Drew: My Long Overdue Posting!

We've been so busy each and every day that I don't quite have the time to sit down and write a nice blog accurately detailing every experience we've been having. However, I have been making myself jot down a few notes at the end of each day, and as such, I've decided to post those here. They range from the day I left Mountain Home, AR, to today, which is 14 days. Remember, they are just notes, so please forgive any poor grammar and misspellings! I know that this post covers a lot of information covered in the previous one, so feel free to skip to the entry for Friday, July 18, to pick up where Melissa and Josh left off. So without further ado...

Tuesday, July 8, 2008 (2:00pm) – completed packing and departed for Kansas City.

We drove for 5 hours and eventually arrived in Overland Park at the Marriott Springhill Suites. I was dropped off at Melissa’s grandparents’ house for a fun little social gathering and tasted for the first of what would be many times the bitter, unpleasant taste of Stellenbosch wine.

The next day I ate an early supper with Jason Brewer at Chipotle (obviously!) and then headed to pick up my parents to meet the Snowden family and Fagan family (Josh and Melissa’s parents, respectively) at the Cheesecake Factory. If you ever go there, I definitely recommend the Spicy Chicken Chipotle Pasta!

Thursday, July 10, 2008 – we left for the KCI Airport.

Upon arrival, we retrieved our boarding passes, checked our luggage, and spent a little over an hour with our families taking pictures, filming videos, and saying our final “good-bye’s” to one another. The parents broke down and cried a little bit. I guess it shows that they love and miss me. They also gave me a lot of money, which adds more merit to the previous sentence.

Our first flight was to Cincinnati, where after a 2ish hour layover we caught our connecting flight to New York. JFK International Airport is pretty big, by the way. Not as big as Atlanta, but still quite large! We payed to store our bags overnight in a safe-storage room in the airport and then proceeded with backpacks to the metro (my first subway ride ever!) which took us into Manhattan. We spent the night at the edge of Soho in the Sohotel (haha, what a clever name) very near the border of Little Italy and China Town. After checking in to the hotel, we went into Chinatown and ate at a quaint little Chinese restaurant. Melissa ordered the Beef and Broccoli, I ordered Sesame Chicken, and Josh ordered snails. Yes, snails. Of course, we basically ended up sharing the two regular meals between the three of us, but not until after we each sampled a few of the ever-so-tasty morsels normally associated with slime and sluggishness. All in all, they weren’t too bad, but they were a little too salty for my tastes.

The next morning, we were up and out by 7:00am and off the metro near Central Park just before 8:00am. It’s a lovely place, really, and quite the oddity amongst an unnatural backdrop of skyscrapers. Following a delightful morning stroll through the park, we emerged on the southern side and went by Trump Tower (which we went inside of to get Starbucks…and all I have to say is WOW!) on our way to Times Square. A festive and lively place, to be sure, with lots of shops and advertisements and theatres and people. After about 45 minutes of gawking and going into different stores (like Hershey’s), we walked a few blocks into the Fashion district to the ever-so-popular fabric store Mood. Hmmm, I guess I missed the culture train on this one, but apparently it is world renowned for providing fabric to some of the top designers (and it also happened to be featured on a hit TV show called Project Runway…again, nothing). Following this, we walked by the Empire State Building on our way back to the hotel, making sure to walk down Grand Street (the main street through Chinatown). The most random thing happened here: we ran into someone that we knew from Missouri State University! We were shocked that someone we knew was walking down the same side of the same street at the same time in the same district of the largest city in the US. Crazy! We then ate at a little diner in Little Italy before checking out and taking the metro back to the airport. Being ourselves, we were running a bit late. I can safely say, however, that we made it through security and into the waiting room at the terminal with a solid 30 minutes to spare…

Friday, July 11, 2008 (3:55pm) – our plane was supposed to leave, but was delayed. It left at about 5:30. It flew for about 8 hours. We stopped in Dakar, Senegal (the western-most city in Africa) for 2 hours to refuel, and then flew for another 9 hours to Cape Town International Airport! We tried to take multiple pictures of Cape Town on our descent, but not many of them turned out well. It was very interesting to pass over areas of the town that are very nice, indicative of great wealth, followed almost immediately by so-called “informal settlements,” little shanty towns in complete contrast with the nicer areas of the city. And in many of the things we will see after this, there always seems to be this underlying tension, this immense intangible unease, this very real divide between the Haves and the Have Nots.

Saturday, July 12, 2008 – a student from the international office picked us up and drove us to Stellenbosch. Might I just say that drivers in South Africa are extremely crazy?! We almost didn’t care, however, because we arrived in Stellenbosch as the sun was setting over the mountains in order to make our entrance as grandiose as the time we’re going to have this semester!

