10 Miles.

Last week of classes for me and then I finally get into the class I came here to take. This week my two Xhosa classes have been cancelled and one of my Apartheid classes. I had a mentoring session this morning to discuss how our volunteering has been going and now I am sitting in the library trying to do research for my paper due on Thursday, which I am not worried about at all. Yesterday was Sunday and it began with a 10 mile run at 7am. Becca and I ran down to Kings Beach and back then we did our normal loop of about 3 miles. It got really hot so fast once the sun was up over the horizon. There are so many people out training for the Iron Man that is held here in about two weeks. They actually started setting up for it down by the beach too, I am so excited to watch! On our run, I saw a bunch of people looking out towards the sea so I grabbed Becca by the shirt and pulled her to a stop. It was the coolest most beautiful thing I have ever seen. We watched as about 50 plus dolphins swam parallel to the beach front. They were close enough that you could see them individually and most of them were jumping. It was amazing! The people who were out swimming for the Iron Man were right in the middle of the pack along with some kayakers. Becca wanted to run out there and swim with them. After our run we got ready and headed to the beach were we laid out all day and I fell asleep three times. Later on Chelsea met me across from the beach and we went to the Sunday market down by Kings Beach. We rode out bikes there, but people had already started packing up. We missed a lot of good shops, but we decided we should go back another Sunday because everything is super cheap! I already know what I am getting everyone for back at home. Today is Patrick's birthday so we are throwing him a sort of surprise party, but it is more like a surprise dinner of tacos (since they are so easy to make). Cheers!!!

Home sick?!

It is Saturday afternoon and I just came inside from the pool. You can tell it is slowly sliding into winter here because the wind is just a tad bit cooler, but still nice enough to lay out. This week was very very laid back for me. We got back so late on Monday that I just went to bed. Tuesday was my productive day and basically the next two days I worked on my paper non stop. I was actually up until 3am on Wednesday like I said in my previous post. I got it done and it reminded me of pulling an all nighter back at home. I did have volunteering on Wednesday like always. Today when we first got to Masifunde the students weren’t there yet, we were early. I sat down with both Kyle and Mac and we attempted to balance the eggs I had brought in for the kids to balance. I told them the week before that you can balance an egg on its end only on the equinox, which was this past Sunday. It still worked for the most part because it is only Wednesday. The kids had a good time trying to balance the eggs and it was a nice way to kick off the homework club. Today I sat with Zenela ( I probably spelled her name wrong) and helped her with her geography. She had to correct her test which was over the rivers and mountains in South Africa. I couldn’t really help her without a map to look at and she had forgotten her atlas at school. She then read her list of words to me in English and did very well. She also had a lot of coloring to do. She said she was sick of coloring because she had been doing it all day. They all keep their school work so neat in their notebooks. They must glue all their work into a notepad and write all the answers in the same book. I wish we would have done that when I was in school because it is so much easier to keep track of things rather than throwing a bunch of papers in a folder. She was done with her work early so she was allowed to leave once she was done. She has a test next Friday so we will be studying for that more next week. Next I had Phumalale. He is always very slow to start his work, but he is so intelligent. I quizzed him on his technology homework, which is like “how do you make yoghurt or cheese”. He got almost every question right without much of a problem. He had some trouble today with the longitudes and latitudes on a map so I helped him think of some good ways to remember which is which and how to write out the degrees for North and South. Today I learned that sometimes instead of explaining something it is easier to show what you are talking about, like a visual aid. While I was explaining longitude and latitude I used a ruler and pencil to describe parallel and perpendicular. Phumalale understood as soon as I showed him. I still need to learn how to get Phumalale moving a little quicker when he starts his homework. I think next time I will give him an incentive, like if we get done with his work 5 minutes early we can play a game or something that will push him to start his homework faster. It is so tough with him because I feel like I can’t get mad at him. He knows his work, but I wouldn’t call him lazy. He is a very interesting kid and I look forward to working with him for the whole second term. Thursday Becca and I woke up extremely early to run so that we could get it out of the way. We ran then I went to class, turned my papers in and took a well deserved nap! We went out on Thursday night to the usual ladies night which was pretty fun! They play the same music every week so it is starting to get old, but I feel like if I miss one I might as well not go to anymore since I have been to every single once since I’ve been here. I sent out my emails for i2P and I am anxiously awaiting their reply! I can’t wait to follow this expedition now that I am a former Youth Ambassador! I got a little homesick this week I think. Not like homesick longing to go home, but homesick like everything is so much easier at home. I miss driving my car whenever I want, I miss my parents cooking, I miss subway, texting whenever I want to, and I miss volleyball right now. The team is currently playing at Eastern Michigan at a tournament and I really wish I could be there! I also hate rationing my Hershey’s syrup that my parents sent me because I only have two bottles and that isn’t enough for 2 months! I think I will go and lay by the pool now for the rest of the afternoon! Everyone enjoy the cold weather back at home, I’ll be thinking about you! Cheers!

