It's Friday!!!!

Happy February!  It's crazy that it's already February and I still haven't started school!  Because the last few days had been so action packed, my friends and I decided that we were not going to do anything crazy.  We spent the day attending what are called "first meetings" which is where the professor introduces their class in about 20 minutes in order for students to get a better understanding of what the course is about.  I blogged for a while and then went out to lunch at the cafe in one of the local grocery stores.  That afternoon, two of my friends and I just walked around Stellenbosch, bought Nelson Mandela's biography "A Long Walk to Freedom" which we are going to share, and window shopped in a bunch of very cute/quaint stores in one section of town.  As usual, there was a braai outside of my apartment building and I tasted some really good fish that a German kid had gutted himself.

Because we live in an area with first year students, they have been doing stuff every night.  On Friday, they had a braai of their own - and theirs was way more legit than ours.  Two of my friends and I were walking out of our area, when we stopped to listen to the music the first years were playing and to watch what they were doing.  Two guys came up to us and we got chatting.  One was from Botswana and the other was from the Congo.  After that, we continued to watch what was happening and two other guys came up to us and started talking.  We chatted for a while and they had us try what they were braai-ing.  They got us rolls with some type of sause on them and then we waited for our boerewors (sausage/hot dog) to finish cooking.  I was a little apprehensive eating some strange meat, but they were actually really good.  Pretty boring day compared to sharks and stampedes of people - but it was nice to have a day to relax a little.

Thursday, January 31st - Cape Town Tour (Pardon the Boring Title)

Today I went on a FREE(!!!) tour of Cape Town with a travel group that focuses on excursions for university students.  Myself and maybe 7 other American kids who came to South Africa with the same program I did, took the train from Stellenbosch to Cape Town.  This was my first experience with the train, which was very exciting.  We walked for about 25 or 30 minutes to get to the station and then ended up waiting for another 25 or 30 minutes because the trains are always late.  But, there were no problems.  We got a car to ourselves (in first class - which was about 50 times less fancy than it sounds) and saw beautiful landscapes and saw some zebras and wildebeests in a wildlife refuge near the tracks.  We got to Cape Town station after riding for about an hour and our tour guide, Mike, met us at the station.  On our way to the first stop, we passed by the walls of the oldest building in Cape Town.  When the Dutch first arrived to the area in 1652, Jan van Riebeeck built a fort that is still standing (or parts of it are - on my next visit to Cape Town, I want to go see the fort up close).  Then we headed to the District 6 Museum.  This was one of the most moving experiences that I have had thus far.  A brief history lesson - absolutely free of charge.  (Mine ended up costing me 30 rand or a little more than $3.)  Part of the Apartheid, (this means separate/apart in Afrikaans), regime of the 20^th century, was to prevent the mixing of races.  One of the ways the government thought they could achieve this was to literally separate people by race.  District 6, which was considered to be the heart of Cape Town, was a primarily black neighborhood up until 1966.  In that year, the government declared District 6 to be an all white neighborhood and they began the process of removing the families that lived in that area and resettling them elsewhere.  The government destroyed houses, shops and basically the entire neighborhood.  I believe the government justified their actions by saying District 6 was crime-ridden, impoverished and deteriorating and could only be remedied if it was torn down.  This museum, as well as several other organizations, are working to commemorate the culture, history and memories District 6 holds in the minds of those who once lived there.  They have created this museum/monument and hold “healing classes” that help victims throughout the phases of the healing process.  Although this was one of the smallest museums I have ever been in, (it was only a couple of rooms), it was one of the most moving.  Because this happened so recently, there were photos of houses being destroyed as the family looked on, family photos of people who lived in District 6 and poems written within the last 10 years about the pain and suffering these people went through.  Although there was so much sadness and heartbreak, I still got a sense of hope and joy, especially for the great memories District 6 held for so many people.

After this, Mike took us for coffee and gave us another history lesson - but this time it was a crash course in South African history.  As a white South Africa who was old enough to have lived though some of the Apartheid years, he said that his history schooling began in 1652 when the Dutch settled and ignored all of the history prior.  He said that it was not until he was much older that he began to learn more about Africa prior to European settlement.  

A Not so Brief History Lesson (but it’s still free)!!

**Disclaimer - this is a very rough summary so huge parts of the history are missing and many of the reasons why things started are missing too.

