End of February

At the NGO in the Valley of a Thousand Hills
At the Rugby Game
Giant Sea Turtle at Ushaka
Botanic Garderns

Okay so I've done about a million things in the last week or so but I will try and summarize the most exciting things!

2/20/08 The president of World Learning and SIT (My School/Company is called SIT-School for International Training) came to visit us for the day. Her name is Carol Bellemy and she is the most amazing woman! She was the Director of the Peace Core later on of UNICEF.

2/21/08 My class spent the afternoon and evening at an informal settlement at Kennedy Road which is located on a landfill. There is an organization called the Abahlali Informal Settlement Movement run by young men who live at Kennedy Road who came to speak to us about the organizations goals. They are constantly battling the city of Durban who want to move them to a more rural area...actually a few days before our visit the city dug up their power lines and disconnected everyones electricity. .We spent about an hour walking through the area then, were served dinner, and had a performance by a male acapella group which was one of the most amazing performances I have ever seen/heard.

The Weekend of 2/23-2/24 I visited the Durban Bontanical Gardens which were unbelievably beautiful (see picture). There was a wedding going on while I was there as well! I also went to a rugby game...The Durban Sharks vs The Capetown Stormers and the Sharks won which was exciting! On Suday I went to a place called UShaka with my friend Morgan and her little sister (her homestay sister). Ushaka is a waterpark and aquarium.


On 2/2708 we went to visit an NGO in a place called the Valley of a Thousand Hills. It is about 20 min outside of Durban and it had the most amazing scenery! My picture above does not caputre it at all!

Today 2/29/08 we went to visit Durban North College. The school used to be exclusively Afrikaaner but now all different students attend, with Afrikaaner and Indian being the majority. The school is split into "mother tounges" so half the kids learn in Afrikaans and the half learn in english. We were broken into groups of three and assigned to a class. There is one Afrikaans class and one English class for every grade and they stay together all day rotating through their various subjects. My class was English and 10th grade. It seemed like an average high school class to me and I felt like I was back in high school again and all the kids were sitting together and hanging out. Its funny...I got asked about 25 times if I know 50 cent and Beyonce as soon as I tell them I'm from New York! Some of my friends were in Afrikaans speaking classes where they had a much different expereince...and were shocked by the blatent racism. Although others in English and Afrikaaner classes experienced similar and much different points of view. So it was interesting when all our mini groups of three came together and we all heard how everyone else's day went.

Well tomorrow morning 3/1/08 I leave for my rural homestay! I will be there through 3/10/08 and then we go to a game reserve. Our teachers set up the program in this way because they want to experience the drastic transition from living with a Zulu family with no electricity and running water straight into a wealthy primarily white setting.

Weekend at Wild Coast

Hello!

The weekend of 2/17-2/18 our whole class went on a weekend excursion to a place called Wild Coast. We got picked up Sat (2/17) at 7 am and it took us about 2 hrs to get there. Once we got there we began a 5 hour hike which started off along the beach for about 2km. There were tons of caves, fossils and just cool things in general!


Then we went up this huge hill to a rural village for lunch. The views were AMAZING! Parts of the movie Blood Diamond were filmed there and one of our tour guides was in the movie! For any of those who saw it the place where Leonardo DiCaprio dies, and when Leonardo and another guy are walking along the beach at sunset with a guy with dreadlocks and an AK47 (he was our guide). So I thought that was really cool!

When we got to the Village we saw traditional Zulu Sangomas perform. Sangoma's are kind of like traditional healers, they interact with your ancestors to guide you/fix your problems. They were 3 women. It was kind of controversial though. Many students felt it was fake and unethical for them to perform for money...It was definitely interesting to see though.

That night we had a Braai (BBQ). And the next day we went to a GORGEOUS beach and then came back Sunday evening to our homestay families.

Miss you all!

My First Few Weeks

Linda and I at the beach
View from the place we ate lunch on the drive from Jo'burg to Durban

Hi Everyone!

I decided to start this blog so you can all get a little taste of my experiences here in South Africa. This post is kind of long, but I'm trying to quickly summarize what I have done so far!

I arrived in Johannesburg 2/1/08. We stayed in a hostel there until 2/4/08. While there we visited the Apartheid Museum, toured Nelson Manela's house, toured Soweto, hmmmm I know there's more! Well on 2/4/08 we drove 9 hours to Durban and stopped for lunch (see first picture) at this gorgeous place! When we arrived to Durban we stayed at a hostel and continued Orientation until Friday when we moved in with our first homestay families.

I live with a Zulu family named the Majola's in an area outside of Durban called Cato Manor. My specific neighboorhood is called Bonella. I live with My Gogo (Grandma) Khulu (Grandpa), their son (Thabo who is 33) and Thabo's son Linda (who is 11 years old). I will be staying with them until 3/1/07 and then I head to my rural homestay.

The family could not be any nicer to me and I really love staying with them! At first when I got dropped off on 2/8/07 I was a little nervous, but immidiately Gogo was calling me her baby, hugging, etc. Linda jokes with me and calls me tomatisi (tomato) and I call him zambane (potato) because I always have a sunburn! During the weekdays I go to school then come home do homework, hang out with Linda, go for walks and watch TV with them (their favorite show is The Biggest Loser South Africa!)

The Majola's live in a 2 Story apartment-type house. All the students live with in several miles of each other. The people in Bonella are primarily Zulu, but there are some Indian families. People are very friendly and welcoming for the most part. My Gogo does not let me walk alone around the neighborhood, Linda and I always go together. I try to avoid going out at night as much as possible also. The first few days people would come up to me and say "what are you doing here you need to get a cab and get out of here." But I just explain why I'm here and Linda does also, so you can tell people are very caring protective.

Linda is so fun! The first 15 minutes I was in the house he was helping me unpack and wanting to shoot a music video with my camera! He's funny...when we go for walks he'll pick up bricks to protect me from rabid dogs (he's really afraid of them though so he claims every dog is rabid!) or when we walk near tall grass where there are supposedly pythons! On Valentine's day he woke me up at 5:30 so I could take pictures of him (they can wear regular clothes not uniform on Valentines Day) because he was going to be in the school fashion show and trying to win "Mr. Valentine" for the second year in a row!

We get picked up every morning around 7:30 and dropped off at our classroom which is about 10 minutes away. Its funny...it feels like elementary school again!
I have been learning Zulu (we have had about 2 weeks of class). Its been fun/challenging and my homestay family loves to tease me about my pronunciation. The clicks are really hard! There are three different clicks for the letters Q, C, and X. In the afternoons we have lectures in either: Reconciliation and Development Seminar or Field Study Seminar. We have lecturers primarily from the University of Kwa-Zulu Natal. We also go on field trips during the week. We have been to an aquarium, 2 informal settlements, and the local market (Warwick Junction).


There are 28 kids in my program, 23 girls and 5 guys. Our 2 main teachers are from South Africa, a man named John and a woman named Vanessa.

I miss you and love you all! I will try and post as often as possible!