Coffee Bay & PSJ

Right now it is almost 3am on Thursday morning. It is about 845pm at home right now. Why am I still awake?! I just got done writing my paper for Post Apartheid History class because I waited till the last possible second to write it. I went away for the weekend and had no time to start it because visiting the Wild Coast of South Africa was way more important. Friday I woke up a got a lot of stuff done. First we went to the airport to pick up our rental car for the weekend. We got a manual, even though we could have chosen a automatic as a free upgrade. Meli, she is from Austria, knows how to drive a stick so she taught me and was super patient. I drove for about 10 minutes and didn’t do that bad, even with the stick on the left side. Once we got back, I caught up on my emails and started some research on my paper that I just finished. I spent the rest of the day trying to plan out our whole excursion and pack some stuff up. Our plan was to leave once Chelsea got out of class, but we waited for the other car also. We ended up leaving around 6pm and had about a 7 hour drive ahead of us up to Port St. Johns in the Eastern Cape. The roads consist of a lot of sharp turns and curves even on the highway once you get out of PE. With all the curves we took it slow and especially because the fog was really bad that night. It was so bad at points you couldn’t see more than 3 cars lengths ahead of you. We decided as a car to pull off in East London and sleep for the night. We were all starving once we got there so we headed down to the Windmill which was like a 50s drive up restrauant. You could park your car and they would take your order. We ended up just going in and getting pizza, but it seemed like the whole town was congregated right in that area. I fell asleep as soon as we got into our hostel because I was exhausted from the night before. We got up really early the next morning and continued out drive to PSJ’s. We got there later that morning and checked in. We got a room with one of the other cars that was there from the night before. We went for a hike to the lighthouse that the local hostel owner told us about, but couldn’t find it so we came back early and didn’t have much to do the rest of the day. The other car was at a hike like an hour away so we didn’t have that much time before the sunset. We all decided to just make some dinner at the hostel and have a few beers before heading up to an airstrip with the hostel owners for a sunset. It took forever to get to the top of the mountain, but the view was well worth it. We overlooked the river mouth flooding into the Indian Ocean from about 150-200 meters up. We decided that the next morning we would get up for the sunrise and come back to the same spot because the sun had set on the opposite side of the mountain and not over the water. We took the bus back down to the hostel where they were starting to set up the band they had playing that night. They played xylophone instruments (but I don’t think that is what they are called) for a few hours and it was so nice to just sit back and chill to. We roasted some marsh mellows over the fire and tried to make s’mores with our make shift graham crackers which are biscuits. The next morning we woke up around 5am to get ready for the sunrise. Obviously we got lost on the way back up to the air strip so we almost missed it, but it was beautiful! I’ll need to post pictures of this because I don’t even think I could describe it. Most of this trip consisted of seeing things, not so much activities. We headed back down the mountain to the hostel to have some breakfast. We then stopped at the beach to check it out and there was a baptism going on in the ocean. Everyone was in their robes and they were dipping people into the water, although the waves were so rough I don’t know how anyone didn’t get carried away. Afterwards we took off towards Coffee Bay. The roads were terrible on the way, two lane, skinny dirt roads. Potholes were filled with dirt and cattle were free roaming so fences were not there to keep them off the road. We had to stop or slow down so many times just to avoid hitting a cow, goat or sheep. Our little car did very well with all the holes, but sometimes I would think we were going to get a flat or just lose something off the bottom of the car because of how loud it would be when we bottomed out. Once we got to coffee bay we had to do some talking to make sure that we found a place to stay, which lucky enough we ended up staying where we had planned even though the car in front of us was turned away because they had no room. We had some delicious home made pizza, although not as good as my mom and dads, and chilled out the rest of the night. We walked up a hill next to our hostel for the sun set and it was beautiful. I can’t decide which sun set I liked better, but both were pretty amazing! There were donkeys on top of the hill, tied up so that they wouldn’t fall off the cliff. I think if you were to fall off the cliff it would be instant death, thats how high up we were! On the way down the hill, our guide decided to take up down the steepest part and I thought for sure I would go tumbling down. We ended up on the beach and went in the back way to the hostel. There was a drumming workshop that night at the hostel so a few of us joined in and were taught some beats on the African drum. We also learned some history behind some of the drumming and the Transkei region we were in. The Eastern Cape is mainly made up of the Xhosa speaking people and the Transkei would be similar to like a tribe and they make up most of the wild coast which is where we were for the weekend. I fell asleep so early that night because I was so exhausted from the past