The Dutch came to the Cape region in 1652 and set up a trading post/fort/resupply station in order to supply ships traveling between Europe and the Indies with the goods needed to complete the rest of their journey.  After some time, several of the original men were given land to become farmers.  These farmers, known as Boers, began to move, associate themselves less with Europeans and desire freedom from European rule.  Back in Europe, the Dutch were at war with Napoleon and they asked England to “watch” their colony in South Africa.  Although England returned control to the Dutch, when the Dutch found themselves at war again a few years later, England took “watch” over their territory, but this time, did not return it.  More people were coming from England to South Africa and this strained the relationship between the colonists and the native populations as well as the relationship between the Afrikaans/Boers peoples, (descendants of the Dutch), and the British newcomers.  The Boers began to move even more inland in what became known as the Great Trek which marked the beginning of several conflicts between the Boers and the British, as well as between the Boers and the Zulu and other native tribes.  To make a long story short, diamonds and gold were discovered in South Africa which added to the messy relationships between societal factions.  Then came the Anglo-Boer War that took place at the turn of the 19^th century.  From the beginning of the 20^th century, Afrikaner political parties took power and began installing measures to ensure white political, (and eventually social, cultural…), supremacy.  Thus begins Apartheid.  Acts were passed to  ensure legal racial segregation.  The government reacted violently to those speaking out against Apartheid’s injustices - such as the Sharpeville Massacre in 1960, the violence against the youth of Soweto in 1976 and the murder of Steve Biko in 1977.  Chaos ensued and the country went into a state of emergency.  In 1989, secret negotiations took place between Mandela and PW Botha, (who was Prime Minister at the time).  FW de Klerk replaced Botha as head of the Nationalist Party and, (from my understanding - which may be incorrect), became the new Prime Minister.  In 1990, de Klerk began to remove Apartheid restrictions and released Mandela from prison.  In 1994, South Africa held its first democratic elections and Mandela became president.

I have come to realize that South Africa’s history is super complex but also fascinating.   Luckily I’m taking a course called “An Overview of South African History” so I will be able to amend the information above and explain things much better once that begins - so look forward to a way better explanation of South Africa’s history than the one above.

After our history lesson, we walked around Cape Town and saw the Parliament buildings, the gardens that are in the place of the gardens planted by Jan van Riebeeck, the cathedral Archbishop Desmond Tutu preached in and ended up at a street market with food and crafts.  We ate lunch on the ground in the midst of the market.  Despite Table Mountain looming in the distance, and the distinctly African crafts surrounding us - it felt very European.

We made our way back to the train station around 3 because our train was supposed to leave around 3:15.  3:15 rolled around - no train, 3:30 - no train.  By 3:45, the train finally arrived.  We got on thinking that the train would leave any minute, but it didn’t.  We sat in the train for at least another 20 minutes or so.  A woman in the carriage we were all sitting in asked us if we were going to Stellenbosch because if we were, apparently we were on the wrong train.  So we followed her out and found another platform that said the train was going to Stellenbosch.  We got on that train and waited for another 20+ minutes.  As we waited, more and more people got on the train until it was so full, no one could really move.  Finally, after nearly an hour of just waiting for trains to move - we were on our way.  One of my friends and I were hoping that as we made our way to Stellenbosch, more people would leave and eventually we would be able to sit down or at least me able to move a little.  But we were most definitely wrong.  A few people got off here and there, but even more people were squeezed into our carriage.  Throughout our journey, the noises our train was making were quite nerve-wracking.  It sounded like our train was going to break down any minute and it seemed to have a hard time getting started again once it had stopped at a station.  Despite these noises, the train seemed to be alright.  But, as we let people off and on at the final stop before Stellenbosch, the train never got started.  It just sat there.  We were just standing there - literally a five-or-so minute train ride away from where we needed to be, and had no clue what was happening.  Someone in the carriage said that we needed to get on buses now - apparently there was something wrong with the tracks between the two stations.  So, our group filed off of the train with a few hundred other people and stood in a huge mass waiting for buses to show up.  When the buses finally did show up, there was a stampede to get to the door.  A huge crowd ran in front of the door and moved with the bus as it was backing up to insure their spot.  Because we didn’t really have any idea of what was happening, we figured that we should just follow the crowd, (something I have become quite adept at).  But this was a pretty bad idea.  It felt like my feet weren’t even on the ground there were so many people rushing towards the same place.  Somehow, we got free of the crowd and waited for the next bus.  Let me remind you that we had already been traveling for almost 3 hours and the normal trip to Cape Town only takes 1 hour.  We waited for a while longer and finally got on a bus - standing room only - and we were driven to Stellenbosch Station.  Just like the train, the bus sounded like it was going to just fall apart any time the driver put his foot on the gas - but it got us to the station without any parts falling off.  From there we walked another 25 minutes to get home.

