Birthdays!

February 24, 2009

We went to Pancake Tuesday at Corpus Christi and I thought it was weird we were having pancakes and not meat or something on Fat Tuesday, only to discover that in South Africa what we call pancakes are “flapjacks” and what they call “pancakes” are actually crepes! We had Carmel and sugar and lemon! Yum! After, we went to Primi’s (a restaurant similar to Applebee’s) for Colleen’s Birthday (the first of the trip). We had been planning on pancakes for supper so we accompanied our crepes with some appetizers from Primi’s.

February 27 – 21st Birthday!

Since we don’t have class on Friday a lot of people decided to travel this weekend. On Thursday night at midnight those that hadn’t left yet had some “Jelly” aka Jell-O and then headed to Captain’s to dance. It was a lot of fun! The next day, my actual birthday, I worked on some homework, went to the grocery store and hung out with my roommates. For dinner, we went to the Mediterranean, a seafood restaurant since it was a Friday during lent. I had calamari steak with feta cheese and spinach on top and French fries! It was delicious! I also had a banana Daiquiri. And my friends, who of course paid for dinner, also surprised Brooke and me with dessert. It was a lot to eat, even for me! After dinner we came back and played some games. It was a fun day!

March 1, 2009 - Brooke’s Birthday!

We went to Nando’s for Brooke’s Dinner, which is a South African (influenced by the Portuguese) fast-food chain. We have quickly become addicted to the peri-peri sauce and it is one thing we will definitely miss at home. We went to mass on campus again and then Brooke and I went to Gondwana (most of our group were regulars, so had anticipated they would be there but apparently everyone had too much homework, so we were the only ones) where we listened to some Jazz. We went home and had everyone come to our room to sing and eat cake!

Happenings at NMMU on a Sunday Night!

Sunday, February, 22, 2009
I decided to go running this morning, but I discovered I had a sliver in my big toe. I had the girls down the hall get it out for me and it was quite the painful process, but it is feeling much better now and I was still able to go running!
I went to student mass at NMMU. The singing was beautiful – even in they did think it was one of the worst performances; it was still much better then what we’ve experienced at Corpus Christi in terms of singing! They were very welcoming! Melissa even got to do the second reading!
After mass, Katie and I rode to the north campus with 2 men who are exchange students from Ghana. They loved talking with us and asking us how we like Africa and encouraged us to get out and see the rest of Africa. They did think it was good that we have been to the townships to get a realistic view of Africa. I thought it was funny they kept describing Africa as though it was a country, rather than a continent, something people in the United States seem to confuse frequently.
The debates, focusing on health care, were interesting, but it was sweltering inside. Azapo or the Azanian People’s Organisation, a group that was not included in the debate but is prominent on campus, stormed the stage. Police had to pepper spray them to get them off. After they were off stage, the moderator apologized because this is not the way South Africa wants to be represented. It was interesting to hear the different parities stance on the issue of health care. On the way home I was in an Alpha (the company Gary prefers to go through) taxi cab and it was very interesting. Our taxi driver said that under the current health care system, private doctors are available but only accessible to about 17 percent of the population because it is so expensive. She also said she thinks the ANC will win this election but that competition is increasing and so it won’t be too long before another party actually wins control of South Africa.

Thoughts and day to day events

Wednesday, February 18, 2009
It was so nice to not have service learning this morning. We had Literature class where we discussed short stories. I have found it to be very interesting and thinking about the different subjects and how they are similar or different to those in the United States and how I will take some of the knowledge I am gaining here and use it to teach in my future classroom.

Friday, February 20, 2009
I ran with Nikki this morning. Even though we didn’t have class, I went to school and used the computers. It is so much faster now that I forwarded all of my e-mails to my NMMU account. We went grocery shopping at the Pick ‘N’ Pay and then walked home. The majority of us went out that night, but we were basically the only ones dancing.

Saturday, February 21, 2009
It was a low key day but a good chance to get some homework done. Simon joined the orchestra so went to Victoria Park to here him play! They had an AMAZING Sax player and a beautiful singer. The songs were all familiar to us and we were dancing and singing to “I Will Survive” and the encore which was “Walking on Sunshine!” A little girl came and danced with us and people kept taking pictures of us! It was so nice to just relax in the park and the Orchestra was really good!

PENDLA!

