Since last blog = Cape Town, Clubbing, Bungee Jumping, Masizame, Media Projects, Seminars, and Beach Day. Overall the past few weeks have been very exciting and filled with activities. It all started with Lily and I’s clubbing adventure with our host sister Daveria. She started off by telling us we would be out until 5 am, so I decided to take a quick power nap, hoping to regain energy before our big night out because we are usually asleep by 8 each night. Around 9 I woke up to Lily excitingly telling me if was time to get ready. We quickly changed and headed to the first club. The first club we went to was in downtown Plett where we both felt super uncomfortable because we were surrounded by a bunch of older drunk people. Around 2 am that club started closing so we left there for another club that was essentially on the side of the freeway. We were there for another 2 hours and I don’t think I moved from my spot in the back corner at all. Lily and I just sat staring at the people on the dance floor and came to the conclusion that they all looked like they were on some intense drugs with the strobe lights. Although we didn’t get home till very late and barely got any sleep, it was an interesting experience to go clubbing in South Africa till 5 am.
Two days after clubbing, our entire group went bungee jumping off one of the highest bridges in the world. At first I was convinced I was not going to jump but when I realized everyone else in the group was going to jump I convinced myself that I had to. As we started walking out to the bridge I quickly realized that I have an intense fear of heights. Instead of me trying to explain how I felt when they called my number signifying I had to get ready to jump, I’ll let you all just watch the video. Overall I am glad I jumped, but I don’t plan on every doing that again.
(Never mind the video won’t upload but let me know if you want to see it – definitely worth watching me jump to my almost death)
Throughout the following two weeks I worked at Masizame, which is essentially a youth care center, an early childhood development facility, and a drop- in center. I was there with Rebecca, Nelson, and Patty. Rebecca and I worked in the classroom with kids aged 4 and 5. Compared to most little kids I know, these ones were a lot more aggressive and loud, and had the shortest attention span ever. The second the teacher ever left the classroom everyone was screaming and jumping all over each other. The boys would hit and punch each other until the other cried. There was probably one kid crying every 5 minutes. Everyday Rebecca and I always had about an hour to teach something to the kids. However, we quickly realized that it was insanely hard teaching anything to the kids because none of them understood English and they didn’t seem interested in anything we were doing unless it involved hitting each other. After we attempted to teach them, they had recess that involved the kids jumping all over us so we had to act like a human jungle gym. For the first few days it was really fun to be with the kids outside and throw them around, however, I quickly lost energy throughout my time there. Below are some pictures of the boys. The one on the top is named Haylen and I hate to say it but definitely was my favorite.
Two days after clubbing, our entire group went bungee jumping off one of the highest bridges in the world. At first I was convinced I was not going to jump but when I realized everyone else in the group was going to jump I convinced myself that I had to. As we started walking out to the bridge I quickly realized that I have an intense fear of heights. Instead of me trying to explain how I felt when they called my number signifying I had to get ready to jump, I’ll let you all just watch the video. Overall I am glad I jumped, but I don’t plan on every doing that again.
(Never mind the video won’t upload but let me know if you want to see it – definitely worth watching me jump to my almost death)
Throughout the following two weeks I worked at Masizame, which is essentially a youth care center, an early childhood development facility, and a drop- in center. I was there with Rebecca, Nelson, and Patty. Rebecca and I worked in the classroom with kids aged 4 and 5. Compared to most little kids I know, these ones were a lot more aggressive and loud, and had the shortest attention span ever. The second the teacher ever left the classroom everyone was screaming and jumping all over each other. The boys would hit and punch each other until the other cried. There was probably one kid crying every 5 minutes. Everyday Rebecca and I always had about an hour to teach something to the kids. However, we quickly realized that it was insanely hard teaching anything to the kids because none of them understood English and they didn’t seem interested in anything we were doing unless it involved hitting each other. After we attempted to teach them, they had recess that involved the kids jumping all over us so we had to act like a human jungle gym. For the first few days it was really fun to be with the kids outside and throw them around, however, I quickly lost energy throughout my time there. Below are some pictures of the boys. The one on the top is named Haylen and I hate to say it but definitely was my favorite.
In the last few seminars we have looked at different methods to design effective policies surrounding HIV/AIDS by using Uganda as an example. We also attempted to answer the question “If the medication to treat HIV/AIDS exist, why hasn’t the global community given everyone access?” We broke into three small groups to address the question for three different angles, the World Trade Organization, a low-income government, and a Pharmaceutical Company. Throughout these past two weeks we have also developed more upon our media projects. I am working with Patty, Noah, and Sophie on a project about happiness. We started by brainstorming questions to ask for the interviews and we got to: what is your definition of happiness, what makes you happy, what makes you unhappy, what are your hopes and dreams for the future, and how do you think your definition of happiness differs from the definition of happiness in the US? We interviewed multiple people in the Plett Aid community and in our homestay families. As we interviewed more and more people we realized that our voices were not present at all in the project. We weren’t really sure how to incorporate our voices and didn’t even know what our end goal was. After 4 hours of brainstorming possible ideas this is what we got to:
We decided to somewhat interview ourselves and look at how through money we subconsciously bought our “happiness.” If watching our media project surrounding happiness interests you, again just let me know because it won’t upload.
Now onto Cape Town.
It was awesome. The group consisted of Patty, Julia D, Lily, Sarah, Alea, Noah, Nelson, Patrick, and me. We began our little trip on the 15th of October by taking and 8-hour overnight bus ride to Cape Town. We arrived early Friday morning but we didn’t have much time to walk around then because we had to catch our boat ride to Robben Island (where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned for roughly 27 years.)