The first year students have been on campus for a little over a week and I live in an area that also houses a bunch of first years.  Every day, huge groups of these students, all wearing exactly the same outfit, marched around singing songs, shouting, dancing and doing a variety of other really strange things.  All of this was explained Thursday night.  In a festival-type-thing known as “Vensters” (which I think means window), each housing area put on a brief ten-or-so minute show.  They danced to different pop songs and told some short story about what it means to be part of the Stellenbosch community.  Each housing area had a stage set up around campus and everyone else just got to walk around and watch the first years basically make fools of themselves.  Some of these dances were really good.  There was one group that had a lot of fancy lifts in their routine, but others were rather painful to watch.  But, all in all, it was really fun and the first years seemed to be enjoying themselves and I guess that’s all the matters.  This was my first taste of life in a big school.  The streets running through campus were packed with people, (not as many as in the crowd waiting for the bus), but still quite a lot.  It was kind of strange to think about the number of people attending this event and the number of people attending St. A’s (≈2,400).  At least 3 times as many people were walking the streets than attend St. A’s every semester.  Although I have really been enjoying the atmosphere of a big university - it has made me love and appreciate the small community at St. A’s even more.

Now, enough writing - here are some pictures!!

  The balcony where Nelson Mandela made his first speech after being released from prison in 1990.

  

On the floor of one of the rooms in the District 6 Museum they had tiles that people had written on expressing their joy, grief, pain, sorrow and a variety of other emotions in regards to District 6 and their removal from the area.  It was interesting to not only see the variety of emotions, but also the different styles of approaching the situation and the healing.

District 6 was not the only area that saw people forcibly removed from their houses.  As part of the healing and commemorating, the museum set up sheets according to location.  Survivors could sign and write messages on the various sheets.  These were really cool to see.  Some people just signed their name and put the address of where they lived, but most of the signatures expressed their thanks for the memories and good times that they had in District 6 or other areas.  Some even expressed the desire to go back.  Seeing the signatures seemed to make the whole thing more real and it made me wonder how I would feel if someone came to my door and told me that I had to leave because I was different.

  This was a huge map of District 6 on the floor of the main room in the museum.  Anyone who had lived in District 6 could write their name where their house used to be.  

  Long Street - the "main" street in Cape Town leading to the ocean!

Parliament

 St. George's Cathedral where Desmond Tutu preached.  He was a black archbishop who resided over a primarily white congregation during the height of Apartheid.  He also spoke out against the injustices of the regime.

  Part of the crowd waiting for the buses.  Add at least 150 more people to this photo before all the buses came and imagine them all running around in one huge group!!

  Please excuse the poor quality - but it was hard to take a picture when everything was moving.  But it gives you the general gist of what each housing area was doing.

Cheers!!

Katie

I'm a Survivor!!

I made it!!  I went shark cage diving on Wednesday and I have returned to Stellenbosch with all 10 fingers, 10 toes, 2 arms, 2 legs and 1 head.  In fact, I came back without even a scratch!  I wasn't exactly sure how I was going to feel seeing sharks so up close and personal, but I can honestly say that it was one of the coolest things that I have ever done in my life.  So here's how the day went.

