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!
Friday, January 29, 2010
Thursday, January 28, 2010
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.
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.
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
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!
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!
Monday, January 25, 2010
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
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?
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
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.
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.
Saturday, January 16, 2010
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.
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.
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
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.
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.
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