Soweto and Kruger..best vacation ever!

What an incredible “spring” break! They call it vac here which is short for vacation since it’s actually fall right now. We began very early Saturday morning flying up to Joburg. While in Joburg we stayed at Lebo’s backpackers in Soweto which is the largest township in South Africa and the former home of Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu. It is called Soweto because it is the SOuth WEst TOwnship and is about 30 minutes from downtown Joburg. The first day we went on a four hour bike tour around Soweto which was a great experience. It was much more enjoyable than merely riding a bus around looking at the different historical sites. Everybody would laugh when they saw a line of about 40 people riding through on bikes! When we got back to Lebo’s there were kids everywhere waiting to play with us which was a lot of fun and tiring! They constantly wanted to be held and ride on your shoulders and take pictures. I was so excited because they had a tv at Lebo’s that showed march madness so I was able to watch a few games! The next day we went on a tour of Joburg which was fun but I am very glad I’m living in CT! The city seemed very dirty and old and not as pretty as CT. We stopped at a traditional medicine market which was interesting and peculiar! We weren’t allowed to take pictures and none of the shop owners seemed very happy to see us walking around. It was full of plants, roots, herbs, bottles of STRANGE looking concoctions, animal bones and who knows what else. This stuff was everywhere and they said witch doctors and traditional healers come here to buy ingredients for their potions! I didn’t know the practice of traditional healing was still common enough to warrant a big market in the middle of Joburg, but apparently it is. From there we went to eat lunch at the top of the tallest building in Joburg which is 50 stories high. After lunch we went to the Apartheid museum which was a great experience. They had a large Nelson Mandela display with the history of his life and accomplishments which was really neat to read. After visiting several museums and historic sites, I have come to appreciate those same types of places in the States. The quality of the museums in the States is incredible and the clarity of the information presented is much better than in SA. However, after saying that, the Apartheid museum was very informative and I am glad I was able to visit and learn more about the atrocities during apartheid.
Now it was on to Nelspruit and the safari in Kruger! This was an absolutely amazing and incredible experience. We stayed at Old Vic backpackers which was a lot of fun. The owner is called Crazy Dave which is a very appropriate name! He asked me where I went to school so I told him Auburn in Alabama but I’m from Tennessee. From then on he called me Miss Alabama 2008 and every time he said it he would change the year so sometimes it was 2005, 1992 and I got older each time! He would literally call me that every time he saw me! One of the safari guides actually asked if that was true and I just died laughing and said Crazy Dave completely made that up!
For the safari we rode in open air safari trucks that held 10 people and my group had the best guide named Toby! He was awesome and so knowledgeable about all the animals and plants. He taught us how to survive in the bush using the different plants and berries! We were able to see the Big Five (leopards, lions, african buffalo, rhinos and elephants)! We went into Kruger two days and had to wake up at 3:45 in the morning in order to get to the park at sunrise! It was totally worth getting up that early! The first day we didn’t see any lions or leopards, but we saw a ton of elephants, rhinos, zebras, impala, buffalo, giraffes, monkeys, and lots of birds and other animals. The animals got so close to the truck it was unbelievable. They weren’t scared at all! We drove around the park until around 4 and then it was about an hour drive back to Nelspruit where we were staying at Old Vic. The second day was amazing! Within five minutes of entering the park we found lions just walking and sitting along the road! You aren’t supposed to lean outside of the cars or trucks because that is when the animals get scared if they see something moving and if a person breaks the shape of the car or truck. Anybody is allowed to drive their own car into the park and some of those people are not too smart! This one couple was really close to the lion and the lady leaned out the window to take a picture and the lion walked right up to the car within inches and looked like it would eat that lady! Toby said if she hadn’t rolled up her window in time the lion would have definitely put his head in the window to sniff around!! The lady looked terrified when she drove by! We followed a lion walking up the road for a while just watching him! He was roaring the whole time which was awesome to hear. I was so intrigued I could have followed him for hours! After following the lions for awhile we set off to find a leopard which is very rare to see, but we were determined to find one! We had been driving around for an hour or so without seeing one and we were a little bummed because we had to start heading to lunch, but on the way we found one! We passed a dirt road and one of the guys said he saw something that looked like a big cat so we backed up and turned down this road we weren’t supposed to enter and sure enough there was a huge leopard sitting by a tree! I was freaking out but had to sit really still and be quiet! We got some amazing pictures before he started walking off into the woods. Toby said that was one of the best views of a leopard he’s seen in the wild! We were bragging to everybody at lunch about our spot! After lunch our goal was to find all the Big Five that afternoon. We started by going to see another leopard that had been sitting in a tree all day. It was nothing compared to how close we were to the first leopard. Then we saw some more elephants, buffalo, rhinos, giraffes, zebras and a lot of neat birds. We saw four out of the Big Five within an hour which is insane! We were still looking for more lions but never found any in the afternoon. After lunch all the other groups starting heading back home and left the park at about 2:30. We didn’t leave the park until 5:30! Toby was having so much fun with us he said we didn’t have to follow the schedule so we got to stay until the park was closing! I am so thankful I was able to have such a great experience in Kruger and I wish everybody could go on a safari with Toby! I could have stayed for five more days! This was definitely the best “Spring” break I have ever had or could have imagined!

