David's Cape Town Adventures

Last Day of Work

2010-07-16T13:18:00.000-07:00

Today was my last day at work. I got to work and Lucinda gathered all of the volunteers and gave a really kind speech about all the hard work I had done over the past two months. I looked around the room at the people – my coworkers, yes, but more importantly, my friends – and realized that there was so much that I had taken for granted every day here. All of the amazing wonderful kind souls that dedicated their lives to this organization, with hopes of truly changing the community – I have never in my life encountered hope of this kind. Just thinking about it now almost brings tears to my eyes.

Later on in the day, we got to interact with the after-school program for the children in the area. There was no IT today, but we sang songs, talked about what the kids did during the World Cup holiday, and said goodbyes.

Lastly, I got to give out the hats and gloves that we were able to buy for all of the children thanks to a generous donation from the Wayne United Methodist Children’s Ministry (Big shoutout to Aunt Betsy for getting all of this going! I’ll have lots of photos and details for you about how it went down when I get back.)! The kids were really thankful and all put the stuff on immediately so we could snap some photos.

Before I knew it, Desiree (the driver that has transported us to and from work every day for these entire two months) was there to pick me up. I scampered around saying goodbyes, hugging everyone I could find, and taking some last minute pictures. I had an emotional goodbye with Lucinda as well. As I left, I realized that I had forged bonds here that I couldn’t forget. This had been a summer that has changed me perhaps even more than I’ve changed the organization.

Saying goodbye to Desiree once she arrived at my house to drop me off was especially hard. I realized that riding in “the van” constituted probably 10% of my total stay here, and Desiree had been an integral part of it all. She was another person who really made my stay here amazing.

These last few days are going to be hectic, crazy, amazing, sad, joyful, and much more. I am frightened, excited, and anxious all at the same time.

Musical!

2010-07-16T04:30:00.000-07:00

So these last few days have been relatively uneventful; I went to ProjectsAbroad yesterday to do some debriefing forms, and we ate at a fresh food market in Newlands. But yesterday night, we went to see District Six: The Musical!

We (me, Keely, Alex, and Jessica) taxied in to downtown Cape Town around 7:30 PM to get ready for the show. After getting our seats, I tried to find a Playbill, but to no avail; they ran out early on (TIA). The musical itself was.. well.. interesting. This is about as far from Broadway as you could get, frankly. The production seemed kind of sloppy, and there were a few small hiccups that were kind of funny - for example, one of the musical numbers involved everyone in the cast dancing with white umbrellas. Unfortunately, the umbrellas chosen for use in the show said "2009" in big, bold numbers - a bit of an anachronism since the show takes place in the 1960s. Perhaps the most surprising aspect of the show was that it was about 70% in Afrikaans - none of us knew this before it started. So, we just tried to laugh at the appropriate times when jokes were being told, and so on. From work, I knew several Afrikaans phrases, so I was able to understand some of it; however, even with no knowledge of the language we were still able to figure out what was going on.

You can view a plot summary of the musical here .

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Wrapping It Up

2010-07-13T00:30:00.000-07:00

Sorry I haven’t written a blog post in a while; these last few days have been
relatively uneventful, and I didn’t want to write a post unless there was actually
something interesting to talk about. With only 6 days left here, I’m really starting to
wind down in terms of job responsibility (I’m slowly but surely passing on my skills
to a new volunteer from France here), so this last week should be fairly chill.
The new volunteer’s name is Pierre-Alain (like Peter-Allen in English), and he’s very
good with graphic design. I’ve been learning a few tricks in Photoshop from him,
and he’s also managed to design some new t-shirts for Philisa Abafazi.
Speaking of clothing, our official Philisa Abafazi fleece jackets came in! We only had
to pay a small amount of money for them (the organization funded most of the
costs), and they’re very nice - but more importantly, warm!!

We’ve truly hit the middle of South African winter (just as everyone else back home
is hitting the dire straights of summer), and you can feel every bit of it. I close all of
the windows in the house, but with no indoor heating, it still stays hauntingly chilly
inside.

Leo was leaving on Saturday morning, so we all decided to go out Friday night for
“one last night” in Cape Town. We went out to a seafood/sushi restaurant called
Live Bait where I ordered a sushi platter (which made me sorely miss the sushi back
at Duke! It was wayyyy better.). Leo generously bought everyone’s meal (everyone
includes Philly, Derek, Tammy, Sebastian, his girlfriend, me, Keely, Rachel, Ryan, and
himself. WOW.), so it was free! After that, we headed off to Claremont (near
Newlands, which is where the ProjectsAbroad office is) for dancing and socializing.
We stayed out so late that I’m pretty sure I exhausted every dance move in existence
and created about 500 more – it was a really great, really fun night filled with lots of
laughs and good company.

And of course, yesterday was the World Cup final match between Spain and the
Netherlands. I think most of you will agree with me that it was extremely boring for
90% of the match, until we got an excellent goal by Spain which clinched the
championship for them. We didn’t go anywhere special to watch the game; most of
my volunteer friends were sick or tired and watched it at home, so I did the same.
Sebastian has moved out since his girlfriend and family are here for a week, so I
have the house to myself. Leo left on Saturday, and Ryan is on a safari for an entire
week til Sunday (he’ll see me right before I leave that night).. so I really am “all by
myself” (a certain Celine Dion song of the same name comes to mind).

How have I spent that time? Playing Mario, learning differential equations, messing
around in photoshop, and perfecting my schedule for the fall. And let’s not forget
the South African soap operas – these are super important, and my favorite (“League
of Glory”) is close to a finale I think. I also have been watching Survivor (which I
haven’t seen for probably 6 seasons or so) and realize that nothing about the show
has changed at all, other than that they are WAY too nice to the players now – the
rewards they compete for each week are things like fire kits, shelters, and blankets!
What happened to the “roughin’ it” Survivor that made each team compete for the
prize of a single doughnut (OK, maybe this actually never happened.. but you get my
point)? Let’s let the players starve a bit more.

Sorry for the digression, but I felt like it had to be said. Now that the World Cup is
over, it’s probably appropriate to reflect upon the effects it has had on this country
(and maybe others as well). There are of course the obvious effects like unity and
national pride. This has been something truly amazing to experience; I’m not South
African, but being here at this exciting time has made me feel like one of the locals,
cheering on the team until the very last second when Bafana Bafana got eliminated.
As cheesy as it might sound, the fans aren’t just cheering for a soccer team; they’re
expressing the desire to show the world that South Africa is worth something. This
ties directly back to the previously observed themes of self-sufficiency and
independence.

At the same time, the question of whether South Africa should have hosted the
World Cup has still been raised. Undoubtedly, the country has done an excellent job
of hosting the event with few significant security problems; no one can say that
Africa has failed at hosting the world’s largest sporting event. But what of the
economic effects of the Cup? In the four years leading up to the Cup, countless jobs
have been created as the country’s people constructed massive stadiums, tightened
security on the public transportation, and prepared for the arrival of individuals
from all over the world. It is probably safe to say that some (if not most) of these
jobs will be gone once the hype from the Cup dies down. This will make South
Africa’s unemployment problem even worse. And what are they going to do with
these world-class stadiums now? Host some soccer matches hopefully, but will they
really be used to their full potential?

Then again, these questions are probably raised after ANY country hosts the Cup,
not just South Africa. My personal opinion is that the country did an excellent job –
and they made Africa proud. The World Cup has given South Africa the chance to
improve its image all over the world, hopefully attracting investors and workers for
the future. It has brought countless volunteers to the area (tons of the
ProjectsAbroad volunteers are here largely because the Cup was being hosted this
summer) that may come back and help local communities again. Finally, the Cup
has allowed its viewers, attendees and affiliates to participate in a sort of cultural
exchange by meeting and interacting with people of other nationalities. I know I’ve
been part of this by having conversations, arguments, and laughs with volunteers
from around the globe.

Then again, maybe that’s just what travel is all about: going to a different country
gives us the chance to challenge, confirm, or revise our world views by putting
ourselves in new, exciting situations.

Inspiration

2010-07-08T13:34:00.000-07:00

Thursday, July 8th

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Today, I took a day off from work to go meet up with Talia again (Yay, BN awesomeness!) to go to Khayelitsha (the largest informal settlement in South Africa, whose name is Xhosa for "New Home"). Talia discovered this amazing organization that has an extremely environmentally friendly guest house in the heart of the settlement. She thought I'd be interested in helping out with their website; indeed, I am.

The place is called Makazi's Guest House, and it's basically the most awesome thing I've encountered in a long while. Everything is environmentally friendly: it uses solar power (they're adding a wind generator soon), minimal running water, it composts all human waste, and it's entirely made of sand bags. However, from the looks on the inside, you would think you were staying at a first-rate hotel. The pictures I've uploaded really don't do it justice, but I hope you get the idea:

Sooo cool.

Inside Story: Sandbags. Roughly 1% of the carbon expenditure of a standard brick house.

Me at the creche!

The engineer in me just couldn't stop getting excited every time I saw another lamp that had been re-made into something else, or an old cabinet made from a locker, etc. We met Di, who was the leader of the initiative, giving us a preview of what was to come. Apparently, the guest house is part of a larger coalition called the Indlovu (means Strength in Xhosa) Project - read more about it in this article here - which runs a soup kitchen, free health clinic, creche for local children, and much, much more. They are constructing more space next to the Guest House to make room for conference rooms, computer training area, and skills development rooms (ranging from hospitality industry work to sustainable gardening to modern cooking!). Di said that the idea is that the people who partake of these services are able to begin to make a living for themselves and get out of the informal settlements. However, she stresses that the ultimate goal of the project is not pure charity (while of course remembering that sick and elderly people often can't provide for themselves) : "I believe that everyone has to work for something if they want to get something; so we recognize that for real results, people are going to have to put these skills we teach to use."

Di's vision was some of the most inspiring work I had heard about in a long while. Best of all.. I really think it's going to happen. Apparently, she's starting to get some media exposure (Sir Ian Mckellen donated a large sum to them!), and with a newfound media team (with me onboard!) working on the website and social media in our spare time, she'll be well on her way to getting the resources she needs. The main thing she said she needs is more volunteers staying there and working there. She currently had only one staying in the guest house and volunteering for two months (he was from Canada).

Anyway, after we left, I just couldn't get over how amazed I was by the whole ordeal. The hope within this community is inspiring - you can't leave this place and not want to just go out and CHANGE THE WORLD, after you see how hard everyone else is working to do it. I keep seeing more and more that the people in poverty here don't simply want charity - they want to show the world that they are ready to be self-sufficient. With more people like Di, these dreams can become a reality.

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There's only 9 days left in my stay in Cape Town. Has it been a long time? Yes. Am I thankful for the experiences? More than you could ever imagine. I've started to realize that there is so much of the world still left to see; so much to experience, to encounter. I'm realizing that the essential goodness of the human nature is a powerful force, something more powerful than government or crime or anything else. But more than anything, I am thankful to God for the opportunity that I've been given to give back to the community here, and have the community give back to me. If there's one thing I've learned from the BN Summers of Service, it's that service is NOT a one-way street; it's an experience that changes both parties involved in often unspeakable ways.

Waka Waka!

2010-07-04T05:51:00.000-07:00

Saturday, July 3rd 2010

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[Author note: I have a fixed laptop charger now thanks to an electrical engineer who is a friend of my host family’s! Amazing, and saved me from buying a really overpriced Apple charger here; apparently, all Apple products in South Africa are double the price of their counterparts back in the States. TIA.]

Today, I attended my first ever World Cup match – for that matter, it was probably the first soccer game I ever paid for to watch! The story behind it all is quite amazing.

It all started off with having to pick up the tickets in the morning. Leo knew a guy who may or may not have had access to some questionably legal tickets. We may or may not have driven to a café in Camp’s Bay to pick them up from some Argentinean Mafioso-type characters. I may or may not have sipped a cappuccino calmly while fretting about all of the jail time I was going to do.

