Parades, Markets and Concerts - oh my!

The orientation program that the first year students are put through here is super intense.  For almost two weeks, they spend seemingly every waking moment together with the other people who live in their area.  They all wear the same t-shirts/outfit everyday and they march around led by orientation leaders singing and chatting.  There was one day I was walking through campus with two of my friends when we were mistaken for some of the first years.  We were yelled at to run by one of the leaders and given dirty looks when we didn't start to run immediately.   The weekend before classes start, there is a kind of festival with music by the first years, braai(s), concerts, and a whole bunch of other stuff.  On Saturday morning, I got up pretty early with a group of my friends to attend a parade.  The first years marched though the streets of Stellenbosch all dressed up and shaking cans of coins in the faces of the crowd asking for money for a charity.  We had no idea that we were supposed to come with money, but one of the guys in our group was wearing a shirt similar to one of the shirts worn by the first years and a random lady gave him a bag full of coins and said to distribute them because she couldn't find her daughter to give them to her.  So we got to give away a whole bunch of money (that wasn't even ours).  I even got a free bracelet out of all of it.  After that, some of the group rode their bikes, and myself and one other girl walked for almost an hour to a farmers market at one of the local vineyards.  I thought that this was going to be a small market with some stalls selling fruit and vegetables and some other stuff, but this market was huge.  There were stalls selling really good looking bread, sandwiches, wine, beer, fudge, cakes, nuts, dried meat that is really popular here (biltong) and a whole bunch of other really good food.  In addition to this, there were stalls selling clothing, paintings and other crafts.  We walked around for a while, tasted a lot of free samples, bought food and then made our way to a grassy area behind the market.  A local band playing some of the Bob Marley's songs played for a while and we just sat on the grass and enjoyed our surroundings.  Then I had to walk another hour back home.  It was this journey that made me decide to get one of the bikes that the University offers to its students.  Although I love to walk, it was kind of a bummer to see everyone else whizz off and leave you behind.

After the market, we headed to the area of town where there was supposed to be a concert.  There were a handful of local bands that were playing throughout the afternoon.  One of my friends and I watched for a while and then we found the rest of our group and when out for dinner at a tai place.  Then we went back to watch the main band that was playing.  They were a group called Goldfish.  It was kind of hard to hear what they were saying because the sound wasn't up very loud, but one of the dudes played flute in one of the songs and rocked out on the saxophone in some others.  I spent the rest of the night hanging out in front of my apartment building with a bunch of other international kids.  One of them was playing the guitar and we had a few sing-a-longs!

Some pictures!

  Marching band!!  They sounded spectacular.

Begging for money!!

  Each residence area had some theme and one of them was Madagascar the Movie and they made costumes for people.  They were pretty fun.

 Pac Man

The market.  Some of the stalls were inside a building.  The cake in the foreground was really, really good.  We went back for seconds of the free samples and I probably would have gone back for thirds, but I restrained myself.

This is a photo of the grassy area where the band played.  We were surrounded by trees, mountains and vineyards.  It was so beautiful.

  The first band we saw was called Plush.  They were actually pretty good!

  My friends Danny from Maryland and Sam from Chicago.

Once it got dark (around 8:30) the final band - Goldfish - had some bright lights going.  I'm pretty sure I've never been to a concert like this and it is was just a fun atmosphere (and really good people watching) even if the music wasn't that great and it was really hot.

I went to another concert on Sunday.  This was was WAY better than Saturday's concert.  For one thing the music was actually good.  Freshlyground is a famous South African group, but internationally, they are more well known as the group that sang behind Shakira in Waka Waka - the song used for the Soccer World Cup held in South Africa a few years ago.  They were great!!  I'm sure if you Googled or YouTubed them, you would find a video since I can't figure out how to post videos and even if I did, the one that I have is bad it's hard to hear the music over the crowd.  After the concert though, I really want to listen to more of their music.  I spent the morning grocery shopping for the week and for our picnic dinner.  I made guacamole with two of my friends - and it turned out fantastic.  We, by far, had the best food.  Other people just brought peanut butter and jelly, but we had guacamole, vegetables, humus, cheese, good bread and gingerbread for dessert.  We drove for an hour to Kirstenbosch National Botanical Gardens in Kirstenbosch, South Africa.  The gardens were beautiful and they were situated at the base of a mountain range.  The whole venue was just lovely.  We found a place on the hill to set up our towels and waited for the show to start.  While we were waiting, we got our faces painted in a traditional style.  I'm not sure if they designs mean anything or have any significance, but I love getting my face painted (especially for free) so I didn't want to give up the opportunity.  While we were waiting in line for our faces to be painted, we got to listen to two men wearing traditional tribal garb playing these instruments.  I'm not sure what they were called, but they were made out of a big gourd that had metal strips attached to something on the inside.  The metal was plucked and the sound reverberated into the hollowed gourd.  The sound had a really neat vibration to it.  

We were sitting behind another big group that came together and let me tell you - they were a hoot!  Once the concert started, they were singing and dancing and just having a ball.  It was so funny to watch them - and very tempting to join in their fun.

The music was really good.  The lead singer had a really good, kind of interesting voice.  And they had other instruments besides drums, bass guitar and lead guitar.  They had a violin, a flute and a saxophone and it was really fun to hear something a little different.  By the last song, almost everyone on the hill was up and dancing and the whole atmosphere of the concert was awesome.

  The view!!

 Face paint!!

Up close - please excuse the photo bomb!

  We were pretty far back and couldn't really see what was happening on stage - but luckily my camera has a good zoom!

Dinner is served - on a frisbee!  We had bought bread at the market on Saturday and made veggie sandwiches with humus, cheese, tomato, lettuce and cucumber.  They were so good and refreshing and the bread was delicious.  I'm not sure why I thought to bring a frisbee considering there was no room to run around.  But it came in very handy as a cutting board and plate!

 YUM!!  Homemade guacamole!

The mountains that the gardens are situated in.

Tomorrow is my first day of school (finally)!!  I can't wait.  I get to go to the school that I will be teaching at and figure out more about the course I'm enrolled in called Learning for Sustainable Community Engagement.