We decided to somewhat interview ourselves and look at how through money we subconsciously bought our “happiness.” If watching our media project surrounding happiness interests you, again just let me know because it won’t upload.
Now onto Cape Town.
It was awesome. The group consisted of Patty, Julia D, Lily, Sarah, Alea, Noah, Nelson, Patrick, and me. We began our little trip on the 15th of October by taking and 8-hour overnight bus ride to Cape Town. We arrived early Friday morning but we didn’t have much time to walk around then because we had to catch our boat ride to Robben Island (where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned for roughly 27 years.)
We first had a bus ride of the entire island and then had a tour of the prison by an ex inmate. Since we watched the Nelson Mandela movie before heading to the island it was really interesting to see some of the specific places on the island where the movie was shot. After the tour, we headed back and decided to do Lions Head Hike. At first I thought this was going to be a casual hike because we were just hiking around the mountain in circles at the beginning. However, for the last 30 minutes or so we were climbing up the mountain with chains, ladders, and metal steps. Thankfully we all made it up successfully and in time to see the sunset right over the water though.
By the time we decided to hike down we would have been in complete darkness but thankfully we all brought our headlights. It was definitely a bit scary while going down the chain part but we all made it down somewhat safe and sound (minus Sarah’s ankle injury.) The following day we went to the Old Biscuit Mill, which is essentially a huge outdoor marker with shops, different food vendors, and live music. I probably went into the food area at least 4 times each time coming out with something delicious. After the market we decided to hike Table Mountain. We split up into 2 groups for the hike and I was part of the longer hike that was supposed to take 4 hours to hike up. We started in the botanical gardens and from there it was about an hour and half of hiking straight up. Similar to the ends of Lions Head, it was kind of like that with ladders and hiking through and up large rocks. At one point we were even hiking up a small river, thankfully none of us slipped because it would have been a long way down. Somehow we managed to make it up in way less than 4 hours (probably 2 and half hours). At the top we (Patty, Nelson, Noah, Patrick, and I) all hung out for a while before heading to the cable car area where we were meeting the other group. However, due to Sarah’s ankle there 2 hour hike turned into 5 hours and we almost missed the cable car down.
After Table Mountain us girls decided to have a girl’s night out. We started the night by going to a Tapas restaurant for dinner on the Long Street. Long Street seems to be one of the main streets in Cape Town with a lot of restaurants, clubs, shops, cafes, and anything else a typical busy street would have. After dinner we didn’t want to go back to the hostel so we all went to a hookah bar together. It was quite an interesting experience but lots of fun minus the constant men coming up to us. One of the guys tried teaching us how to blow rings with the hookah but it wasn’t too successful. After hookah we were all to tired to do anything else so we ended up just heading back to the hostel. For the final day in Cape Town us girls had another day to ourselves. We headed to the waterfront after having a quick coffee at a café on Long Street. It just so happened that H&M had opened the day before and it was basically the “hottest” store in the waterfront. Somehow I was able to resist myself from buying anything. After our trip to H&M we spent the rest of the day walking around the waterfront and going into another big market with foods and crafts. It was a very relaxing but exciting day. That night we took an over night bus back to Plett. However, what was supposed to be an 8-hour bus ride turned into 10 or 11 hours because the bus broke down at the side of the freeway. We had to wait for another bus to come pick us up, meanwhile it was about 2 am and we were all trying to fall asleep. It was not very pleasant to say the least and during work on Monday at Masazame I almost fell asleep even with all the crazy kids.
Throughout that week we mostly worked on our media projects and only had 1 or 2 seminars. One of the seminars was about our relationship with sex and health education back at home. It was very interesting to hear some people explain how that even though they had sex ed courses through school they mainly learned through parents, friends, or simply just finding out by themselves. However, for me I mostly learned through MA because we had a course called Human Development every other day for 2 semesters.
This past weekend our group split up into two groups, some went skydiving and some went to the beach. I was in the beach group. Bungee jumping was enough of a thrill for me. We spent most of the day just relaxing, swimming, reading, and eating at the beach. I went into the ocean for 5 minutes or so but because the current was so rough and there were so many riptides I decided to stick to reading on the sand. It was very nice to not have anything planned or anything to do for the day. We finished the day off with an early dinner at Fat Fish where I got amazing chicken skewers with peanut sauce (sorry Elaina.) After dinner we met up with the group that went skydiving and they all seemed like they had an amazing time. Some people decided to go see live music at a nearby café but us Kurland Girls (Lily, Patty, Julia, and I) just went home for the rest of the night, we were way to tired to do anything else.
Hope this was interesting, next update will be from ADDO.
Throughout that week we mostly worked on our media projects and only had 1 or 2 seminars. One of the seminars was about our relationship with sex and health education back at home. It was very interesting to hear some people explain how that even though they had sex ed courses through school they mainly learned through parents, friends, or simply just finding out by themselves. However, for me I mostly learned through MA because we had a course called Human Development every other day for 2 semesters.
This past weekend our group split up into two groups, some went skydiving and some went to the beach. I was in the beach group. Bungee jumping was enough of a thrill for me. We spent most of the day just relaxing, swimming, reading, and eating at the beach. I went into the ocean for 5 minutes or so but because the current was so rough and there were so many riptides I decided to stick to reading on the sand. It was very nice to not have anything planned or anything to do for the day. We finished the day off with an early dinner at Fat Fish where I got amazing chicken skewers with peanut sauce (sorry Elaina.) After dinner we met up with the group that went skydiving and they all seemed like they had an amazing time. Some people decided to go see live music at a nearby café but us Kurland Girls (Lily, Patty, Julia, and I) just went home for the rest of the night, we were way to tired to do anything else.
Hope this was interesting, next update will be from ADDO.