Regardless of what may or may not have happened, we walked out of the café with five tickets to the Germany-Argentina game that afternoon. Even better, we were promised Level 2 seats (the stadium has three tiers of seating; the higher the seat, the lower the price, and vice versa), but thanks to Leo’s smooth talking, we got Level 1 seats (the best seats in the house!!!). So, I was pumped. Leo, Sebastian, Shelley, a mutual friend named Luisa, and myself all were about to experience something truly awesome.

We left for the stadium around 1:30 PM. We took a train into town and then began the massive and infamous “Fan Walk,” which is about 2 miles of national pride, stadium food, and excited crowds. It was completely full of people, and we zigzagged through the masses of people in an attempt to get to the stadium as early as possible.

We got there about 30 minutes before the game was supposed to start and were greeted by a very impressive security team supervising the entrance to the stadium. Each fan was thoroughly checked and inspected for any illegal materials, which slowed up the entrance a good bit. However, they were relatively efficient and we were soon in!! We found our seats – 18 rows back from being practically on the ground – and were pumped; the view was outstanding, with the weather equally as good as our enthusiasm.

The game itself was just as exciting as you might imagine; it was even better since Germany slaughtered Argentina 4-0. I was supporting Germany by default since I had a very menacing German roommate who I intended on keeping happy. But my heritage is German (or at least my last name!), so I was OK with it. I even got my face painted!

However, I have to say this – I was ever so slightly disappointed by the fans at the park. Coming from Duke Basketball country, I thought there would be constant cheering, jeering, and songs going on during the entire 90 minutes of the game. Instead, the crowds would quietly watch the game (the vuvuzelas are not nearly as bad at the stadium than on TV; they really should just filter it out for broadcasts) and then cheer at key moments for their respective teams. What happened to the attitude of the ‘sixth player’ that the Cameron Crazies had? People actually sat down for most of the game!

Don’t get me wrong; the crowds can really get going when they want to (and they did!!). And I am really really happy that I went; I had an amazing time. But I think that the fans at this stadium could have taken a lesson or two from Duke.

I told Ryan about how I was shocked at how quiet the game was at times. He said, “Well, the fans can’t just cheer and shout for the entire game!” Clearly, this man has never truly encountered Duke basketball.

Anywho, fandom aside, we left the game ecstatic about Germany’s win and headed to the Waterfront for something to eat. We couldn’t get in to Paulaner (the German restaurant and pub at the Waterfront) because it was too full (unsurprisingly), so we settled on “Docks,” a restaurant we had eaten at a few times. We sat down and ordered drinks and food, but about 15 minutes later, the waitress said the kitchen was out of chicken (TIA, man.) so some of us had to change our orders. Once we re-ordered, she came back about 10 minutes later and replied that the kitchen had run out of food ( I swear this is exactly what she said). The restaurant on a Saturday night had run out of food. Only in Africa.

So we tried another crowded outside dining area called Emily’s. We succeeded at getting a table there and ordering (however, they were out of almost all of their food as well; their menu was limited to very simple sandwich platters – again, TIA.) just in time to watch Spain beat Paraguay. Watching it on TV quickly bored me, though; it was nothing like actually being at the stadium.

Next, we headed to Charlie’s (the Dutch sports bar we visit a lot) to celebrate with socializing and a LOT of dancing. And I mean, a LOT of dancing. We heard the World Cup Anthems ‘Waka Waka’ and “Waving Flag” at least 5 times each, and there was so much Gaga coming out of the speakers at the bar that even I was getting a little tired of my favorite, “Telephone.” It was a night to remember for sure, though, complete with some great company (we met up with Keely and some of our other friends!)

We got back at 4:30 AM – slightly (read: VERY) later than I intended on being back – but I was happy that we had a once-in-a-lifetime day.

And today is July 4th; This is the first time that I’m celebrating the holiday by myself, which is admittedly a little weird. I think I’m going to have lazy day watching 24 to celebrate. Nothing better than watching Jack Bauer take down terrorists to celebrate America, right?

Where is the Love?

2010-06-30T02:17:00.000-07:00

Monday, June 28th 2010
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This day, I got back to my classes with the women. We worked on more Microsoft stuff, but because the meeting space that I normally teach in was under construction, we were working in the living room; not ideal, but workable anyhow. One of the women got very frustrated with Word, and pretty much gave up for the day. I told her to call it a day, and that we’d get back to the basics at the next lesson. I think she’ll be ok with the right attitude though.

Tuesday, June 29th 2010
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On Tuesday, I thought it would be a day for me to catch up on all my work that I’ve been behind on for the website, but instead, I was told that we were going to CAFDA (a social justice organization that provides for many of the poorer suburbs of Cape Town) to meet with some US volunteers organizing a workshop of sorts.

Six 19 or 20-year-olds attended the discussion, which covered everything from poverty to gang violence. Five volunteers that were working with a different organization here facilitated it with the goal of learning more about the problems that plague communities like Lavender Hill. The discussion was really emotional, and when the children started talking about things like being afraid to tell police about violence ( because the police here are corrupt and often work with drug dealers, rather than turning them in ), or their neighbors getting shot, I suddenly felt incredibly compassionate for these people – no human deserves to have to endure such lifelong fear and violence. Comparing poverty here to poverty back in the US is not even possible; they are on two completely different levels.

Later, the lead US volunteer starting saying some things that upset me. He was saying that the reason these communities lack proper education and have horrendous crime/violence is that no one is standing up against the threats. He said that people should become leaders in the community, turning people into the police, or offering education to their neighbors. But how are they supposed to turn in criminals if they’re afraid of getting shot in retaliation? How are they supposed to educate each other when they can’t afford schooling for themselves or their children (public school is not free here)? And organizations like Philisa Abafazi are standing up for these types of causes. The volunteers that attended the workshop with me agreed, and we tried to explain that the level of problems in Lavender Hill was not one that could be stopped solely by community leadership; it’s time for serious government intervention. We invited him to come back to Lavender Hill and see where we work and what these people are facing; he declined – perhaps if he saw it, he’d have a different opinion. The Black Eyed Peas song "Where is the Love?" came on TV as I was typing this. I think this excerpt from it details how I feel sometimes here pretty accurately:

People killin', people dyin'
Children hurt and you hear them cryin'
Can you practice what you preach
And would you turn the other cheek

Father, Father, Father help us
Send us some guidance from above
'Cause people got me, got me questionin'
Where is the love (Love)

That night, we went to Cubana’s to watch the Spain-Portugal game. I met some new volunteers (yay!) and then Spain won! It was a good night.
More musings upon some of the issues I talked about today to come soon, hopefully. My macbook charger broke, so I have to go find a new one :-\

We INSIST!

2010-06-27T11:56:00.001-07:00

Sorry for the late posting! I should be better about getting posts up sooner in the future :) Friday was extremely uneventful - no one showed up for my classes, and I did work for the website. Hopefully attendance is better on Monday!
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Saturday, June 26th

Today, I decided to go on a trip to Cape Point and various other places with Shelley and some of her other housemates. Her host dad, Samson, is a very good tour guide, and organized a day trip for us to have a fun day filled with adventure. Even though I had already been to Cape Point with Lucinda, I decided to go just for the new experiences.

Haut Bay! I think.

First stop was Boulder Beach, where all the penguins live!

Our group.

Yes, PENGUINS. In South Africa. We got to see them waddling around, and well.. being penguins. It was basically the cutest thing ever.

The cutest thing ever. The sand looks like snow here, weird.

Next, we stopped at Haut Bay to take pictures with all of the beautiful scenery. I took this really cool one that I then edited - I'm really happy with how it turned out!

Remember, this is photoshopped. The water is not actually yellow or green.

The next stop was Cape Point, but once we got there, the weather was too bad. So we couldn't go; this worked out perfectly since I had already been there! But I didn't rub that in everyone else's faces. :)

Next, we had lunch at a nice seafood restaurant. After we took a seat at a table that wasn't by the window, the waitress said, "the management INSISTED we move to have the best view in the restaurant." We insisted that we preferred to stay, but she INSISTED that we move. Soooo.. We moved. And? It was a nice view, overlooking the harbor of Haut Bay.

After lunch, it was time to head to Seal Island! We got on a glass-bottomed boat and set off for the 15-minute cruise to what basically amounted to a few rocks with a HUGE amount of seals on them. I wasn't able to take in the interesting facts and beautiful scenery during the cruise, though; the water was very choppy and I got very seasick. I snapped some pics of the seals and then quickly returned to looking down at the floor of the boat, waiting for the swaying to be over.

Hastily photographed seals.

I was OK once I got back on land though. That night, we watched the USA game at a place in Kenilworth called Hob Nob's. I wore my USA scarf with pride, but alas, Ghana prevailed. I was really conflicted during the whole game - I understood how much everyone wanted Ghana to win since they were the last African team left in the cup, but some people were really rude to me and my friends just because we were American. Why does everyone hate America so much?!

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Sunday, June 27th

This morning, we got up and went to the Muizenberg flea market! I was in heaven. There were so many cool things - samosas, sweets, cheap world cup memorabilia, old CDs, things I didn't need but wanted to buy... It was great - and VERY CHEAP. I bought a Bafana Bafana jersey for basically $20, and a Spain jersey for $15! So cool. I wanted to stay longer and buy more things, but Sebastian and everyone else was ready to leave.

My jerseys!!

We had to hurry because we were heading to a traditional South African buffet restaurant! I didn't take my camera (ugh!), but just to give you a little idea of the magnitude of how awesome this restaurant is, let me take a moment to describe it. Picture your favorite buffet restaurant (or just buffet), and then multiply its awesomeness and size by 3. Then add 20-30 dishes of local african cuisine, and you're CLOSE to how much food this place had. It was slightly ridiculous - I walked around and just gazed at how much food there was for a good 10 minutes, and then ate a LOT of food. I also played with Derek (my host dad)'s grandson - I tried to teach him how to tie his shoe, and we colored some pictures, verifying the fact that I STILL cannot stay in the lines.

After lunch, we headed to the Waterfront to watch the Germany-England game (needless to say, Sebastian was really excited)! And Germany slaughtered England! WOOO!! We also may try to get tickets to Germany's quarterfinal match :-O We'll see..

Lucinda is sick this week, but I have a lot of work to do, so this next week will be very busy! Let's hope it's exciting as well, so I can tell you all about it!

Cheers!

New Post Coming Soon!

2010-06-26T08:44:00.000-07:00

Again, it's really been way too long since I last posted a blog; apologizing for that here and promising to make an exciting post tonight or tomorrow to make up for it, since I did a lot of fun stuff today :)

Thanks for reading!

- David

Post Offices without Packages, Cape of Good Hope

2010-06-23T06:14:00.000-07:00

Monday, June 21st
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I regret not blogging all of these events sooner, as so much has been happening recently, that I simply have not had time to sit down and write it all down! Frankly, I don't remember anything worth blogging about that happened on Monday - but I have this nagging feeling that I did something important that day but forgot to mention it. I'm going to skip to Tuesday, though. Hope you don't mind.

Tuesday, June 22nd
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So today, Shelley finished her AWESOME video for Philisa Abafazi (I'm featured in it, too!) and we wanted to put it on the website. Unfortunately, uploading a video to the website using the internet at Lucinda's would 1) Destroy whatever internet bandwidth we had left; and 2) take approximately 3 days. Soooooo.. We went to Newlands to use ProjectsAbroad internet to upload the video, and do other errands for Lucinda.

I also was conveniently in the proper area to pick up packages that my family had sent me (thanks so much to everyone who sent something, I have received your yummy gifts, and I am consuming them now!) However, this was easier said than done. I arrived at Post Office #1 after a short 5-minute walk from the Projects Abroad office. When I said that I needed to pick up a package, the receptionist reassured me, "Oh, we don't have any packages here. How are you sure that it's here?" My initial reaction was to say, "YOU'RE A POST OFFICE! OF COURSE YOU HAVE PACKAGES!" but instead, I negotiated with her and showed her the tracking number for my package. This was largely unhelpful, as she said it was an invalid number (it was correct, actually.), but somehow she found the package. One down, one to go.

