Olympic Size Woes

This is terrible. The hardest thing so far about South Africa is not being able to watch the Olympics. For many of you this would not be such a big deal, but I live for the Olympics. Every time they come around I start getting excited months in advance and obsess over them for 2 weeks. Last summer Olympics I went Beijing time for 2 weeks, sleeping during the day and staying up all night to make sure I saw everything live. Here the winter Olympics are not that big of a deal. Winter sports aren’t really South Africa’s thing and they only have 2 competing athletes. There are 15-30 minute recaps of the previous day’s events on TV, but it’s not the same and TV isn’t always accessible. Internet is the most annoying because every time you find a website with live events it tells you that you must be in a certain country in order to watch it.

However this hasn’t be good enough reason for Pablo and me to not obsess over the Olympics. He is constantly updating the results online and we will sit and watch people’s names and their flags alternate on a list. He, although a Mexican citizen, pretends to be from Norway or Sweden when rooting during events. It was horrible missing out on the big US hockey win over Canada, but I have mixed feelings over it anyways. Although I’m a USA hockey supporter, I have a soft spot for Canada because it means more to them and I hate seeing Brodeur lose. This is extremely disheartening because with his pull from net I fear that his legacy may have been affected, but at least I can now root for the US without having this fear. We refuse to miss the gold medal game and will hopefully be watching the US and Canada meeting for a rematch this coming Sunday.




Winter sports aren’t really of interest here, especially since its summer. This country is obsessed with other sports as those of you who have seen Invictus may know; the black people love football, the whites love rugby, and they both agree on cricket coming in behind them. This has been interesting getting to know some different sports while being here. I got a season pass to the rugby game and have gone to the 2 home games that they have had. These have been pretty cool experiences because they are the best college team in the country by far. The first game they won 72-0 and gave much to celebrate about. Although I’m not that into rugby, I tried to cheer and enjoy it like I was. Cricket has been an interest to me since I have come here and although I’ve only watch some on TV and had limited firsthand experience during recess at Lynedoch, I think I’ve gotten to understand it. It is actually very similar to baseball and yet still very different. One night I expressed my lack of knowledge to a South African and got an hour lesson on the rules of cricket and he even gave me a book on it. It makes a lot more sense when you see it played rather than drawn on a napkin.
















In conclusion, please people appreciate the massive amounts of coverage that you get because me and Pablo would kill to just be able to see some biathlon or speed skating! I can’t believe Sven blew it as much as that reporter who asked him who he was!

Week 4! 2/22- Medals!

Today was a wonderful day with the 2nd grade. Over the past couple of weeks we have definitely gotten a chance to know the learners pretty well and have started to get what works best. In physical education we went on an imaginary swim around the school, which really was just to tire them out a bit, but they definitely enjoyed it.

After seeing how well Mrs. Jephtha controlled the class last week, we took a page out of her book and made the format of our lesson similar to how she taught her lesson; they responded to this extremely well. For the first time they were able to understand, which then led to them being excited about the simple lesson and being able to participate in it. This was a gratifying moment because the participation signified that they were able to understand us and excited to show us how intelligent they were. This has been my goal from the beginning and made me feel pretty good in achieving it. Now that we know what works, it will be easier to build from there to make our lessons and teach them a lot of cool things.

Later on during our reading period, since we have been loosely focusing on the Olympics the past three weeks in our lessons, we made medals. This activity was fun because we told them that they all deserved medals and they could make the medal for anything that they thought they deserved it in. At first this was a little lost in translation and they just made their medals similar to the one we had made as an example, but eventually turned into what they wanted. After they finished making their medals we called them up one by one to the front to award them their medal. I was wary about this because I was worried that this might take a while and the class might get restless just watching. Although I was worried, we thought it would be cool to give it to them as if they really were winners. We decided to do it, so we called them up to the front, had them stand up on a chair, one of us put their medal around their neck while announcing what they had made their medal for, and everyone clapped. The class loved this. They all were sitting there so excited for their own moment in front of the class and even were respectful after they had received theirs. This was awesome seeing all of their huge smiles lighting up the room. It was also fun to see the learners the rest of the day wearing their medals around school. It was not hard to see the pride that they had taken in their medals and themselves when you saw them. This is an activity that I will definitely remember as something that was pretty cool and I hope their pride will last as long as the memory I will hold of it.

My Address!

People have been getting a lot of mail lately and it made me realize that i never gave anyone my address, so here it is:

(the first is for letters, the second's for packages):
Evan Dewey
P.O. Box 3271
MATIELAND
Stellenbosch, South Africa
7602

International Office - Wilcocks Building
Stellenbosch University
Victoria Street
Stellenbosch, South Africa
7600

Feel free to mail me love letters, but don't feel obligated.

Week 3! Feb. 15th- Skating!

Today went a lot better than last week with the 2nd grade. We have definitely gotten to know each other better over the past couple of weeks and we have been able to mold our lessons better and better to suit them. In gym we realized since they have so much energy to use it. We used their energy more constructively and worked to tire them out a little bit. We ran and we danced and they seemed to have a good time doing it.

We asked Mrs. Jephtha to teach the life orientation lesson today so that we could sit in and watch how she controls the class. She is amazing. Every single one of the learners sits quietly and patiently when she has control. It was such a relief to see them in this setting where they are able to understand the language better because they are so eager to learn and participate. I’m not sure if they don’t act this way with us because they don’t understand what we are saying or whether they are just too self conscious about their linguistic abilities to answer. I am once again motivated by seeing this to get that kind of response out of them by the time we are done; they are hungry for knowledge and I am determined to satisfy that hunger.

During the reading time, we talked a little bit about ice skating and then did a fun activity with them. We taped wax paper over their feet and showed them how it makes them able to glide on the carpet. This is very similar to how skating is, so we went on an imaginary ice skate. This seemed like a simple idea, all we needed were some feet, wax paper, tape, a carpet, and a little imagination. However, we didn’t stop to think of how many little feet we would have to cover and how long this would take. The three of us went to work ripping, cutting, and taping. Mrs. Jephtha helped control the class while we did this. The process took quite a while and by the time the final foot was done the first couple kids had lost theirs. We took the kids whose feet were covered to the teachers’ longue to skate and glide. The wax paper here is quite thinner than in America, so it consistently was ripping and falling off. Two of us had to stay in the classroom and do repairs. These repairs never stopped, so we never stopped. It was all worth the work though because when they were coming back for repairs they had the biggest smiles on their faces. I kept on asking them if they had fun and they would respond with a big smile and nod. This was extremely rewarding to find a way to offer them a new experience that they have never been able to experience before. Although I never got to see them play, we were all completely drenched in sweat by the end, and again I was exhausted, this day felt like a victory.

