The First Week!

 

Hey Everyone!

                Sorry I’m already bad about updating this.  I finally have internet here, but it’s very expensive and you’re charged for the amount you use.  So, sorry if I’m slow to respond to things.  I also have a cell phone here, but that as well is expensive and you pay for everything you use, I can receive anything for free though!

                On Tuesday the 19^th, I left O’Hare and flew to Dallas.  The flight from Dallas to Madrid was later cancelled because our first plane was broken and then the second one was as well.  I flew to London instead, which meant that I got in about 7 hours early, but also meant that my bags were lost for a couple of days.

                I finally got to Cape Town on Thursday the 21^st.  One of the orientation leaders took me into Rondebosch to use the internet and buy a phone card, so that I could figure out my luggage.  The University of Cape Town is in Rondebosch, but I live in Mowbrey.  Rondebosch and Mowbrey are neighborhoods of Cape Town, as well as Observatory and Rosebank. 

                Later that day, we had a tour of campus.  UCT sits on a mountain, so it’s a very steep hike up, but most people take the Jammie Shuttle Service to get them from the lower and middle campus to upper campus.  Upper campus is where most of the classes are and lower campus has the gym and residence halls etc. 

                UCT was made to be like a Harvard or Oxford.  They wanted it to be like an ivy league school, so most of the buildings are covered in ivy.  The school takes a lot of pride in the fact that it’s the best university in Africa and they are doing lots of research to ensure that they keep getting better and better.  The campus slightly reminds me of The University of Iowa, because there is a building that looks like the Old Capitol Building in the center of campus on the mountain.  Iowa had a huge hill, but UCT has a legit mountain actually.

                We also hiked up to Rhodes Memorial (the man who gave all of the land to UCT to start the buildings etc.) and  from there was an amazing view of Cape Town.  Cape Town is a beautiful city and the weather is amazing, so I’ve just been blown away every day.

                On Friday, we went to the City Center of Cape Town, which is their downtown area.  We took the train there and saw all of the construction that they are doing to prepare for the people coming for the World Cup.  We visited a garden and saw Parliament.  We walked around, went to a market and had lunch there.

                We took a minibus (a big taxi) back to Rondebosch.  Minibuses can hold 14 people, but the drivers pack as many people in as possible.  It’s pretty crowded and kind of scary actually, but cheap.  Trains and minibuses aren’t safe to take at night though.

                Friday night we went to a nice restaurant in Observatory.  After dinner, we went to a bar called Roots where 3 different local bands were playing.  They had a sandy area for part of it and the whole bar was beach-themed.  We stick out like crazy as American students, so pretty much all of the locals went into a different area of the bar when all 56 of us came in, oops! 

                On Saturday we were all moved into our houses for the semester.  There are 6 of us from my program living in our house.  I have a roommate from Boston College, there are two other Boston College girls, a girl from Emory and one from UC Berkeley.  There were 12 other students from 3 different schools in LA, Philly and Minnesota living in our house since January 1^st.  They are all doing a program with the environment and globalization.  There is also a South African guy who works for our landlord living in our house, he plays field hockey and is from Durban.  That makes 19 people, and we’re supposed to get another South African as well. 

                Our house is in Mowbrey (about a 15 minute walk to the Jammie shuttle) and it’s called Penrose House.  It seems like it used to be an old hotel or bed and breakfast.  We have a gate and a guard who goes around to the international houses around.  We also have a pool in the front garden.  There is a balcony that with a great view of Table Mountain and I still can’t get over the fact that our trees are palm trees.  We have a patio in the back and the line for drying clothes (see I am roughing it!).  With that said, we also have a maid that comes 2 or 3 times a week to clean the common areas.  There is another house with 20 international students a few houses down and a few other international houses within a block.  We had a braai the first day in the house (a South African bbq) and just hung out by the pool most of the day.

                On Sunday, we went to the Cape of Good Hope and Cape Point.  On the way there, we stopped at a penguin colony.  There were hundreds of penguins on the beach, and it was really cool to see all of the baby penguins.  Honestly, they pretty much stand there though and one even was face to face staring at a rock for a full half hour.  We also saw baboons when we got to the Cape, but they are actually very mean animals and frequently break into cars and steal people’s food and handbags.

                We also stopped at a township along the way.  They made us a huge lunch and performed for us.  Some people sang and did poems, but the best was the dancing.  A group of about 10 kids did a few hip-hop performances for us and the best were the younger ones who probably weren’t older than 6.  They did a Michael Jackson tribute that was especially good.  All of the kids loved posing for pictures and lined up along our buses to say bye when we left.

                We hiked up to the Cape of Good Hope and Cape Point.  This is the Southwestern most tip of Africa and also where the Indian and the Atlantic Ocean meet.  The views were amazing, but there were moments when we all felt we might fall off the edge.

                Monday morning we had an orientation meeting where they went over some safety stuff, and then stuff having to do with academics.  In South Africa, teachers grade from 50 and go up, instead of 100 and go down.  So they sort of scared us and told us we will all fail.  The average grade here is about a 65%, but that should translate to about a B or B- back home.   Later, we had had more registration briefings and a presentation on HIV/AIDS.

                Then came my favorite part of the day, we got to play drums!!  We each got a drum and then a group of African drummers came in and we got to drum with them for over an hour, and it was so much fun.  I wanted to play the drums when I was younger, so I finally got that out of my system.  Afterwards, they gave us a dinner of finger goods.  Their food is pretty good most of the time.  Sometimes it’s very different and other times, it’s pretty much the same.  I haven’t really had enough to know for sure.

                On Tuesday, we had more talks about academics and stuff like that at UCT.  We spent the afternoon running errands and hanging out in the pool.  We later went on a hike about a third of the way up Tale Mountain.  We were told that it was a light 40 minute hike, but it nearly killed us all.  Apparently not working out for a month really does affect the body.  I don’t think any of us who went on the hike are dying to climb to Devil’s Peak anymore, which is 6 hour hike.  We were bribed with champagne and food at the top for encouragement and the view was spectacular.  You could see all of Cape Town with the beaches, downtown, the university, the island (Robben Island) with the prison that Nelson Mendela stayed in and even our house!  Luckily, the hike down was much easier. 

                Later that night we went to a bar called Tiger Tiger, which was actually in a mall.  It’s more like a club and everyone has to dress up to go.  They played a lot of American music and techno and a lot of the guys looked like they were actually from Jersey Shore, not South Africa.  It was fun, but I’m an old woman who doesn’t like techno or strobe lights, so once may be enough for that.

                This morning we had an orientation meeting on the library and internet and all that.  We are only allowed to be on the internet at school a certain amount of MB’s too.  UCT sites don’t count, but I don’t think I’ll ever get used to limited internet time.

                After that, we had a presentation on SHAWCO which is an organization that helps out in the townships.  It’s full of UCT students and international students.  It involves mostly tutoring, but there is some stuff with sports, art and health.  I hope to do something for SHAWCO with health, but if my schedule doesn’t work out with that then I want to either tutor the younger kids or volunteer in the orphanage.

                Sorry this is super long, but it’s easier than emailing everyone bits.  Sorry if I’m slow with responding to things, again internet is no fun here, but I love emails!  I’ll try to put pictures up eventually, but we’ll see when that happens.  Hope everything is good with all of you!

Cheers,

Megan