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.

Monkeys on Campus!

Wednesday, February, 11, 2009
We went on the internet at school again. Super slow again, but I decided to forward all of my e-mails to my NMMU account because of how the system is set up we can always check them a lot faster and it uses a lot less Rand. We had Literature today. The room we are in is rather small and there are not enough chairs for everyone. It’s been a long time since I have analyzed literature – but I enjoy the short stories we are reading so far.
On campus, there are all these signs that say to do not feed the monkeys. We were all starting if there really were any monkeys, because we had been to campus four times and hadn’t seen any yet. And then we saw them! I saw like 7! One even had a baby with it! They do like food, so if you have an apple - look out. They will surround you! We saw a monkey go after a kid so he threw his backpack at it and the monkey still chased after him!

What! No Combis?

Monday, February 9, 2009
We were supposed to go to Pendla today, but we soon learned that the Combi’s were not running (on strike). Although, since we did not hear horns honking and "downtown" being shouted every five minutes, we should have known. The private taxi service we were using drives vehicles similar to Combis so they were not running either for security purposes. Gary arranged for transportation to get all of us to school. Some of us road with him, some with Vilma and some through a different taxi service that didn’t look like the Combi’s. It was a long process since Gary and Vilma had to make multiple trips.
We had our first day of Jazz class with Lestie Hughes. The chalkboards rotate – when she runs out of space she just pushes the chalkboard up to reveal a whole new one! We learned some history, listened to some recordings, watched a home video and sang. We listened to the Tembu people who can sing 2 or more parts with different rhythms. It reminded me a lot of the Mongolian Singers that came to my High School! We learned London Burning (which I had not heard until last semester when I was shadowing a music class!) and then sang it in Xhosa! I felt slightly overwhelmed by the pace but overall I enjoyed the three hour class.
We went on the internet today. It was very slow. We couldn’t even get on facebook and it took forever to load an e-mail.
On Tuesday, the Combis still were not running so Gary arranged for us to have Senior Seminar at the church across the street which was very convenient.

Braai and Soccer

Saturday, (February 7) – Sunday (February 8) 2009
On Saturday, we had breakfast at Tiffany’s Tea Garden and then hit the beach. It was great – the majority of our group was there all with out Nelson Mandela books. We went to mass and that evening Boris’s friends invited us to a Braai, a traditional South African BBQ. (Boris is from Bosnia and has a friend who went to St. John’s and came to PE for study abroad and now lives here). We danced and socialized and the food was amazing!
On Sunday, we went to a Soccer game in the afternoon between two local teams. The security was way intense. They wouldn’t even let us bring in empty waterbottles! They also patted people down as they entered. For food they had American Foot longs! (Probably because America is one of the only countries to use foot as a type of measurement!)
That night we went to Gondwana, a bar that has a live band play Jazz music on Sunday nights. It was a really fun atmosphere.

AIDS Haven and Cricket!

AIDS Haven and Cricket!

Friday, February 6, 2009
We went to the House of Resurrection AIDS Haven. Aggie, who is in charge, talked to us about the kids and about the Haven itself. She has tremendous faith. They survive only on donations and when they need something she prays and God always answers. We had a chance to interact with the kids. The babies were so cute! I loved working with the toddlers though. Aggie reminded us that even though they have HIV/AIDS they are just kids. And just like any other toddlers as soon as we got there they clung onto us and wanted to be held. They were a bit manipulative - they liked to be lifted so they could reach the things they otherwise could not! One thing that surprised me is that these kids receive so many gifts and toys. For Christmas each child gets a whole bag full of new things! Aggie said people frequently want to donate, but don’t know what so she likes it when people ask her what the Haven needs.
After the AIDS Haven we decided to walk to the Pick ‘n’ Pay, the grocery store Gary took us to when we first arrived. The nearby grocery store and Friendly 7 Eleven don’t have nearly the amount of things that the larger grocery stores do and it is a bit more expensive. Our fridge/freezer is not very big for five people, but the milk is shelf stabilized and doesn’t need to be refrigerated, which works out well for us since we have a lot of cupboard space! I brought some recipes from home but it is a little bit tricky since everything here is measured in metric but so far all our food has been delicious.
That evening we went to a Cricket Match, Gary had a couple friends from England there who could explain the game to us. Nikita also helped explain. However, it was a new form of cricket so they weren’t sure on all the rules. It is about the same pace as Baseball and towards the end it was very close and everyone was into the game! We had ice cream, the warriors won and a few people even came back with souvenir Warrior Hats – it was a lot of fun!