Facing Reality

In class last friday Friday, Grant took us on a little field trip to a nearby farm. The walk was about a mile and we took the route that many of the children walk to school. He wanted to bring us to see the conditions that the children and their families live in. The walk there was an eye opener on its own. The walk consisted of crossing train tracks that don’t have the crossing arms to signify the train is coming, crossing a very busy highway, and walking down a narrow road without sidewalks. This is a route that my mother wouldn’t want me walking now at 21 years old never mind the 6 or 7 year olds that do it every day.

When we arrived in the little area of about 5 or 6 houses, we met with an elderly woman named Kathleen who lived in one of the houses. Grant fosters one of her grandsons and pays the school fees for her other grandchildren as well, so he felt comfortable asking her if we could see her house. After she told us her story of her life living on the farm, she brought us inside. It was easy to see that she took a lot of pride in her house and family. She loved showing us pictures of her grandchildren and telling us how well they were doing in school. She was a lovely woman, but unfortunately the living situation wasn’t as great. Her house was made up of 3 rooms that were probably 15 by 15 for 3 people, which isn’t too bad. However in the past the house had had 10 people living in it and that definitely isn’t okay. The toilets are outside and she pointed out how she had asked many times for the farmer to put bathrooms in the house because of how terrible it is for an old lady to have to walk outside to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night. This is how the workers live, making about $100 a month while the farm owner is a millionaire with 5 houses all over the world. This farmer was one that treated his workers better than most or he wouldn’t have allowed us to look around. Still better than most is does not translate into a comfortable living. We all thanked Kathleen and shared some hugs as we were leaving and we could tell that our visit had made her day and ours.

On the way back we stopped in a little chapel on the farm that the families worship in. Grant wanted us to know how integral religion is to their lives because it gives them hope of earning something better in the end. He told us how this is a place where the families who live on this farm come to pray for miracles like food for dinner or for sick family members to get better. Sitting in this place made me feel stupid for 90% of my prayers that have to do with my favorite sports teams winning or their not being traffic on the highway. We all just sat there and reflected on what we have seen and learned over the past month. This for many was a pretty emotional time, but nice to compose all our thoughts and emotions in this peaceful place.

Our spirits were lifted a little bit when we returned back to find the entire student body in the gym watching a Valentine’s Day fashion show. The children were all dressing in red and pink and had lined the walls of the gym. Music was playing and everyone was dancing. Then some of the littlest learners would do their little catwalk down the middle of the gym and the entire school would cheer. It was adorable seeing all the little guys trying to act sassy and put on a show for everyone. You could see how much their face would light up when the cheers would come from the whole student body. It was just the pick me up we needed.

Saturday was a little bit of a different story however. 2 of the students at Lynedoch’s mother had been drunk and been hit by a car and died a week ago, so there was a funeral being held. Alcoholism is a huge problem in this area ranking among the highest in the world and 2nd highest amount of fetal alcohol syndrome in the world. Grant had mentioned that he would like it if some of us would take some time out to go and arranged a ride for us. We met around 7:30 and headed for one of the farms. The funerals here are held in their home because of the lack of financial resources to pay for something better. When we arrived, we quickly realized that Grant hadn’t lied the day before when he said that Kathleen’s farm had a nicer living situation than most. The first thing we noticed before even reaching their house was that the group of 8 or 10 houses dumped their garbage in a ditch right next to their houses. This created a very strong stench and also attracted a lot of flies. I had never experienced anything like it before. The flies were 100 times worse than anything I’ve ever endured and there was never a moment that I was there and I couldn’t feel at least 5 flies crawling on me somewhere. We walked up to the house, were invited inside, and were surprised to see the open casket sitting right there in front of us. We walked up showing our respect and could tell that they had worked to put her face back together after the accident she had been in. We stood right outside the door during the service because there wasn’t room inside for us. The principal of Lynedoch went in at some point and explained in Afrikaans who we were and why we were there because we could tell people were confused what the group of white people was doing there. They were honored that people from across the world would come to show their respect and we were told it made her life seem more valuable because of our presence. This was a little uncomfortable for us getting attention when we were supposed to be honoring the life of this woman. Something interesting that Mr. Janssen pointed out to us was her son, Jonathan’s, reluctance to be a part of the service and stayed distant from it. He explained that this is a survival tactic that people here use because pain is such a frequent occurrence in their lives. They distance their emotions, so that they don’t have to feel the pain, but unfortunately also end up losing out on feelings of happiness as well. When they were processing out they asked us to lead the casket and then the hearse to the end of the road. This again was an uncomfortable moment, but we honored their wishes and did as they asked. This was quite an experience and something that I don’t think any of us will soon forget.

Culture Shock at Its Finest

So last night we went to a bar to watch the Arsenal/Liverpool game. It was a big football game so the bar was packed. I was a little hungry, so I ordered nachos with cheese. I was really excited about this because we haven’t been able to find nachos anywhere. They came and we all dug in. Immediately we realized something wasn’t quite right. Under the pile of melted cheese, salsa, jalepenos, and other nacho goodness were cheese Doritos. I like Doritos, but not under salsa and cheese. The salsa was sweeter than ours as well, so that wasn’t very good either. A disappointing experience to say the least.

A Rougher Day- Week #2 February 8th

Today the second grade was a little bit rougher than last week was. I came in very excited to work with the learners again. I had felt like we had used what we had learned from experiencing them the first week to better prepare for our day and fix it to work better with them. When physical education started, they all circled up and listened well when we were doing stretches. Then when we moved on to our activities they started to become a little difficult to contain. We tried to explain what we were doing and they seemed to get it. However, there were a couple of learners that were determined not going to pay attention or follow directions. This week again, I was not sure whether this was because they were overly excited, did not understand us, or were just trying to take advantage of the situation. These few kids then distracted the other children and drew them out of the activities as well. Eventually, no one was following directions and it seemed like chaos that we were trying to contain.

Pumle was involved in pretty much all the trouble that happened during this period and was getting on my nerves. I don’t think that he was the instigator, but was constantly being harassed. I noticed that he was slightly disadvantage from the other learners because of the condition of his foot (seemed like it had been burned badly in the past and hadn’t healed properly. A couple of other boys would taunt him until he got angry, run away, and then since his foot was in bad shape he would not be able to catch up. I tried to discipline these boys, but I’m not really quite sure how I am supposed to discipline them. They seemed to be aware of this and continued to take advantage of the situation. I tried to have a chat with Pumle about this, but he was not willing to talk very much. Although he wasn’t talking to me, he was unable to hide the fact that he was upset by this. I’m not completely sure of what is going on, but am pretty sure that he is not completely innocent in all of this either. I have come to realize that it’s not usually coincidence when one person is constantly involved in all the trouble that is around.