The next package was in Rondebosch, about a 10-minute walk from the office. But instead, I took a minibus taxi with someone else and got there very quickly. This package was picked up very easily, as this post office assured me that they did, indeed, have packages. I then hailed a minibus taxi by myself, got where I was going, and successfully patted myself on the back for using South Africa's premier public transport independently for the first time.

Shelley and I did other errands while we were in town, like exchanging Namibian money, getting Lucinda's cell phone repaired, and other various requests. We also took the opportunity to have a nice lunch at Cavendish mall, at a healthy sandwich cafe called Kuai, or something like that. Overall, it was very productive and nice to get things done. You can watch the video at this link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13z-WnR4IbI&feature=player_embedded

That evening was the Bafana Bafana match against France! Leo and I met up with some human rights friends of Ryan's to go on a sunset cruise (which apparently would have included a showing of the game and unlimited champagne) around Victoria Harbour, but we quickly found out that all of Cape Town shuts down for Bafana matches; the skipper was nowhere to be found. So, we watched the game at a seafood restaurant. I met some cool people, and.. Bafana won! Even if they aren't going through to the next round, it's nice that they are able to go out with a bit of pride.

Wednesday, June 23rd
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This morning, Lucinda arranged a trip for the children of Philisa Abafazi and the volunteers to go to Cape Point, which includes the Cape of Good Hope! It's actually only about a 40 minute drive from Lavender Hill, which surprised me. For those of you who don't know, the Cape of Good Hope is the most south-western point of Africa (not the southern-most, contrary to popular belief). Long story short, we did LOTS of climbing up very steep hills and mountain pathways to get some amazing views, and learned some great history along the way. Oh, and we saw BABOONS! Yep. I have a few pictures from the trip below.

Edit: I forgot to say that today was also quite possibly the most epic day in sports: USA beat Algeria, heading to the round of 16!! WOO!! And England won too!! And Germany won!! So all the ethnicities represented in our house (besides the Swiss one, who hasn't had his team play its final match) were very happy =]

Also, this. Wow. Wow. Wow.

Blogs coming soon!

2010-06-22T14:24:00.003-07:00

Sorry I haven't posted in a few days! More blog awesomeness hopefully coming tomorrow night!!

- David

Seafood and Sunshine

2010-06-20T13:57:00.000-07:00

Today was a lazy and awesome day as well, filled with lots of soccer and hanging out. After trying to figure out what to do all day, Sebastian decided that we should have a ‘Guys Night Out’ and go out to dinner, and watch the game.

We went out to a seafood/sushi restaurant called Live Bait, in an area called Kalk Bay. I ordered the catch of the day with some white wine; I felt very refined getting to apply my new-found wine knowledge :) During dinner, the power randomly went out (TIA), about 15 minutes before we left. It never came back. The waiter brought over a candle, and I joked, “Is this normal?” - he didn’t respond. Oops.

After dinner, we headed out for drinks and to watch the game at a place called Cape to Cuba, which is a restaurant/bar/club that has a Cuban theme. It was really cool, and the atmosphere was nice! I snapped some interesting photos while I was there. Denmark managed to pull out a win against Ghana (sorry Noelle!) after an excellent game.

So, overall, the day was chill and relaxed, but the four of us in the house are getting to be quite the family. Sebastian is the protective German (and quickly tiring) big brother, Ryan is the witty American next-oldest, Leo is the funny Swiss guy, and I’m the energetic little kid. We make a good posse.

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Sunday, June 20^th, 2010

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So today, I got to meet up with Talia from Duke! I got up early and took a train into town (I was so proud! I did it all by myself and didn’t get lost or mugged!). We met up at the station and then we headed to Long Street in downtown Cape Town where we had brunch. It was really quaint and delicious!

We then headed to her house in Tamboerskloof, which was in a nice suburb near Long Street. After meeting her roommate, we called a cab and headed to Table Mountain. We were on a mission to take the cable car to the top.

After about 30 minutes of waiting, we were finally on our way. I snapped some great pics (but none of them really do justice to the view we had) that I’ll have to post eventually. The cable car was cool because the floor rotated slowly as you went up (not enough to make you sick luckily) so you could have a view of every part of the area.

Once we were up, we took numerous photos and took advantage of a lot of Kodak moments. It truly was a breathtaking view. I then went home on the train, since it was going to be dark soon ( = unsafe ). We ended the day by watching Brazil play Ivory Coast, further proving that the referees in this World Cup are INSANE. Oh well.. More excitement to come in the next week!

Soccer and Related Musings

2010-06-19T03:52:00.000-07:00

Friday, June 18th 2010
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Today was a pretty standard day at work. I worked on the website and started detailing the work we've been doing behind each of the projects here at P.A.B. You can view the website for the page I've been working on here (although it's under construction). Later in the day, I worked with one of the women on some computer skills - she said that she was going to start working in two weeks and wanted to be prepared. I asked her what she was doing and where she was working, but she didn't know. Soo... I did the best I could to give her an overview of important computer skills. I thought the lesson went well, and she was developing a confidence and curiosity for the computer that was impressive.

After I got off of work, we headed to the Fan Park to watch the USA-Slovenia game! I even got to buy a USA Scarf (FINALLY!) which was both cheap and patriotic!

I forgot to bring my camera to the fan park, so I had to take this picture of the scarf (without me) after the fact.

After a horrid first half followed by an amazing comeback from the US, we were only able to pull out a draw. Thanks a lot, ref! We headed to the Clay Oven, a pizza place on Long Street in downtown Cape Town for dinner and to debrief after that stressful game. Afterward, we watched the England-Algeria game (Another draw.. sigh) in the Dubliner, an Irish pub. There was a really nice piano with a glass top that I wanted to play (Side Note: I think I'm going through piano withdrawal from not touching a real piano in so long; I start playing "air piano" in my pockets whenever I walk throughout the day), but the pub was way too loud. When the game ended, the pub promptly started playing cheesy 80's soft rock. Anddddd mood destroyed. Next venue!

We walked around Cape Town for quite some time trying to find somewhere to hang out, but we never really found a place that suited everyone. We eventually headed home after being unsuccessful.
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And now, I'd thought I'd take a sec to talk about things in South Africa that are different, irk me, make me laugh, make me in awe.. etc. I call it, David's Random Musings.

David's Random Musings

Musing 1: Indoor Heating (or lack thereof)
You have no idea how much you'll miss this Western luxury until you get here. Only restaurants and large office buildings have indoor heating; finding it in a home is almost impossible. So, you get to use LOTS of blankets - it's not miserable, but definitely a life adjustment. Things like this really make me realize how much we take for granted back home.

Musing 2: Apostrophes
(I realize this musing is largely unnecessary and probably sounds kind of pretentious; please indulge me and just let me get this out, so I stay sane, hehe)
This goes for the entire world. Why can't we realize that apostrophes are only used for indicating possession or for contractions? It does not mean, "Look Out, there's an 'S' coming!" Phrases like "Call this number for time's available" and "Save our School's " make me want to become an English teacher.

Musing 3: Sense of Time
If someone says he or she will pick you up at 3:00 PM, go ahead and plan for 3:15, and even possibly 3:30. Just a fact of life. Punctuality is not a priority here; in a way, it's kind of nice - people are very relaxed and seem much less stressed. Still, I do miss the Western sense of time.

Musing 4: Race Relations
Although South Africa is considered the 'Rainbow Nation' for its multicultural makeup and general diversity, it is not without its race issues. I've noticed that there is a significant divide between the Blacks and Cape Coloureds (note this is actually the politically correct term. Check the link for details). One primary example is the makeup of the Bafana Bafana soccer team - I've talked to people at work and at my host family who expressed harsh remarks about there not being enough Coloureds on the team. Also, there is also criticism against the coach of Bafana Bafana for being a pawn of the government. Who knew that soccer was so political? I think that this issue is very intriguing, and I intend to find out more about the race relations in this area during the rest of my stay here.

Winners Never Quit!

2010-06-17T08:39:00.000-07:00

Wednesday, June 16th
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Today was National Youth Day (an important national holiday) so most people had off from work. Everyone at Lucinda's actually was supposed to work, but the ProjectsAbroad drivers that take us to work every day took off of work.. Sooo.. I had a day off!

And what did I do with that day off? I wish I had a more exciting story to tell you, but unfortunately, I just kind of hung out around the house. In the afternoon, a new volunteer got to our house named Leo. Leo is from Switzerland and is 22 (I'm still the youngest in the house. Oh well). Once Leo got in, Philly cooked us a brunch of eggs and bacon! What's even better is that apparently bacon here is the equivalent of country ham back home! So, that was pretty awesome.

That evening, we decided to go down to the waterfront to watch the Bafana Bafana game. Sebastian graciously offered to drive the four guys now in the house, and we picked up one other volunteer, Inge from Denmark. Once we got down to the waterfront, it was incredibly packed; Cape Town's pride in their team was in full force - vuvuzelas were blaring, the amount of yellow and green was blinding, and people were just generally going crazy with pride. The Cameron Crazies don't have anything on these people.

I decided I was going to buy some World Cup merchandise to start supporting some teams, as well. I went to the store at the waterfront, and found a Bafana Bafana jersey that I really wanted, but they were out of my size. So, I'll have to hold out until the next time I see one. I finally found United States World Cup stuff at this store too; however, the section was embarassingly small and only had a few jerseys and a tacky sweatshirt. The jerseys were really cool, but I had two qualms with buying one: 1) They were about $80 (ouch!). 2) Was I really going to wear an American jersey back in the USA? I wasn't able to resolve these two objections, so I held off on buying America stuff. Maybe next time.. I did pick up a cool Bafana Bafana hat though!

The dinner crew! Me, Ryan, Sebastian, Inge, and Leo! My hat is on wrong.

The giant screen in the middle of the common area was not even visible; people were thickly crowded all around it. So, we wondered from place to place trying to find a place to watch the game. After about half an hour, we found a restaurant with a relatively small (but still functional) TV to watch the game on. I ordered the messiest chicken sandwich ever, and thoroughly enjoyed it.

Sadly, Bafana Bafana got slaughtered by Uruguay (I think we all secretly knew it was going to happen). Nonetheless, it was a fun night. You'd never be able to tell that we lost that night from the sound of the crowd after the game though. Vuvuzelas and cheers of "WE MUST BELIEVE!" and "WINNERS NEVER QUIT!" were resounding in the air. South Africa has some spirit, for sure.

GOOOOOALL!!!!

2010-06-15T00:11:00.000-07:00

Sunday, June 13th 2010
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Sunday was a very lazy day, frankly. I slept til 11:30 AM (GLORIOUS.), watched soccer, skyped and chatted with family/friends, watched soccer some more… My whole life really has just revolved around soccer lately: which really hasn’t been a bad thing. Honestly, I wasn’t really excited about the World Cup until I got over here; once you get watching the games, the national pride and excitement over this competition really takes hold. Germany played an amazing game against Australia, even though I wanted the ‘Socceroos’ (that’s actually the team’s official name. wow.) to prevail.

Monday, June 14th, 2010
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Today was my first new teaching day with the women of Philisa Abafazi, since I was taking over classes that Petra used to teach with them. I waited for the women to arrive and we had three out of a possible six attend. I asked them what they felt familiar with in terms of programs, and most of them said they weren’t comfortable with anything; that makes it easy for teaching though – I just teach everything! We started out with the basics of Word and Windows. Unlike the children, the women were much more unsure of themselves when using the mice, keyboards, and touchpads. We had to spend extra time working on basic concepts like moving the mouse, using scrollbars, and highlighting text (this was particularly challenging). You really don’t realize how many little details go into something as simple as typing a document until you start explaining it! Anyway, we’re making good progress, and I have several more groups to teach throughout the week. I spent the remaining time at work fixing up the website some more (we got the internet back, but only for very limited use.) and doing some things with the Philisa Abafazi logo.

