We Need a Capetonian!

I’m starting to settle into a routine here in CT. I have early mornings everyday which means naptime in the afternoons! Classes are going well but I’m still not in the school mode. I’m not a big fan of having each class every day because that requires reading every night which I haven’t quite gotten used to! My Econ class is going to be a challenge. The teacher knows my name which in this case is NOT a good thing! The teacher is kind of spastic and asks questions all the time in class and calls on the few people whose names she knows. There are about 40 people in the class and she knows like 8 names so those few people get called on quite often. I have two strikes in that class already! Before class started yesterday she was walking around the room talking to people and she came walking up to me and opened my book and goes what is the main point of the article and it took me by surprise so I was dumb and answered I’m not quite sure what the authors main point was. She laughed and started walking off and then turned around and goes you’re not a complete idiot because the main point is hard to find. Ya, great way to start off the year and then she asked me what my name was. So today she asked me this question in the middle of class and I tried to answer it but obviously it wasn’t the correct answer so she laughed and goes we need a Capetonian to help out Audrey. My face turned bright red of course! My other teachers are much nicer! I am loving African dance even though I’m sure I look pretty funny trying to dance! We have an awesome teacher who is a lot of fun and there are two guys that play the drums for our class. I was extremely sore after the first two classes and I have it again tonight. Ang, I have more respect for you after these classes! It is kind of funny to watch these two girls who are trained in classical ballet because they are so stiff trying to do the moves and the teacher laughed at them!
One thing that is very funny to me is that birds fly into the buildings and classrooms all the time! It is completely normal for these big ugly birds to just be flying around during a class. All the windows are open so they just fly right in. I was attacked by a bird three different times walking home from class last week in the same spot! He would come flying from a tree and make this screeching noise and hit me in the head as it flew by. I screamed one time and this homeless guy named Mike was sitting there and started laughing at me. The street that my house is on is where all the homeless people sleep and stay during the day. Every time I walk home somebody comes walking up asking for money. We have become friends with one guy named Mike who just says hi now and talks to us but doesn’t ask for money. He said he has been living on the same street for 13 years with his sister. They have a shopping cart full of stuff and a mattress that they sleep on at night. There is this other homeless guy, Denzel, who lies and makes up stories to try and get money. We asked Mike about Denzel and he made a face and goes ya I don’t like him, he lies all the time. It is a tough situation walking by those people multiple times a day. One of my roommates gave this homeless man like 10 cents he was carrying. A few hours later I went walking by him and he comes running up to me screaming and cussing and asking where my friend was because he was so mad that he only gave him 10 cents and kept saying “what does he think I can do with only 10 cents” and all sorts of other stuff. I just kept walking really fast and didn’t look at him and finally he stopped and walked off. My roommate was just trying to be friendly and apparently they expect more than 10cents. We were told to never give money, especially as girls because we shouldn’t ever get our wallets out in public. I personally have never felt in danger, but the danger is much more real here than back in the States. Cell phone theft is a huge problem here. There have been two students killed in the last two weeks because they tried to fight back when a robber asked for their cell phone and wallet. Just a reminder to never fight back and give them what they want. It is very uncommon for anyone to have bodily harm done to them because most crimes are petty theft.
Well on a lighter note I had a very fun weekend! Friday night I went to dinner and to see the movie Valentine’s Day with a big group of girls. Dinner was fun, but I was a little disappointed in the movie! On Saturday I had beginners sailing lessons which wasn’t quite what I was expecting. It was just students at the UCT yacht club and they didn’t really teach how to sail. It was still fun because that was my first time on a sailboat, but I never got to try sailing and I didn’t really learn very much. Maybe next time I will get to try it myself. Later that night I went to a performance called Black Noise which was hip-hop dancing and all sorts of stuff. It is an organization that teaches kids from the township and they were AMAZING. It was really fun to watch them dance. On Sunday afternoon I went to the waterfront with a group of people for lunch and to walk around. There is a six star hotel there called the One and Only. Some of us decided to sneak in and act like we were staying there so Nick and I walked in and a lady came up to us and asked if we were joining them for high tea and we told her we were just waiting on our parents! Every single girl in there was carrying around a rose since it was Valentine’s Day. We walked around for awhile which was fun and everything was incredible. I didn’t even know six stars was possible!
I am still loving my time here and all the experiences. I just got tickets to three world cup games which I’m so excited about! I really don’t know how CT is going to handle that many people coming for the games, but it is going to be interesting to see how it all works out! The picture is of me in the One and Only!

No Longer a Tourist!

