Day Four: Departure from Kruger

I didn’t sleep very well last night and neither did anyone else. At one point Matt just got up and went outside. Everytime he opened and closed the door the cigar smoke from his cigar earlier wafted in. At one point I sat up and I couldn’t really see out of my right eye. I could see the light from the window with my left eye, but only a grey haze with my right. I put my glasses on to see if it would make a difference and I still couldn’t see well with my right. I turned on the lights and could see, but as soon as the lights were off again, the right eye went hazy again. It is weird and freaking me out just a little. I fell asleep pretty soon after though, but it wasn’t a fitful sleep.

We again woke up at 5:00 am for our morning safari. We were a little late getting down to the camp from our bungalows, so we rushed through tea and biscuits, and everyone else was already gone in their safari vehicles. We went with Sibongylie and Elton again and it was just the four of us late bungalow arrivals. One of the very first things we saw this morning was a lion! It was pretty far back in the bushes and could really only see it when it moved, but for a few minutes it walked straight out in a clearing and it was beautiful. I was simply stunned and just watched it and watched it walk back into the bushes. It had the mane around its face and the hair was the color of caramel. The fur kind of blew back as it walked and it is just so hard to describe the awe I felt at seeing it. To put my awe in perspective for those of you that know me…I didn’t even take a picture. It was kind of nice though…I know I certainly judge many things on this trip based on how nice of a picture it would be, and for once, I wasn’t worried at all about how a photograph would turn out.

We sat around for awhile talking and writing as we waited for our transport to the airport. Our van didn’t come until 12:30 and our flight was leaving at 6 from the JoBurg airport. We had to drop an Australian woman off at the airport and then we went to the Siyabona offices once again for lunch. We were rejoined by Blake, Victor, Jayme and Catie and the couple from Boston. After we filled out evaluation forms and ate, we were on our way to JoBurg.

The ride was long and boring…we stopped at a store and all got loads of food for the rest of the way, and at that point it became incredibly obvious that we were going to miss our flight. It was just too late and there was no way we were going to make it. Everyone else in my little group was fine with if we missed our flight, because if they charged extra, they could afford to pay for a flight change, but I am kind of doing this trip on a budget and couldn’t.

A really scarring part of the trip came when we happened upon an accident. There were ambulances all over and police cars and when we went by we saw a lot of blood. I am incredibly sensitive to violence…I can’t watch movies with violence, and I have good friends that tell me when to look away in most movies. It just gives me nightmares. There was one body on a gurney being lifted into the ambulance, and then another body laying on the ground. They were pulling up a sheet on that body and I was on the opposite side of the van from where the accident was and so I asked if he was dead. I guess I knew the answer, because my eyes were prickling with tears as I asked, but one of the guys in the back of my van answered yes. I’ve never been around a dying person at the time of death or a recently perished body, so this was a crazy thing.

We arrived at the JoBurg airport 15 minutes after our plane took off…I was so nervous so Regina handled talking to the airport agents, and we were able to get on the 1900 flight. We just made it to the tram before it left for the plane and we got on our plane! Another SAS group was on the plane to Cape Town including Elise, Bryan, Ashley and Cristie. I went and sat with Elise and Bryan, and then Cristie told us that liquor was free on the plane. So, we each got a drink and then a glass of wine with dinner. Part of it is nice because it’s just socially acceptable. We can get a drink and not have it be completely taboo just because we are 2 months under 21 or whatever nonsense.

When we arrived back in Cape Town we all piled into taxis and then headed back to the ship. I was in a taxi of about 15 people and at one point “A Whole New World” from Aladdin came on, and we all burst into song…it was great. I captured the impromptu sing a long on video. The poor taxi driver kept yelling at us to shut up…maybe we should have listened but we were all so excited to get back to the ship!

A bunch of people were heading out, but as soon as I got back to my room and saw my mail, my initial idea of staying in seemed even better! And…I had a note saying I had a package!!! I ran upstairs to the Purser’s Desk and claimed my package: it was from St. Luke’s!!! I had letters from Addie and Helen, Heather, Lori and many of the youth group kids!!! They were all asking me questions, so I soon have to respond to them. I also had things from all the people mentioned in the two previous posts…Lyss and Kristen sent me articles from the campus newspaper, pictures, and crazy letters…Gayle sent me her sermon..oy vey! Basically…all of my mail is on my wall…I feel kind of bad because my roommate doesn’t get much mail and mine is all over, but it just reminds me of home. In any case..that was the end of the return to Cape Town!