Monday (Feb 2) – Thursday (Feb 5) 2009
We started orientation this week. We got ID badges and people took funny pictures. We then had a funny photo contest and recorded it on Talkie. I was one of the first people who went and did not make a funny face – but I am sure there will be plenty more funny face photos opportunities to come. Much of the information we received at the first orientation session is irrelevant to us, since we are not directly enrolled in the University but at least we got to interact with the other international students for a bit.

On Tuesday Amina and I took our laundry to the Laundromat. It is custom to drop off your laundry and come back and pick it up the next day. It was only 35 Rand, which is about $3.50. We are so spoiled here. We have someone to do our laundry, the maid cleans and makes our bed every day and she even does the dishes! We burnt rice the other day so I did my best to help her out by scraping it out. Her name is Zuik and she is such a sweetheart - she plans to show us pictures of her baby and of the girls who stayed here last year!
On Wednesday we took a trip to GreenAcres shopping center. It was very much like an American mall. We did some grocery shopping and I finally got a beach towel! I also got a notebook – the paper here is longer then in the US though (A4). I got some colored paper and glitterglue to make valentines and other crafts as well. I also had my first Hello Kitty sighting! It was at Woolworth’s (a department store) and I took a picture with the model (this creepy girl) and her HK backpack!
That night we had a power outage. The power was out the whole night and into the morning. It was only in part of the city so some people still went out. It was late enough that I just colored and went to bed. Although the power was out we still had running water so we could still shower and flush the toilet which was amazing!
On Thursday we had a tour of the city. It was really interesting to get a brief history of Port Elizabeth, but I had trouble hearing everything because we were in large group. We went to the Red Location Museum located in the township. I felt awkward at times in the township – on our big double decker bus. We were just entering into their area and starring at them and there little houses. But what surprised me was that they all loved to wave at us. Everyone we drove past waved excitedly. The tiny little government houses seemed to stretch on forever. There were some kids who were playing outside the museum and lots of people took pictures and played with the kids. I was also surprised by the number of people on the busy road who were standing in the middle trying to sell things to people in cars as they were stopped at the stop lights.
We ate lunch at GreenAcres. I had taken my own lunch but I had a caramel dipped ice cream come for dessert! It was so good! I also got some postcards and envelopes! So if you write to me I can write you back! And Nelson Mandela is on the postage stamp! After lunch we made a trip to the post office. I was buying stamps for a few different people and itwas a very slow process. It was confusing because I didn’t know how much stamps were to the US and didn’t know how to explain I wanted postcard and envelope stamps but we finally got both kinds of stamps.

Breakfast at Tiffany's

Sunday, February 1, 2009

We went to Breakfast at Tiffany’s today. The food was delicious – it is so cheap to eat out that we might make it a regular weekend habit. I went running with a few of the other girls and we also went to the beach for awhile. Nikki Reed arrived today! I am so excited to be living with her! It was nice to be able to get into my own apartment as well. There are very few shelves so it is difficult to know where to put things. Right now the game collection is on the floor under the TV, which is fine, but I am not sure how the maid will feel about that. I am not completely unpacked but I put up lots of pictures!