Later in their reading time, we made up a lesson on the Olympics and, more specifically, skiing and snowboarding in the Winter Olympics. I learned from last week that I was not sure whether they were able to understand what I was trying to explain to them, so I made a PowerPoint presentation with a lot of cool pictures to keep their attention. For this lesson we moved to Grant’s classroom to use the projector, this change of scenery along with the use of the projector caused them to be very excited. By the time they sat down, they were already being pretty loud. We quieted them a little bit, but weren’t able to find silence. I started with my presentation and they seemed to think it was pretty cool; I was right when I thought the pictures would interest them. I felt pretty satisfied because I had spent a very long time looking for interesting pictures to include. Even though they were into it, they would get very excited by every new slide and erupt in yelling and screaming. This was a bitter sweet moment: they liked it, but it was causing them to once again be out of control. I then showed them some YouTube videos of skiing and snowboarding tricks. This was the only time that I had silence all day from them. They were mesmerized by these videos and were amazed. This was an extremely satisfying moment. Then when it was over, we took them on an imaginary ski trip. They enjoyed this, but when we started skiing it made a whole lot of noise and we needed to end it very quickly. After, we did a coloring project and as it went on they again spiraled out of control. The three of us then just worked the whole time to keep them in some kind of order and prayed for the period to end soon. By the time they left, we were completely exhausted and we all basically collapsed in the teacher’s lounge. As we worked there, everyone kept on telling us that they could hear our class from all different places in the school. We were a little embarrassed and hoped we hadn’t ruined anyone’s classes with our noise. We felt like we were defeated and were a little disappointed in our efforts. We did not really know what went wrong and for the rest of the day discussed how we would be able to get them excited in a more constructive way.

These feeling of exhaustion and defeat carried on for the rest of the day. As other people headed outside during our lunch, we hid inside because of our embarrassment. Then with about 10 minutes left until yoga, I decided to go outside. I saw one of the girls in my class and went over to talk to her. She was very cute and we all joked around, laughing at my expense. A couple other girls in my class joined in and I was having a good time. This moment caused all of those feelings I had been feeling to drift away and again remember how lucky I am to be able to work with these kids and, even through chaos, how much fun it really is being here. I went back inside for yoga with a big smile on my face and one in my soul as well. This was the feeling that I tried to take with me when I left. Then when I saw Pumle at the train station, I wanted to go over and experience him without the other boys bothering him and with me in a better mood. Although he had frustrated me all day, I was able to laugh, enjoy this time, and remember that all of these children really are special, even when they are annoying.

Jeff took a picture while I was changing for yoga.

I then went home, collapsed into my bed, and fell asleep for a few hours.

Note: None of these pictures depict by any means the chaos that went on. Hard to believe all these cute little kids could be so crazy.

First Cape Town Adventure

On Saturday morning we woke up and headed for Cape Town. A large majority of the people I hung out with had gone shark cage diving and the rest of us decided to go to Cape Town. The group was Beth, Jeff, Sarah, Casey, Karli and I. We Caught a train and headed in. Cape Town is a little under an hour by train and the ticket is about $1 American each way. At this point we didn’t really have much of a plan except that we were going to Cape Town. This is the way that you aren’t suppose to travel, but for us, not having a plan was part of the day’s adventure. Beforehand we decided that we would like to go to the beach if possible, so that was the mindset we had. When we got off the train, we kind of just started walking. This was a very different world from Stellenbosch and felt much more like Africa. Here the black to white ratio flip flopped and now it was 90% black to 10% white. I was now part of the minority for one of the first times in my life.

Eventually, we found a Cape Town tourism information station, we looked through some stuff, grabbed some maps, and headed on our way. Beth, Jeff, and Karli were planning on staying over, so first looked for a hostel for them to stay at. We came to Long Street which one of the central streets with restaurants, stores, bars, and hotels. There were quite a few hostels, so they picked on that looked nice and got a room for less that $20. While we waited, we looked through all the brochures and maps we had picked up and decided what next. We decided our destination would be Camp’s Bay beach. It was a pretty good distance, so we hailed a cab and headed over. This cab ride was pretty awesome (well besides 5 of us squeezing in the backseat) because it went right over Table Mountain. When we got to the beach, it was a little touristy with restaurants and shops lining the beach, but absolutely beautiful. The beach was really nice with lots of rocks to go exploring on, but even cooler was that it was at the base of Table Mountain. This was great, turn your head one way and see the frigid, yet beautiful Atlantic Ocean and the other way you see the Table Mountain staring straight down at you. We spent the next few hours exploring and enjoying the beach. The big rocks in the water were really fun to explore because they created lots of tide pools that made their own little ecosystems. I spent quite a bit of time just watching the little fish and snails living their lives in this miniature version of the ocean. To mean it was fascinating. We also found some giant seaweed that was almost so big one person alone couldn’t hold it. Here's Beth and Jeff with it.

This beach was pretty diverse and had people of all races enjoying it. Still you could see a division of wealth apart between the white and black people on the beach, but it was the first time that I saw affluence in the black community. I could tell that some of the black people enjoying this beach were just as well off as the white people, which is something Stellenbosch doesn’t have.

Eventually, Casey, Sarah, and I left the others and headed back to Stellenbosch because we wanted to get a good night sleep to stay up and watch the Super Bowl into the wee hours of the night the next night.This trip helped me to start opening my eyes a little bit more to what Africa actually is. This will be the first of very many trips I will go on to Cape Town. What I was struck with most during this trip was that I felt like I became aware of the prejudice that exists inside of me. I would be the first to say that I think everyone is equal and there are many different people of all races, gender, sexuality, etc that are much better than me out there, however in this situation I could feel that no one is without prejudice. When in America when a person enters an all black area they think this must be a bad area. This is something that is ingrained in us from a young age and no matter how hard you fight to think and live free from racism, this is a thought that is hard to move away from. When everyone in a city is black I found myself continuing to ask myself “are we in a bad area?” Then I tell myself that everywhere here is a black area and I must get used to that not being a symbol of something negative. Things like these are the ideas that I hope to break while I am here to become much more open-minded.

THE BIG DAY! WEEK #1 FEBRUARY 1ST!

Today was a very exciting day. I woke up ready to go and looking forward to getting in 2nd grade with the children. I was not completely sure what to expect, but was pretty confident that what we had planned would be well received. When we first met the learners in their classroom, I felt nervous for the first time. I really wanted them to like me, but also respect me. During physical education it was a little difficult because they did not really seem to get what we were doing. I’m not sure whether it was too complex, the language barrier, or their excitement, which caused them to miss the point. After the first two games we tried did not seem to fully keep their attention, we improvised and played “duck, duck, goose.” They really seemed to enjoy this, which I think was because they got to be in control when choosing who had to chase them. This sense of power and control seemed to excite them.