Day Five: Khayelitsha and Camps Bay

We gathered at 8:15 in the morning and headed out to Khayelitsha Township. It is one of the newer townships, being created in the 1970s because they were running out of space in the other townships. The first place we went to was the Information Center which also doubles as a national athletic center. It was built when Cape Town was vying for the 2004 Olympic games. There is a quote above the entrance from Danny Glover that reads in part, “ [Khayelitsha] helps us understand and appreciate our collective humanity.” And I would find that to be true as I went through my day in Khayelitsha.

Our next stop was Vicky’s B & B…Vicky got sick of people always coming through the townships but never spending time there so she converted part of her home into a bed and breakfast. It is beautiful and quite remarkable. One of her neighbors was selling things he and is community had made and they had this beautiful table-like thing. The base looks like three pieces of wood interwoven, but in truth it is carved from one piece of wood to receive the desired effect. Then, a bowl rests in the grooves on top and will make an awesome little decoration in my room next year.
For awhile we went to Masakhenifox EduCare Centre, where the motto on the sign is, “We will build and brighten this nation!” This was my first interaction with the children of the township. We taught them how to do high-fives and then they sang and danced for us. I have a lot of it on video, but then I just put the damn camera down and sang and danced along with them, and that is so much more rewarding. I did tape one particular song called, “Telephone to Jesus Every Day” and I want to teach it to the little kids back home. I taught them how to make the monkey face too..ahaha spreading it around the world. At one point I was taking a picture and trying to get one girl to smile and so then I put two of my fingers at the corners of my mouth as an example…well they thought this was how I wanted the picture so I have some of them smiling with their fingers in the picture too!!

The next place we went was the Philani Centre. It is a place that distributes information about nutrition to families and also employs women to do weaving. They make beautiful tapestries and bags and I bought one of their smaller bags. I shouldn’t have spent more money, but I look around me at the township, and if I was going to buy one more souvenir in South Africa, I would rather it be from them than one of the touristy markets. We wandered into another school and they sang for us, and then Jenna and I taught them the hokey pokey! Dr. Steffel kept getting so mad at us, as our trip leader, because we would never leave the kids.

Finally, we went to the Khayletisha Market..I only had ten rand left, which made not buying anything easy, but there was a great marimba band playing and I gave them my last rand because they were excellent. There was also a school and church across the street and we were allowed to go over there for their recess time. At all of these places, these kids just want to see what they look like on the camera…at this particular school, they were obsessed with my sunglasses too, so they all got pictures wearing my sunglasses! There was one girl who just curled up in my lap for most of the time too…it is simply incredible to hang out with these kids. When it came time to leave, one kid tried to grab my camera and the tour guide came over and strictly reprimanded him, but that was the only encounter I have had this far, and I could have taken the little 4th grder down ;)

To end the day we went to Kopanong B and B and met a women with a very similar story to Vicky from the other B and B. I cannot for the life of me remember this woman’s name. She was given a grant to study entrepreneurship at Pitt back in the 90s and then came home, turned her home into a B and B, and then has helped other women do the same and employs women from her community. It was wonderful. We had great food too! Fried dough balls and little meat pockets…we all chowed down! One of her workers showed up around the neighborhood…we saw sheep’s being cooked and cleaned, which is a South African delicacy apparently. We were invited into a man’s house where he had homemade township liquor and some of the brave guys drank some. I chose to sit in the corner and play with a little boy who couldn’t have been older than about 18 months. So cute.

We came back to the ship and the goal at that point was a picnic on Table Mountain…well, it was way too windy to go up the mountain, so Aja, Elise and I took a cab to Camps Bay which is in the resort area of Cape Town, but the beach is beautiful. We brought some food with us to eat on the beach, but didn’t get very far because the wind was blowing so hard that the sand was hurting us. We ended up going to a restaurant and getting an appetizer of fried camembert and some drinks and watched the sun set. The camembert was amazing and we had some champagne cocktails that were delightful. It was absolutely amazing to see the sun go down over the ocean! Stunning is one of the only words that would do Camp’s Bay justice. I ended up staying in and sleeping the rest of the night because I had another FDP the next morning.