That night, we celebrated Ryan (my housemate)’s birthday. Philly had a bunch of family members over, and one of the other volunteers came as well. We had a huge spread of food (pies, samosas, doughnuts, cappuccino muffins.. so much good food) and we toasted to Ryan’s health and well-being. Just like when I attended the other birthday party, I noticed that the local culture emphasizes the importance of birthdays in a way that the West often doesn’t. They take it as a time for spiritual reflection, gratitude, and welcoming. Most of Philly’s family had just met Ryan that night, yet they were so earnest and warm about wishing Ryan the best for the future – they also told him to only say positive things about South Africa when he got home ;)

While we ate and celebrated, we watched the amazing Italy-Portugal game. I really thought Portugal was going to pull out a victory after that amazing first goal; oh well.. we’ll see how they do in the next games.

Sorry no pictures recently, maybe next time I’ll have some interesting stuff to share ;) Goooo BRAZIL! (And the US)

Just like a Wavin' Flag..

2010-06-13T04:11:00.001-07:00

So Saturday morning , I got up to meet Shelly and Dan (two other volunteers) to go America shopping! We wanted to get decked out in USA gear for the big England-America game that night. We headed to Blue Route Mall, and we checked virtually every store; no one had anything American! You could buy jerseys, scarves, and hats for Germany, France, Brazil, South Africa, and basically every country but the United States. Most stores never even ordered USA stuff, let alone stocking them at any point. I think I’m going to get a Bafana Bafana jersey to support South Africa though. We were told that the only real place to get US stuff was at a store on the waterfront. I haven’t been down there before, but maybe one day I’ll be able to get some people together and head down. I want an American jersey too! Or at least a scarf.

We headed back to the house and I was ready for some lunch. After I lounged around a bit, Tammy (Philly’s daughter) cooked us some Broeworwors (the traditional South African sausage) to eat for lunch. Let me tell you, if you put a few broeworwors on a roll with some mustard and chutney…. Man, you haven’t lived. Which brings me to the next point: Chutney. I’m not sure how many of you have heard of the sauce before, but it’s very popular here for use with curries, sandwiches, and various other dishes. I encourage everyone to get some, because it’s really cool. Ok, that’s enough for my food rant for the day.

As I was eating my sandwich, Sinclair (the driver that takes me to a lot of different places with other volunteers, including the Wine Tour) showed up at my door! We were having a small going away party for Petra (she leaves on Sunday) at his house in Lavender Hill. Sinclair cooked us a delicious seafood curry, barbeque chicken, and pork chops (if you haven’t noticed, the South African diet is very big on protein). We sat around and laughed, told stories, and talked about our experiences. Then Sinclair thanked all of the volunteers in attendance for the time and effort we had committed while in South Africa. He said that now is the time where South Africa is going to show the world that it is tired of taking handouts and donations – it is ready to be self-sufficient. Hopefully that will be evident in its handling of the World Cup, too. Sinclair’s optimism and commitment to his country is shared by most of the locals I’ve met here; they have a spirit and resilience that is truly admirable.

After the party, it was time to get ready for the USA-England Game! We called a cab and headed into Cape Town’s FIFA Fan Park once more. After meeting up with some of the other volunteers, we moved up to the big gathering and waited for kickoff. The American presence was definitely visible, but we were completely outnumbered by the England supporters. Nonetheless, Shelley, Dan, and I made a fairly impressive showing with some flags we found and some patriotic clothing.

Patriotic.

I don’t think I’ve ever felt prouder of my country than I felt during the World Cup game; seeing all of the flags waving and people chanting ‘USA, USA!’ made me proud to be an American and got all of us really excited. I played my vuvuzela (I got one for free at the Coke booth!) and waved my American flag with pride as K’Naan’s anthem ‘Waving Flag’ for the celebrations played at least 8,000 times.

As for the game itself (a tie; in this beginning round, they don’t do overtime periods): while I’m happy we didn’t lose, the Americans really weren’t playing very good soccer. Even I (with my extremely basic soccer knowledge) could see that they were bunching up too much. We had some great shots, but let’s get real here: the only reason we tied is because the England goalie messed up. Oh well, maybe we’ll prevail next time ;)

England Supporters.

After the game, we headed to a bar/dance club called Charlie’s (or one of those other possessive pronouns… Gary’s.. Larry’s.. I don’t know.) and met up with some of the Human Rights volunteers (including some of my people from the Garden Route trip! Yay!) to debrief about the game and relax. The dancing that ensued may or may not have involved shameless choreography to a certain Beyonce song. It may not have though. I won’t admit to that.

After an exhausting night, we grabbed a taxi and I went to sleep very quickly; man, Cape Town knows how to throw a party (and no one has even won!). The spirit in the air here is contagious; you just HAVE to be excited about everything involving soccer. Here’s hoping the US and Bafana Bafana make a strong showing in the later rounds!

Ayoba!!

2010-06-11T14:49:00.000-07:00

Thursday June 10th, 2010
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Frankly, this day didn’t amount to anything much worth blogging about. It was very average, I mainly did administrative things around Philisa Abafazi. Also, I found an internet café, but it didn’t let me use Skype or play videos (NO GLEE STILL) or upload photos (UGH). Dinner was good as always. We then watched The Bodyguard (which was awesome!!) and Grease (since my housemate Ryan hadn’t seen it yet! UNBELIEVABLE). Andddd that was Thursday. Oh give me a break – not EVERY single day is an adventurous epic tale on my blog. We’ll save that for Friday.

Friday, June 11th, 2010
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Today was the official beginning of the World Cup!! AHHHHHHHHHHHH!!! I slept til 10 AM (glorious. Absolutely glorious.), got up and at my “Frosties” (the equivalent of Frosted Flakes here) and had some tea, and got dressed. After messing around on the internet and helping a friend out with her computer, I ate some lunch and got prepared to head to the Retreat station where I was meeting some of my friends to head over to Cape Town. I am proud to say that I walked there all by myself and didn’t get lost! I’m slowly getting my bearings around here.

The entirety of Cape Town and all of its suburbs was decked out in the classic Bafana Bafana yellow and green attire (Bafana Bafana is the name for South Africa’s world cup team; it means “The Boys, the Boys.”). You could hear the vuvuzellas (the long, cylindrical trumpet horns everyone plays as a South African pride thing) everywhere; this place has a pride and spirit that I have never encountered anywhere else. We took the train down to Cape Town from the station.

Once at our destination, you could barely hear anything else because of all of the vuvuzellas and other people shouting. This town was ready for the match of a lifetime. We arrived at the Fan Park (the next best thing to being at the game), but it was full and had been full for some time. Soo.. we watched the game on the roof of a shopping mall with a bunch of other fans and ProjectsAbroad volunteers (you could see the big TV screens of the fanpark from the roof still, but it wasn’t very clear what was going on during the match). I’m pleased to say that Bafana Bafana didn’t lose, but we unfortunately didn’t win either. At least we scored the first goal of the tournament; that has to count for something.

Our view from the top of the mall.

After the Bafana game was over, we headed to the Fan Park since most of the fans had vacated after the first game. We chilled out and watched a laser light show as we waited for the France Uruguay match to start. I noticed that the FIFA Fan Park is nothing but one HUGE advertisement for Coca-Cola; literally EVERYTHING is Coke themed. I don’t mind though – it’s clearly the better choice over Pepsi, and when it comes to international recognition, Coke has Pepsi beat by a long shot.

France Uruguay was frankly kind of a boring match for me (other than the red card! Woah!), but being in the fan park with all of the fans and spirit was a really great experience. The energy in the air was infectious, and you couldn’t help but have a good time just being in the general vicinity. Sadly, this match ended in a tie as well; I’m not sure I had any preferences over who I wanted to win beyond a small favor towards France (since one of my volunteer friends was from there).

Shelley and her Vuvuzela!

The cab ride back from Cape Town to Retreat was again an epic sing-along consisting of tunes from Gaga, Ke$ha, and the like. Archie (the driver) never fails me.

And tomorrow? I’m heading to the mall with Shelley and Dan (other US volunteers) to buy USA gear for the big brawl against the UK tomorrow. We’re gonna slaughter ‘em!

USA! USA! (The fact that we haven’t even made the top 3 teams in the World Cup since like 70 years ago is a minor deterrent to my spirit, but we’ll ignore that for tomorrow.)

Title Reference: 'Ayoba' is a word meaning 'cool' here, but it can also mean 'GO TEAM!' and similar things. It's basically an expression of excitement.

Small World and Saying Goodbye

2010-06-10T02:07:00.001-07:00

[I apologize for getting behind on these posts, sorry to keep you in suspense! ;) ]

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Tuesday, June 8^th, 2010

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Well today was a fairly normal day for teaching. I just finished up a lot of my curriculum, leaving mostly fun stuff for the last day of class I would have on Wednesday. When I got back to Lucinda’s, I focused my time on photographing the women’s arts and crafts (they make jewelry boxes, bracelets, pins, hats, necklackes, and all sorts of things) for posting on the website. Our idea is to start selling the items online to make more of a profit for the women. I think it’s an excellent idea, although I’m unsure of how shipping and online payment would work. So we’ll continue to look into that.

Later that today, we met some more human rights volunteers who were working at Lucinda’s that day. One of them told me she went to UNC Asheville; how cool is that?! Even cooler, we got talking some more and apparently she is Mrs. Shelley (the GHS art teacher!)’s niece! Small world, I guess. She was really freaked out that I knew her aunt, and I even had some video of Mrs. Shelley (from the yearbook DVD) to prove it.

The rest of the day, I worked on trying to fix the internet. After multiple calls to several different tech support lines, I was unable to fix it. This did not look good.

That evening, I got a text message from Lucinda saying we had hit our internet cap of 4 GB in just 2 days. I was shocked; this is more internet than even I have used on my personal internet card in 3 weeks! The only way we could use up internet that quickly was if someone was video chatting or watching TV over the internet for a long time. I don’t understand how that could have happened at all; it’s really really weird. Nonetheless, we’re out of internet, and that means that I’m primarily out of work for one of my two jobs (maintaining the internet). Maybe we’ll be able to collect money around the office and get it back.. Here’s hoping.

Wednesday, June 9^th, 2010

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LDOC (Last Day of Classes) for my kids at Aysha’s – although this wasn’t like a Duke LDOC (Jay Sean sadly didn’t show). We had fun listening to music and competing in typing games. The kids took turns trying to type particular sentences as fast as possible, and most of them really enjoyed it. I gave them two chances; one to type the ‘correct’ way, and one to type anyway they wanted. Sadly, they all typed faster when they didn’t use the standard 10-finger approach I had been teaching them. I hope they understand the importance of it though.

Later, I distributed certificates and took pictures with them all, in a small ‘graduation ceremony’. At the end though, one student didn’t get a certificate; apparently I forgot to print hers.. I was really really upset that I forgot, and I hope she wasn’t too sad. I still took a picture with her and told her she’d get her certificate tomorrow. We then took a group picture which I think I’m going to try to put in the newspaper. Finally, the kids got up and gave a speech thanking me for all my hard work and dedication, telling me how much they’d miss me. They then presented me with a small gift bag with some nice deodorant and other things. I was touched; in such a short time, I felt like I had built a real lasting relationship with these kids. I was legitimately sad to be leaving them. I told them to come visit me at Lucinda’s, and said that I’d try to come visit them too.

My Graduates!!

