Skydiving and getting Stuck

Well, I couldn't have asked for a better few days. We celebrated our host sister's birthday Friday night with a braai (.. that's bbq to everyone I know, or knew before coming on this trip anyway) at Gumstone and an outing to nearby Kalk Bay for dancing. A few of the other volunteers stayed over at "Camp Gumstone" for the weekend, so we all walked to Imhoff Farm for a leisurely brunch before heading to ANOTHER braai at the Kommetjie lighthouse, where we watched the sun set from the top of the lighthouse. It was so beautiful! On Sunday Dan, Mark and I woke up early to pick up some friends in Cape Town and go skydiving at Skydive Cape Town. Skydiving was amazing! I can't even begin to describe the experience, so you'll  just have to ask me about it when I return. I can't say that the trip to and from the skydiving place was so incredible, however. Because I was the only one who can drive a manual car, I had the pleasure of driving the 1996 Fiat Uno rental car, whose gear shift decided to stop working halfway through the trip. I managed to get it into 1st, 3rd, and 4th for most of the drive up, but I couldn't get it into 1st or 2nd for the life of me on the drive back into Cape Town, on which we happened to hit every red light. Perhaps understandably, the clutch burned out and we ended up stranded on the side of the road JUST as we arrived in Cape Town. Luckily the man who rented us the car was willing to come pick us up (and knock some money off the cost of the rental), so it was really the perfect broken down on the side of the road situation. Getting back to Gumstone and sorting out the cost of the car took most of the day, but it really was quite an extraordinary adventure! I can't wait to tell you more about it in a few weeks. -MEA

Finally in the Schools!

A lot of exciting things have happend since last I posted. For one, South African schools are finally back in session so I am now working with some of the most amazing third graders in the world at Marine Primary School in Ocean View, a predominately coloured area near Gumstone. Every morning I take the children in Mrs. Samuels' class out five at a time to work with them on their reading. In the afternoons I take about 60 children out for PE classes. It would be exhausting work, but I know that I am helping the children so much just by inspiring them to read more that I hate having to leave in the afternoons. On Tuesdays and Thursdays I return to Masi after school to tutor some of the kids from the Careers Indaba. Students here are encouraged to study math, accounting, and science, all areas in which I'm not particularaly adept, but I have managed to find at least one student a day who needed help with history or english projects. On days when I don't go to Masi I head to Fish Hoek, where I recently joined a gym. Although I lead P.E. classes every day, I don't actually get much exercise here so it's a nice treat getting to go to the gym (well, when I went yesterday for the first time it was a treat... we'll see how that goes), especially when I can get a ride rather than take a taxi! I am also hoping to stay at Marine a little longer each day to work with the students in my class who really struggle with reading. Some of them don't even know their alphabet, but get by in reading class because they have read the same books so many times that they have them memorized (they only have a few books in each class here), or because their classmates are always trying to help them out. On Monday I had the students write down all the words they sturggled with while reading and used their individual lists to make a  "Challenge Words" list. The words 25 words on the list ranged from "were" to "understand" to "Christmas", and I asked each of the students to write a story for me using as many of the words as they possibly could. I can't wait to read all of their stories this weekend to decide who will get "silly bandz"  for the best story. The third graders I spend time with on a regular basis are all so much smarter than the average third grader,. and certainly much more advanced than the children here, that I'd almost forgotten how funny stories written by small kids can be! I'll pull out some of the best phrases to share with you in my next post, which will hopefully be within the next week. -MEA

Just now

When I first arrived in South Africa, my cab driver (an African himself) warned me never to make plans with an African. "We have no sense of time", he said. In South Africa, "just now" means sometime in the future, with a very unspecified time frame.For example, I've been heading to the internet cafe "just now" since my last post. So, if you are actually anxious to hear from me, I'm very sorry. You'll have to learn to live with African time as I do.

Wow! I has been quite a week. Last Sunday was really my first day of my summer program. We began the day with a walk along the coast at the lovely Soetwater Environmental Center, where we had a very brief orientation to South Africa and introduction to the program. Afterwards we met our host mom, Jacqui, and were taken to Gumstone, our  home for the next two months. Staying at Gumstone is such a treat, not only because Jacqui and her family are so generous, but also because it means we can walk to and from the Masiphumele Library every day for the Careers Indaba. South Africans are currently on their longest winter break ever due to the World Cup, so  the library hosts the Careers Indaba to give the high school "learners" from Masi an opportunity to continue working on their studies and to begin to think about what the future might hold. Every day multiple speakers some to talk to the kids about their profession and outline the steps that the learners should take if they would also like to be an engineer, a business woman, or a teacher. As volunteers, our role is mainly to serve as peer mentors for the kids in the hopes that they will begin to think about the world outside of South Africa. When I talk about the learners, I'm using the term "kids" loosely. The are all between grades 9 and 12, but their ages range from 14 to 26. Many of the kids even have children of their own, which seems even sadder to me because I've found South African children to be generally less mature than Americans across the board. Of course, I may be a little biased seeing as the American kids I know are all so impressive! We have one more week of the Careers Indaba and then it is back to school. I will probably be following around a woman who supervises all the primary schools in the townships nearby so that I get to experience, but I'm not entirely sure yet. I'll find out just now...

Ayoba!