Robben Island and Table Mountain

I’m a little late in putting up pictures from my trip to Robben Island and camping trip on Table Mountain, but better late than never! Robben Island was a very interesting experience. We had to take about a 45 minute boat ride out to the island with quite an exciting surprise on the way; we got to see a whale! It’s not whale season so I think this whale was a little confused but it was amazing to see how big it was! When we got to the island we all hopped on a big tour bus with a hysterical guide. At first the girl next to me asked if he was drunk because he was so dramatic with his stories and a little bit strange! It turns out that he is the best guide on the island and gives tours to all the dignitaries and famous people who come to visit. The tour was fairly quick and we stayed in the bus while it drove around the island. I couldn’t really get the feel of how the island was when it was used as a prison. It was eerie how all the wardens’ houses were still there and it looked like the houses were occupied but I never saw any people. Towards the end of the tour we got out at the actual prison. Our guide for this part was an old prisoner on Robben Island. He was put in prison for burning down a government building during apartheid. I couldn’t believe that someone who used to be a prisoner would now be giving tours. We also got to see Mandela’s prison cell which was very small. I still can’t fathom that Mandela was in prison for 27 years and a few years after being released, became president of the country!

Wow hiking and camping on Table Mountain was an amazing and challenging experience! I went with five other people and we had a great time. We started out by hiking up Skeleton Gorge which was extremely challenging! The guys had to carry mine and Elizabeth’s backpacks or we wouldn’t have made it up the mountain. The guys kept making me laugh which was not good because I was already out of breath from trying to keep up, so I stopped quite often to catch my breath! I realized how out of shape I am right now! When we got to the top of that part of the mountain there were several water reservoirs which were really neat. It was like a whole different world once you were at the top. There was sand all around the water and it was so pretty and peaceful. We continued hiking for about another hour and a half trying to figure out where we were going to sleep for the night. It was getting close to sundown so we were crunched for time. We ended up hiking to the Apostles and camping out on the edge of the mountain. The sunset was breathtaking seeing it from the top of the mountain and looking over the ocean. We couldn’t see the lights from downtown Cape Town which was a little disappointing but we were able to see the lights from the Camp’s Bay area. The area where we slept was pretty far off the path! The guys wanted to sleep on the edge of the mountain so we had to climb across all these rocks to get to a good place. After dinner we decided to start a camp fire down in a crevice between the big rocks. Elizabeth and I slept in the crevice while the guys slept out on the cliffs literally about to roll off the mountain! In the morning I found out something that really creeped me out! That night, before the Elizabeth and I went down to the campfire, the guys saw this huge spider that they said was as big as a crab! They killed it right next to where we slept! I’m glad they didn’t tell us until the next morning because I would have been thinking about that spider the entire night! In the morning it started getting really foggy and cloudy. It was awesome seeing the clouds moving towards the mountain. We decided to hike from the Apostles to the top of Table Mountain and the cable car station. I have to admit I was getting really tired! The hike was about another two hours uphill in the cold rain! I decided I was glad I wasn’t able to see anything around me because the trail was literally on the side of the mountain which would have scared me. We finally reached the top and got some food to eat. We tried to act dramatic and whenever we passed people walking around we would make comments about how we hadn’t had food for two days and had been up here for several nights. I don’t think anybody believed us! The hike down almost killed me! It was straight down and just weaved back and forth the entire way. I was really tense because I was afraid to slip and fall on the wet rocks but luckily none of us fell! It took almost two hours of non-stop hiking before we reached the bottom. We were able to hitch hike a ride with a nice couple down to the center of town to catch a mini-bus back home. Everybody was looking at us very strangely because we were soaking wet even though it was sunny down in Cape Town. This was a wonderful trip and a great display of God’s beautiful creation!
The pictures are of Devil’s Peak with Robben Island in the background, the ex-prisoner from Robben Island, and a cliff overlooking Camp’s Bay!