few days. We all woke up pretty early the next morning because we were going to the Hole-in-the-Wall with a guy we had met at the hostel. His name is Aden and he is currently living without money for a period of 5 years. He is living by trading his way and doing favors for others. He even made his arm a billboard for advertisers who help him out. He seems pretty cool and I added him on facebook so I can see what he ends up doing with his project. The roads were even worse on the way to the HITW and Meli decided she would ask Mark to drive back because she had been driving the entire time! The HITW was amazing! It was literally a hole that went right through a huge rock wall. I can barely describe it and wish I could post a picture! We swam for a while, some people jumped off the ledge into the hole. I am not the best swimmer so I opted not to jump, but did climb up there to check it out! If you were going to jump you had to time it perfectly so that when a wave came thats when you were hitting the water, otherwise it would be too shallow and you would hit the rocks on the bottom. There were a bunch of kids there selling necklaces, but I didn’t bring any money with me. I only bought one bracelet at the hostel from a Transkei women. On the way back as we were driving, we would pass a lot of kids and they would all either hold their hands out to beg for money or they would run after the car so that they could touch it. They know a lot of tourists come there so they are hoping that people will give them money and it is like a game for them to touch the cars. On the way back, Mark told us a lot about the region because he lives in South Africa. He told us that the huts they live in are made out of cow dung and then dried and painted. He also told us a story about why the houses are round instead of squares. It is because they believe in some sort of story that a witch can hide in a corner, but in a round house since there are no corners so evil witches can hide and cause harm to anyone in the house. The drive home was pretty uneventful. I don’t know if I have mentioned anything about the driving here, but I will now. They drive on the left side of the road and on the right side of the car. The pedals are the same on the floor and every car basically is a manual. The speed limit is usually like 100 or 120 km/h, but if you go faster it is fine apparently because no cops sit anywhere. Also, the n2, which is a highway is only 1 lane at times so that if you want to pass you have to cross into opposing traffic. And up every hill there is usually a speed lane so that you can pass slower trucks, but with all the curves and turns it makes it difficult, especially at night. It is kinda like driving in West Virginia. We made it back home just in time to get the car back to the airport. All in all it was a great weekend spent with good people and beautiful places. Thank you wild coast!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Happy St. Patrick’s Day! I am sitting in the library trying to be productive, but all I got accomplished was renting a car for this weekend and signing up for the GRE. This week has been pretty easy going so far. Monday started off with disaster. I woke up with a bunch of ants on my floor, and that wasn’t even the disgusting part. I went to the restroom and when I passed the garbage can there were a bunch of maggots flooding out of the trash. Then I looked behind me again and they were spewing into my room. I was completely grossed out, and told Becca I couldn’t run until they were cleaned up. I had to wait for the maids to come so that I could borrow their vacuum to sweep up the mess. It happens because we don’t take out trash out as soon as we should I guess? I think I am a neat person, so I keep the kitchen clean. The rest of the day was normal, I went to class and later that night did some homework. Tuesday Becca and I ran about 5 miles. I only had one class and from there I sat in the library and used up some free internet. My internet stick ran out and it is such a hassle to get internet around here so I finally settled on getting the internet for Annies. It works well sometimes, but if the wind picks up you can see it get very slow. Wednesday was like every other Wednesday, I didn’t have class so I got some stuff done around my room and went food shopping. Grocery shopping is so much easier now with my bike. Volunteering today was a lot of fun, like always. There was a bingo game going on when we walked into Masifunde today. They had to mark their spaces when they figured out which two multipliers made up the number on their card. There was a lot of commotion and I am pretty sure everyone in the room had at least one bingo. Once they were finished with the game, we moved into the study hall and started on their work. I sat down with a young girl in the 5th grade named Leslie (although that is probably not how you spell it, but how it sounds to me). We had to study for her history test she had the following day. She was learning all about Egypt and the Nile River so we went over all her questions on her study guide. I quizzed her once and then it seemed as if she wasn’t truly remembering everything, so I asked if it would be okay if I made her a mock test that she could take and she could ask me questions as she went along. She did well, but she did have to ask me a lot of questions as we went through and I gave her clues when she needed them. I told her to make sure that she looked over this again before the test because it will help. Next I helped a younger girl, who usually I don’t see there, read. We read through a book and I noticed every word that I told her how to say, she remembered. I thought that was great seeing as she just isn’t