Catching up...

I felt like I hadn't blogged in a long time so I thought I'd fit one in tonight.  I helped run two workshops this week where we had the students sign up for email addresses because most of them don't have one.  Some of them gave me their emails today to keep in touch (because today was our last day at the Masi Library), which made me feel like I'd done my job in getting them excited about actually using their emails.  I think it was a useful workshop because once you get into college, you'd better know how to sign in, sign out, send an email, etc. because they really flood you with messages once you get into college!  Anyway, I hope they got something out of it.  The students said they mainly use computers about once a week or so for researching information for school assignments.  It makes me kind of ashamed that I'm on the computer and Facebook so much!!  Anyways, the weather has been absolutely gorgeous the past few days- like those comfortably warm (not hot) stretches you get in the summertime back home.  and it's winter here!  I watched the sunset on the beach today with waves crashing and people surfing.  So cool.  The Masi kids (I keep calling them kids, but I just want to clarify now that they are high school students) showed us around the township today.  Most of the time, we stick close to the library and don't go walking around, so it was great to get out on such a beautiful day.  Some of the students showed us their homes- made of wooden planks and sheet metal, but none of us really paid attention to that.  We were just happy to be trusted enough to be invited inside and shown around/ introduced to families.  Other than that, we were shown this place with no name, simply referred to as "the Chinese shop,"  which is like a clothing store run by Chinese people in the middle of this South African township.  Definitely the only Asian person I've seen in weeks.  We also walked by some shibeens (basically like township bars), other shops, and the one internet cafe in town.  For those of you who don't know, an internet cafe is a place that charges hourly for the use of their computers.  It wasn't open for business at the time we walked in because the electricity was down.  Rolling blackouts happen fairly regularly in South Africa (to conserve energy).  Anyway, it was a really informative hour that we spend wandering around.  We also had a drumming workshop this afternoon.  The people who ran the workshop barely said a word the whole time- just sort of demonstrated a beat and next thing you knew the entire room was going.  Kind of impossible not to smile haha.  The Masi kids are ridiculously energetic- yelling and clapping and making all kinds of noise that somehow just blended right in with the music.  Also, I should mention that their rhythm is flipping impeccable.  I'm so jealous.  It was definitely another one of those times where I thought wow, there's no doubt about it- I AM in Africa.  Anyway, we also did awards and I've never seen people cheer so enthusiastically for every single person who got their certificate.  It was just a happy day.  I took pictures with a bunch of people and this is one of me and a girl named Amanda who was in my mentoring group.  (Each Worldteach volunteer was put with 5 or 6 mentees.)  Amanda, by the way, is a full on traditional Xhosa name.  The Masi kids were amazed that it was also a completely common name in America.

Porter's Pigs/ Robben Island

Ok, I'm gonna try to make this a quick one although I'm sure it will be a novel like always.  So yeah, on Saturday morning, the Waltons took me to this farmer's market type place called Porter's Pigs.  It was one of my favorite things that I've done so far.  There were booths with all different types of foods to sample.  I sampled: fudge, honey (above), lemon curd, dried fruit, and biltong (the South African version of beef jerky, with your choice of beef or springbok, which is a type of antelope).  Great place.  Also, I had pancakes for breakfast and just to clarify, here, a pancakes are long, thin, and rolled up, like crepes.  Mine had sugar, cinnamon, and lemon juice inside.  Delicious.  Here, the pancakes we think of are called flapjacks or crumpets.  Hilarious.  It just never ends haha.

Yeah, so it was 70 degrees that morning we went to Porter's Pigs.  Ok, let's just stop for a moment and reflect...It is WINTER here.  Hahahaha.  Beautiful.  fun fact: 70 degrees Fahrenheit is 21 degrees Celsius.  :)  

Anyways, so today I went to Robben Island, which is the location one of the many prisons Nelson Mandela was incarcerated in.  (He was at this one the longest- for 18 years.)  We took a ferry out to it and one non-history related fact that I learned was that people actually live on the island today- not many, but a hundred or two, mostly people who do tours and everything.  The island has its own primary school, church, supermarket, health clinic- all for the tiny community that lives there.  Once the kids graduate from primary school, they take the ferry to the mainland and back every day for high school and then university.  Anyway, yes we saw Mandela's cell.  We learned that him and the other political leaders who were imprisoned there basically planned the new democratic South Africa during meals and during their brief breaks from working at the lime quarries morning til night.  Whoa. 