We got picked up in front of our apartments by a man from a company called White Shark Projects.  There was around 12 or so kids from my program that went.  We drove two hours to Gansbaai, South Africa.  Wednesday has been the only day, thus far, that was cloudy and kind of cold (maybe 60º - I know - I'm very spoiled).  It even rained a little along the way.  But, the drive was still beautiful and we saw lots of mountains and got a little bit of a closer look at more rural life in South Africa.  When we arrived, they fed us breakfast and then we got on a boat and headed into the Straits of Dyer Island.  By this time the sky cleared, there was a nice breeze and the day turned out to be very nice.  We got boated out about 15 minutes and anchored at the cage which was already there from their morning trip.  We had barely been anchored 30 seconds, when a shark swam by!!  It was right there, about 6 feet away.  It just swam by like it was no big deal.  But was a huge deal!!!  That was when the excitement really started to build.  We got a brief lecture about using our heads and not doing anything stupid like sticking our hands out of the cage - and then we got started.  The cage was maybe 3 feet by 8 feet and went down in the water 7 or so feet.  The cage was attached to the boat and the top 18 inches were above the water.  That was where it stayed.  I had thought that we were going to be put in a cage and dropped down into the water, but this arrangement seemed much safer!  I also had thought we were going to get a bunch of scuba gear to help us breathe underwater, but they used a simple breath-holding method.  There was a red bar inside of the cage that was used to pull the body down.  There was another bar at the bottom that you could hook your feet around to help you stay down.  You simply took a great big breath, pulled yourself down, looked around and came up for air when necessary.  Because the water is actually kind of cold, they gave us wet suits, hoods and booties to help us stay a little warmer.  We got masks to help us see

We got into the cage 5 at a time.  The first group that went got to see a lot because the shark kept swiming by.  The second group saw it a few times, but were in the water waiting for a long time.  I was in the third group and we had one of the best turns.  In the beginning, the shark was about 10 or 12 feet in front of the cage.  I was definitely struggling to see it, but I saw it maybe 3 or 4 times.  It usually just swam by the bait (whole tuna heads on a line attached to a float) or just swam by down a little deeper.  The water was pretty clear, but I just couldn't see it.  There was also a huge school of fish that hung out in front of our cage that were blocking the view and were also very distracting.  We waited for a while and nothing happened.  It was getting really cold and 2 of the girls got out.  I almost did, but I wanted to see the shark one more time.  I am so glad that I decided to stay.   The girls had barely gotten out of the cage, when the crew member with the bait yelled for us to go down.  I'm not exactly sure what happened then, but all I know is that the shark was literally in front of our faces.  I think it had grabbed onto the bait and to kind of flailing around, but it's belly was right there.  It even hit our cage at one point!!  We got a few more good looks, but nothing as exciting as that.  Although it was really exhilarating to see the shark so close, it was still really neat to see them above water.  At one point, when the last group was going, the shark lifted its head out of the water and we got to see one of its eyes.  That was really creepy, but awesome!  Throughout the day, we saw 5 different Great White Sharks.  I know at least one of them was female.  They ranged from 2.3 to 3.7ish meters.  We went during the low season for shark visibility.  The winter time here (so June to September) is the peak season.

After about 4 hours, we headed back to shore, got back into our bus and drove the two hours back home.  None of us could really believe what we had just done, but we all decided that it was totally awesome!!  For the rest of the evening, we raved about the experience and made jokes about only having 9 fingers left or nearly getting attacked.  At the spontaneous braai that happens nearly every night, we convinced a bunch of other people that the experience was definitely worth it.

Some Fun Facts!!

• South Africa is known as a shark "hot spot" and the densest population was in Dyer Island,  South Africa (which is where we were)
• Great White's have the longest recorded migratory range of any marine creature
• One shark was recorded going 22,000 km from Dyer Island to Australia in 9 months
• Sharks are at the very top of the food chain - they are known as apex predators
• Their average length is 6m (18feet)
• They lead relatively lonely and solitary lives
• Sharks detect electrical fields made by marine creatures which helps them locate prey
• Sharks are ovoviviparous - this means that eggs grow inside of the female, hatch there and grow for a while until they are ready to be born
• Great White Sharks as well as the sharks in general are super endangered
• The company that we went through does research about shark population size and sex while giving tourists a great experiences
• They also work with other groups to work to protect this amazing species
• Sharks are caught as by-catch and are killed for their dorsal fin

Some Pictures!!
  The boat ride out.  We were going very fast and bouncing quite a lot.

  The cage and baitline!

Shark!!!!

I really liked when the sharks came out of the water enough so we could see part of the fin.  At one point when I was in the cage, we could see fins coming directly in our direction - it was very thrilling!

  Feelin' classy!!

The sharks were fun to look at, but we also had a beautiful view of the coastline.  

  The guy mixing the chum - he spent the whole day chopping fish heads with a shovel and dumping it into the water to attract the sharks.

