The First Week of School!

Classes started on Monday here and so far they've been pretty good! I'm taking Xhosa which is an African language (yes it uses clicks!) commonly spoken in and around Cape Town. It is the language spoken by the Xhosa people, the tribe in which Nelson Mandela is from. So far I've only learned very basic greetings and such but we go over how to say the different clicks next week so I'm excited for that! I also have to take a social research methods class which isn't too exciting but should hopefully help me in other areas. We have a class called Poverty and Development which is kind of like a sociology class focused on the causes of poverty and how to lower its prevalence and how development affects those living in poverty, using Cape Town as a case study of course! We also have a service-learning course where we discuss the uses and benefits of combining hands on service experience with traditional classroom learning. All in all I think that the classes will be manageable and fun, especially in combination with the service we will be doing!

Speaking of service, we've spent the week touring the sites where we will be devoting our time! On Monday I went to Mannenburg Primary School which is in the township of Mannenburg. It is a very impoverished area and the children were just absolutely adorable! They were cheering for us and had the biggest smiles - a few even blew us kisses! The teachers were so welcoming to us and were so excited at the prospect of having our help, they surely need a lot of it.

On Friday I went to a children's home in a different township where over thirty kids from newborn to six years old live. We weren't told the specifics about any of the children but they were brought to the home by social workers or the government. Right when we walked in the kids "chose" one of us to hang onto and they wouldn't let go! They were calling us mommy and mama, it was really cute but really sad at the same time. I would like to go and spend some time just loving the children there but I don't think its the place for me to do all of my work - I am pretty sure that I want to spend most of my time at the primary school so I cannot wait to get to know the students and teachers I will be working with and get started as soon as possible!!

A Morning to Remember

Word on the street was that Archbishop Desmond Tutu - the Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town, a friend of Nelson Mandela, Nobel Peace Prize winner and a major figure in the fight against apartheid - gives the early morning sermons at St. George's Cathedral on Fridays when he is in Cape Town. Yesterday we happened to pass by the church and could see him giving a press conference through the window. Knowing that he is in Cape Town, a group of my friends and I braved the early morning and headed downtown to hope to catch his sermon. And that we did! The Archbishop was super friendly and asked all of the visitors to share their stories about how and why they are in Cape Town. After receiving communion, the mass ended and the Archbishop shook everyone's hand as they walked out. Since he knew we were visiting, Archbishop Tutu offered to take pictures with us so we could remember this morning! My Aunt Janice is related to the former Catholic Archbishop Dennis Hurley of Cape Town who was a friend of both Tutu and Mandela and I even had the chance to speak with Archbishop Tutu about this "wonderful, wonderful, and very funny man!" All in all it was a memorable and beautiful start to my weekend!

The Township Tour

Yesterday we went into the townships on the outskirts of Cape Town. They are kind of like shantytown slums where some of the coloured (mixed race...and a politically correct term here don't worry) and black residents were forced to move during the apartheid. We had a tour guide named Thabo who is from a black township called Langa, which means the sun. He brought us to Langa where we started out at the visitors center where pottery, jewelry, and other art created by citizens of the township is sold. We met some of the artists and got to see them work and we even got lessons on how to play African drums, we sounded great, if I do say so myself!

Lunch was at Mzoli's, a restaurant in the township, where we had pap, grilled chicken, lamb, and sausage, it was amazing! Following lunch we walked around the township which was a very moving and educational experience. We went to an African healer who has learned everything he knows from visions passed on to him from his deceased grandfather...we then stopped in one of the huts where women make homemade beer, which we got a taste of - it was very bitter and almost had a metallic taste, I'm not rushing back for more any time soon!

The children who live in Langa are adorable! They were all outside playing and walking around when we arrived and immediately came over to us. They held our hands, sat in our laps, and just loved our cameras! One little girl was on my lap and she just kept playing with my hair, she couldn't get enough of it! The kids didn't speak much English at all but it startling to see that they did know how to ask us for money, even the littlest ones. It appears that the residents appreciate us taking the time to visit their homes to buy their goods and learn about their culture. I feel badly that we foreigners drive into these places as a tourist spot to marvel at the destitute poverty that is their everyday lives...