Look at this thing...

So, my host family and I were watching American Idol when all of a sudden the topic of spiders came up and they asked me what size spiders typically are in America.  I told them they really are really aren't that big, so they informed me that they'd seen one in their kitchen this morning- a 'wolf spider'- and joked that I should catch it for them.  So we went upstairs.  I was the last one there and they were all gathered around the corner of the kitchen looking up near the ceiling.  I couldn't really see it because my view was blocked by the top of the cabinets.  My anticipation was pretty high because everyone else was flipping out, so I just inched over little by little and when I finally saw the thing, there was a definite increase in heart rate haha- it was BIG.  Oh well, I can't say that I'm surprised that African spiders are much more intense than American ones.  P.S.  We ate ostrich again for dinner tonight.  It is a regular dish here haha.  

One more thing...

Oops, I forget to say: Happy Fourth of July!  Yesterday, despite that it wasn't actually the 4th yet, we celebrated with a braai (that's what they called BBQs around here).  It was absolutely delicious.  I also had a great time partaking in off-key renditions of almost every America song you could think of.  :)

My latest escapades...

Wow I haven't written a blog in a while!  I thought I would give an update on what I've been up to lately.  On Friday night, I went to some bar to listen to the program director's wife's brother play jazz.  I ended up playing a couple games of pool with some locals, which I was nervous about at first since I'm terrible at pool, but I really enjoyed myself.  I talked to some guy that looked exactly like Spencer Pratt from the Hills and another who said he was in some special forces section of the South African Navy (or so he claimed haha).  My friend and I beat the navy guy and some 15-year old kid, then lost to Spencer and his father.  Starting that night, I spent the whole weekend with four or five volunteers who are staying in their own house in Kommetjie (which is pronounced Kommie-kee by the way, apparently the tj makes a k sound- go figure! haha).  The house is like a palace.  Plus, it was nice to hang out for a few days with the other volunteers that I don't see as much.  On Saturday morning, we hiked up to the top of Slangkop Mountain and stayed up there for a little while just enjoying the view and a rare few minutes of sunshine that came along as sat and rested after our hike.  We just walked, but it was so steep that it didn't take long for me to break a sweat.  I picked the wild flower in the picture on the walk back.  Oh and on Sunday, I went out on a sailboat!  So awesome.  Other than that, our first day of work was today!  We are working in the Masiphumelele Library with this program called Ikumva Youth.  It is so much like the Upward Bound program.  Basically, each of the volunteers is running one or two workshops over the next two weeks on all kinds of topics.  Today, I helped run a study skills workshop.  (Next week, I'm doing a workshop on blogging.)  The study skills one went really well.  The other volunteers that worked on it with me were really on top of their game, so it went pretty smoothly.  One piece of feedback that we received though was to speak louder, more slowly and more clearly.  There were 60 students in the workshop in a large room and I now know that I need to work on projecting my voice because wow, is it hard to get the attention of 60 people when you take a break or do an activity and then go to start talking again.  Also, English is these students' second language and I'm still getting used to really enunciating and slowing down.  In our downtime, I made some smalltalk with a few of the students and once and for all asked them how to pronounce the name of their language (Xhosa).  I made them laugh with my first few tries, but I finally asked them to demonstrate in such a way that it clicked (no pun intended) and I finally got it right haha.  Anyway, something else that happened today was that I  met my mentee (yay!).  Each Worldteach volunteers gets paired with a Grade 12 student to guide them through applying for university, studying for classes, figuring out what they want for a career, working on resumes, etc. or just to talk about life.  I'm excited.  :)

The host family...