repeating me, she is actually learning. We then read through a story about chickens and she had to write if she would ever want to have a chicken as a pet. She said no, because they are too noisy! Once I was done with her, it was almost time to go. I went to sit with Jessica to check her long division, which I haven’t done in years. She got most of them right and only made a few mistakes. Since she was done with everything, her attention was turned to cracking my fingers again. I think this is an area I still need work with, I have a hard time getting kids to refocus after something else catches their attention. I think I just have to be more assertive to reach this goal and I think that will be hard for me. I learned today while joking around with Jessica, that I still am a kid at heart, and sometimes it is also hard for me to focus when there isn’t busy work keeping me involved. After volunteering a bunch of us took a taxi out to central to our reservations for an Ethiopian meal. I have never had their cuisine, but was told it was going to be really spicy and it was! This wasn’t like a normal restrauant though, we had to call and make reservations because we basically ate at some ladies house. It is like a dining room in the back of a store and I believe she lives above it. She was the nicest lady ever and it was only 40 Rand for all you could eat. She cooked so much food that we had enough so that everyone could take some home with them! I went right to bed that night because I had a i2P skype conference to discuss the upcoming expeditions! It is so exciting to be involved with that organizations because they are evolving so much and doing so much for all the school following along all over the world. Unfortunately, the call was at 9pm EST meaning I had to be up at 3am. I took about an hour and a half nap after that and then Becca and I met around 530 to go for a sun rise run! We ran down along the beach and although there were a lot of clouds, the scenery was still very pretty. There were a lot of people out and about in the morning jogging, biking and swimming. They are all probably training for the IronMan here in April. After our 9 miles I showered and headed to class. After Xhosa class, the rest of the afternoon was spent trying to figure out which car to rent for this weekend. I accomplished a lot that day like getting the car, signing up for the GRE and catching up on my emails. Since it was St. Patrick’s Day we obviously drank all day. South Africans don’t celebrate the holiday and think that Americans are crazy because it isn’t even our holiday to celebrate and its just another excuse to drink. We got green food coloring and dyed everyones beer green so that everyone could be festive! We played some flipcup with the plastic cups we have been stealing (collecting) from the bars around here since they don’t sell them anywhere. South Africans don’t really know the game so we had to teach most of them. We then went out to ladies night and danced till about 2am. All in all it was a great St. Patty’s Day! Although I wish I could have been downtown with all my volleyball girls back home!!!

Addo Elephant Park.

This weekend was amazing! Starting with Friday, I went to a rugby game at the World Cup Stadium at the north end of P.E. with Ex, who is a South African I met here last week and some of his friends. The game was really intense and I definitely like rugby more than football now. It is so much more intense and the game never stops like in football. Some people went out Friday night, but I chose not to because we had to be up pretty early the next morning for our Addo Elephant Park day trip. We starting off the morning by stopping at Daniels Cheetah Farm. This was by far the coolest thing we have done so far. We were able to walk up to a 4 year old cheetah and pet it. Everyone got tons of pictures and the cheetah purred the entire time we were there. She even would roll over and lick you, you could tell she was happy. At the cheetah farm, they breed the cheetahs to then release them into national parks or nature reserves to keep them far from poachers who have been responsible in the past of their scarcity. After the cheetah, we went into a pen with two baby lions, which were only a few months old. They couldn’t even make a sound yet, it was only a squeak. We got to touch and play with them for awhile. I still don’t have a camera, so I found myself playing with the one with a twig that she would swat at with her paw. We then hopped back into our van and drove to a lookout point that was located close to where we had our bush camp at. It overlook the entire valley and it was gorgeous. We took a bunch of pictures and learned all about the importance of the valley and how the river supplies the water needed for the citrus industry to maintain their high output of the fruits. Just afterwards, we headed to lunch at a bed and breakfast on the way to Addo. It was so delicious, and consisted of chicken and salad. Addo was just down the road so it didn’t take us long to get there. When we arrived, there was a 50 miler and 100 miler race going on in the elephant park! How cool to run a race surrounded by all those animals! We first had to make a group decision on if we should keep our sunset safari with light snacks, or go on a nighttime safari with a full fledged meal. Obviously we picked the one with a heavier meal. We then had some time to kill before our 8 o’clock game drive, so we drove around in our minibus through the park where we got to see a bunch of Kudu, which is similar to an antelope. We also saw a lot of bones just lying on the ground, which were obviously dead animals. They introduced lions and hyenas to the park around 2003 so that they could keep the