 On a more serious note - on our drive to and from, we saw some more of the Township life, with precarious houses that look super unfit to live in, high population density, trash and just an overall sense of poor sanitation and underdevelopment.  I saw men and children picking through a trash pile on the side of the road.  Also, I have witnessed a young man picking out of a trash can and saving what looked to be someone else's leftovers in a plastic container.  This was totally new to me, and a little discomforting.  I'm not sure what the women in this picture are waiting for, or if they just needed a rest in the shade that is ever so rare, but it has been very interesting to see a little bit of how the rest of the population (not just university students) lives.  It has made me even more interested in learning more and given me the desire to do a Township homestay for a few nights.

  Just a pretty picture!!

Throughout the whole day, Finding Nemo references were made.  Although I kept my eyes peeled, I didn't see Bruce - the shark.  I know it's kind of the wrong area to be looking, but as sharks are very migratory, I thought I would try.

So, in conclusion - some wise words: I am a nice shark, not a mindless eating machine. If I am to change this image, I must first change myself. Fish are friends, not food.

In the next installment - find out about my walking tour of Cape Town, learn a little bit about the history of the area and what happened my first train trip in South Africa!!

Cape Town and other Exciting Things

On Sunday, the International Office brought half of the international students to Cape Town for the day.  (They brought the other half on Saturday.)  We went to the Victoria and Alfred Waterfront, which is named after the king and queen of England.  The Waterfront is a fancy part of Cape Town that had a snazzy mall, touristy shops, boat cruises, markets and other attractions.  We were only there for a few hours, but I ate lunch on a bench overlooking the harbor, looked around a food market that had a lot of vendors with free samples, and went into a craft market that was selling a lot of local crafts.  This was my favorite part.  Each stall sold goods such as fabric, clothes, beads, art, sculptures and a lot of other crafts handmade by local tribesmen/women.  They were all so beautiful, but they wouldn't let me take any pictures.  The colors were so vibrant and the skill involved amazing.  I'm definitely going back and finding some beautiful piece of art to hang in my room at home!!  Then we went to the beach!!  We were driving along the coast, and the water is a blue/turquoise in color.  It looks like it would be super warm, but it actually wasn't.  I'm not sure how cold the water was, but it felt like I was back in Maine at the beach in the fall.

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!

Middle Earth?!

On Saturday, January 26th, myself and about ten other kids from my program decided to hike Stellenbosch Mountain.  We can see the mountain from the area we live in as well as from places all over campus.  It looked easy enough - just one peak and then we would be at the summit.  Boy were we wrong!!  Behind the one peak that we can see, there are about four other peaks that we had to climb before we finally got to the can-marker at the top.  I went ahead to a 6th peak, (which I think was the true summit, but I'm not sure), with a boy from my group and did some moderate rock climbing to get to the top of that one.  I'm not sure of the exact elevation, but I googled the mountain and it seems to be about 3,500 feet.  Some other kids that live in our apartment complex hiked it the other day and they said that they thought the trip was a total of 25km - or about 15.5 miles.  We left our building at 6:10am and got to the base by 6:40.  We were at the top by 11:30ish.  We spent an hour or so at the top eating and enjoying the beautiful views before we started the trek down.  We got back down to the bottom around 4:30ish.  The hiking itself was pretty challenging and very different from what I'm used to back in the States.  For one thing, there was no shade and the sun, by the afternoon, was very, very hot.  Also, we had to do some minor to moderate bouldering/scrambling up and down some rock faces which was pretty exciting.  The final leg down was very steep and the path was covered in a loose grave-type substance, so the way down was much slower.  But, we finally made it down and I had the pleasure of swimming in a watering hole-type lake/pond/puddle at the base.  It was one of the best feelings ever!  I also had the pleasure of picking leeches off of one of the girl's feet after we were done swimming.

Some pictures of the hike!!

Gear!!!  I brought about three and a half liters of water and only had about a liter left by the end of the day! I also probably used up a quarter of my sunscreen!

  The hikers!  All of the people in this picture came to South Africa with the same program I am doing.  I met a few of them at the airport in Boston and I met most of the rest at the airport in Amsterdam.  Out of the 11 - only 3 didn't make it to the top.

The mountain!!  This was the view as we were approaching the mountain.  The sun is rising, and some of the hike up was (luckily) semi-shaded.

                 

The view from half way up.  We could see the ocean almost the whole way up and down which was very exciting.  We also saw the very tip of South Africa and someone thought they saw Antarctica - but I'm pretty sure they were dreaming!  It was kind of a cool experience to see the very end of a continent.

  It's kind of hard to see, but there are three dots on the flat rock towards the top of the photo.  That is me and one other boy at the "true summit" with the marker.