^ my host family's cat Ginger (aka Gingie) at the end of my bed (he sleeps there every night- ugh he is so flipping cute- most affectionate cat ever)

I really lucked out.  My host family is wonderful.  My room is downstairs so I kind of have my own lair haha.  My host mom is a great cook and I wrote it on Facebook, but some people might not know- my host family fed me ostrich the first night I was here!  After, I was done, they asked me what kind of meat I thought that was and at that point, I knew I was in for a surprise haha.  It was this casserole type thing and I thought it was beef.  It looked and tasted just like beef and if they hadn't told me, I would never have known I'd eaten ostrich!!  Anyway, that was one of those- wow I really am in Africa moments and I loved it!  Anyway, what else can I say about my host family...We always talk about how American English and South African English differ and my host dad especially loves those discussions (my host mom calls him a "closeted American").  Sweaters are jerseys.  Bathrooms are toilets.  Bathing suits are swimming costumes.  Closets are cupboards.  Cookies are biscuits.  and many more.  Plus, I learned a phrase that all South Africans know about, which is "just now."  Basically, you say it when you are going to be somewhere or do something in the near future, but not right that second.  It could mean in 10 minutes, an hour, more, who knows- just don't wait up haha.  Also, they have showed me the joys of electric tea kettles, which boil water 10x faster than on a stove, which I guess comes in handy more here because people drink tea 24/7.  Lots of South Africans drink this particular type of herbal tea called rooibos tea with these biscuit thingies called rusks.  Really tasty.  Rooibos, by the way, is Afrikaans for red bush.  The languages most commonly spoken here are Afrikaans (which is really similar to Dutch), Xhosa (pronouced *click*- osa, yes, it is a language with clicks!!), and English.  My host family just speaks English, but as I said, it isn't the same and I love it.  Anyways, I really like my host family's daughters.  All of them are younger than me (9, 12, and 14).  All of them are really polite and sweet and the youngest two are especially hilarious when it comes to being absolutely random and kidding around all the time.  We all went to their cousin's fifth birthday party this past weekend and had an awesome time on the moonbounce (aka jumping castle) acting like complete fools.  Oh and another thing is that at that party, I learned a new game that is apparently a must-do at kids parties around here- "Pass the Parcel."  You basically wrap some prize up in layer upon layer upon layer of wrapping paper, put on music, and pass it around it a circle.  Whenever the music stops, whoever is holding the package takes off one layer of wrapping paper and usually gets a lollipop or something that was wrapped up in between layers.  Then you just keep passing until all the layers are gone and someone gets the grand prize!  I'm playing that at my next birthday party...haha, but no, really, I don't know why we don't play that at younger kids parties in America- it's fun!  but anyway, I should wrap this up and go to sleep. In America right now, it is 5:02 PM (my laptop still says American time by the way, so all I had to do just now was look up in the corner of the screen), but here it is 10:02 PM, so 6 hours later!

Kalk Bay

Ok, so on Saturday, I went to Kalk Bay and it was blogworthy, but I just hadn't gotten the chance to write about it until now.  We went to this fish and chips place called Kaulky's and it was legit because there really wasn't anything on the menu besides seafood (unless you wanted to be the boring person who got the Greek Salad), so I got some hake and chips.  Note that here, chips is the word for French Fries.  Anyway, in true South Africa National Geographic style, there were 3 seals swimming in the harbo(u)r so you could see them up close.  Another memorable part of that day was that there was a band playing these xylophone type instruments and guess what one of the songs was that they played?  Come on...think of a  song that would make you extra happy and highly aware that you were in Africa at the moment?  WAKA WAKA!! hahaha I was so excited.  I couldn't help but throw a 2 rand coin in their hat.  We have the dollar.  South Africa has the rand.  I think its 6.5 rand to a dollar and I always have to take a minute to convert prices in my head, although I've found that prices here are for the most part the same as in America.  Except, however, movie tickets here cost about the equivalent of 3 U.S. dollars (Harry Potter, here I come!!) and my host family was scandalized when I told them that tickets cost 10 bucks at home.  The money here is so much prettier than in the U.S. because each bill has some awesome animal on it- the 200 rand note has a leopard, the 100 has a buffalo, the 50 has a lion, the 20 has an elephant, and the 10 has a rhino.  Also, as the amount the bill is worth goes down, the actual length of the bill becomes sliiightly shorter (cool).  fun fact: the leopard, the buffalo, the rhino, the elephant, and the lion are the "Big 5" animals that South Africa is famous for.  Well, that was quite the tangent about the money, but anyway, I liked Kalk Bay.  We also did a bit of shopping, but I'm trying to control myself, so I've been kind of stingy so far!  It's only a matter of time though haha.