Bacon and Banana Pizza, Hello Kitty MIA and Mass

Saturday, January 31, 2008

We got up fairly early today. We went to the beach and swam for awhile. We went to lunch at a place called Leanardo’s in the boardwalk (a shopping center). I had bacon and banana pizza and it was really good. Everyone who sampled it thought it was good too J so next time I make a pizza from Papa Murphy’s don’t be surprised if it’s bacon and banana! Yum!
They play mostly American Music here. I have heard Taylor Swift more then once while we were out shopping!
After lunch we shopped for quite a while and walked back. We walk so much here. I love it! And it’s so warm out and right by the beach – it’s incredible. We took showers and got ready for church, which is less then 5 minutes away from Langerry (our flats).
Mass was pretty typical. A smaller church, not very crowded, mostly older white people. They welcomed a new parish priest this weekend and at the end of mass right before the final blessing he paused and said: “I believe we have some students here studying from America. Where are you? Can you raise your hands?” So we did and we had a short conversation with him explaining we were attending Nelson Mandela University and that their would likely be more of us next week since we had arrived a few days early. He then said a petition for President Obama since there had not been one prior. After mass everyone warmly welcomed us and wanted to know what part of the US we were from.
After mass I remembered I had left my Hello Kitty cup at Leonardos. Melissa agreed to walk back with me. It was quite walk and it was starting to get dark. We got there and asked about it and thank goodness they had it because we were booking it back to get back before it got really dark and before 8 pm. I got huge scrapes on the back of my heel and blood on my new white flats, but it was worth it to rescue Hello Kitty. J
We had dinner in the flats and then went out to Toby Joes. It was a lot of fun.

The Longest Day Ever

Friday, January 30, 2009

I arrived safely to Port Elizabeth today. Leaving Minnesota and arriving here felt like “the longest day ever.” The flight from Minneapolis to Amsterdam was about eight hours but four of us sat together and I occupied the first half of the flight by playing Caveman (like pac man). After winning ALL 25 levels I have felt quite accomplished (when I went to Australia in the summer of 2004 I had tried to accomplish every level and was unsuccessful) so I decided to leave the Congratulations on the screen for the rest of the flight! For the rest of the trip I played pass the pig, talked and slept.
In Amsterdam airport we walked around and we stopped at a little coffee shop. The lay over was only about 3 hours so it was not too bad.
The next flight to Johannesburg was l0 and a half hours. It was long. We did not have personal TVs like on the previous flight but they did show movies. I slept for quite a bit, journaled, colored and read but the highlight of the flight was towards then end when they showed High School Musical 3!
In Johannesburg we had an overnight hour layover. We couldn’t check our luggage because we were one of the last flights to come so everything was closed down. We should have been sleeping because it was night in Port Elizabeth, but sleeping on the linoleum with all our luggage proved rather difficult. I was successful for about 20 minutes though J So we talked on Talkie and played Kings in the Corner and Catch Phrase. We also met a young man from Iowa who played games with us.
It felt like forever to get our tickets and bags checked in on the flight to PE. But the flight was nice and short and I could see Africa out the window! We watched a short cartoon video about safety features and it was very entertaining, much better then the one showed in the states. Then they had a silent video for our viewing pleasure, but I think it would have been better with sound. We arrived, got our bags and met our director Gary and Vilma who brought us to Langerry.
Gary had us go grocery almost right away. It was a bit overwhelming because we only had a half an hour and no idea what we wanted to eat. It’s also weird because I am not moving into my own room until Saturday. In the meantime I am living with five other girls whose fifth roommate isn’t arriving until then. I like that I am not living by myself but it’s a bit frustrating since I am not able to move in and unpack.
We walked around the beach and I went for a run with Amy, enough time for me to get sunburned, but thankfully not as sunburned as most other people. I took a short nap and started this journal. I also found out that we do not have unlimited internet access as the flats like they had last year and we had anticipated this year. It is like $6 an hour so, unfortunately I will not be on facebook or skype nearly as much as I thought, so I would love some snail mail! But if you do facebook or e-mail me, don’t expect an immediate response.
That night we all went to dinner together and I had sirloin and calamari. The exchange rate here is amazing though – all 14 of us ate for under $150! After dinner we stopped by Toby Joe’s a place where they hung out a lot last year but it closing down on Sunday. However, it is rumored to re-open in a new location in about a month. We came back and went to bed early.