Day Six: Amy Biehl and Out on the Town!

Amy Biehl was a young American who went to work against apartheid in South Africa after she graduated from college. In 1994 she went to a township with some of her friends and they were caught up in a rally. She ended up dying because she was stoned to death by the people who were protesting the oppressive government. Her family was the first to go through the Truth And Reconciliation Commission in South Africa, led by Desmond Tutu, and her parents ended up forgiving the people who were accused of murdering her. As a result, they began the Amy Biehl Foundation which provides in school and after school programs in township schools. Two of the men who took part in Amy’s death now work for the foundation, and one of them, Tobeko, was our tour guide for the day. Talk about a unique perspective to have from a tour guide. Our trip leader for the day was Jane Wisney. Jane is the wife of the Assistant Dean and runs the dependent student program, where I work with the children of the faculty and staff. I always get in trouble when helping the students because I laugh so much and sometimes get the kids in trouble, and before we even left on the bus she said to me, “I have my eyes on you LeeAnne! I am going to turn around and see you getting the township children in trouble!”

The first place we went was John Pama Primary School. We first saw the garden that they have in the back of the school. Parents without jobs will come and tend the garden and the kids, during free time, go to the garden and pick up the trash. We arrived just before lunch time, so when we went into the classrooms they were preparing to go to the shed in front of the school, where lunch is prepared by neighborhood women, and sponsored by the Amy Biehl Foundation. In our first classroom they sang us a song in English, and then we had a few minutes to play with the children, and then we were herded to the next classroom. When they began to sing the same song, I snuck outside where other children were eating their lunch. They had rice with a chicken stew over top and they were all eating it up, so it must have been good. All the kids wanted to do was share their lunch. We would point to their bowl and make a thumbs up or thumbs down with a questioning face, and they would smile and give a thumbs up and try to give us some. It was simply awesome, that they wanted to share their food, when Tobeko said it was probably the best meal they would have all day.

We left that school and headed for the next school which none us can remember the name of. We have a ton of pictures of the kids from there and none of know the name! We all keep saying, “Yeah, the school with the red uniforms…” I am going to talk to Jane, the trip leader, and see if she has it. There was a vendor on school grounds selling chicken feet, which is something the kids like. At first we were kind of surprised to see someone there selling them, but we have vending machines all over schools and our college campuses, so it is just another vendor in a sense. One of the girls on our trip, Jenny, told the vendor she would buy as many chicken feet as the kids wanted, so they lined up and each got a chicken foot. Even after 35 kids got them, she still only paid ten rand, which is just over a dollar.

Our next stop was another bed and breakfast. This one was at the outskirts of a township, and pretty darn close to being a suburb. It was an amazing meal and it only cost us 85 rand, which is just over ten dollars. We had this amazing beef stew, rice, a bean and apple salad (which we expected to be gross, but was actually pretty good!), chicken, rice…It was everything wonderful! This B & B was close to the township, Gugulethu, and we drove by the Gugulethu Seven memorial after we left lunch. There were a series of incidents in the 80s and 90s which resulted in the particularly violent deaths of seven people in the township. I believe they were all men, but I could be wrong. We also stopped by the site of Amy Biehl’s murder. It is just outside of a gas station now. There is still the steel gate standing in the air that was there when she died, and there is a cross in front of it as a memorial. If it had not been pointed out to us, it was something we simply would have just driven by.

After this stop we went to Qinqa Mntwana school. Those Q’s are some of the clicks of the Xhosa language, and so it was impossible for us Americans to say the name of the school properly. We sure did try in vain! At this school our entire time was spent watching the after school programs put on by the Amy Biehl Foundation. The first classroom we entered was where students were learning how to play recorder. The first song they played for us was “My Heart Will Go On” from Titanic! I mean, I barely got past Hot Cross Buns in 3rd grade! These kids were incredible! We also saw kids learning how to play trumpet from an older man wearing a beret, and others learning how to sing opera music properly…you music ed kids at BW would have simply been in your own personal heaven watching these kids!