We moved back to the classroom for their life skills time and we were a little surprised to see that Mrs. Jephtha left it all to us. We had been under the impression that this was time that she had planned. It was good that we had come up with an activity beforehand to do during this time. We had them draw pictures of themselves with their best friend doing something they enjoy doing together. This went well and many of the pictures ended up being pictures of us with them. Once again we weren’t sure if this was because they didn’t understand the directions we gave in English or if they were just excited to meet us. Either way, I took it as a compliment and it made me feel good.

In the afternoon we taught them a little bit about Van Gogh’s life and then had them draw what they thought a starry night over a town would look like. Although once again I wasn’t sure how much of what we said they understood, Mrs. Jephtha explained in Afrikaans the assignment and they all went to work. It was very cool to see all the different variations they came up with and how all followed direction, but interpreted them differently. After they were finished we showed them what Van Gogh’s version looked like and they all seemed to think it was pretty cool. However, I think I liked some of the ones that they made better, but I’m biased.

The day left me feeling satisfied, but also extremely motivated to think of more activities to do with them that they will find fun and educational. My imagination hasn’t stopped going since I left the classroom this afternoon.

Service Entries

Sorry I haven't said anything lately about my service work. Every Monday as homework I have to write a journal entry about my day, so some weeks I will just post that. I'm putting up my entries from the last 2 weeks now and I'll put the dates, so you can see that they are from previous days. Thanks for reading!

Cederberg Weekend!

So we headed out around 6 PM from campus in a couple of school vans. One group of students had already left a couple of hours ago, but the rest of us had class until later Friday afternoon. The vans are driven by some students that are usually grad students at the school and are hired to drive and go on the excursions with us. This is nice because it adds some actual South Africans to our trip, so we can also see what these trips are like from someone native to the country. Our ride up was a little nerve racking because my driver Brit wasn’t the greatest. It was cool driving through the countryside and seeing more of what South Africa had to offer. We passed mainly farmlands that were being used to graze sheep and cattle. It got dark before we reached the mountains, so we missed a little bit of that scenery. We arrived in the Cederbergs around 10 and dinner was ready for us. They had prepared a traditional South African braii (there version of a bbq) of sausage sandwiches and for us vegetarians some veggie patties. In our group of 50, there are 8 other vegetarians, so I never have to worry about being an inconvenience on my own. This is pretty nice and something I’m not used to. We spent the rest of the night just hanging out by the fire and bonding. The moon was almost full and it was really beautiful, except because it was so bright, it preventing us from seeing many stars, which really sucked. We stayed in cabins, which were really nice and some of the most comfortable beds I’ve ever slept in. On Friday night me and Pablo shared a queen size bed, bonding us even closer than our usual accommodations do.

We woke up early Saturday morning and were on the mountain at 9 for our hike. It was hot, but not anything ridiculous. When we looked up at the mountain, we thought that we would have to rock climb straight up because it looked that steep, however there were switchbacks that brought us back and forth up the mountain a little bit at a time. Our pace was pretty fast, even though this climb was hot, steep, and exhausting. At this point I was very happy I had been running a bit because it better prepared me. We reached the end of this steep climb in an hour, which is the quickest Hestea said she’s ever done with any AIFS groups in her other 23 trips. We all convened here and some at some lunch as we all took pictures of the amazing landscape. Other than the area with our few cabins and the land owner’s vineyard, there was no other signs of civilization in any direction. All that we could see was savannah terrain and mountains. Unfortunately none of these pictures do that view justice, but at least you can kind of check it out.

At this point we split up into 3 groups, one headed back down, another went an easier route to the top, and the final went up through the cracks. I chose to go up through the cracks along with about ¾ of the group. This part was a lot of fun. There wasn’t as much vertical climb as it was climbing and squeezing through different cracks and in different caves. This definitely helped us bond a little bit more because we at times needed to work together to give people a hand or a boost to get through different areas. I ended up doing a lot of helping along the way because Terry told Hestea that I was an experienced climber. However I am not an advanced climber or hiker, but when you put a bandana on people just assume all types of things. This wasn’t a big deal because nothing was really that crazy that we faced. Thes caves were really cool to climb through and at times we made them a little bit harder than necessary like when Terry, Jeff, Angelo, and I played the ground is lava and avoided the ground by climbing on ledges and whatnot for a long time. I was well prepared for these tasks from all the times we played the floor is lava in this suite trying to reach the refrigerator without touching the ground or shimmying through our hallways trying to see how far we could make it before falling. The last challenge was crawling through this little area just larger than our bodies, but with Jeff pulling everyone through it went pretty quickly. When we reached the top again the view was unbelievable to the point where I can’t even describe it.

At this point we again split up into 2 groups and one headed back while whoever wanted could go an hour and a half further to the Cederberg Arch. Hestea was pretty strict about who was allowed to go this added bit based on how people were feeling and how much water we had. Me and 12 others decided to go for the Arch. After we reapplied suntan lotion, we headed out quickly because another 3 hours was going to put us back home pretty late. The ground had leveled out a lot up here and it was just minor rocky hills that we had to climb over. The sun was beating down hard, but since we were so high there was a real nice breeze keeping us cool. When we got closer to the Arch we again needed to climb up a steeper mountain, but this wasn’t too bad. The Arch looked really cool and being able to see it for a long time leading up to it gave us a nice boost to work our way to the top. Reaching it finally was an extremely satisfying feeling. Our group of 13 was very proud of what we accomplished as we sat in the shade of the Arch and shared snacks and drank some water.

After basking in the glory of our accomplishment for a while, we headed out for the descend. This part was a lot less fun. We made pretty good time on the way back until we hit that first steep part we had climbed up about 2 hours into our return trip. At this point the sun was the hottest and there was no respite from its rays and our legs were starting to get tired, but we had to be sure it didn’t make us careless because a fall would have made for a long tumble. At this point I was leading with JP, one of the drivers, right behind me. Earlier we had seen some baboons far off in the distance and we had been discussing them for a while. Mainly these discussions were about how vicious and scary they are, so I had been keeping this in mind our whole trip. It was at one point when I was passing a cave that I heard a rustle, I immediately turned and yelled “JP THERE’S SOMETHING IN THAT CAVE!” I grabbed the biggest rock I could find and ran down the trail a little bit, while JP and the rest turned and went back up. I was all alone and I remembered the advice that another driver, Grant, told me the night before “Don’t run or they will chase and attack you, just stand your ground and throw stuff at them and they will go away.” So with rock in hand I turned and looked up at the cave ledge ready to attack. As I turned I saw an older lady standing there confused about all the commotion below. I simply told her I thought she was a baboon, dropped my rock, and turned to continue down the mountain. Our legs felt like jello, we were exhausted, and had no more water; we were happy to finally reach the bottom at 4 about 7 hours after we had left.