Kudu population under control rather than just shooting them. If they controlled the population with a gun, then you would never see animals wandering around by vehicles because they would obviously be scared. And without the visitors to the park, they wouldn’t have enough money to maintain the huge area. Addo elephant park covers more land than even the Kruger Park in northern South Africa and boasts the “Big 7” instead of the usual “Big 5” the other game parks advertise. The 7 include: Lion, Elephant, Leopard, Rhino, Buffalo, Shark and Whale. The last two are only included in Addo because the park touches the sea at one end and offers shark dives and whale watches. Towards the end of our drive through the game park, we finally ran into some elephants, which was what we had all been waiting for. We took so many pictures and were so close. There must have been 8 or 10 total together and they even had a little baby with them. We sat and watched them walk for awhile, but had to be back to eat dinner so that we wouldn’t miss our night time game drive. We hurried through the park and almost ran straight into an elephant after a blind curve. Also, Kudu are the same as deer when in comes to running in front of cars seeing as we came very close to hitting one of them too. The night time safari was pretty cool, but we didn’t see as much as I thought we would. The one highlight though was definitely the hyenas. They traveled and packs and were just as scary and ugly as they are in the lion king. The were very sneaking and were almost like circling our truck. The drive was very cold and I didn’t bring a heavy enough jacket for the ride. On the way home, I am pretty sure the majority of the people fell asleep and I was exhausted by the time we got back that I was planning just to go straight to sleep, but my parents were online so I got a chance to talk to them for awhile. The next day we were planning on going to the market, but it was so nice that we just went to the beach instead. I fell asleep straight away when we got there. I don’t like the ocean very much here because it is so rough and I swear I have bruises from getting thrown around so much. The waves are sometime so huge that I just can’t handle it, but then there are times when there are no waves at all. It seems like when I am trying to get out past when the wave breaks, that is when they are huge and they just crash onto me. Ex came and I got to watch him surf for awhile, but then there was a surfing competition for younger kids. Some of these kids were amazing! I don’t really understand how a surfing competition works, but they just all caught waves for like a half hour and I guess they get points for how well they rode it. The weekend ended with skyping with my parents and baba. I would say this was a weekend for the books! Cheers!

Mardi Gras.

Sorry it has been such a long time since I’ve sat down to write. I had a test today which I have been studying for. I’ll start from Friday and work my way up till today (which is Thursday). Friday was a very relaxing day. I sat out by the pool most of the day and made a trip to the grocery store. Not really much to say, other than I have never been this tan in my life. I love have a pool 20 feet outside my door and the beach maybe a mile away. I ride my bike everywhere now which is nice and I get to places so much faster. Also, it is good prep because I hear that gas prices are on the rise at home so I will be riding my bike everywhere when I get back. The gas prices also have effected us here too. The prices of a cab went up about 10 rand, but cabs are still way cheaper here than anywhere at home. It costs us about 50-60 rand for about a 15-20 minute drive past the airport, which is about 7 dollars. Then we split that between 5 people so it usually costs about 10 rand each or like a $1.50 ish. Saturday Becca and I woke up pretty early and ran down the beach for our 7 mile run. There was a triathlon going on so we kept running into the racers. Everyone here exercises, I love it. There must have been a 100 people out running, riding or walking that morning! Later, we rented a few cars and a group of us went out to Wacky Woods. It was like a music festival that played music all weekend, nonstop, throughout the nights. It was really cool and we all got out faces painted. There was a pool, bonfire and then the dancing tent with a bar. I stayed up all night and we left very early in the morning because everyone was exhausted. I couldn’t even fall asleep right when I got home either because I was on my second wind. Sunday was a pretty boring day. I napped for awhile and recovered all day until I skyped with my parents and baba that evening. We talked for about an hour just about everything. It is always nice to talk to them, but I always get a little home sick after I get off with them. Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday were all pretty laid back. Monday I had class, which I was falling alseep in because there was a breeze blowing right into my eyes and it made me so tired. That class is on the 10th floor of the main building so it gets chilly sometimes. Monday night, we went to the rugby game. The game was so much fun and intense even though I don’t understand rugby. We ended up winning, which was the first time in 2 years winning on our home field. The crowd went nuts and everyone was so excited!!! After the game they had a relay race for some student who signed up ahead of time. The race consisted of 4 team and a wheel barrel. The team had to have one person sit while the other wheeled them down and around a keg and when they got back the next person to get in the wheel barrel had to chug a beer then be wheeled down and around the keg again. Once they