I will truly miss. However, Capetown is one of the most beautiful cities in the world, the weather is pleasant, and they are just moving from Spring into Summer. Life is good.

I'm sorry this post is so long- I'll be able to update much more often now that we are back in civilization. Thanks to everyone that has emailed me- I can't tell you how nice it is to hear from people back home.

Loving and missing all of you.

Hi Everyone

Hi guys,

I've established this blog so that I can share what I'm doing in South Africa with everyone back home. I leave on August 31. Please forward the address to anyone that you think would be interested in reading my posts. http://sallysouthafrica.blogspot.com