Langa

Life has become very busy in CT with school in full swing. This past weekend we did a homestay in the Langa township which was quite an experience! Another IES student, Denise, and I were together with our family. My family had two parents Sapho and Phmla, a 21 year old girl Fika, 9 year old boy Lizo, and 6 year old girl Zonke. We got to the house around dinnertime on Friday night. Fika was at work until late that night so we didn’t meet her until Saturday. The two kids were friendly and we played play station with them for awhile. Phmla was in the kitchen cooking with her best friend who was over at the house. The parents left and said they would be back in a few minutes. The concept of a few minutes was more like several hours! They served us a lot of food and meat and it was similar to what we eat in the States. Lizo saved me the whole weekend because I would give him all the meat I couldn’t eat from my plate and he loved it! I was a little worried before the weekend because I thought they would be serving us traditional Xhosa food which for some reason I haven’t gotten used to. I really enjoyed Ugandan and Ethiopian food, but the Xhosa food isn’t my favorite! Some of the IES students ate some scary things such as sheep intestines and African salad which uses sour milk and some kind of grainy substance. I was very fortunate in the food department! Saturday was a very interesting day! We woke up in the morning and asked the family what the plan was for the day…well there wasn’t a plan! Lizo had left earlier to go play cricket and Zonke ate breakfast with us before she went and played with her friends for several hours. Sapho wasn’t at the house that morning and Phmla said she was just running to the store for a few minutes but those minutes turned into about 4 hours! Fika was at the house but was cleaning and wouldn’t let us help her do anything! We kept offering to help but she insisted she didn’t need help so we sat on the couch while she was cleaning around us. We asked her if we could go walk around outside and she looked at us like we were crazy and said that would not be safe so we continued to sit on the couch! She later said she was just going around the corner but she was gone for quite awhile so we were at the house by ourselves a lot that morning! Then around 2 Phmla came back and we ate lunch then left to go to Canal Walk. Canal Walk is the most amazing mall I have ever seen. It is massive and incredibly nice. Sapho dropped Phmla, the two kids, me and Denise off at the mall because Phmla needed to return some shoes. Well, this was quite an ordeal! They wouldn’t take the shoes back so she made a really big scene which was embarrassing! The kids were running around everywhere and people were staring at us. I was very glad when we left that store! We walked around for awhile and then ate some pizza and ice cream. By this time it was 6:00 and Phmla told us we would be at the mall until 9:00 because that is when Fika got off work and we needed to give her a ride home. We about died when she said this because that meant six hours in the mall! The kids wanted to play in the big arcade so they kept begging us for money which got old after a few minutes! While they were playing, Denise and I walked around the mall and tried to figure out how to spend three more hours so we went to the bookstore and looked at magazines! About 8:45 Phmla called us to meet back up and leave and told us Fika didn’t actually need a ride home anymore! We ended up waiting until about 9:45 before Sapho got there to pick us up. The father’s relationship with his family was very interesting. He had been working in Joburg since the beginning of January and had just arrived back on Thursday and was leaving again on Sunday until the end of March. Even though he was only home for a few days he was never with the family. Not once did they do anything as a family and he was never at the house. Sunday was a fun day! We went with the kids to mass at the Catholic church which was a good experience. When we got back Lizo let us play with him and his friends which was a lot of fun. We rode their razor scooters on the sidewalk and I had a lot of people laughing at me as they walked by! We played street soccer and I loved it. It was really interesting to see the different rules they had invented in order to help prevent any arguing or fighting. We ended up in a tie and I scored a goal! Later we had handstand contests in the drive way which was a lot of fun. A little boy was walking on the sidewalk and he wanted to come do a handstand so his dad brought him over and I helped him!
Overall the weekend was a wonderful experience and a good opportunity to see how people from another culture live. There were a few differences that really stood out to me. The first is time...there is no concept of being on time. We were about 45 minutes late to church and a few minutes always turned into several hours. To an extent this is true in all of CT, but was even more so in Langa. Also there was no sense of personal property or space. Denise and I stayed in the little kids room and they would constantly walk into the room and get in the beds and go through our bags. They found where Denise kept her camera so they would always come get it out of her bag. The family was very nice to us but we never felt welcome or that they wanted to get to know us. We were never able to really have a conversation with the parents or Fika which was a little disappointing, but I’m really glad I was able to have this experience!
This past Monday was my birthday which was very fun! A big group of us ate dinner at a place called banana jam. They surprised me with a pecan pie with candles which was really sweet. After dinner a bunch of people came over to our house for a party which was a lot of fun. We played spoons for hours and it got really intense with guys wrestling each other for spoons. I felt very loved on my birthday and I’m really grateful for such great friends here.
The pictures are of me and the neighbor doing handstands in Langa, two of my housemates Sasha and Elizabeth at my birthday dinner and me with my wonderful pecan pie!