More on orientation...

        Orientation was wonderful.  The first night we were there, we got kind of an introductory talk and we were informed that our first stop in the morning was to Boulder's Beach to see...wait for it...PENGUINS.  Needless to say, I went to bed pretty excited haha.  Oh and about bed, there is no central heating in South Africa because most of the year you don't really need it.  People just use hot water bottles and I bought one when I bought my cell phone, so that was new.  Hot water bottles are so soothing! Plus, you really do need them around here.  Speaking of those, my host family gave me a mini one with a lion shaped cover to put over it.  I thought that was SO cute of them.  Anyway, back to orientation.  The penguins were great and were so, so close because they are used to people coming to look at them.  Some of them had babies!!  We saw so many other animals over the next few days.  It isn't like America where all the cool animals try and hide for some reason.  There are animals EVERYWHERE.  It isn't hard to get National Geographic-status pictures.  So far, I've seen baboons, antelope, ostrich, a tortoise, and dassies (I never knew what they were until I got here, so I provided a picture haha).  The photo below is a prime example of how animals around here (at least it seems to me) stare right back at you!!  I took that picture at Cape Point- the southernmost point of Africa.

               Other than looking at beautiful scenery and cute animals, we have talked to all kinds of people.  I have to admit, the first time we went to a township called Khayelitsha and walked around talking to people, I felt overwhelmed.  I had no idea how to engage people in conversation and I really just wanted to step back to my comfort zone.  However, after a week of orientation, I've realized that the experience is so much more interesting when you actually talk to people.  We went to a township recently and on the outskirts, there was a small community of Rastafarians and we just went up to an older guy, introduced ourselves, and he told us about his life.  I know that people don't take Rastafarians seriously because they smoke ganja (aka marijuana), but he explained to us other parts of his community's lifestyle, like how Rastas like to live a more isolated lifestyle because with more people comes more crime.  He was saying how his community would be having a demonstration in town the upcoming weeks to petition the government for toilets (well, port-o-potties) and how, since wealthier people have everything they need, they don't think to give poorer people the basics unless you get right in their faces and make them listen.  It was really interesting talking to him.  P.S.  Yes he had dreadlocks.