As we were driving back to the cabins we found where all the baboons were hiding, stealing food from the campers right next to our cabins. They were chasing them away with sticks and apparently they had broken the mirrors off of one of the school cars we had brought. After this excitement, Sol, Adrienne, Sarah, JP, and I all went for a swim in the river to cool off. It was very refreshing after the long hike.

That night they made us a traditional South African stew, vegetable for us and beef for everyone else. It was delicious and extremely filling, well after the giant 2 servings that I had. I had gone with a few other people to a cabin to hang out that night without thinking about having to return. Then it hit me that I would have to walk the quarter of a mile back by myself in the dark to my cabin. This was easily the scariest thing I have ever done in my life. All I could think of while I was walking in the moonlight was of the crazy baboons that we had seen earlier. Since baboons have quickly become my greatest fear, this was not a soothing thought. Again I grabbed a rock and headed on my way. Thank god the moon was so bright or I’m not sure I would have made it very far, but I moved quickly and made it back to my bed without a scratch. I feel asleep around 10:30 after that very tiring day and slept like a baby.

On Sunday we headed to check out some caves where San Bushman had left cave drawings 8,000-15,000 years ago. I was completely taken back by that huge number and that I was standing where people had stood so long before. The drawings were simple ones of hunters, elephants, or handprints, but absolutely amazing that they had stood the test of time, while my mom says you are suppose to repaint rooms of your house every 5-10 years. Like all parts of South African history, this history of some of the people native to the land was also clouded by that of Apartheid. In a large cave very close to these painting, the walls were filled with names and dates from 1882 to the early 1990’s. These caves were used as secret meetings of the racist Apartheid regime, since they were so far from anywhere. When meetings were held they, would write their names and the dates on the walls. These names included extremely famous people in South Africa history including P.W. Botha, the last president of the Apartheid era. It was interesting to see these names of black native South African oppression scribbled across the walls of such an important and beautiful part of the history. It was easy to see the disgust on the face of our AIFS assistant resident director, Angelo, who is a black South African while seeing these names ruining this wonderful place. We then got some free time to wonder around exploring caves and climbing more rocks and stuff. Here's a picture of one of the little guys that i had climbed. This really was a cool place to visit and happy we got to spend time there. After 2 days of hiking and climbing, I was talking to some girls in the caves and took a step back, tripped on a rock sprained my ankle and cut my knee. Neither of these injuries were serious, barely leaving me with a limp when I got off the ground and not dropping the sandwich I was eating, but it was funny after so much activity and crazy feats, I fell down while I was just standing talking to someone. All and all it is a weekend I will never forget!

Another Great Day at Lyndoch

Today was our last class before getting to invade the classroom. It was a very fun day. At recess I got to play with some kids and climb trees. It was a lot of fun just hanging out with them. They especially loved me picking them up so they could reach the branches and helping them down from the tree. 90% of them only climbed up so they could get a ride down from me. They keep telling me I’m so strong, so I don’t mind doing it because it’s a good ego boost.

Class was fun as well. It’s crazy how Grant is able to make 6 hours of class fly by! Every time we transition in class he makes us sing or dance to make sure we are alive and entertained. He just got a new projector with the money Stellenbosch gave the school for this class and he loves playing with it. He loves putting up youtube videos, so we listened to Michael Jackson’s “Heal the World” and Whitney Houston’s “The Children are Our Future” to inspire us. We also listened to other stuff just to dance around to, so we would be laughing and comfortable.

Our ride was late to pick us up, so he took us through their gardens and shared fresh vegetables with us. I had the most delicious carrot I’ve ever had. He made us take our shoes off to feel the dirt and ground. It felt real good to do this and truly feel Africa between my toes. At these moments I really felt connected to it and it was a cool feeling. I’m hoping this weekend’s nature and hiking will give me this same feeling.

Sorry this was real quick I need to hurry off to catch the bus to head out on our trip. Enjoy the weekend!

The View is Awesome!

I need to take some good pictures to share with you guys just how beautiful it is here. The city of Stellenbosch is surrounded on 3 sides with beautiful mountains and some of the bluest skies (apparently ranking 3rd in all the skies in the world as read in a travel guide). Every morning I walk out the door of my flat I am faced with this rocky mountain staring me in the face. I often just stop and stare at how amazing this landscape is and it never gets old. They look as if you could reach out and touch them, but the closest one is about 2 miles from my flat. Sometimes I look at them and think “They aren’t that big and I could easily make it to the top,” but then sometimes the clouds hide the top making me think they are bigger than I think. This is often a topic of debate among our group.

This week I started training for a half marathon in Cape town later in the semester with Sarah. Right now it is just us, but it seems like there might be some interest among others and possibly some recruits. Thankfully I ran a little bit at home over break, so I wasn’t in terrible shape. Running in 10 degree weather home makes running here in the 80’s feel like a piece of cake. On Monday we used this run to explore a little bit of campus and headed for the sports complex. There we were amazed by the huge spread of fields that are nearly the size of the entire rest of campus. Just beyond the rugby stadium we noticed there was some stairs heading up the side of a hill headed towards one of the mountains. We headed up this path and found that there are a bunch of trails that go through the foothills of these mountains and possibly some to the top. Once we reached the hills, the terrain completely changed. We could see below us the extremely green city of Stellenbosch, but the hills were savannah terrain that is more dusty and bushy. As I looked around me, things felt more like “The Lion King” with each step. I think I may have seen the elephant graveyard, but didn’t forget Mufasa’s warning like some headstrong lions in the past. What I could see from these hills was an amazing view of campus, town, the other mountains, and the farmland that creep up the mountains. Lions and elephants were the only things missing, but it’s still truly breathtaking and might just be the answer to the mystery of why everyone is so fit. As I jogged around these hills, I forgot about the running that I was doing and was completely caught up in the wonders of nature surrounding me. I probably would have just kept going forever if Sarah wasn’t there to remind me of the distances and workouts.

One of the greatest reasons I fell in love with Africa was because of all the wonderful things that the nature here had to offer and these runs have helped me to connect with it. I am extremely happy that they have been able to do this because I would feel pretty stupid not taking advantage of this heavenly setting that is surrounding me every day. This weekend I will get to experience it a little bit more when our program goes on a trip in the Cederberg Mountains. We will get a chance to do some hiking and other outdoorsy activities. I’m most excited to see the stars at night from a place that has a little bit less light pollution than what I’m used to back in the northeast.

I'm Gonna Be the Best 2nd Grade Teacher Ever!