That night, we visited the Melting Pot again for live music and socializing. It was, as expected, a really fun and relaxed night. I also took Ryan, my new housemate, and he seemed to have a good time as well. I got up on stage and performed ‘Used to Love U’ (John Legend) and ‘Break Your Heart’ (Taio Cruz, version inspired by Edie Wellman), and apparently did pretty well, but the drums that were backing me up were a bit loud. Overall, still a lot of fun, and we ended it with the traditional McDrive (of course). WORLD CUP IN 2 DAYS?! Oh man.

Pride, Rain, and Chaos

2010-06-07T13:13:00.000-07:00

Bonus Post Picture: Our Ziplining Crew from the Garden Route!

After the incredible weekend that I just have, I think I almost forgot that I even had things like responsibilities and a job. Nonetheless, it was nice to get back into the swing of teaching and see all of my work buddies. I’ve grown quite close to my morning class (the ‘advanced’ ones). They’ve come so far – they’re typing with correct hand position (most of the time, hehe), using Word, Powerpoint, and Excel, navigating Windows, and formatting essays. It’s really impressive that they’ve done all of this in two weeks time. I want to make them some really nice certificates to give them for completing the course. I think Wednesday will be my last day with them.
Thursday and Friday I will work on some new things for the website; Lucinda has had the cool idea of selling the women’s arts and crafts online through an e-store (awesome!), and of course, I have been enlisted to help out. So, we’re gonna set that up. And then, Petra leaves on Sunday… Oh no!

So the following week, I’ll be taking care of all of her classes (she has like four of them!) and also helping cover for our new volunteer Alexander’s classes. Alexander will take over my teaching at Aysha’s informal settlement.

So enough of the future, and more with the present. Today’s teaching focused on last minute details that I hadn’t included yet: windows stuff, files, folders, formatting essays, the number keys… things like that. And I also devised a “final project” for the kids: they will become travel agents and plan a trip to a place they want to go to, using the skills they have learned. Today, they wrote proposals for trips to places like Germany, Spain, and even Sweden. They never cease to impress me.

Back at Philisa Abafazi, I discovered that Lucinda is out of Lavender Hill all of this week doing meetings and seminars in Cape Town. As you might expect, the entire business of Philisa Abafazi completely went haywire without her calm, ridiculously organized persona around. Kids were screaming and playing musical instruments, papers were strewn about, the internet wasn’t working (I couldn’t fix it either. Tech support was also utterly useless. Let’s hope it works tomorrow.), and general tension was all around. Also, it was rainy and cold, so the kids that came for the afterschool program couldn’t go outside. Nonetheless, we got through it; Lucinda’s presence is definitely missed though.

Back home, I discovered a new afterschool snack thanks to Philly: instant soup. Seriously. If you haven’t had it before, do so. It’s fast, filling, and delicious. That is all.

Meanwhile, South Africa eagerly prepares for the opening of the World Cup on Friday. Every media outlet’s content is completely dominated by World Cup coverage, and there’s just this air of excitement around the whole event. However, security regarding crowd control has been brought up as a recent issue. We’ll have to see how well Cape Town can deal with it when Friday rolls around. I should be in the Fan Park watching the game on a big screen; think of it like watching a Duke away game in Cameron – it’s the next best thing to being there.

This evening, we watched Men of Honor which was excellent. And.. that’s about it. I don’t have too much more interesting things to report. I wanted to go to the internet café to post my pictures, but it’s a 20-minute walk, and the weather was horrible. So.. we’ll see.
More excitement tomorrow, I’m sure. Thanks to everyone who’s left comments on the blog posts – I really, really like reading comments. So keep leaving them!

Poster’s Note: I realize that the general grammar of most of my posts is terrible. I really do realize this. So I’d like to apologize for that. I would edit them, but I just don’t have the willpower. Hope Mrs. Gordon (my high school English teacher, for those of you who don’t know her) isn’t reading this…

Special Edition MEGA-POST: GARDEN ROUTE!

2010-06-06T12:28:00.000-07:00

So I'm just gonna save space and say Thursday was relatively uninteresting other than that I went into town and bought a camera charger (I left mine at home.. ugh) in the city of Cape Town. That's the only eventful thing I did. And now onto the real blog post.

[Photo Disclaimer: I have approximately 500 (Yes, 500) pictures from this trip. Thus, posting them all online at any point would be absolutely mad on my prepaid internet. So, I will instead get to an internet cafe soon and do some major posting. That's the plan anyway.]
The trip on the Garden Route was Friday through Sunday, and jam packed with adventure. The plan was to drive this historic route and to stop at various awesome places along the way. I traveled with 15 or so other ProjectsAbroad volunteers who also decided to do the trip; 9 were in my van. I made some excellent friends on this journey, and I'm really glad I went.

A bit of the scenery and people. The pictures really don't do it justice, though.

The first stop was the Cango Caves which are basically really, really old limestone caves that you walk around and learn about. Apparently one cavern used to play host to classical music concerts from local orchestras (HOW COOL IS THAT?!), but they had to stop in 1994 due to vandalism. Lame. Who comes and vandalizes a classical music concert? Anywho, after we learned about that stuff, we entered the ADVENTURE part of the tour, where we had to climb through nooks, crannies, and small crevices while contorting our bodies into all kinds of strange positions to make it through the caves' labyrinth. It felt very much like an Indiana Jones movie - very epic.

Cango Caves.

That night, we stopped at a hostel (read what this is if you aren't sure, very cool!) and had a wonderful dinner consisting of Braai food (Braai is South African barbeque). We talked over drinks and had a really great time.

In the morning, we got up and headed to a game reserve for a safari! Driven in a sort of dune-buggy-for-tourists, we snapped pictures of three of the "Big Five," (Rhinoceros, Leopard, Cape Buffalo, Elephant and Lion make up this group), although the reserve only had Rhinos, Buffalos, and Lions from this list. We also saw a Giraffe (he was kind of far away though) and lots of Zebras. Alligators were there chilling as well. Many pictures coming soon from this, whenever I can get my butt to an internet cafe.This is not clipart from the internet; I took this picture. How cool is that?!

Next up was MONKEYLAND. Yes, Monkeyland. As you can imagine, we saw all sorts of monkeys there, and walked across South Africa's longest suspension bridge (wildly unstable, and scary as crap, by the way). There were also lemurs, which reminded me of the Duke Lemur Center. When I mentioned this to my travelmates, one of them asked me why a college would funnel so much money into something like lemurs. Clearly, because Duke is awesome.

And next, the World's Highest Bungee Jump. I thought a lot about whether I was going to do this; the concept behind it still doesn't strike me as particularly safe. Nonetheless, I signed up. Why I did it, I still have no idea. After a lot of waiting and hiking up to the bridge that we would eventually jump off (I have a DVD of this that I want to upload eventually), I waited my turn and watched my fellow companions jump. The whole process is very upbeat and streamlined; the workers quickly put you in the gear (which, coincidentally isn't very much: it consists of one backup harness (in case the bungee breaks) and a boot thing attached to your ankles that seems to be attached with a few knots and velcro. Yes, velcro.) and then dance to the high-energy adrenaline-pumping techno music playing in the background. When it was my turn, I was relatively calm until I got to the edge. However, I didn't have much time to ponder, as once I could see the edge, they counted down "5-4-3-2-1 BUNGEEE!" and then I jumped. The first 2 seconds (it's about 5 seconds of pure free fall) were like flying; it's eerily quiet and you really feel like a superhero, soaring to his destination. Once the bungee finally caught, my blood was quickly rushing to my head (slightly uncomfortable) and then I began to bounce up and down on the bungee. This was a little scary; even though I had reached the bottom, I still kept pondering all of the things that could go wrong (the engineer in me never fully trusts any system, even though I did miserably in physics). I finally got up and felt amazing. The adrenaline rush you get is really like no other. Would I do it again? Yes. I would.

That night, we stayed at a really nice hostel which cooked us a nice meal and then we sat around the campfire and basically sang every song ever. Glee, Disney, Backstreet Boys, Muscials.. you name it, we did some version of it. The hostel provides a guitar for its guests to use (genius!), and I was able to tell one of my travelmates the chords for some songs that we could sing to as well. It was a long, warm, pleasant evening.

This picture isn't particularly flattering of the group as a whole, but I really wanted to include some picture from the campfire. This is actually the best one we all took. It still captures the spirit of the evening, I think. Shalini needs to look at this camera, not her own, though ;)

In the morning, we left for ZIPLINING in the Tsit
sikamma natural rainforest. We basically hiked and zipped our way around various destinations in the forest. Sounds very simple, but the sheer view we got (nothing like the view we got doing bungee jumping of course) doing it and the exhilaration of zipping through the forest at high speeds was awesome.
A long drive back then ensued, filled with sleep, many snack breaks, more singing, and lots of laughs. I made some great friends on this trip and hope to be hanging out with them more!

I'm a Rockstar.

2010-06-03T07:55:00.000-07:00

Wednesday, June 2, 2010

Wow. What an awesome day. It started off fairly standard with teaching at Aysha’s. My morning class (the advanced class) had just finished their budgeting assignments, so now it was time to teach them something new; I thought Powerpoint would be fun and relevant. So after teaching them the basics of Powerpoint, I gave them an assignment: to create a presentation on something they were interested in or enjoyed talking about. They really got into this, choosing topics ranging from “How to Start a Fire” to “Causes and Solutions to Teen Pregnancy.” I was impressed with their maturity and hard work; they got creative and added colors, images, and effects as well. Once I get a way to move the presentations to a flash drive or something, I’ll see if I can post them.

After the morning class, I realized I didn’t have a decent lunch to eat (groceries were running low at the Smith household), and as if I had just asked for a meal from the heavens, Aysha appeared and asked if I would like some lunch. I happily agreed, and she soon returned with eggs, sausage, toast, and coffee. My mouth is watering just thinking about how good it all was.

Once I was fed, I got back to my afternoon class and taught them the budgeting that I had taught the morning class the previous day. We struggled with one of the old computers in the lab (it’s running Windows 98 and has a whopping 16 MB of RAM – for you non-computer-geeks out there, that’s an incredibly small amount of memory) randomly resetting or freezing, so I was determined to fix that the next day. The class received the information well, and also seemed to understand the budgeting well.

After dinner that night (another Philly classic – bean curry), we had the weekly ProjectsAbroad social. This week, it was at Melting Pot (oddly enough, where I had been last Wednesday). Desiree, our normal morning driver that takes us to our internships at 8:30 AM each morning, drove me and 13 other volunteers over there that evening. Wednesday was open mic night, and I had a feeling I was going to get a piece of that stage tonight.

I signed up to get on the stage, and after the reggae band from last week and another cool jazz band who covered Maroon 5’s “Sunday Morning,” I was up. I got up there and started out with my go-to performance song, John Legend’s “Ordinary People,” on the piano, with me providing vocals as well. Not to brag, but.. The crowd ate it up. I had a backup band that the venue provides playing drums and bass with me, and I felt like a rock star. I followed up with my other go-to, “If I Ain’t Got You,” by Alicia Keys. It was a hit as well, but I had exhausted my two-song limit (open mic people get two songs) so I got off stage to a roaring audience (I say audience, but it really was more of a 20-30 person posse; this is a club/lounge setting, remember).

However, I wasn’t done yet. They started cheering “One More Song! One More Song!” and practically forced me back up on stage. I couldn’t really think of any other song to do that was polished enough to perform, but I got up and did “Be Without U” by Mary J Blige relatively successfully (it had hiccups for sure). I then finally relinquished the stage.

The feeling I got after that was amazing. People in the club started coming up to me telling me that I was an inspiration, that I had soul, asking me how long I had been singing (“But I’m just a computer engineering student!”), and things like that. A guy in the club came up to me and told me he was managing Cape Town’s World Youth Day (conveniently in Lavender Hill, where I work) in about a week or two, and wanted me to perform there. I tentatively agreed. My first gig, and I’m not even a formal musician!

For the record, there are videos and photos of this whole ordeal out there with one of the volunteers. I’m currently trying to procure this media.