We saw a modern dance class practicing and a realistic moment came when suddenly the music turned off because the power went out at the school. Apparently this is a pretty frequent thing, and it didn’t faze any of the people from the school. The kids just kept on dancing and moving. Some of these kids were good, and would give some American reality show contestants a run for their money! A different group also performed a series of native African dances and were again simply spectacular. I have so many pictures and videos and you are all just going to have to see it to believe it!

The final school we visited for the day was Nomlinganiselo Primary School. This school has a putting green in the front and side yards for the children to learn how to play golf and these kids love it! We had a girl in our group who plays golf for her college team, so she had a lot of fun playing with them for the short time we had. The first classroom we visited was full of high school students learning about HIV/AIDS. The SAS students sat down next to the high school students and we began to talk with them. This was one of their first meetings and they were writing letters about why they were there are at the program. I sat next to an 18 year old named Bulelwa. I asked if I could read his letter, and from there on out, Bulelwa’s name and face will always be in my mind. Both of his birth parents died from AIDS when he was in primary school, and now his adopted parents and adopted sister have all been diagnosed with HIV. Bulelwa said he was at the program because he wanted to learn how to take care of them. My heart cracked as I read that. I looked up at him after I read the letter, and he said, “It’s okay. I’m going to change the world.” He broke my heart and then mended it a little in a period of 20 minutes. We also sat in on more recorder and dance classes and I have plenty of those pictures too!

We arrived back at around 5:30, and then Elise, Jeff, Jen, Bryan, Anna and I went to dinner. We tried to go to the African Café, but they were booked, so we walked across a few streets to Marco’s African Café. It was amazing! I had a plate of fries (or CHIPS!) and filets of kudu, ostrich, and springbok. It was in a great sauce and was simply awesome! I think kudu was my favorite.

After dinner we went out to a bar at the mall and we had a great South African beer called Savanna Dry. On our way back to the boat around ten we had to go past the tequila restaurant where all of the SAS kids were getting fishbowls. Fishbowls are enormous bowls filled with juice and liquor, and between 6 and 10 people share them. Some people were only sharing them between two people, and I don’t know how they lasted the night. Sharing with about 10 people still gave me a little buzz, but nothing bad. I went back to the ship pretty early because I had an FDP the next day, and it was to the winelands!

Day Seven: Winelands

Well, this was quite the day in the winelands! I woke up, had breakfast, and then we climbed into our busses outside of the ship! Our first stop was the factory of J.C. Le Roux and they make sparkling wine. They cannot call it champagne because only sparkling wine made in France can be called champagne. We had a tour of the factory and then we sat down to sample some of the wine. It was good for the most part. I enjoyed the first ones we had much better than the fruitier sweeter ones at the end. After the first two, we went outside and our guide did the thing with the sword where you run it up the seam and then it pops the top off…it was awesome! The champagne started bubbling out and we all put our cups underneath. The lifelong learners with us were simply hilarious!

We next went to lunch at the Goatshed Restaurant. We had this absolutely amazing quiche. It was so incredibly cheesy and had mushrooms and some vegetables. This same stop had Fairview wine and cheese, so we had wine tasting, and I wasn’t really a huge fan. I had 4 glasses, when we had the opportunity for 6, but since I dumped out most of the first three, I decided to simply move on to the cheese. Alyssa: you would have been in heaven here! We had some amazing Camembert and this great goat cheese with peppadew, whatever that is. I ended up buying some of the goat cheese stuff because it was so excellent.

Our final stop was at a brandy factory, and I am now fully aware that I hate brandy. However, I did eat the chocolates that came with the brandy. Haaha we headed back to the ship and then I went grocery shopping and that was it. We did not pull out of port that night because of the wind: it was not safe for the pilot to get us out of there. We had to bunker over night for fuel anyways, so it was okay.

Day Eight: Bunkered

This entire day of classes was spent bunkered while taking on fuel. It was ridiculous. Good food was just in the wharf a second away!

Boat to Mauritius: I don’t have a lot to say except I hate Global Studies with a passion, I was putting together the spelling bee for my study buddy kids and the seas were so incredibly rough. I have never been so seasick. BLAH.

Mauritius was great, update coming soon. Classes till India..my spelling bee for the kids is on Tuesday!

Mauritius update coming soon!! LOVE YOU ALL!!