In my learning service class yesterday we found out a little bit more about what we would be doing this semester. We spent the morning discussing our own best qualities to get to know each other a little better and to make ourselves and each other aware of what skills we possess to offer. We then got a chance to do a needs assessment of the school by asking the principal questions. This was very informative in learning what his expectations he had for us and what he wanted us to offer that the teachers there couldn’t. The most interesting thing he told us was when we asked what their goals were for what they wanted their learners to leave their school with. He said obviously the education to succeed in high school and college, but also the confidence and tools to make decisions. He explained how the learners grow up in an environment where they don’t get choices and they don’t get answers, but it is important to make them realize they do have choices. He wants them to not only make choices, but to have them be informed in their decision making and take responsibility for the consequences. He also touched upon how he wants to give these children an environment to be children because many of them have to grow up quickly when they arrive home to a household where they are seen as adults and have the responsibilities of adults.

Eventually, we got more about our assignment, which will be working in the classroom with one class the entire semester. I will be working in the 2nd grade with 2 other girls in my class, Vanessa and Malinda. We will be helping with phys ed and life skills in the morning and reading to them and working to build their library in the afternoon. The life skills lessons are already planned out for the whole semester and the 2nd grade teacher gave us the outlines of what we will be doing, such as what makes a good best friend, what are healthy foods, what is and how to prevent tuberculosis, etc. During the reading time we have more freedom to do pretty much anything. The reading does not necessarily need to be out of a book, but can be more of a lesson that we prepare on any subject that we want. This will be cool coming up with lessons on pretty much anything we want to teach them. Malinda, Vanessa, and I need to make up a rough draft of an outline for all the lessons we will be doing for the semester for Friday, which will take a little bit of work. If you guys have anything in mind that you think 2nd graders would enjoy learning about with fun activities feel free to let me know! There isn’t too much pressure because they care about the learning, but that isn’t why they want us there. They really want us there to expose the children to more English and to act as role models for the children of people who are able to succeed and make choices on their own. However, I have a feeling we will end up learning more from them than they will from us. I’m pretty excited for Monday, which will be out first time with our class. I vow to be a better 2nd grade teacher than mine, Mrs. Millar, and a lot less bitchy too!

My School That I'm Working At!

I'll post another blog tomorrow sometime, but here is a few links about my school. The first is the school and eco-village that the school is in's website and the 2nd is the to a video that my teacher made with the learners last year. The guy, Grant, in the video is my teacher and the best ever!!! Check it out if you want to see what I'm seeing. The video is a little bit of an exageration of how nice the school is, but it is a pretty nice place.

Video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lw_BUwcAMJE

Hello world!

Over the past week I have been writing blogs, but haven’t been able to put them up because they were on my laptop, which took forever to get registered to the school. Some of them are a little lengthy, so feel free to skim or whatever. Hopefully they will get shorter, but there was so much to describe being in a new place. Please overlook my spelling and grammar issues because I am sure they are there and enjoy my experience so far.

Adjusting to a new culture?

When reading any information about studying abroad there is always information about culture shock. It tells people going abroad to accept and respect the aspects of a new culture whether it be something that they see as positive or negative. So far I’ve started to do this whether it be being aware while crossing the street that the cars are coming from the opposite side of the street, pedestrians apparently don’t have the right away, food portions are smaller, getting used to using the Rand instead of dollars, the Afrikaans language, among other things. However there’s one aspect that I’m not really okay with just accepting: racism.

When coming to South Africa obviously I realized that race relations would be very different than what I was used to. I was aware that apartheid did not fully end until the early 90’s, so things would be very different. I’ve learned that since apartheid ended everyone gained political power and could vote in elections. This has resulted in the ANC, a predominantly black political party being in power since the mid-90’s. As much as they have tried to unite and bring equality to the country, it has been a difficult task. The gap in wealth distribution was, and still is, so huge that a majority of the black people are still poor, sick, and hungry, while the white people are doing okay. This leaves the black township at one side of Stellenbosch full of people living hungry with limited running water and electricity, while one the other side there are large nice houses for the white people. My service learning teacher, Grant, had let us in on a few interesting details about our school during class, telling us that Stellenbosch University is the least diverse college in South Africa and it was an extremely racist institution. The school does not outright discriminate against people and not accept black students, but they indirectly do it while being “proud of their culture.” Stellenbosch is an Africana university and about 80% of their classes are in Afrikaans. The only classes that aren’t are in the international department and the English literature department. This is a big controversy on campus because students want to be able to take their courses through the international office so they are in English instead of Afrikaans. This would then mean that the university is no longer an Africana institution. This is all well and good to preserve culture, but one of the biggest problems with this is that a majority of the black South African population doesn’t know Afrikaans and therefore are unable to attend the university. This power at the university is being used to assert some of the ruling power that the Africana people have left over from their years of ruling the nation.

For the first few days I thought that there just weren’t many black people in this city or area and that’s why I only see white people all the time because I hadn’t gotten a chance to venture off campus, but I was wrong. On Friday I went on a little excursion to get a cell phone and was looking for a store in one of the malls in town. While searching I was looking at all the store names to find the right place in this mall that was bustling with people. Once I stopped and looked around me, I realized I was the only white person out of the about 200 people doing their shopping that afternoon. This is when it really dawned on me that the area has black people, but it’s just the university that lacks them.

So what do I do about this? Obviously I am not okay accepting this racism and injustice, but I also don’t want to be disrespectful to the culture I am living in. Obviously I do not have the power to miraculously close the gap in wealth distribution, but am I powerless? I know that at least my service learning that I will be doing will help me to feel like I am somehow helping to close this gap, even if it is in the smallest way. I have also found that being polite and respectful while deal with people in the service industry that I have come across (which is almost completely black) sparks a very positive response, as if it is coming as a surprise. I know I will need to make more of an effort to get out of Stellenbosch to communities that are much more diverse. So is that all that I can do? That is a question I will continually ask myself, something that will constantly frustrate me, and be something that I will not be able to accept about this culture that I am living in. It will also be something that will make me think more about how my own culture is set up and ask myself if this is really so much different from the culture that I am used to. Why is this something that I never stop thinking about here, but something that I only think about sometimes in America?

I finally have arrived in South Africa!

Note that this post and statement were written not after day 1, but on day 3. Due to lack of internet capabilities and having to leave my computer with IT to get registered, I wasn’t able to even write a blog post, never mind posting it. However today was the first time I actually felt I was in South Africa… or at least the real South Africa. I will get to explaining that later, but first I will tell of my first two days.

Day 1
After going to bed late the night we arrived we didn’t get to sleep in, but rather had to meet for orientation at 9AM. We headed first to the student center, the Neelsie, to get money from the ATM and grab some breakfast. I might not have mentioned this before, but Stellenbosch University has about 20,000 students so I am getting a different cultural experience and a different college experience at a school 10 times the size of St. Mike’s. With this being said, the Neelsie is quite different that Alliot because the student center is comprised of more than just a cafeteria (weird right?). This student center has lots of different stores and a food court with different food options. We got money from the ATM and it was nice to see my bank account multiply 7 times what it was when I left because it was in Rands instead of dollars, although 1 rand does not buy you the same as what 1 dollar would. Food is about 2/3 what it is in America so my average meal has been around $5 or 35 Rand instead of $7.50 at home I would spend on the same thing.