Well I am no longer a tourist! Classes have now started and reality is setting in, its not all fun and games! I am excited and a little nervous about my classes. My economics course is interesting but I found out today it is the hardest econ class at UCT so it will be quite challenging! My Xhosa class is so much fun, the teacher is great. We learned the different clicks today, the c, q, and x are different clicking sounds so I feel really cool learning a language where you click! It is going to take some practice to get it right! Getting to class in the morning is an interesting and frustrating process. There used to be a jammie (that’s what they call the UCT buses) stop right by my house that was so convenient and took me right to upper campus, which is where my classes are held. This morning, however, that changed and the jammie doesn’t pick up there until 9 and my class starts at 8! It is about an 8-minute walk to the lower campus jammie stop and you have to stand in line for about 20 minutes or more to get on the jammie! I will be leaving very early in the morning because my teacher for the 8:00 class said she will lock the doors at 8 and not let you in late (hopefully that isn’t true!). There is only three months of class but the classes meet every day and also have tutorials and labs you have to attend. This will be different than my classes back home but hopefully it will be good and help me learn the material. The UCT campus is absolutely beautiful and the buildings are so pretty with ivy growing on the outside. Cecil Rhodes donated the land to the university and required that every building have ivy growing on the side! He wanted it to look like an Oxford in Africa.
Today was the first home rugby match of the season and we won! I have decided I really like rugby! It’s a combination of football and wrestling which makes it really exciting and people are getting hurt all the time! The Super 14, which is the professional league’s big tournament, starts in a week and I’m hoping to go to quite a few of those games.
As an international student, IES encourages us to join clubs and societies on campus and in our tuition we have already paid to join three societies. I have chosen to join the gym, the investment society and the yacht club! I’m really excited about the yacht club because they teach us how to sail and kite surf! I have my first sailing lesson Saturday morning!
Last week the IES students went on the Garden Route tour which was a lot of fun. It was three days of traveling along the coast towards Port Elizabeth through the mountains and countryside. We did a lot of fun things like visit an ostrich farm, eat traditional Xhosa food (I have decided I like traditional Ugandan and Ethiopian foods better!), kayak, and hike. It was a fun time to get to know people on the program and do some touristy things before school started.
The pictures are of me feeding the ostriches which was actually scary and the beautiful sunset over the water!

Rugby, Crystal Pools, and Peninsula Tour

I have gotten to do some really fun things the last three days! Friday morning I registered for classes which was quite an experience! Registration started at 9 so some of us got to campus around 8:30 and were actually the some of the first people in line! At 9 they let everybody into this big room and there are like three different stages which got really confusing! You had to pick up forms, fill them out with your classes, then an advisor had to check it and sign off on it. There were only 7 advisors for over 700 students registering during that time! Then once the advisor signed the form you had to take it to the data center where someone entered your classes into the computer. Not sure why we couldn’t just do that to begin with! Then once that was done you had to take a form and wait in a LONG queue to get your student id. Luckily the whole process only took me about 2 hours which was a lot better than some people! I am currently registered for Xhosa (an African language where they make clicking noises for certain letters!), Traditional African Religions, Economics and Development, Natural Resource Economics, and last but not least African Dance!! I’m excited to see what the classes will be like here. Our first day is this coming Friday, Feb 5. Two nights ago some of the group went to see a rugby match which was awesome!! I absolutely loved it! It was between the Stormers and Sharks and both teams have players who play on the Springboks (SA national rugby team). Those guys were unbelievably huge and they run full force straight at each other! I was getting really into the game and asking this old man in front of me all the rules! Every time something happened I didn’t understand I would ask him to explain it! I hope I didn’t annoy him and I apologized for asking so many questions! I will definitely be going back to more matches while I’m here! It is so easy to get around anywhere using the train and taxis. There is a train stop 2 minutes from my house and there are frequent stops which makes it easy to go pretty much anywhere. Yesterday I went hiking to Crystal Pools with a group of people who are South Africans I met through one of the guys in my group and have started going to a bible study with on Wednesday nights. It was an intense hour-long hike climbing on rocks and sand. There were three different pools you could jump in and swim with high cliffs all around that people would jump off. I decided not to jump from the cliffs because while we were there four people had to be airlifted because of serious injuries!! One person fell down the cliffs and fractured his skull and did something to his back and I’m not sure what happened to the other people! That scared me from doing any jumping, but several of the people in our group still jumped. Five of the girls who went with us are models from around the world that are in Cape Town for three months doing shoots for different companies and magazines. Two of the girls are from Brasil and are actually from the same city as Mar! What a small world! Today we went on a peninsula tour which was so much fun! We started off by driving around the city to see famous buildings and then we drove along a crazy road! It was on cliffs along the mountain overlooking the ocean below! It was scary but had amazing views! They used to film car commercials on the road because it was so windy and beautiful. Then we went to see the African penguins on the beach! They were very strange looking penguins and just stood there in weird positions staring at the sun! They weren’t the big fluffy penguins you always see on tv, but it was still cool. Then we went to a township to eat lunch and some kids performed hip-hop dances and sang which was awesome! They were really talented and they practice with an organization that works with children in townships. After that we headed to the Cape of Good Hope. This was absolutely beautiful! It is supposedly where the Atlantic and Indian oceans meet. We had to go on a really long hike up to the top of these cliffs where an old lighthouse is and the famous sign pointing in different directions of cities around the world! Then we hiked down and back up another cliff which was close by and is considered the Cape of Good Hope. The water is such a pretty blue and the waves were really big. One thing I have noticed is that here there aren’t any railings or fences to protect you from falling off into the oceans! It is very different from America. The paths are natural and harder to walk on. I also noticed yesterday and today that older people were hiking and walking up the mountains!! It kind of put me to shame because I thought I was gonna die walking up! They are in better shape than us Americans haha! Tomorrow we are going on a three day Garden Route tour along the coast of South Africa. We will be going in caves, riding ostriches, kayaking, and other fun things so I can’t wait! I put up pictures of the penguins, the helicopter picking someone up from the pools, and me with the sign at the Cape of Good Hope!