A Southern Braai

This weekend has been fun and full of African experiences, mostly involving food! On Friday night we went to an African restaurant where they served popular native cuisine family style. This included linefish, chicken wings, pap which is finely ground corn kind of like grits, and my personal favorite - oxtail! It was absolutely delicious and kind of hard to describe, but "the meat falls off the (tail) bones!" There was live jazz-type music and traditional dress and very cool art on the walls, it was a great experience!

The next day we went to the Castle of Good Hope which at one point was used by the Dutch to house soldiers, weapons, and prisoners.

Later

that afternoon we went to a braai, which is the South African equivalent of a barbeque. There was music, games, and delicious food! They served white sweet potatoes which before we realized what they were thought that they looked like regular potatoes but smelled like apples - a wonderfully pleasing combination! The main dish was lamb, I'm not really sure how it was prepared but it was served in small bits - almost like pulled pork - and was in a sweet barbequeish sauce. Divine!

Sunday was Madiba's (Nelson Mandela) birthday so we went to a street fair called the Ubuntu Festival where there was live music, vendors, and lots of spirit! In South Africa, the phrase "ubuntu" is very popular and used often to represent the level of respect that should be given to all people. It was a fun and vibrant place to spend a beautifully sunny African Sunday afternoon!

A New Continent...

So I have safely arrived in Cape Town and am beginning to get settled in here! There are ten other students in my program, CIEE Service-Learning, and we all seem to be getting along really well so far! For the first few days of my orientation we were staying in a really nice hotel in the heart of Cape Town, right at the foot of Table Mountain! It is absolutely gorgeous here, seeing the mountain right in the middle of the city is such a magnificent sight and I really hope it never gets old! We moved into our house yesterday - it is a spacious and airy place right off of the University of Cape Town Campus. I share it with the other members of my group and with Thandie, our RA who is a graduate student at UCT. I share a room with a girl named Katherine (she lived on my friend Maryn's hall at St. Lawrence University before transferring to Northeastern, such a small world!) and the house has four bathrooms, nine bedrooms, a kitchen with three fridges, and two stoves, and a common living area. It really is a great place to live - except that like most of the buildings here, there is no heat! And yes I am in Africa but it is winter here and the days have been raw and rainy so far, there is no escaping the cold!

I have learned more about what it is I will actually be doing here, yay! I will be taking five classes which include a few sociology-type classes, an African language course, and then my service-based research and capstone project. We went into the townships for the first time today, (which are the very poor areas on the outskirts of Cape Town) where we will be doing our service portion of the program. We get to decide where we would like to serve, some of the options include primary schools, high schools, an orphanage, a pre-trial mentoring program for young males, a TB/HIV and AIDs clinic, or a shelter for abused teenaged girls. We still have to see some of the sites but I am excited to start thinking about where it is I may like to work and what my project may be. Through my service work I will have to identify a specific need for the people in that community and through research and time spent there, come up with a capstone project idea that will hopefully provide a solution that will last long beyond my time here!

In the Air...

Hey there! I am beginning this very first blog post from my (somewhat) comfortable window seat upon a British Airways flight to London...

It has been a somewhat stressful and exciting past few weeks as I've slowly but surely gotten myself ready for this trip of a lifetime! It took a few rounds of "do I really need this?" packing decisions, a delayed Visa delivery, a borrowed camera (thanks Billy!), a backpack full of books, one last weekend at Humarock, and many tearful goodbyes but I am at last on my way! As my dad said at the airport cafe we were waiting in this evening "it's been a long time coming, and now it's really here." I am so lucky to have the chance to see and explore the other side of the world in this way and I am excited to share my experiences with all of you! As my plane took off and the lights of the Boston skyline filled the darkness outside of my window, I said goodbye to the people, city, country, and continent that I have loved and belonged to for so long. As the lights began to fade into the distance I realized that there was no going back, that I am in this thing for good, and even though I am absolutely terrified at the prospect of this, I truly am ready to arrive in the newest home I have long been waiting to say hello to.