40 cent fortune cookies

Some things I forgot to mention last blog-

On Sunday when we went on our tour we also went to a township, Ocean View (known for being a “colored” township), where they fed us and performed for us. A few teenagers showed off their break-dancing skills and it was sooo impressive!

NEW:

So Tuesday we spent all day in UCT orientation again where they taught us some Xhosa. We went to a chinese restaurant for dinner..funny story: you have to purchase fortune cookies, they are NOT free. We accidently stole them and had to run back to pay for them when we realized we stole them..haha ops. Then we went out to Tiger Tiger, which is a dance club in Clairemont (a different district of the city). It was students night, and it was a blast. The music here is a lot like home, except they play mainly Trans music.

Wednesday we had more orientation…where we went to another township, Kyliesha (known for being the largest township as well as being a “black” township), we explored SHAWCO’s (student health and welfare center organization) site. It was an eye opener and probably one of the saddest things I have ever seen. Everyone lives in shacks made from whatever they can find- usually broken plywood and tin for roofs. The township stretches for miles and miles, over 1 million people live within that township alone. We also had our core course where we learned the political history of South Africa by a professor at the University of Western Cape. Later, Anna (a girl in my program) and I went out to meet up with her friends, where they gave us presents; a thing of pepper spray that looks like lipstick, and a stun gun! Ha..

Thursday we were able to FINALLY have a break from running around, so we went to the beach! We went to Muizenberg again, I actually spent the whole time in the water because it was so hot and windy. The University then hosted a Braai (cookout) for International Students and Freshers (freshman) it was decent. We had a house party that night with all of our friends which turned out to be a lot of fun.

Friday we had to register for classes- and by register I mean wait in FIVE HOURS worth of lines!!!!! It was such a long, unorganized process. The whole process is so completely unorganized, and annoying I hope I don’t have to change my classes. There were only FOUR courses which I could actually take, long long story so I am sparing the details, but SOME HOW the classes fit perfectly together. Except one course over laps forty five minutes of my core seminar course so I am working it out with Kevin at the moment. I don’t know what days or when my classes are yet, I just know the period (its werid they do periods) aren’t the same, so I am taking:
Philosophy; Politics; Words, deeds, bones and things (social anthropology course), and The New millennium in historical perspective (history course); as well as the core course- Contemporary Issues in South Africa.

My courses are going to be so hard, Andrea told me that it was going to be a lot of work! Ugh-so much for taking it easy. Usually when you study abroad you take joke classes, but in my case, UCT doesn’t offer such courses. In each department, they offer FIVE to SEVEN courses each semester and you make your schedule to that. There isn’t a cap to classes, how it works is you go to class early and if you don’t get a seat you have to miss class for the day. There won’t ever be enough seats for students in the courses, you just have to hope you get there early enough to have a seat for the day. I know it’s so messed up. Haha. In my classes since they are very general there will be between 450-500 students…next week we have to go to each department to find out our time tables (times of classes)

Today we went to IZICO museum for our core course, it was interesting, but my favorite part of the day was when we went to Guguletau (another township) for lunch. We had lamb, chicken, pork, sausage, bean salad, potato salad (didn’t eat-they don’t refrigerate mayo here), fluff, and salsa. We had to eat with our hands and it was very messy. My favorite, along with everyone else’s, was the lamb!

The FOOD here is very spicy, and flavorful.. so different, I have basically tried everything put in front of me.

All of us roommates are exhausted at the moment from being so busy the past few days.

Oh important update: I might not be coming now until the 30th of June, due to the fact that our finals may go till then. UCT told us not to plan on leaving until then and they told us we shouldn’t book our flight until after we find out our finals schedule, however, they don’t inform us of our finals until around the end of April early May. All I can do is laugh at this process.
Well it’s time to catch up on some sleep aka nap time.

It is sooooooo hot out. I know home is freezing, but here is sweltering. It’s so hot we can’t sleep because we are sweating to death. It’s worse than living in Bruce without air conditioner. We are going through a heat wave and it’s at least 90 degrees of baking sun. We are all moving so slow.

I also have found a lizard in my room, but I can’t catch him. So, I have named him Paso haha
Anna is moving in to my house, since we have an extra room, and I convinced her haha. Plus she is always here anyway.

Oh and my one roommate Tyler is getting his own section to my blog- everything that could go wrong would go wrong to him. He has gotten clipped by a mini-bus (aka super super sketchy cab that I would never get in) and it destroyed his elbow. He also was on his way to meet us at the beach on Thursday and he was in a minibus that got pulled over but the driver tried to outrun the cops. AND the best but worst story of all is that he was talking to someone on the street last night and when he walked away the cops dragged him into an alleyway because they thought he bought drugs off of the person he was talking to. The cops obviously didn’t find anything because he hadn’t bought drugs but that didn’t stop them from basically doing a strip search first. We are wondering what is going to happen to him next….so stay tuned in..


UNTIL NEXT TIME!!!!!!!