Soccer games and the beach!

Today was a great day! We finally had a free afternoon and a few of us went to the beach at Camps Bay. It was absolutely beautiful! The water was so freezing cold that you could barely even put your feet in. The Atlantic ocean here is freezing and the Indian ocean is warm, but that is where the sharks are! A week ago someone was eaten by a shark at a beach in the Indian ocean (we are going to that beach on Thursday)! There are mountains surrounding the ocean and beautiful houses everywhere. There were about 12 of us that stayed for the afternoon. It cost us less than $4 to ride a train and then taxi to get to the beach! Im hoping to go to the beach a lot! Oh when we were at the beach I was very surprised and shocked to see so many women without tops on laying out on the beach!!! Later when we got home somebody said that Camps Bay is apparently a nude beach! We ate dinner at a really neat place right by the water and my entire meal cost $11. The money situation is great here for Americans! Today in orientation we learned how to register for classes at UCT which is a bit in the dark ages because we have to stand in long queues (lines) for hours to register because it isn’t done on the computer! I have to figure out my classes I will be taking tonight so there aren’t any problems when I need to register! Last night a big group of us went to a local sports bar called Pig and Swizzle to watch one of the African Cup soccer games which was SO much fun! Everyone there was for Zambia and they were getting really really into the game! It ended up going to pks and Zambia lost so people were kinda upset! We are going back for the next games because it was such a fun experience! We were the only non-locals there and we met a lot of fun and interesting people! The pictures I’ve put up are the views of Lion’s Head and part of Table Mountain from the beach and also some of the people from my group!

CT

Today was very fun and exhausting! We left this morning at about 8 to go walk around downtown CT (that’s how they write Cape Town here) and just got back at 6. It was really fun to see a bunch of different places around the city. I am truly amazed at how nice the city is. I would never know I was in Africa, it looks like somewhere in Europe. We went to a market this morning called the old biscuit mill that was awesome! It was like a farmers market where chefs come and cook on Saturday morning and sell their food really cheap! It had every kind of food you can imagine from every country around the world! I had a smoothie and croissant that were wonderful and also tried warthog which was actually really good! They also had trendy designer type shops. I’m going back next Saturday for sure! We also saw the library where Nelson Mandela made his first speech after being freed. Everywhere you look in the city it is beautiful because you either see the ocean or massive mountains! I had no idea there were so many gigantic mountains in and around CT. I was surprised that no one came up to me today asking for money and I saw very few homeless people where we were walking. It is really shocking to see a township and then 5 min away is a very modern and nice downtown area. I saw lots of families and kids walking around in the markets which was cute. We also went to the waterfront and there is a nice mall where we got Haagen-Dazs ice cream! We felt very touristy walking around in a group of 50 people, but now we know some places we can go on our own. Tomorrow we are going to a township and staying for a few hours and having a braai (barbeque) which should be really fun! We have had almost zero time to settle in and get things for our rooms, and the UCT orientation starts Monday and goes the entire week! It’s still hard to believe I will be living here for 5 months! I’m excited to figure things out in the city and not have to feel like a tourist! I am adding pictures that we took while walking around today and also pictures of the outside of our house, living room and kitchen, and my room!

First Day!

I am finally in Cape Town and already loving it! We got to our house around midnight last night, and have the best roommates. Seven of us live in a house on Church Street with one RA. We all get our own rooms and have three bathrooms to share so there’s plenty of room. This morning around 6 I was woken up by a really really loud noise outside my window which turned out to be a train! I didn’t see the tracks last night because it was dark, but there is a train literally right outside my window. The noise is going to take a little getting used to!
Today we had some orientation and then went sight seeing in one of the oldest townships called Langa. The city is absolutely beautiful with construction everywhere getting ready for the World Cup. The township was really interesting because there were nice houses and then right across the street were the most horrible shacks I have ever seen. All the little kids wanted to come play with us which I loved! In the township it is common to eat sheep’s head!! They said its just like a hot dog stand in the US. So, of course I had to try a tiny bite of the meat which wasn’t too great, but it wasn’t too bad either! I had some of the cheek and the eye! They call it “smiley” because the sheep head is always smiling! One thing I noticed is that it is extremely windy in Cape Town and not hot even though its summer. Of course I still got burned while we were walking around outside!
Tomorrow we have orientation all day and get to go visit different sites that we can chose from to do our service hours. I was talking with the IES director today and mentioned how I loved working with an orphanage in Uganda so she asked me if I would be willing to help organize a team project at one of the service sites! I’m really excited about the opportunity to do that later in the semester. Our electricity just cut off so I think I'm going to bed because it says we used all our electricity! haha welcome to Africa!
I am going to try to upload some pictures, but I’m not exactly sure if it will work. If the pictures are there, two are of the sheep heads and another one is me with two of the kids in the township!