After Breakfast we headed to a meeting to get informed a little more about what was going on. They explained how the university works and a little bit of background. Explained how internet worked and how we had to pay for every megabit that we use, but that a significant amount was already allotted to us. It was a little long, but made me have a much better understanding of what was going on. Then we went to the grocery store to get food to cook in our kitchens. This was an experience all in its own because I’ve never really cooked very much for myself, so I was a little lost. It was reassuring to see that pretty much every guy was lost and none of us could cook. I hit all the things that I knew that were easy enough for me to cook, so I left with pasta, rice, frozen pizza, and stuff to make grilled cheese. This I feel will be what I will be eating a lot of here in South Africa, but at least they are all things that I like a lot.

At orientation they told us that since it’s the beginning of their school year here that freshman orientation was going on and told us of the events that we couldn’t miss. That night we went to see trollies. Apparently the shopping cart was invented in South Africa and they are very proud of this, so every year each freshman residence hall decorates a cart and they race them down a hill around obstacles. This definitely intrigued all of us, so we went to watch it. All of us live in different buildings and no one had a cell phone yet, so it was a little difficult to plan going all together. We just went the 4 of us that live in my flat block, which was me and Pablo and then his girlfriend Casey and my friend Sarah. Since they come from Stonehill and we come from St. Mike’s we assumed we would get there and be able to find everyone else. This was incorrect. We were by no means prepared by what we saw: thousands of people lining the street with bleachers full of the first year students dressed up, painted, chanting, and cheering as loud as possible. When walking there it sounded like we were coming to a professional sporting event from the amount of noise that was being made. The atmosphere was crazy and I’ve never seen so much enthusiasm coming from anyone. I was extremely impressed by the level of participation these people were putting into this event, definitely more than I’ve ever seen at St. Mike’s. After about an hour we had gotten tired of fighting the crowd and headed to eat. It was around 8 when we were done and headed back. When we got back to the flat we noticed a bunch of other people from our program that live in the block next to ours and hung out with them the rest of the night. It wasn’t anything real crazy, but everyone was pretty much just trying out the local wine and hanging out. It was fun and got a chance to know a bunch of other kids better.
After that day, we all had come to a few realizations. The first one is that there are a lot less black people at Stellenbosch University that we thought there would be, that the 70/30 ratio that I read on their Wikipedia page was extremely lenient estimate and I would be surprised if 15% of the students were black. The second was that I was unaware that Afrikaans was their first language here and the one that they speak in all the time, although everyone knows English as well. The third was that South Africans are beautiful! I would say that 75% of the girls are very hot and the boys are about the same. No one is out of shape or fat and all the guys are built for rugby and are giant. I am like 4 inches below average height and 50 pounds of muscle underweight. 75% of the people are blonde hair and blue eyed making up what I would imagine the world that Hitler had in mind looked like.

Day 2
The next day was more of the same thing, getting a tour of campus and having meetings with our program advisor about our classes. We got more information on the service learning program and found out it started Thursday. Come dinnertime, Pablo and I went out to dinner with 3 of the guys from the block next door at an Irish Pub in town. We had a good time and eventually dinner turned into the whole evening when a bunch of the other people in our program met up with us there for drinks. We spent most of the night admiring how beautiful the South African race is and joking around. Me and Sol made friends with some South Africans watching football from England. They were real friendly and very accepting of us. They were South African, but not Afrikaan so they were our size and had dark hair. They told us how just because we aren’t as big as the other guys that we still have a shot with the girls. This was very reassuring to me and Sol and was also told that the girls LOVE AMERICAN ACCENTS! Who would have thought that it works in other countries like accents work for guys in America? We headed home around midnight because a bunch of us had to go for our service learning orientation at 8:30 the next morning.

Day 3
I was pretty excited about getting started so quickly with the service learning portion of my stay here because that’s why I really chose to come here. The 24 of us, 14 with my program and 10 from other international programs were picked up and driven by van about 10 minutes outside of Stellenbosch to Lynedoch, this sustainable community and school school for black South African children whose parents work on the wine vineyards. These families have about 5 children and only make about $100 a month. It was not until I arrived here that I finally felt like I was really in South Africa. The drive helped as well, seeing some zebras and ostriches, but this community of children was what did it for me. Here we met our teacher, Grant, who is one of the coolest guys ever. He grew up in the same community that the kids did and went to this school. He then went on to further education and works as a professor at Stellenbosch University. Listening to him talk is like listening to a motivational speaker nonstop. His words are so inspiring and are able to put things in a way that was able to move everyone. He showed us the unofficial national anthem, the Shosholoza, and told us that the 1st half is not South Africa, but the 2nd half is truly South African. Please watch the youtube link to understand what he was saying. Then he brought some kids in to sing and dance along to it. It was awesome! He told us that we would be working with them for the next couple of months. He let us go and meet them during their recess. Unfortunately there was a little bit of a language barrier between us so I immediately decided to speak the universal language with them instead… FOOTBALL! I played with some of the little kids and was beat quite a few times. They were under the impression that since I was bigger and older than them that I would be good, but they were wrong. They were extremely accepting and loved playing with me. Grant explained later to us that they were so receptive to us because to them white people were the rich farm owners and their parents’ bosses. They had never been seen or respected by any white person before and to them this was an amazing achievement. He told us to use this to our advantage, but also to break this barrier.

He explain that they believe that service needs to be on an even level meaning without thinking or acting that we are superior. I don’t think that this will be much of a problem to me because being in their culture, I feel like I’m the one that doesn’t know what’s going on. I feel like the unintelligent one. I also feel after learning about their extremely difficult life of poverty, disease, and struggle that they have and then seeing their smiles and happiness that they have a knowledge and understanding of life far superior to my own. I hope that as I teach them that they in turn teach this happiness to me. He also explained that our work needs to be sustainable so that after service is given the community does not falter when the volunteers leave, like in this case at the end of the semester. With this in mind he says we need to be transferring a skill to assure this, which in this case will be knowledge. We will be working with them in class and apparently planning our own lessons to do this. This although seems like a challenge and we haven’t been given the full details so I’m still curious, seems to be something that I will love doing. I don’t think that if I could have dreamed up what I wanted to do it could have been anymore perfect than this. Just from the little time that we spent with the children, their energy and happiness was infectious and spread to all 24 of us. This is the kind of service and the community that I have always wanted to work in. I’ve always felt like I would be able to offer this situation something special and I’ve always hoped to learn that happiness that doesn’t need money or material goods. This knowledge is something that I’ve always felt is very rare to genuinely find in America.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=saJmOw0GGyI

It Takes a Long Time to Get Far From Home

So I knew when I chose this destination that it obviously was not around the corner. This was proven to me during the travel here. About 25 -26 hours is a long time. Thankfully I didn’t have to go this journey alone, but shared it with about 30 other students in my program. Unfortunately though, on the 18 hour plane trip from DC to Johannesburg I was placed across an aisle from anyone else in our group, close enough to interact, but too far to really share the time. This was also limited by the fact that we all had our own personal TVs with quite a few options of movies and TV shows to watch, so everyone was in their own world. Thankfully the people that I was sitting next to were very nice: a mother returning home to Zambia from visiting her daughter at college in DC and a son returning to his home country of Zimbabwe to visit a sick mother. These two people were pretty much the best that one could ask for as far as sitting next to on a plane.