Monday, February, 17, 2009
We went to Pendla for the first time today. It was closer to what I had expected then I expected. I had been told some things and what I discovered was very similar to what I had been informed it would be like. They put on a show for us in the beginning and it was singing and dancing! You could tell that they had put a lot of effort into practicing! The singing was so beautiful! They would even dance or clap to a different rhythm then they were singing! We received refreshments and were introduced to all the teachers. Then we went and toured the garden. The garden was started by the St. Ben’s/St. John’s group in 2002 and its primary goal is to grow the vegetables for the school, so it can be somewhat sustainable. After the tour we had a loooong meeting to work out all the details. Gary is very good at making sure people know exactly what he expects and it’s good we have every detail ironed out before jumping in, but at the same time I get really antsy when it takes a long time to get all the tiny little details taken care of. We are all paired up in the classrooms so that on a given day one person can be working in the garden and the other still in the classroom. Jenny and I are in the second grade classroom. Our teacher had been at the meeting with us, the students are very well behaved for not being supervised for such a long period of time. The principal is ill and was not able to be present that day which made everything a bit more unorganized. The students were reviewing Xhosa sounds and then taking a spelling test. In between words, we went over the plan for the next day. I asked her if she sings with the students, because I would be very interested in singing some songs with them and she proceeds to interrupt their spelling test to show us! Most of the songs were in Xhosa but we did recognize one – it was Umzi Watcha (London Burning) that we had learned in music class! They tried to sing it in a round and the teacher was frustrated when the students couldn’t do it, but I wasn’t too surprised, rounds are just a little too advanced for the start of 2nd grade.
That afternoon in music class we had a student come in and teach us Xhosa. It is a difficult language to grasp since it includes clicks we are not familiar with and what we learning was a tongue twister! At the end of class we sang umzi watcha in a round! Now I am able to help my second graders sing it! Afterwards, the student said we had caught on quite well and it helped that we were a singing group!

Tuesday, February 17, 2009
We volunteered in the morning. Four hours is a long time. We had a rough agenda of the day, and the teacher was busy with parents so we just started. We counted and pointed to numbers on the chart. Then we did some basic addition problems on the board. They count in English but they say plus and equals in Xhosa. We were also learning parts of the body so we sang head, shoulders, knees and toes. We did the Hokey Pokey as well.

For supper I made a pasta casserole. Measurements are a bit difficult. Not only do we have to convert to metric but we only have once cup that measures 500 mL or 2 cups, but so far everything has tasted delicious.

Laura the Explorer on a Safari!

Sunday, February, 15, 2009

Today was the best day so far. We went to Addo Elephant National Park. We started out the morning on a bus and drove through the Elephant Park. Our tour guide was very informative (so much for reading any of Nelson Mandela on the way!) Dung Beetles are endangered species so you had to wait for them to cross the road! How our driver even managed to spot them I am not really sure! After we went through Addo we went to Scotia. Some of us (myself included) ended up in vehicles without a roof and it rained. Hard. The whole time. The yellow raincoat/poncho I had did not help very much and having the hood up made it difficult for me to see from my peripherals so I didn’t wear it very much. Taking pictures quickly with the rain, bumps and a dying camera battery made for quite the challenge, but I still got some great shots and will be posting them on facebook soon with a link for everyone to view. The rain certainly made for a memorable experience! And I still got to see Giraffes (although I was a little disappointed – they were a little bit shorter then I expected but our guide, Philip, said that they only grow as tall as the trees and the trees are shorter in the National Park) I also saw Hippos, Rhinos, Impalas, Kudu, a lion and Zebras! It was so amazing, despite the rain, to see all the animals out running in there natural habitat! On the safari I got to see and experience what most people think of when they think “Africa” in terms of animals and landscapes!

Valentine's Day!

Saturday, February 14, 2009
Many people from the group had gone to Jeffery’s Bay for the weekend, so it was just eight girls and Nick here at the flats. Nick decided to cook us all egg bake for breakfast and it was very delicious! My flat wrote Valentine’s for everyone on the trip and delivered them. We drew each person’s face on there’s and wrote an individual poem!
We went to the internet café and I finally had a chance to put some pictures up on facebook. I put the pictures up and then it got really slow and I couldn’t even look at the pictures I had just added! Sorry if there are typos and the pictures are going the wrong way! We also went to the grocery store next to the internet café and decided to walk back. Our potato bag broke and potatoes went rolling everywhere. These cute little boys helped us to gather them up! We thought we had them all so we kept walking and then one of the boys sprinted back to us just to give us the one potato we had missed! He went so far out of his way. Unfortunately, it was such a nice change from the kids we normally see, following and begging us for money. It was truly a blessing.
We went to mass and then Nick and Melissa came over for supper. We had beans, steak, potatoes and wine. Yum!

Toothless Vegetables & Cape Recife

Thursday, February, 12, 2009
The Combi’s still aren’t running, so it was Gary, Vilma and the taxi’s to get us to and from school. We had our first day of Political Science and the amount of homework is overwhelming. It is so much reading and writing papers! In fact, a bunch of people decided to drop and pick up Jazz music instead. I was super tired and was planning to take a quick nap, but I slept for so long that when I woke up I just decided to go to bed.

Friday, February 13, 2009
Nothing too exiting for it being Friday the 13th. We didn’t have class. We checked out this place called Cape Recife. It was a very pretty beach with lots of beautiful rocks to sit on. There was a lighthouse as well. The taxi to pick us up was late so Nikki taught us how to play a game called Toothless Vegetables. I was not very good at it yet, but it is a game I play with the girls at camp for sure! That night played Catch Phrase and crafted.