were finished with all 5 people they had to sit down. This being a school event and involving alcohol would never fly at Lake Erie. Although it would be cool if we did stuff like that at home. After the game we went down to Barney’s which is right on the ocean and celebrated with everyone. It was so crowded and every time the music changed or stopped for a second everyone would chant the NMMU cheer. We basically got kick out of the bar that night because we were like the last people there. When I got back, I chatted with my mom because she was online and it was a descent time for her and like 2 or 3 am my time. Tuesday was Mardi Gras as everyone knows and they really didn’t celebrate here, but I did. I met Kristen at Spar and we picked up ice cream and brownie mix to make a volcano look-a-like from the Rainforest Cafe. We baked everything at her place since she has a nice oven then made our way to Annie’s to put it together. There was a storm on its way so we booked it as fast as we could so that we wouldn’t get soaked. We made it just in time for tacos that we all chipped in for. It was a great last meal! After dinner we put the volcano together and everyone dug in and it vanished in seconds. So good! It started to rain a little later and there was a spectacular lightning storm where you could basically see each individual bolt for a few seconds each time it struck. It started to pour so we were all in Chelsea’s room just hanging out hoping that it would clear up so we could go out and celebrate the holiday. It finally did and we got a ride with one of Hannah’s friends to captain, where they have karaoke nights every Tuesday. There weren’t very many people there, but I had a lot of fun. We sang the spice girl’s song Spice Up Your Life and it was hilarious. I got McDonalds with Coleen and her boyfriend afterwards, which I considered to be my last meal. The next day, Ash Wednesday, I would only be eating bread to see if I could do it. It was tough, but I did well. Becca and I ran a short 3 miles down along the beach and back. I studied a little for my test on Thursday during the day and then had my volunteering. Today was a very laid back day at Masifunde. When we first got there the younger kids were still there so we were instructed to help them with their work. I sat down with a little girl at first and she read me a book about a rhino chasing some kids and ended up just wanting to be their friend. The book was in english and she had some trouble reading it. She was only in grade 1 so I could see that she was still learning. I helped her with a majority of the words, but she seemed to learn the words as I said them because if they popped up again she remembered. Next I helped a little boy with his math homework. He knew what he was doing and had very few errors with his subtraction. Next I helped an older girl who I believe is in grade 7. She knows english very well and was preparing for her EMS test, which is like economics. We went over everything from consumers, to producers, and supply and demand. Her test was the next day and she seemed very confident once we were done. She had to study a pyramid of what is important like wants and needs and she was having a hard time with it. So I showed her how I study is by high lighting each individual thing a different color so that it sticks out in my mind. Once we did that she flew through the pyramid and shouldn’t have any problems with her test. We cleaned up a little early today because most of the kids were going on some sort of field trip so the homework club wasn’t as full as normal. The kids are really starting to get to know us and they love asking us questions. I learned today that not only is the material we go over for their homework important, but the way they learn is important too. I was glad I could show the last girl I worked with a new style of studying and I hope she can use that throughout her studies. This may sound very general, but today I realized I need to learn all the kids names. Even though they may be hard to pronounce, I still need to give it a shot because today some of them remembered my name. I think I might have them write down their names for my next week and maybe something about them so that way I can almost study it when I go home. The rest of the night was consumed with me studying frantically and cramming for the test because I didn’t study as much as I had wanted to. I wasn’t up very late and I felt really confident going into the test today, but I feel like some of his multiple choice questions were alittle tricky. I hope I did well because I got my paper back and I did well on that, so I want to keep the streak going! When I got my paper back though, I received a 68 and my heart automatically dropped, but a 68 here is like a high B so not bad. I don’t know why their grading system is different or even how it works, I just always ask if I don’t know. I spent the rest of the day today on the computer on campus soaking up all the free internet I can. I am sorta jealous that everyone back home is on spring break and ours isn’t until the end of April, so I still have more than a month left. I should be in Ft. Lauderdale having a blast with my best friends, but I just keep thinking about next year and what I will be doing for spring break! Well it is now the weekend for me. I promise to write more often! Although a paper that is due in 2 weeks will probably take over my life again. Tonight is ladies night, so that means we go out dancing, but not before Becca and I get some miles in. It rained all morning and I was hoping it would continue to rain so it would be cooler, but now the sun is out and it is steaming hot out. We also might blow away with all this wind! Cheers!

The Mall?

