You know you were bit by a bug when....

Tuesday was my birthday!!! On Monday night the girls in the back house and my flatmates surprised me with a home made cake and balloons and they sang. It was great! :D I had my classes, which weren’t anything special, but it was SOOOO hot outside, probably the hottest day so far, after my classes I had flowers and a keychain waiting for me! Then for dinner Anna made me Ostrich and surprised me with PRESENTS! THEN we went bowling and while I was busy doing something they then surprised me with Cake from this place called Charly’s Bakery….ughhhh soooooo good! It was straight chocolate with fresh flowers and glitter on top! SO GOOD! Bowling was fun, they gave me a free drink it was coloured red, white, and blue. ha After we went to tiger tiger it was GREAT! They announced it was my birthday and I was wearing a tiara all night so I got free drinks and a huge bottle of champaign. :D We danced till like one thirty and then my flatmates and I went home. Ha

Wednesday I SOMEHOW managed to wake up for my 8am, it was rough but do-able. I had class all day and then for our core seminar we went to Kaylethsia where we spoke with TAC (Treatment Action Campaign) leaders. TAC is a volunteer organization for HIV/AIDS. Currently HIV/AIDS is one of the biggest issues surrounding South Africans, statistics: one in four people in South Africa are HIV positive. They also spoke with us about domestic violence and other very interesting information. It was so much to take in and I absolutely loved it! The main leader who we spoke with has spoken to some very famous people including President Obama and Oprah, so needless to say I felt extremely privileged to have the chance to ask him questions. Some of us got our picture with the TAC leaders at the end of our discussion.

Thursday was my day of catch up, where I literally locked myself in the library working on my readings and papers. It’s weird because in order to print you have to add money to your account. Printing is going to be expensive, I can already tell.

Friday after classes we all got ready for our weekend excursion, where we went to High Africa is Worcester. It was about a 2 hour drive because we had to pick up the other students in my program who go to Stellenbosch (a university 45 minutes outside of the city). We left at 4 and instead of it taking 2 hours it took us 4.5 hours, because our driver got incredibly lost! About an hour and a half into the ride the driver asked if any of us needed to get anything, because that was the last store we were going to see for the weekend (to put into perspective where we were ha) We ended up stopping at a beer distributor for directions and took pictures and ran through a field ha. It was so random but it was an adventure. At one point I called Andrea and told her that we were lost, and she then informed me that Kevin was out looking for us. Haha When we finally made it we were fed, after, we were all pretty exhausted so we just star gazed (the milky way galaxy was AMAZING! I seriously could have stared at the stars all night)

Saturday we woke up early for breakfast and then canoeing. Anna was my partner and we made it somewhat competitive by staying in front the whole way ha. There are 5 of us who are in sororities so 2 tridelts and Anna and I made it a “greek” competition, it was somewhat hysterical. I definitely felt like I was in Africa on that river. It reminded me of the movie Anaconda. Haha. We canoed down the Breede River 7.5KM, half way we stopped at these rapids and played in the water! It was fun until I cut my knee on a rock ha. After canoeing we ate lunch and then we went to the Wineland Municipality where we met the mayor and he spoke with us about rural issues. He also gave us 12 bottles of wine as a present. We then went to a wineland farm where a worker spoke with us. He didn’t speak English so the counsellor who we were with translated for us. We found out the farm supervisors make R600 every two weeks ($60) and then regular workers make R400 where women only make R300. Imagine living off of only $30 every two weeks… They are also sometimes paid on the DUB system (being paid in alcohol) which causes many more problems for survival. The majority of families who live on the farm have been there for generations. Primary school children have to walk 5km to the nearest school… towards the end of our talk with the worker all the different families and children were sitting with us and at the end we got our picture with them. It was somewhat of an awkward moment, because a little girl came up to me and there was a teenage boy who pushed her away and proceeded to put his arm around me. While we were getting our picture taken he kept attempting to kiss my cheek. I was so uncomfortable, eventually the boy managed to kiss my cheek, Kevin, who was taking the picture just looked at me with lit up eyes. The boy told me his name and then went on to say that he “loved me” he was probably 12 years old and smelled of alcohol… when I got on the bus Kevin and I talked about the experience. For dinner we had a braai, the food was great. We spent the majority of the evening sitting by the fire, star gazing. It was beautiful and relaxing. Half of the group went off in to “Crash” a wedding being hosted in middle of no where. They never ended up making it. Ha

Sunday I woke up early to go rock climbing. I thought I would be okay to not put on bug spray because I was going to put in on after breakfast….boy was that a BAD IDEA! I was outside for 30minutes and in those 30minutes the entire right side of my body proceeded to be bit alive. They weren’t bad at first but ended up swelling. (at the moment they actually hurt, and I have been watching them because the swelling on my leg is continuing to grow, I have taken Benadryl and put on lots of Benadryl cream (I know mom, you were right...thanks for the medicine cabinet) if they don’t stop hurting and the swelling doesn’t go down I am going to have to go to the doctors…ughhhh haha) After breakfast we went on the high ropes course and it was a lot of fun, I went first only because I was petrified and couldn’t wait lol. It was a lot of fun though. We spent the afternoon reading and eventually returned to Cape Town, this time we didn’t get lost (thankfully!)! When we got home we didn’t have power AGAIN so we had to walk to get it… On our walk I noticed a sign from the daily paper (every day they post the major headlines from the different papers onto the light poles, I must admit I love reading them) and it said, “Obama sets Iraq pullout date” when I saw the sign I was like “what?”…we all felt so disconnected. As much as we talk about global issues on a daily basis (another thing I love) we still can have that feeling of not really knowing what’s going on back at home.

Today I after classes I went to SHAWCO, and I wasn’t really in the mood to go. Maybe it was because I was tired or the hot weather, either way all I wanted to do was go to bed. Class was fun though, we worked on an English passage about African Elephants. The kids enjoyed it. Half way through the session one of the students came in really late and when he did another boy stormed out of the class. I wasn’t really sure what was going on so I went after him and he told me that he didn’t want to be near the other boy I asked him why and he said it was because he made him angry. I asked him if he sat on the other side of the class if he would come back, eventually he said yes. I was curious as to why the one boy didn’t like the other, considering he had such a big reaction and was actually going to leave. I most likely will never find out but it just makes me wonder….

Today I felt myself completely forgetting that I was in South Africa. When I look at a map it makes it feel like I am so far away especially when I have no idea what’s going on in anyone’s lives back at home… but I am now into my routine and have gotten use to how things work here…everything is becoming more comfortable and not as much of a shock. There are still days when I can’t get over the fact that I am in SOUTH AFRICA, but then I have days like today where everything feels so normal and I forget…

Until next time, cheers!

picture captions:

bowling on my bday, from TAC on Wednesday, from HIGH AFRICA at the winelands farm, before canoeing (hiding) ;D, rock climbing