Later that night, one of the owners of the Melting Pot’s recording studio (apparently they have a recording studio) took me to the side and showed me their sound booths and equipment; apparently they want me to come record with them, haha. We’ll see about that; regardless, it was really cool.

When we finally left the Melting Pot, we ended the night with a late “McDrive” (my friend Hester’s term for a Mcdonald’s drive-through; apparently this is the normal term in all of Holland. I like it.), just like a good night at Duke would have ended. It was, in a word, amazing. This Cape Town thing isn’t half bad, I’ve realized.

Getting the Hang of It..

2010-06-01T11:02:00.000-07:00

I started off today teaching more computer skills at Aysha's informal settlement. I had 3 kids show up to my class of capacity 4, which was relatively good attendance, and the kids actually listened to me! I'm teaching them how to type one pair of fingers at a time; we started with the thumb and the index finger keys, and today we added the keys covered by the middle fingers. So, we're well on our way to conquering the entire keyboard! They don't have a lot of speed yet, but it's a work in progress :)
I even had one of my students chastise her partner (we normally work in pairs, with two to a computer/keyboard set) for not using proper keyboarding hand position! Maybe I am getting through to these kids! I couldn't help but smile at that.

I focused on budgeting in today's morning class, using Excel as the medium. We talked about everything from the importance of budgets to a very simplified version of how stocks work (putting the stock market into little-kid language is harder than you think, by the way). I showed everyone how to do a budget with income and expenses and then asked them to make their own weekly budgets. I set them to work and came back thoroughly surprised - they did almost the entire thing on their own, with very little help from me. What's more is that it seemed like they were proud of themselves; this made sense to them because they knew they would use this in the "real world." We talked about what happens when net income is negative, and everyone really seemed to understand. I'm gonna call my morning class my "Advanced Kids."

My afternoon class was mostly new kids, which was slightly frustrating because I had 1/3 of the class on an advanced level and 2/3 on the beginner level. People had trouble paying attention, and we didn't get through as much detail as I would have liked. My beginner class is gonna need a little work, but we'll get there in time.

I came back to Lucinda's to eat lunch and then work on things for the website, but I didn't get a whole lot done before I had to leave. I did find out that we got a large donation of food and other supplies from NedBank here (they also gave financial seminars to the women), so that was good to hear. Here's a group photo they all took after the big day:

Back at home, Philly cooked fish cakes (think crab cakes) and potatoes - good, as always. Also, I've begun to miss sweet tea quite a lot; here, they drink hot tea a good bit, which I've grown accustomed to, but it's still not the same. I think I may sneak into the kitchen and brew some up one day. I tried to make an individual cup of sweet tea by taking hot tea, mixing lots of sugar into it, and then putting ice into it; epic fail. We'll see...

Also, note to self: Don't watch CSI reruns before you go to bed: this makes for very interesting dreams.

Barbeque and Copy and Paste

2010-05-31T07:27:00.000-07:00

Sunday, May 30th
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Today we got up and went to a barbeque place called Mzoli's. It sounded Italian to me but it turns out it's rather African. Tons and TONS and BOATLOADS of people get together under a giant shack to socialize and listen to live music. We got a table with about 12 of the ProjectsAbroad volunteers and sat down to wait for our food. The waiting took 3.5 hours, and that's only because Sebastian bribed the cook with 100 Rand (apparently this is a standard practice) to get the food to come faster. It's understandable, I guess; there were SO many people there. Very crowded, and many people very drunk. Once we got the food, it was great though; literally every type of meat you can imagine: ribs, beef, lamb, chicken.. etc. However, I waited so long, I think I almost passed out from starvation (I hadn't eaten anything all morning, because I thought we'd eat soon when we got to Mzoli's!)

After the food, we danced to the music of a local South African artist. She was good at getting the crowd going, and we were having a great time. However, it was getting dark ( = unsafe) so we called a cab and got out of there. I was very proud that I knew the area well enough to tell the driver how to get to my house. My sense of direction is slightly improving apparently.

I came home so exhausted that I just passed out. 10-11 hours of sleep was totally worth it.

--------

Monday, May 31st
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Today, I found out my semi-final plan for how my teaching schedule will go. I'll be teaching Aysha's children in the informal settlement for two 3-week programs where I give them an overview of computer skills they need to be competent and valuable in the workplace. I decided to make it a 3-section program; the first being keyboard skills, the second being ms office, the third being windows skills.
So today, I focused on getting them more comfortable with the keyboard; I hearkened back to the days of my old keyboarding teacher, Ms. Clark, in 7th grade, calling out nonsensical strings of characters for the students to type. It was, admittedly, a little dry and uninteresting; however, I believe it was necessary for the students to get a better understanding of the keyboard and to get more comfortable so they didn't have to look down at the keys all the time. My morning class received the lesson very well, while the afternoon class had low attendance, and one student walked out halfway through the lesson because she wasn't interested anymore. Great. Good to know I'm enthralling.

Dinner at home was of course great, and Sebastian took me to the DVD store, so now I'm going to watch some episodes of CSI :)

New volunteer arriving on wednesday, woop woop!

Wining, Dining, Photographing, and Partying

2010-05-29T13:02:00.000-07:00

Today, I went on a wine-tasting and sight-seeing tour with Petra to the area known as Stellenbosch, the winelands of South Africa. Remember, the drinking age here is 18. We called upon one of the drivers that drives a lot of the ProjectsAbroad volunteers around named Sinclair. Sinclair is a retired schoolteacher who used to teach history, making him a perfect tour guide. As a result, he offers all sorts of personal tours of the surrounding area of Cape Town; he explained that he wanted to take me to places that the big, commercial tours wouldn’t take me - sort of an “insider’s guide.”
Sinclair was extremely friendly, fun to talk to, and really knew his stuff. We drove about 20 minutes from Cape Town and were soon in the midst of beautiful mountains, wondrous water, and several other breath-taking sights. He stopped at key points along the way for us to take photos – he always knew the best places to stop, too. I have attempted to put up a few of my favorites in this post.

As we passed all of the beautiful mountains, he said, “Now you understand why the Dutch took so long to give this place up!” Indeed, I did. He even took us to the shantytown areas that were remnants of Apartheid, where thousands of people still live; the sight of it all is a little staggering.Shantytowns.

We stopped at three different wineries along the way, and in between, Sinclair explained the history of the Cape. I tried all sorts of different wines, and I think I gained enough knowledge to be on my way to being a sommelier (an expert in wines).

Petra and I are wine experts.

I can’t decide whether I’m more of a red wine or a white wine person, though; they definitely both have their pros and cons. I guess they’re both good in different situations.

Sinclair explained to me that the geography of the area lent itself particularly well to making wine since the large mountains blocked harmful wind from damaging the vineyards in the valleys. He said that of all the wines that Cape Town exports now (it’s apparently one of the top revenue sources currently), the Pinotage is the one that started it all. So.. I purchased a Kumkani Pinotage that I particularly liked.

We also tried a dessert wine called a Stellenbosch Hills Muscat de Hambourg that was my favorite – it was sweet (but not too sweet) and warm; I can see myself curling up with a good mystery novel by a fireplace, drinking a glass. I got a bottle of that too - it's only produced at that cellar and is relatively rare.

No, I didn't take this picture. But this is the place we went =]

Decision time: do I drink the wine here or ship it home? I’m leaning towards shipping it home; perhaps we could have a “David arrives from South Africa and now we get to drink this South African wine in celebration” party? I don’t know.

I’m thinking it’s illegal for me to take wine back into the US since I’d be under 21 and in possession of it when I come back, so maybe shipping it home is best. Of course, if a situation turns up that requires celebration here…. ;)

Sinclair also took me and Petria to a local restaurant he liked called Dros. I had the oxtail, by his request. It was AWESOME but tedious since you had to cut all of the meat off the bone. Fun fact: South Africans are not big on napkins or refined table manners (I’ve noticed this at home too). Trying to keep up my cotillion skills on such a messy dish was difficult, and I eventually traded my knife and fork for the ten-finger approach.No one was looking at the camera except me.

In all seriousness, it was an exquisite day where I got to see the beautiful sights of rural South Africa, taste some great South African wine, and enjoy great company at the same time. I think I could get used to this South Africa thing.

I should have brought sunglasses.

That evening, we attended a 50th birthday party for Philly’s twin brothers. It was like a mini-church service mixed with a huge party; several people got up to give testimonies or talk about their faith, and then people prayed and said nice things about the birthday people. I talked to Derrick and he says that since they have such a large family, every big birthday is a huge ordeal. They even had a DJ! Although here are my observations about South African music tastes:

• Michael Bublé, Justin Bieber, and Alicia Keys are insanely popular.
• 80s and 90s classic rock are still big for adults here too.
• They sing “Happy Birthday” with like 2 or 3 added verses. It’s kind of ridiculous.

And now, I’m sitting here writing this post while Sebastian rocks out to his Bee Gees Greatest Hits DVD for the umpteen millionth time. A good night.

Work, Work, Work

2010-05-29T13:01:00.000-07:00

Friday, May 28th
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Again, a relatively uneventful day since my teaching doesn’t start again until Monday. I improved the website a little bit more, designed business cards for Lucinda’s organization and some related projects, and made some scans of some very interesting newspaper articles (upon typing this list, I’m realizing that perhaps the day was more productive than I thought!). I’m supposed to put them up on the website, but the internet here is so unreliable that it’s very difficult (even at work) to get them to upload. I want you all to be able to see them, because they give some very important background on where Philiza Abafazi has been in terms of history, and some of the key things it has done in the past.
That night, we had a really good dinner consisting of pork ribs and sausages, barbequed over a fire that Derrick (my host dad) made. I know I talk a lot about food in my blog, but I truly mean it when I say that every single meal I’ve eaten here has been DELICIOUS. These people know how to cook.
I watched Pretty Woman for the first time (I’ve been on a romantic comedy stint recently), and really liked it. I also watched The Break Up but didn’t like how it ended (although if you’ve seen it, you’ll understand that the ending is much more realistic than a lot of the fairytale happenings in 90% of romantic comedies). And… that was it. Saturday would be MUCH more entertaining.

PHOTOS!

2010-05-28T01:40:00.001-07:00

I'm running a day behind on these blog posts, I apologize.

Thursday, May 27th 2010

I really didn't do anything of too incredible interest today other than working on the website, http://www.philizaabafazi.org/ (check it out if you haven't already!). I don't have another class til Monday. BUT! I thought I could upload a few photos that might be interesting to you guys to make up for the lack of content in this post.

Me helping out some of the kids with Microsoft Word.

The beautiful sky one day during work.

Table Mountain. Not the best picture of it from my workplace. More pictures to come (I will climb this at some point too!)

The street outside the neighborhood where I work.

I'll add more if I get a chance. Enjoy! =]

Total Eclipse of the Heart

2010-05-27T00:11:00.000-07:00

Wednesday, May 26 2010
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So I'm just getting around to this post because of the LONG and packed day I had yesterday. Let me fill you in.

So Wednesday was my big 'work on the website' day at Philisa Abafazi. I was getting tired of having to email the IT person we were going through to add content to the website, so I emailed him and he gave me access to editing its full content. I spent most of the day figuring out how to use the CMS (content management system) they were using, called Joomla (it means 'united' in Swahili); it was apparently a system that was supposed to make editing websites easier, but it basically just ate up a chunk of my time. Nonetheless, I figured it out, and revamped the homepage. I'm currently in the process of adding new sections and working on tweaking current pages.

At 2 PM, I had a class with the children - only 2 of them showed up though, out of a normal 4 or so that were supposed to be there. Still, I was able to be fairly productive with them. However, the most challenging part of the teaching is because the attendance is irregular; with some children coming to every class and getting to the 'advanced parts' of my curriculum and others coming for the first time and having to do keyboard skills, I can't teach one thing to the entire class and save time. Instead, I have to go around individually and assign things - this is fine, but I think I could cover more if people would just show up.