Eventually we reached our destination in Cape Town to find our AIFS director waiting for us. Throughout the trip I got a chance to chat with a few different people and become friendly with a handful. However based on who I was placed around on the plane and the significant ratio of more girls than guys, it was mainly girls I got to meet. I had gotten to chat with some of the other guys at the airports a little bit, but come roommate selection time outside the Cape Town Airport I was the odd guy out when the 5 guys needed to find their partner. It really wasn’t that bad because I suspected it, they had gotten to sit near each other and I hadn’t. I also knew there were more guys that were meeting us, that had flown on different flights. When we loaded into a bus, a couple who had flown on their own sat in the seats behind me, so I turned and told Pablo that he was stuck with me. I definitely lucked out because he is a really cool guy and we get along well. (Note: It’s a week in and I love Pablo) The only downfall is that neither of us know how to cook so meals should be interesting, but at least it won’t be hard to find someone to skip cooking and go to the student center to buy something instead with me.

When we finally arrived on campus they gave us our flats. This took a long time to figure out and, since the bus couldn’t fit through the guard station, a pretty good walk with our bags. Since Pablo and I were a little easygoing and passive, when they would ask “I need 2 boys” we were never quick to jump and ended up in the last one, but it’s all the same. We even got very friendly neighbors, other international students, who were partying. They came over and were trying hard to persuade us to join them, but after our trips we were ready to pass out. My favorite line that I heard was “I refuse to return to the party without you… and I really want to go back to the party.” We settled in and just passed out.

The Journey

So I'm sure that many of you out there are curious about the whole journey to getting to South Africa. Many of you may be curious at how one gets to this place and I'm going to give you the details. If you thought "he can't be driving to Africa," "taking a boat would take much too long," or "well he's not really in that great of shape to swim there," then you are right. I will be flying there by plane!

My journey actually has already begun because as I type this I lye in a hotel room in Newton, Massachusetts. Since I reside from Lebanon, New Jersey, I already have put some miles behind me. My flight leaves at 2 later this afternoon from Logan Airport. From Logan I then go to Dulles Airport in DC and switch planes. My flight then heads for Johannesburg, South Africa. This takes a little bit under 18 hours with a pit stop in Senegal to refuel. This should be a very interesting test of patience since I am currently feeling my excitement surging more and more. Then in Johannesburg I once again switch planes and head for Cape Town. All and all this whole ordeal will be about 25 hours from the time I leave Boston until the time I touch down in Cape Town. After we land there, we gather our things, jump into some AIFS vans, and make the final 45 minute ride to Stellenbosch arriving sometime just after midnight South African time Monday night. This will be quite the journey, but I'm pretty confident it will be worth it.

You may be thinking "whoa you are gonna just pass out when you get there!" and that I'm sure will happen very quickly, but not before one last task. After all this travel and everything, when we finally arrive on campus we will all be standing around, exhausted and perhaps delirious, and then they say "Okay pick a roommate." We then need to look around and arbitrarily choose someone at random who we think we like for the next 4 and a half months. This I'm sure will be a wonderful awkward experience and will hopefully be kind of funny. I mean I'm not too worried because I've been judging people for years, so I'm very practiced. I never get a person wrong on my first judgement like Tim Sharek is a meathead because he was wearing sneakers during the summer when i first met him, and Brian Ahern is an attention hungry jerk because he was wearing his tye dye Kool Aid hat the first time I saw him... or wait maybe I'm not that good at judging people? I guess we will just have to wait to find out, but keep in mind those judgements were all made freshman year and I've spent hours in Alliot honing these skills over the past 2 and a half years. I'm practically pro at this point.

Stay tuned to find out how all of this goes and I will try to keep you up to date on my arrival and overall success of this travel.

Note: Tim is no meat head, but a very intelligent, nice, and silly guy that I love dearly. Brian is not an attention hungry jerk, but a fairly humble, good guy and solid colored hat wearer who I have warm feelings towards.

How I ended up going to South Africa.

This starts in 3rd grade with my teacher Mrs. Praisner. She was a world traveler and loved to teach us about the different places she had traveled. One of her favorite places she had been was Kenya and every year her class would give these big reports to all the other classes and the parents. In my eyes at the time, Kenya and Africa were one and the same. I loved learning about the vast wild and all the animals and the great variety of culture that existed in this place. From that day on Africa fascinated me and I knew it was a place I wanted to go. At the end of the year we wrote an essay about the places we wanted to go and I said I wanted to go to Kenya. From that day on I always held this interest and intrigue to the continent and continued to learn more and more about it.

Eventually I started to grow up and I've come to realize that I have the oppurtunity to accomplish many of the things I've always want to do. The realization of the power I finally had over my life to do these things came when I was freshman year of college I decided I was going to grow a ponytail like I had always wanted. Why growing a ponytail was always a dream of mine, I'm not quite sure. It was probably from watching too many Jean Claude Van Damme and Steven Seagal movies, so I have my dad to thank for that. For whatever the reason was I'm not quite sure, but it was a dream I had, and even though very few people supported the dream, finally accomplishing it was a great feeling.

With this in mind I started to ponder studying abroad. It took me a very long time to make a decision on whether I wanted to go because I wasn't sure I was willing to give up a semester with my friends at the place that I love most in this world: St. Mike's. I kept on thinking it over and talking to people who have done it and it seemed like it was an oppurtunity I would always regret if i didn't do it. I only had 1 place in mind when I started to look at my options and it was Africa. I would have loved to actually go to Kenya, but that was on the dangerous countries list, so I had to look elsewhere.

One of the things I have found that I find the most pleasurable in my life is doing service work, so since I have all my classes in line to graduate, I thought why not spend the semester doing service work. There were a few different programs in Africa that offered service work, but Stellenbosch University through AIFS was the only one that also offered service work with a college experience and time taking classes as well. This was also important to me because I think it will be such a cool experience learning from a different point of view in a different culture. I think it will really broaden the way I learn and will be something that I hold onto and benefit from the rest of my life.

This program had all the things I was looking for and now I can feel that satisfaction once again of doing something that I've wanted to do almost my whole life... That ponytail feeling.