It is now Saturday and I am waiting around for some people to get back with the cars we are renting for the weekend. So Thursday Chelsea and I made our frist trip to green acres, which is similar to a mall plus a walmart built inside. We had to leave from a bus stop just outside campus and take that bus all the way to green acres. This is the first time I think I have ever rode on a public bus. We obviously had to ask around to make sure we were actually getting on the right bus, which we were. It only cost 7 Rand which is about 1 dollar for the ride and it was quite a distance. We had a seat and starting talking to a guy from Cape Town. He was telling us all about South Africa and what we should see and do while we were here. We also told him all about snow and how cold it gets where we are from and he was astonished. It took about an hour to get to the mall with all the stops and traffic we had to go through. Once we were there is was heaven. I was on the hunt for sandals because I barely brought any shoes with me. They were everywhere so I had an easy time. We got pizza for lunch and it was weird because this pizza place didn't have just a plain cheese pizza. That's all I eat so I asked if they could make it for me and they did. We got some gelatos for dessert and they were delicious. We had to taste test quite a few because most of them were made from the different kinds of candy bars they have there. Once we were all finished out next task was to find the bus stop to take the bus home. We must have ran after 5 different bus's until some old lady sitting on some steps nearby asked us what we were doing. We told her we were looking to go to Summerstrand (which is like the suburb we live in by the campus) and she pointed us in the right direction. We were then out on the main road where we asked a lady if we were in the right place. Luckily she was also going the same way so she said to follow her, which we did. While we sat and waiting for the bus, there was a kid selling some sort of fruit near by and it reminded me of the guy who sells pretzels in the middle of the road in Philadelphia. (That is a side note to all my family!) The ride home was easy because there weren't as many stops. I did notice at one point that I was the only white person on the bus, and to me that is what is so different here. I am considered the minority here, but I think I am getting use to it now. There is a lot of racism here even though apartheid has been abolished for almost 15 years now, but for the most part I haven't seen any instances personally. Although some people in my group of friends have experienced it and it has really opened their eyes. Once we got back to Summerstrand Chelsea and I walked to Kristens to make muffins for Helmut's birthday. We didn't stay too long because we had to shower and get ready for "ladies night!" Ladies night was a lot of fun this week, I think because there weren't as many Americans there as usual. I met some people from Durban that were really nice. Friday morning I always sleep in because I don't have class at all. I laid out on the beach all afternoon with Sara, but it did get chilly around like 4ish because the sun was behind many clouds. We road our bikes to the beach, but walked them back because we picked up Kristen from PicknPay which is right across the street from the beach so that she could come get her bike from Annie's. Kristen and Breana came over so we could discuss plans for the following day and ended up making some chicken and pasta for dinner which was delicious! I went to bed extremely early because Becca and I had a long run this morning (Saturday) and had to get up early for it. As we were running we passed by a guy I had met out dancing on Thursday night. He is a triathlete and will be competing in the Iron Man here in P.E. at the end of April. I was planning to go and watch, but now I have someone who I can cheer on! So now I am just sitting and waiting for the rental cars to get here so we can get on our way to Jbay where I think some surfing trials are taking place today and tomorrow? I feel like here, I hear a lot of rumors and I am never sure what is true or not. We never have proof that what everyone is saying is true so we just kind of go with the flow. There might not even be a festival, but since a lot of people said there was we are going to check it out. Until tomorrow! Cheers!

Tough Week Actually Doing Homework.