After I got off work, I came home and Philly, my host mom, made me Samosas! They were quite good. I then had to go to the weekly ProjectsAbroad volunteer social at Cubana's, a Cuban restaurant, unsurprisingly. However, getting there would prove to be more of a challenge than I anticipated.

After being dropped off at the train station by Philly, I went and bought a ticket for R8 (very cheap, basically $1) and checked the map for where I'd be getting off. I had to count how many times the train stopped in order to figure out when to get off because no one announced where the train was each time people got off. I had only taken a train one time before, and that was in Long Island; "How different could it be?" I thought. At the 10th stop (the correct one), I tried to get off of the train by politely moving past people and saying "excuse me"; the people were not very kind and were like boulders - they wouldn't move! By the time I realized that politeness was not the way to go here, the train had already started moving again. Great. Just Great.

I got off at the 11th stop and was determined to take the train back to the 10th stop (they run fairly regularly). So I got back on, and when the train reached the correct destination once more, I made my way to the front of the door and waited for it to open (like they do in New York, right?). Apparently the doors in Cape Town trains are not automatic - you have to open them yourself quite forcefully. Unfortunately, I didn't figure this out until the train started moving AGAIN. UGH!

So, I'm back at the 9th stop and frustrated out of my mind with this transportation system and my inability to use common sense to make my way around Africa. After slowly calming myself down, I eventually took the train for a final time, yanked the doors open, and got to my final destination: Cubana's.

Dinner was quite nice and I got to talk to and get to know a few volunteers that I hadn't talked to very much. It was good to see I had a good community of people around me, although the majority of them were aged 23-27. The two I was with were my age though. One thing that I've noticed here is that practically all of the locals here smoke. It's so unattractive (and UNHEALTHY). About a third of the volunteers smoked as well.

Anywho, after dinner, we went to the Melting Pot, a local hangout and musician venue. We called a driver (ProjectsAbroad has several private taxis they recommend) to take us there, and he proved to be basically the best taxi driver ever. He had an amazing playlist on his stereo, where we sang everything from "Total Eclipse of the Heart" to staples such as Ke$ha's "Tik Tok" - and no, we did NOT sing Justin Bieber (thank goodness this blog post doesn't involve him, for once). I'll be using him again in the future. And it was cheap. Like really cheap. For a fifteen minute drive, he charged us 30 Rand - that's 3 DOLLARS. YAY SOUTH AFRICA!
We relaxed on the comfortable couches, met some other volunteers, and heard some interesting flavors of music (ranging from reggae to smooth jazz). All in all, a successful night.

I know, pictures pictures pictures. I'm WORKING ON IT! I'm taking them, but I can't upload too much without destroying my internet. Eventually I'll have some more up.

Talk to you all soon!

PS: I apologize for the quasi-lame title of this blog post. I couldn't think of anything else.

Apparently, I AM Justin Bieber.

2010-05-25T11:00:00.000-07:00

Today was my first official teaching day, and it began with the children of the informal housing settlement that Lucinda’s friend Aysha headed up. I read more about the children in an old newspaper article I found: apparently the majority of them were expelled or dropped out of school, but are seeking to get themselves back on the right track. When the children approached the school to re-enroll, administrators refused to let them in. So they approached Aysha with their willingness to get educated. She has been working to give them the best opportunities she can afford, but has largely run into roadblocks. She reached out to Lucinda at Philisa Abafazi; Lucinda agreed to lend out some of her computers to her for occupational training for the kids. With the arrival of ProjectsAbroad volunteers such as myself, we’re now able to give these kids another chance by teaching them skills that are applicable and desirable in the workplace. That’s where I come in.

My first class was from 10 AM to 12 PM with six children from the community (including Lauren from yesterday). I focused the day on typing skills (it’s remarkably hard to keep them from only using one finger of one hand to type each letter), Microsoft Word skills, and even some basic skills in Excel. It was a painstaking task, working with two children to a computer (so they had to alternate who was on the keyboard) and having them get distracted by each other or goings on in the community. However, I was definitely making some progress. One of the three groups worked super fast (surprisingly, not Lauren’s group!) and actually finished my entire lesson plan for that day. I’m going to actually have to sit down and figure out what else I’m going to teach for the rest of the time I’m here; a specific curriculum will be much more helpful than planning things the night before. Overall, the class went well and I was happy with the progress I had made, though.

At that point, I came back to Philisa Abafazi for a staff meeting with Lucinda about everything that was going on this week. She told Petra and I that we would be in charge of giving weekly status reports, making a newsletter, and a few other tasks. She also said that we may have to cancel the children’s holiday program due to lack of funds for a decent venue; keep in mind that Philisa Abafazi receives no external funding from the government (South Africa’s social rights/welfare program is apparently rubbish) – it runs solely on donations and Lucinda’s husband’s wages. Meanwhile, I have several applications for computers that I am working on getting filled out that will hopefully get us some better equipment for the classes. If you’re reading this and want to help out, check out their website’s contact page for details on an account that you can wire funds to: http://www.philisaabafazi.org/index.php?option=com_contact&view=contact&id=1&Itemid=53

As I was setting up for my afternoon class (in the much less-cramped meeting space at Lucinda’s place), several children came by and said, “Why, hello Justin Bieber!” (Note: these are not related in any way to the woman I sang Bieber with yesterday). We then talked for a good while about their obsession with him, and how apparently I looked like the 16-year-old pop idol. I don’t know if I actually look like this kid, or whether the kids just thought, “White kid, Brown hair.. close enough.” Eh, whatever. I told her she could call me that. I can live with being a 16-year old pop star.

You decide.

My second class had three kids show up out of a possible six. One of them worked very quickly and again exhausted my entire lesson plan, while the other two struggled with typing, highlighting, and using the mouse. I’m not worried about the learning differences, though. I think once we’ve had a few classes, I’ll separate the classes by skill level; that way, we can have a beginner class, intermediate class, and advanced class.

Dinner was awesome; my host mom Philly made some amazing beef rice thing (I have no idea what it was called) that was really really good. I also watched a really depressing movie called LineWatch that Sebastian rented.

Tomorrow is supposed to be a social with the other volunteers after work at a Mexican restaurant called Cubana’s. Should be fun!

Justin Bieber: South Africa Loves Him Too

2010-05-24T08:16:00.000-07:00

Sunday, May 23rd:
This day was relatively uneventful – your typical “lazy Sunday.” This was fine for me, because I needed a little break and was still catching up on sleep a little bit. Around 2 PM, Philly (my host mom) made an awesome brunch for the family and me: curry chicken and potatoes, beef, and vegetables. It was DELICIOUS and spicy, but nothing I couldn’t handle. The cuisine reminded me a lot of Indian food I had eaten before (probably because of the curry). I got to chat with my parents in the early afternoon which was great; Skype voicechat doesn’t take up too much bandwidth, so I think I can afford to do that on my internet card. The only other things of remote substance I did that day were watch two movies: Grease (I forgot that I love this movie SO much. SO much.) and The Wedding Singer (which, coincidentally, is now an awesome musical that Hoof ‘n’ Horn really needs to do). And… that was Sunday.

Monday, May 24th:
Today was my first official day at work! Hooray! So, I got picked up at around 8:30 AM (I am beginning to learn the meaning of ‘Africa time’ – when someone says they’ll pick you up at 8 or 8:15, go ahead and assume they meant at least 15 minutes later). After helping my coworker Petra get set up for her morning computer class with the women of Philisa Abafazi (I’m working on a different teaching schedule than her, so I teach at different times), I set out to assess the computer situation of what the organization had. I tested all of the assets and found that we had 1 working desktop out of 5 desktop computers. So, I then channeled my 9th grade computer repair skills to see if I could fix any of the remaining ones. Unfortunately, it looks like they all have broken power supplies (more expensive to replace than simply buying a new computer) or have strange BIOS/motherboard problems that I can’t seem to fix. Bottom line: we need more computers. Luckily, for our main classes with the women, we have the one working computer and 3 laptops for them to use. So, allowing them to take turns, we’re able to cover a good amount of ground between them. Still, having more computers would be extremely nice. I’m beginning to look into various nonprofits that might be able to donate some to us, such as the OLPC (one laptop per child) initiative. We’ll see what happens there.

I took a short lunch break and then had some time to sit in on and help out a bit with the classes Petra was teaching. We were working on basic skills such as typing, using the mouse, and word processing. The women were extremely enthusiastic about learning, even if the learning was coming rather slowly; many of them had trouble grasping the concept of using two hands at the keyboard for more efficient typing, and the mouse was awkward to hold for some of them. With time, I’m sure this will improve. Still, just in this very first lesson, I could already tell that we were going to cover a lot of ground.

In the late afternoon, I got to work with another group of people Philisa Abafazi is affiliated with, the informal housing settlement. Headed up by a woman named Aysha, this living community provides a place for hundreds of families to live because getting an actual house from the government is a lengthy, unjust process that can take more than 30 years to complete (!). So, today, I worked with some of the youth of the settlement, getting them comfortable with typing and some of the same skills that Petra was working on. I encountered some of the same difficulties Petra was facing, with the children awkwardly pecking out each individual key on the keyboard with one finger of one hand. I recalled that it took an entire semester in 7th grade for me to learn to type properly, and conjectured that I wasn’t going to be able to ingrain exactly proper typing into the minds of my pupils – so I instead settled on the idea of keeping the hands on the home row; this would improve typing efficiency a considerable bit anyway.

The children weren’t as enthusiastic as the adults about the typing drills I had them do; typing names, addresses, and sentences is admittedly a boring task. But some of them really needed to get comfortable with this before we could move on. One of my students walked out after about 10 minutes of teaching – I either was really boring or he was really uninterested. Another was gaining accuracy and speed with the typing slowly, but it took a little while. The last student, a girl named Lauren, was my star student. She was a quick learner, and did what I asked of her without any hesitation. After mastering the basics of typing, I decided to give her a quick foray into Excel. So I taught her how to enter numbers and add them up. Then I showed her how to use the first basic formula function of Excel, the average function. I felt it was appropriate to first explain what exactly an average was – harder than you think, by the way – but had a lot of trouble describing what it was without a mathematical formula or using the word average. I eventually interpreted it in terms of test scores and that seemed to click pretty well. By the end of the session, Lauren was typing, summing, averaging, and inserting clip art like a pro. I was impressed. Before I left, some of the local residents of the came by the makeshift computer lab and chatted for a bit. One of them was crazy about Justin Bieber and played his "Baby" over and over on the computer near me. She knew all of the words; even the Ludacris rap. I was impressed.

The rest of the day was fairly relaxed, and I got picked up from work around 4 PM. We have a new volunteer from the USA today, which is really exciting – California! She isn’t working at Philisa Abafazi very much though. Oh well, it was still nice to talk to someone without a British accent. No offense to those of you who have them, of course.
More excitement tomorrow!

PS: I'll slowly be adding a few photos here and there. Not too much, gotta make that internet last until I can get out to buy another card. Check previous posts every now and then, I might get some new stuff up. Also, click the photos for larger versions.

I Bless the Rains (and Internet Cards) Down in Africa.

2010-05-22T16:15:00.001-07:00

Today was my “David needs to find a way to have continuous access to the internet or he will explode” day. So, after I slept late and had breakfast, I asked one of my housemates to draw me a map to the Blue Route Mall, which had a Vodacom store where I could buy a USB 3G internet card for my laptop. The walk would supposedly take 20 minutes; knowing my sense of direction (or more accurately, the lack thereof) fairly well, I knew this would be no short endeavor. Nonetheless, I set off for the mall around 12 PM.

I got lost a few times, but I asked people who looked friendly and they always pointed me in the right direction. As I got further into the various neighborhoods of Cape Town, I began receiving more and more funny looks; apparently, white people don’t walk to the mall here, and especially not through the areas I was going through. It was the daytime though, so I felt safe. I only was heckled on my way twice; once to buy some cotton candy (I politely declined), and another from some teenagers riding in a car yelling at me.