Well, it was another gorgeous day here in Cape Town... lucky for me too.  I woke up early to hike up Table Mountain  and then abseil 112m off its cliff face with Abseil Africa. Words really can't describe how beautiful it is up there. I'll just have to show you pictures later! Hiking up the mountain, waiting to abseil (it took a really long time because the winds were very high and they could only operate one rope), abseiling, and hiking back to the top to retrieve my camera took most of the day, so by the time I rode the cable car down from Table Mountain and caught a mini bus taxi back to my hotel I had made a bunch of new friends, but only had time to shower quickly before heading to the Waterfront to meet up with some other Americans and what must be the entire population of England (and most of the Algerians, too) to watch the American game on the big screen before we all headed over to Green Point stadium to watch the match between England and Algeria. Being at a World Cup match was unlike anything I've ever experienced. Especially after taking a township tour yesterday, I couldn't help but think about how incredibly fortunate I am. I have been given so much more than I deserve, and I hope to spend the rest of the summer trying to figure out how I can use my gifts to help others who haven't had all the same opportunities as me. The rest of the WorldTeach group arrives tomorrow and I can't wait to meet them and get to work! I'm not exactly sure what the internet situation will be like there, but I'll keep you posted as best I can. Cheers! -MEA

Sun, Sand, and Soccer

What an absolutely beautiful day in Cape Town! There wasn’t a cloud in the sky as we stepped out of the hotel around 11am to take the blue line of the Cape Town City Sightseeing Tour Bus. We hopped off the bus at Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens, Imizamo Yethu Township (where we were able to have a guided tour from one of the men who lived there), and Camps Bay. My original plan was to just run along the coast from Camps Bay to Sea Point, but it was so pretty outside we stayed to play on the beach a little. It was so incredibly beautiful. Don't believe me? Check out the picture. The water was cold, but no colder some of the days on Fisher Island!

For dinner we went to Mama Africa, a somewhat touristy, but fun place. I wasn’t gutsy enough to try the ostrich or anything like that, but I did enjoy out the catch of the day as a local band played. After dinner we headed back to the waterfront to meet up with Josh, one of my friends from UNC, and some of his newest friends, who are also FIFA volunteers, to watch the game between Mexico and France. It was amazing to me how many Englishmen are here, and how hard they were cheering for Mexico tonight! Pretty funny. Tomorrow is the big day- I have a ticket to the England and Algeria game and I can’t wait to let you know how it was! -MEA

Bafana Bafana!

What a beautiful day in Cape Town! Bafana Bafana (the South African soccer team) played tonight, so the whole city was pulsing with energy. Most of the people we see during the day are tourists as well, but everyone gets behind the South African team when their team isn't playing. Last night I went to dinner with UNC friends Joel, Sunny, and Dan and Joel and Sunny, who have been in Cape Town for a while now,  strongly encouraged Dan and I to get tickets for  the hop-on hop-off  city sightseeing Cape Town tour. WE decided to take their advice and so most of our day was spent on the bus, which took us to see St. George’s Cathedral (Desmond Tutu’s church), the Mount Nelson Hotel, the Table Mountain visitors center, Camps Bay, and Sea Point. It was such a treat to sit on the top of the double-decker bus and look out at the beautiful vistas without worrying about where we were heading or looking out for pickpockets, crowds, and crazy drivers! We were on the bus from about 8:30 to 11:30 and had a little bit of time to kill before our 3pm tour of Robben Island, so we hung around the waterfront, ate some fish and chips from a place right out on the water and then went to explore Woolworths department store in the Waterfront mall. The visit to Robben Island was incredible. You have to take a 30 minute ferry ride to get there, which was a treat in and of itself because Cape Town is so beautiful from the sea. The island is much bigger than I thought it would be (5km on one side by 3km on the other), and we went on a bus to see the old guards house, the limestone quarry where Nelson Mandela and others worked, the special guest house where visiting dignitaries can stay (Nelson Mandela and Hillary Clinton stayed there when she was First Lady), the various churches and mosques, the old leper colony from the days when the Dutch controlled South Africa and used the island as a storeroom, prison, and leper colony, as well as a canon built in 1947 which was intended to be used in WW2. A lot of Americans were on the tour with us, so our tour guide (who was once the general secretary of the Pan African Congress and was imprisoned on the island for years during the 70s and 80s) kept telling us stories about famous Americans he toured around. When he was taking then-senator Obama around, he apparently said “Mr. Obama, I’m going to show you something just now, but you have to promise me that you won’t tell President Bush about our weapon or mass destruction”. It really is amazing how American politics and culture influence so many people. I feel so ignorant here in a world where most people speak at least three languages and know far more about the BP oil spill than I do.  I don’t even know where all of the countries playing in the world cup are!! By the time we got off the ferry (around 6pm) the Waterfront area was already packed with fans from around sporting Bafana Bafana gear and claiming seats near the hundreds of big screen TVs set up to watch the 8:30pm game against Uruguay. Luckily we were able to nab a seat at a delicious Italian restaurant with a good view of the screen where we settled in to watch the game. Tomorrow we plan to complete the bus tour by going on the blue route (the mini peninsula tour rather than the red city tour), and spend some time exploring Camps Bay and Sea Point, both beautiful beach areas nearby. Just now, I ought to be getting to bed. I'm hoping to get in a nice run along the wind-free coastline where all of the really nice apartments in Cape Town are, and I can't wait! -MEA

Welcome Aboard!

Okay... fine, you caught me. That man scaling the cliff is not me, but I did take the picture! In fact, I was on those very same ropes climbing the very same cliff only minutes later. But that was so last summer. This summer I'm headed to South Africa to take in some World Cup mayhem and impart the little wisdom I have on children I meet along the way. At least that's the game plan. I can't actually promise that the adventures will be extraordinary, only that they will be mine. Come along for the ride! -MEA