It is now Thursday and I want to apologize for not writing as often as I should. I have been mentioning how much reading I have been doing, and the paper I had to write was due today. So now that it is off my shoulders I can resume my normal postings and keep you all updated on my crazy life! I’ll start with Monday although my week has been a little on the boring side since I have actually been doing school work. I basically woke up and went straight to class on my bike. After class I came straight home to work on my paper while taking some breaks to lay by the pool and sunbathe. I found out that day though a little about the weather in South Africa. Around mid April the weather will change and become a lot cooler with more wind and rain because it is their winter here and it will remain like that until I leave. See ya later sun-kissed skin! I was basically confined to my room the rest of the night and got so much accomplished on my paper and called it a night. Tuesday was about the same kind of day. I woke up semi early and ran with Becca through the fog, which was really dense that morning and you could hear the fog horn in the distance. Once back, I planned to get ready and head to class. I laid down to close my eyes for a few when I hear a knock at my door. It is our landlord and he tells me to empty my fridge because we are getting a new one. So since he sounded like it was urgent, I hurried to get everything out figuring that someone would come right away and replace it. But let’s be real. This is South Africa. The new fridge came, and it was placed in my room, right in the middle. At this point I was already not going to be able to make it to class and I couldn’t leave all our food out to spoil while I was gone, so I stayed back and slid the fridge out of the kitchen and placed the new one in its place, all with the help of Chelsea of course. The new fridge is huge and we have so much room, almost enough to satisfy my usual milk intake (which is usually about 5 liters a week). I stayed in again that night and put the finishing touches on my paper so that it would be ready to print the next morning. It was then Wednesday and I had volunteering at 215, so I hurried down to the PicknPay to print my paper because it costs less there than it does on campus (2 rand a page). It was a very simple process, but I did write 14 pages so my total was 28 rand, which is about 4 dollars. The only bad part about this is that if I made a mistake, which I later did find in my paper, there was no way to fix it unless I took it back and reprinted it for another 28 rand. Instead, I just crossed out my mistake with a sharpie so that I could save myself some money and time. Not to mention with the wind yesterday it took Becca and I about 4 or 5 minutes to get to the store on our bikes, but about 20 minutes to get home. It is basically impossible to ride your bike here when the winds are that bad. I have never felt such a burn in my legs from biking before and was literally exhausted when we got back. We ate lunch upon our return and then it was time to head to service learning. We drove a slightly different way to Masifunde, I am assuming so that we would miss some of the traffic from the main road, and we passed by a townships with houses that looked as if they were able to fall over. There was garbage everywhere, but I can’t recall actually seeing anyone so I wasn’t sure if the area was deserted, but everyone was probably inside because it was so windy. Once we got to homework club we started right away as usual. Today I had Seme (she has a longer name, but I can’t spell it) to work with and working with her is a challenge for me. She is in grade 3 and I am not sure how old, but she always asks questions and expects me to just tell her the answer. If I don’t tell her she will just reply “I don’t know” or “I can’t do it”. I see it as my job to help her realize that she can and give her a lot of praise when she spells a word right or has the right answer. I tried to relate to her by saying, you try to spell the word garbage as best you can, and I’ll try to spell the same word in Xhosa (because I don’t know a single Xhosa word) so we both tried and helped each other get the right answer. We also went through the numbers, which she was very good at and I even challenged her with some larger numbers like in the hundred thousands and millions! She did great and was so happy when she said the number right! I love to see her happy because she has the prettiest smile. I didn’t have Jessica today because I got done with Seme too late. I had Phumlelade (which is probably not how you spell his name) and he was very slow to start his work. He had to gather a ruler, glue, a blue pen because he had forgotten his stationary. Once we got to work he was very productive and really enjoyed telling me the right answers to his homework. I would like to continue to work with him because he has a lot of talent, but I don’t think he is very motivated because he answered almost all his homework questions correctly, it just took awhile for us to get started because of other distractions. I learned today that even though it might not seem like a big deal, using words like “good job” or “that’s great” are really uplifting to kids who don’t really understand their homework. I can’t wait to go back next week! It is such a nice outlet from my own studies to see these kids succeed. I was so tired once we got home that I relaxed for awhile, cooked a nice dinner of chicken and rice and made rice krispies with the girls, which were pink because some of the marshmallows were pink for Valentines Day when I got them. They were gone within minutes, but soooo delicious! I was up early this morning, 545am, to go running with Becca and Coleen joined us today. We were back by 7 so that I could make it to my 8am class which I could not miss because I had to turn my paper in. My Xhosa class which is directly after my first class was very interesting today. We were learning about religion in the Xhosa culture and our teacher was saying the most extreme things like “everyone here has practice witchcraft, am I right” and the class basically exploded into a long discussion about everything from why people put flowers on graves to when you wish someone ill that is considered witchcraft. This teacher wouldn’t listen to what anyone had to say so it was complete chaos. We ended by going over somethings for our test next week, which hopefully will be relatively easy because I feel as if we haven’t learned a single thing in that class yet. Now I am sitting in the library and am awaiting Chelsea to get done with class so that we can head to Greenacres, which is like a mall downtown, because we want to look for some stuff that you can’t buy at the local PicknPay or Spar (both like grocery stores). Tonight is also Ladies Night so we will be going out dancing as usual, but also celebrating Helmut’s birthday (from Austria) with a braai and then going out. It is a little rainy and gloomy today, but usually it is like that in the morning and clears up as the day goes on. I always find that I am freezing on the way to class so that I dress warm, but once I am out of my first class it is scalding hot and I am sweating. Atleast it isn’t as windy! Until tomorrow!