Some pictures of Cape Town!!
One of the many vineyards!!
Cape Town!! Behind is Table Mountain. This is one of the mountains that everyone has to hike at least once while they are here.
Nobel Square. This is a monument that was erected on December 16, 2005 on Reconciliation Day. It honors four South African Nobel Peace Prize winners - Chief Albert Luthuli, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, FW de Klerk and of course Nelson Mandela. As expected, Nelson Mandela is a huge deal down here. He has done so much for this country and the people here love him so much. I was talking with some of my friends about this and we were trying to come up with someone in the US who has not only had a similar influence on their country as Mandela, but also someone who is as honored and loved as he is. We had a hard time coming up with someone who was that respected. Lincoln and MLK were the ones we came up with, but there didn't seem to be the same distinction between these two and how they were respected and the way Mandela is respected here in South Africa.
I had no idea what this was other than a giant statue made out of Coca-Cola crates in the middle of Cape Town. I googled it however, and I learned this: There are several statues like this one around South Africa all created by a single artist commissioned by Coke to promote recycling. It is around 60 feet tall, weighs 27 tons and is made from 4,200 Coca-Cola crates!
The two buildings in this picture are a food market and a craft market that we visited.
Street performers!
The good ol' Atlantic!
This is a picture of one of the Townships we passed along our way to and from Cape Town, (more info below). This particular settlement seemed to go on forever - it stretched for miles along the highway.
I have had three experiences that have really reminded me that not only am I in Africa, but that despite South Africa's development, there is still a lot of poverty and lack of development. Along the way to Cape Town, we drove past some of the Townships. These are essentially towns, but are where the poorer population of South Africa live. They reminded me of pictures of shanty towns that I saw in history class when I was younger. One of these townships is where I will be doing one of my classes. I will be doing some student-teaching type work at a school in one of these areas. We also passed either the largest or the oldest Township in either all of South Africa or only the Western Cape - I don't remember exactly what they told us. The city that I live in is surprisingly developed. The buildings look nice and fresh. The roads and sidewalks are clean. Sometimes it seems like we are in a western country. However, these Townships are very different. The "houses" are tiny - only a few feet by a few feet, with tin roofs and they are crammed together. They seem to be temporary housing that people are permanently living in. The government and aid groups are working to develop these areas by providing permanent housing as well as other necessities, but there is still a lot of work to do. The people living in these Townships have to walk for hours to get to anything. While we were driving, we saw many people just walking along the highway. I'm not sure where they were going, but I know they had to walk a very long way because there was no place to buy groceries or have a job anywhere near these settlements. I also saw children playing in the grassy/dirt area between the guardrail of the highway and the fence surrounding the settlement. They were playing soccer, some were just sitting in the shade, others were playing with sticks and three boys were literally playing on the guardrail right next to cars. This was a totally new experience for me and really reminded me where I was. Although it was sad to see kids playing like this, it made me all the more excited to start classes and really begin to interact with local children and learn about sustainable community development, (that's the topic of the class that I'll be doing my student-teaching for).
One of the other reminders I had was on Friday. We were looking for waterbottles for our hike and we went to a part of the city that I hadn't been to yet. The University campus is pretty big, and it seems like I just live in a city only inhabited by university students. At one end of the campus, there is a mall (with shops, grocery stores...) and we went looking for a store behind the mall. It was like stepping into a whole new place. I was with three other kids from my program and we were by far the minority - as in we were the only white people in a very crowded street. We got to the store near to the end of the work day, so the streets were very crowded - I waited in line at the grocery store for half an hour and every cashier was working and had a similar line. There was more trash in the streets, the shops looked much shabbier, and there was just an overall sense of less development and crowdedness. It was all very exciting however. Although it was an entirely new experience to be the ones who obviously didn't belong, the motion and excitement in the air was rather thrilling and it was fun to be around people who weren't university students.
The third reminder that I was in Africa was that I saw a ZEBRA!!!!! So cool!!!!! We were on the way back to campus from Cape Town and along side of hte highway there was a wildlife refuge-type area with zebra, buffalo, gazelles and other animals. There, right in the middle of a field next to the highway, was a zebra. It was like BAM - Africa!
I talked with my dad yesterday and some of his students and everyone was very interested in the food. I haven't had anything too exotic yet, but I'm sure I will. The food here is pretty much the same back home - just a little different. Everything tastes fresher because they don't use any artificial ingredients or preservatives in their food. Although the food doesn't keep as long, it definitely tastes better. I've been out to eat once and I had a burger with mushrooms, but you can get fish (which is really big here), salad...all the basic stuff you can get when you eat out back in the States. I also have been doing some cooking for myself because I live in an apartment and I have to walk a long way to find an actual restaurant. I started out "cooking" peanut butter sandwiches and fruit. Then I ventured in egg sandwiches. But on Sunday night, I did some real cooking. I sautéed peppers and onions and then added an egg and made a kind of omelet-type thing. It was actually really good and was much more exciting than the peanut butter sandwiches. Last night I cooked chicken for the first time in my life and put it on top of a salad with mushrooms, carrots and tomatoes. That was also a wonderful meal. Tonight I think I'm pulling the classic university student and making pasta - but I think I'm going to add some peppers and mushrooms and jazz it up a little.
Yesterday (Monday), we had meetings about classes and kind of just hung around all afternoon. The exciting thing was that there was a fire on one of the mountains behind campus that turned the whole sky yellow and cast a golden light over everything. It was actually kind of beautiful - except for the fact that it was because of a fire.
Today we went to the beach again, but it was really windy and wasn't very fun, but still it was the beach so I can't complain. I found some sea glass which made everything better. This afternoon was spent blogging, enjoying frozen yogurt and preparing for my very excellent adventure tomorrow.....SHARK CAGE DIVING!!! I'm so excited and I'll be sure to post some pictures!
Happy Reading!
Love,
Someone who is hoping to come back with all extremities in tact!