I made it to the Blue Route Mall eventually. I was so happy to see the mall’s sign that I didn’t check the time, so I don’t know how lost I really got. Roughly half an hour later, I was walking out of the Vodacom store with an internet card and 110 MB of airtime (I’m going to add more later; it’s running out rather quickly) for roughly R 549 (about $70) – this was an incredible deal, considering it was prepaid. Apparently the US is just extremely overpriced. I worked up a pretty sizeable appetite, so I headed to the food court, but was disappointed with the selection: A place named Wimpy (the name didn’t sound impressive, so I declined), an ice cream shop, and a KFC were the primary places I had to choose from. I was intrigued to see what South Africa’s take on Kentucky Fried Chicken was, so decided on that. I ordered a combo and a Pepsi; biscuits were sadly not on the menu. The food’s quality was excellent, and slightly less greasy than what I was accustomed to in America. However, one detail of the meal was particularly striking: the serving sizes were all drastically smaller. For example, a normal can of soda here is only 200 mL; I have to order two of those normally because I’m so thirsty!

The can is similar to the one in the middle here.

I talked to a ProjectsAbroad member about this, and he said that this is just another example of America’s obsession with food and its rampant obesity. Maybe he’s right; still, I want more cola in my can.

Fun fact about South Africa #2: Chicken sandwiches are called burgers. I’m not quite sure what burgers are called.

Alright, enough of my food digression; I don’t know why, but it seems like all of my blogs always tend to focus on food more than primary content. I’m sure I’ll have more relevant things to say on Monday when I really start my job.

I walked back to the house from the mall after that, and got lost one time; I got help at a convenience store, and found out I wasn’t too far from home. Once I was home, I took a glorious nap for several hours.

Later, Sebastian (my roommate) and I went down to Victoria Harbour for food and to watch some sports games. The Victoria Harbour is in downtime Cape Town and is one of the more affluent and modern areas of Cape Town. The buildings near the area were high rise and reminiscent of a big city. It was striking how much contrast there was between this urban area and the poverty I had been witness to just days earlier. I took my camera with me, but most of the pictures didn’t turn out very well. I’ll try to take some better ones in the daytime another day. I posted two of the more interesting ones below (I won’t be posting all of the photos I take until the end of the trip, because my internet access is limited to a set amount of bandwidth; uploading photos takes away from that bandwidth).

[Update: I'm having trouble getting the photos to upload at all; I'll try tomorrow and see if I can't get it to work; otherwise, we might have to wait until I get back for much photo action. Sorry!! ]

We watched a rugby game between the Stormers and the Waratahs – rugby, by the way, is very confusing to me and seems unnecessarily rough. I was especially into this game because the Stormers’ team color was Duke Blue, and the Waratahs’ team color was that other shade of blue; needless to say, Duke, I mean the Stormers, trampled the Waratahs for an excellent game.

This dreadful color (right) haunts me everywhere. I even saw someone wearing a Carolina hoodie as I walked to the mall today. Go figure.

At the same time, we were eating a fancy German restaurant that I forgot the name of. I had a schnitzel and some Coke, and I was thoroughly satisfied – those Germans know how to cook.

I came back to the house and wrote this blog post. And now, I sleep. More exciting things to be posted soon, I’m sure :)

- David

Fun Fact about South Africa #3: Its televised sporting events are not interrupted by annoying commercials every 3 minutes. In fact, the only commercials during the game are at halftime. Take note, America!

Fun Fact about South Africa #4: I thought the South Africans would think songs such as Toto's "Africa" were cliché; however, as I walked around the Victoria Harbour, the DJ present proved me wrong. Hmph.

Update on Previous Post: I asked my host dad, Derek, what South Africans call actual robots if they call traffic lights that name; he said that's irrelevant because South Africa doesn't have robots. X__X However, if they did, he said they'd be called robots as well. Hmph.

Journey's Beginning

2010-05-22T06:41:00.000-07:00

Wow. What a trip this has been so far. I suppose I’ll begin summarizing what’s happened up until this point; however, I don’t have internet access at home and getting to an internet café is more of a hassle than I anticipated. So I don’t actually know when this will get posted.. Oh well. Here goes!

I left Charleston, SC at around 10 AM. After a painless pass through security, I boarded the plane and a quick flight brought me to Dulles airport in Washington, DC. This included a 6-hour layover. Luckily, this gave me time to do lots of facebooking and catch up on episodes of Glee and House. I then departed DC around 6:30 PM.

The subsequent flight was to Amsterdam and was a total of 7 hours. I enjoyed the fact that the KLM Dutch Airlines employees wore uniforms of bright royal blue; it reminded me of Duke a good bit. In addition, I had access to my own personal entertainment console with video games, movies, television, and music. The food wasn’t that bad, either. Still, 7 hours was a long time.
Once I got to Amsterdam, I had about 2 hours until my next flight so I wanted to make contact with my parents and let them know everything was going alright. However, I quickly found out that: 1) There is no free internet in the Amsterdam Airport; 2) The paid internet didn’t work; 3) All pay phones which took credit cards refused to take any of my American cards. Luckily, I finally figured out that an international collect call would work. After gathering my things, I headed out to the 11-hour flight to Cape Town.

This flight was REALLY LONG. The airline food (and the employees’ uniforms) were quickly losing their novelty, and my personal entertainment center was defective. So.. I slept a lot. Which was fine except for the jet lag I’d later suffer.

When I finally got into Cape Town, it was 10:30 PM and I really couldn’t see anything (obviously, since it was dark). I stood at the baggage claim for half an hour, and I never got my main suitcase with all of my toiletries and 90% of my clothes; GREAT. I went to baggage claim and stood in line for what felt like almost another hour, and found out the bag never got out of DC. So.. I’m stuck with a minimal set of clothes until Saturday night. Once I finally got out of claims and customs and all of those other departments, two ProjectsAbroad members met me and drove me to my host family’s house.

My host mother Phillida, who gave me a big hug and immediately offered me tea or coffee, met me with open arms. Since it was 1 AM, I politely declined, but I was really struck by her kindness. I got to my room, which was shared with a 26-year-old German named Sebastian and quickly went to bed.

The place I was staying was surprisingly nice; there was a separate wing for Sebastian and I who had a bathroom, media room, and a bedroom. The media room had a large TV with DVD player, a computer (without internet, unfortunately), and a lounge area for hanging out.

The next morning, Phillida greeted me and offered me a choice of cereals and breads for breakfast, and made me coffee. Already, I felt like part of the family because she was so caring. It was good to know I had someone genuine to come home to at night.

At 9:00 AM, a man from ProjectsAbroad came to give me my “volunteer orientation” and take me around Cape Town. Normally, to get to the ProjectsAbroad office, I would simply take the train into town and walk a short distance. However, the train workers were on strike. So.. we took the signature form of Cape Town travel, the minibus. Think Voltswagon bus crowded with 14 or 15 people; really cozy. We took three different minibuses in total to get to our destination.

Frankly, at the moment, I’m pretty daunted at the prospect of having to do this on my own; the minibus routes seem confusing, the people aren’t exceptionally friendly, and I feel a little out of place. I’m sure I’ll get the hang of it in time though.

Once at the office, I met Dana, the leader of the Cape Town ProjectsAbroad team, and several other members of the office. They were all very friendly and willing to help me with any questions I had. Once some initial paperwork had been completed, a worker named Jason took me out to lunch and to show me a bit more of Cape Town. We walked to a nearby shopping mall which was very comparable to those of America. And yes, it had a McDonalds – they really are everywhere. After a delicious chicken melt and berry smoothie (and a great chat), we walked around the mall and got my US dollars exchanged for South African rand, visited a computer store (since Jason knew I was into computers) which was basically comparable to Western prices and selection, and bought me a cell phone which could use a local SIM card. And voila – I had a South African phone number, courtesy of Vodacom.

Perhaps the most interesting part of my day was when the ProjectsAbroad members took me to the place I’d begin working officially on Monday. The Philiza Abafazi home for women and children is run by a woman named Lucinda who receives no outside funding other than the wages she can raise through grants and her husband’s wages. Providing after school care, sexual/domestic counseling, and literacy/numeracy skill enhancement, the center is an amazing place run by one of the kindest souls I’ve ever had the pleasure to meet. Lucinda told me I’d be helping with the IT project that they were just beginning, which was focused on teaching women and young adults the skills they need to be comfortable with a computer and able to create a resume. Lucinda also said this would allow them to possibly become entrepreneurs. She sent me on a walk with two of the members of the home, who showed me the area I’d be working around. The surrounding area was impoverished, with people living in shacks made of wood and sheets of metal. I wanted to take pictures, but I forgot to bring my camera; I’ll get some pictures another day for sure though. They took me by a satellite of the Philiza Abafazi office which had several broken computers; just from initial inspection, I wasn’t able to fix them, but we’ll see as time goes on. I also went by the library in the crèche, which was active with many children participating in arts and crafts projects. The library also had some computers that needed fixing.

After a long tour and briefing on the next week’s goals, I was brought home for dinner (delicious!) and hanging out with some of the volunteers. We threw a small party for one of the volunteers who was leaving tomorrow. This mostly involved lots of karaoke to the Bee Gees, Whitney Houston, and Mariah Carey – needless to say, I was ok with that. Everyone I met today was really friendly, and I think if I can just figure out a few other things, I’ll be very comfortable here.

Annoying Things: Communication with home; the lack of internet is really jarring, and the closest place with access is a 20-minute walk. I bought some minutes on my cell phone for calling here and home, but a 12-minute call home burned up the entire R10 card. So.. I’m going to need to find a way to get reliable access to the internet and have a better way to communicate to home than the cell phone. I’m hoping to stop by the mall tomorrow and figure this all out. With any luck, I’ll be back home with a cell phone full of minutes and a wifi card for my laptop that will give me internet. Here’s hoping for the best!

UPDATE: Obviously, since I'm posting this, I got internet access. More news on how I got that later. And pictures coming soon!!

Fun fact about South Africa #1: Traffic Lights are called Robots. Makes you wonder what they call Robots, huh? I'll let you know when I find out the answer to that question.

- David

Preparing for Adventure

2010-05-18T08:46:00.000-07:00

Hey guys! Here is where I'll be keeping you all updated on my International Summer of Service in Capetown, South Africa. I leave tomorrow. Wow, this is happening rather quickly. I'll be trying to update this blog as often as I can, although I don't think I have internet access directly at the host family's home, so blog updates will be less frequent, but nonetheless I'll do my best to keep y'all informed. Here's the basic information:

I'll be in Cape Town, South Africa from May 19th to July 19th. I'll be working with the Philisa Abafazi Bethu Women and Children's Intervention Program teaching computer and IT skills for three weeks, and then working at the afterschool care center there for the remaining five weeks. A description of the Philisa Abafazi Bethu center can be found on their website linked above.

I'll be living with Phillida and Derek Smith, a host family that lives in the Cape Town suburb of Retreat. Phillida is retired and Derek works in the flooring trade. I believe there will also be other volunteers living with me as well.

If you want to contact me while I'm over in South Africa, the quickest way is email, but feel free to send me a letter or use whatever medium suits you. Information below:

Email: david.oberst@duke.edu
Skype: davidoberst
Postal Address:

David Oberst
Projects Abroad
c/o Mr Dana Myers
Fourth Floor, Letterstedt House
Newlands on Main
Corner of Campground
Cape Town, 7700
Republic of South Africa

I promise to keep you guys as updated as possible! Feel free to send me mail, email, or Skype me if you see me online, I want to stay in touch.

I can't say that I'm not a little daunted by the prospect of the adventure that I'm about to embark on, but I know it's going to be significant, amazing, and life-changing. Here we go!