The whole way up, I kept thinking about how much the mountain looked like Middle Earth and Lord of the Rings.  I was talking to one of the kids and he said that Tolkien grew up in South Africa and it must have been where he got his inspiration from.  Whether this is where the inspiration came from or not, I still felt like a hobbit running away from orcs or some other terrifying creature!

 

More of the view!  Stellenbosch is the "Napa Valley" of Africa, so on all sides there were vineyards.  

We made it!!!  For the whole way, I kept thinking about how gross my feet were going to be because I was hiking in sandals.  I was very pleased with myself with the amount of dirt on my feet.  Although it looks like a tan, most of the brown came off.

  We were all waiting for this moment!!  Water had never felt so refreshing.

Pictures!!!

I finally remembered my camera to upload photos to my computer and then post them - so here are some photos of where I live and what I've been doing!!

                 

      

This first picture is the view out of my bedroom window!!  I live in a kind of "gated community" that has apartment style housing for international students, first years and other students.  The next picture is half of my bedroom.  I have my own bathroom and my room is attached to the smallest kitchen I have ever seen - but my bed is comfortable and I have a killer view - so that makes up for the less than perfect cooking space.

This is one of the mountains that we can see from the area of campus I live in.  It's called Stellenbosch Mountain and some friends and I decided that we were going to climb it on one of our days off (more to come).  I haven't taken a lot of photos of town or campus because I never remember my camera.  But one of these days I will and I'll be sure to share them!

Molweni!

Molweni!!  For the past two days, myself and the 400ish other International and Post Graduate students have had orientation.  We've had presentations on things like safety, financies, classes and other logistical items.  This morning, however, we had two crash courses in the two languages prevalent in Stellenbosch and in the Western Cape.  The first is is Xhosa, which is a form of clicks.  It is the 2nd most popular language in South Africa after Zulu.  The presenter was spectacular.  He had amazing energy and had us singing within the first two minutes.  The language was very fascinating to listen to, but the clicks we had to make were very challenging.

Here's a little of what I learned!!
Molo - greeting used for one person
Ewé - yes (pronounced like "away")
Molweni - greeting more than one person
Igama ndinguKatie - My name is Katie
Enkosi - thank you

Then we had a lesson in Afrikaans, which is a language with Dutch roots.  There was a lot of phlegm involved when pronouncing words that started with a g, but it was nice to learn a few words to help get by for a little while.  Afrikaans is the language spoken most in Stellenbosch so the words will come in very handy.

Here's some of what I learned!!
Hello.  My naam is Katie.
Sonskyn - sunshine
Kan ek vir jou 'n drankie koop? - Can I buy you a drink?
Waar is die naaste badkamer? - Where is the nearest bathroom?
Dankie - Thank you

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We've had a lot of free time - which is something that I'm told we need to get used to.  South Africans have a very different lifestyle than we do back in the US.  They are much more relaxed.   My resident director here said that by the end of the semester, we will all be pros at doing nothing!!  For example, I spent yesterday afternoon in the sun, reading and playing soccer with a 5 year-old boy from across the street.  This is basically what we've done every afternoon for the past few days.

A few nights ago I attended my first braai.  A braai is the Afrikaans word for barbecue.  Everyone from my apartment building and the others in my area come with food and drinks and we all just sit around a table for hours.  It was very fun and I got to meet a whole bunch of new people.  I met students from France, Australia, Germany, a few other European countries as well as the US.  Tonight, the PGIO (Post Graduate and International Office) is hosting their own braai at the Town Hall for all of us.  It should be really fun - and I'm pretty sure it's free food which makes it even better.

Cooking for myself is something relatively new - and cooking for myself on what looks like a toster oven with hot plate type burners glued to the top is really new.  I currently have no pots or pans in my kitchen, but I went to one of my friend's apartments last night and cooked an egg!!  It was very exciting - but took about 10 minutes to cook all the way through.

I keep forgetting to bring my camera to the building where I have internet access, but pretty soon I will have internet in my room and (hopefully) I'll be able to upload some pictures.  It's beautiful here.  The sun, the mountains, the architecture - everything is just lovely.

We have free time until classes start in a week, and we're going to the beach one day, Cape Town another day and then on some hikes for the rest of the time - so expect pictures and more stories soon!!!

Happy Snow!!

Love,
Someone with a Minor Sunburn!