After getting our stuff into the dorm rooms, we headed in the general direction of town. After looking totally confused in the student union, two local students gave us directions to the local mall, which ended up being only two or three blocks away. Everything was closed, of course, as it was so late, but we managed to find one pizza joint still open that late. And I must say, this was probably the best pizza I’ve had in a very, very long time. We were actually very surprised at the cost, though. The pizza place only served pizzas in pairs, and since we were hungry, we ordered two large BBQ chicken supreme pizzas. The price was a whopping 85 dollars! No, wait, I meant 85 rand (the South African Currency)… so what does that mean? Well, the conversion between the US dollar and the South African Rand (ZAR) is $1 ~ R7.5. So we got two large specialty pizzas for 85 rand, which is equal to $11.33 for both, which is less than $6 for each pizza! Yep, we were pleasantly surprised. As it turns out, all of their food is MUCH cheaper than what we pay in the states. Compare prices: here, a loaf of fresh-baked bread is R5 (70 cents), a half-gallon of milk is about R12 ($1.50), yogurt is R14 ($2) for a 2.2 pound bucket, and good steaks range from about $4-8 each. I also ordered two tortilla wraps with chicken, feta cheese, and avocado at a pretty snazzy internet café/bar and paid less than R40 ($6) for the entire meal (so much food I couldn’t eat it all).

Sunday, July 13, 2008 – Went into town with Josh for about 2 hours, came back and met Melissa and as we were leaving Concordia (the name of our dorm), we met Shelby, an Australian who grew up just South of London, and spent much of the day walking around town with her.

Monday, July 14, 2008 –climbed Stellenbosch Mountain after running into town to buy a few things. We went out to eat at an internet café called Java and it’s my new favorite restaurant EVER. It is also super-cheap for super-delicious food.

Tuesday, July 15, 2008 – all day orientation; break at 10 and 14:30 for tea/coffee and for lunch ate at Peasant’s Corner in Neelsie (bacon banana toasted sandwich, R10. Also the Neelsie is the name of their student union). Received tour of campus and Stellenbosch.

Wednesday, July 16, 2008 –Full day of orientation…need I say more? But they stop every 2 hours for tea/coffee break. How fun!
I attended my first BRAAI and it was awesome: lamb braai chops were successful and good covered in red wine and pepper (read about it in Josh and Melissa’s post below), they are basically the “party” scene in South Africa and it’s always ‘bring your own meat and drinks.’ I tried sips of two different beers/lagers, vodka with orange juice, and white wine, all GROSS though. Yes, I have every intention of keeping track of all alcohol that I try and I’ll keep you all posted of which drinks I discover I don’t like. If, for some strange twist of fate, I find an alcoholic drink that I like, I’ll also let you know.

Thursday, July 17, 2008 – boring registration stuff most of the morning… For lunch, though, I ate at a restaurant called Ngakos in the Neelsie and bought a meal for R23 that included chicken schnitzel on a bed of rice with choice of two veggies: cheap and good!

Friday, July 18, 2008 – In South Africa, you don’t register for classes a few months before they begin like we do in the States. Students arrive the evening before classes start, pick up a book that lists the starting times for each class, and then spend two weeks attending “first meetings” of all the classes in which they are interested and signing up/registering in class for that class. They discover which classes they want to take and which ones fit into their schedule, and they drop the rest. The way classes are scheduled here are quite different, too. A typical Political Science class might meet Monday at 10, Tuesday at 8, and then Thursday at 3, all in different rooms! It makes it quite difficult to arrange a class schedule! Everything is just so much more relaxed down here, I guess.

I also went to a meeting to learn more about the Service Learning Program and see how to apply. The application turned out to be a 25-point self-reflective essay that could easily be 10 pages long. Mine was 4 and a half, single spaced. Due by Monday morning, I worked all day to get it done because all classes here are on a first-come, first-serve basis. However, I’m pretty sure that I was the first person done but at least I didn’t have to worry about it over the weekend!

Saturday, July 19, 2008 – We hired a taxi to take Melissa, Renee, Josh, and I to Spier Wine estate. We began the day at the Cheetah Outreach area where we payed R5 to see cheetahs! They were really cute and fluffy! For an extra R80, you could actually go in and pet them and have your picture taken with them. The line was long, so we decided to come back later. We headed now to the Eagle Outreach/Encounters area where for R40 you could observe many birds of prey such as black and martial eagles, yellow-billed and black shouldered kites, various hawks and owls, unique African secretary birds, and yes, the one and only peregrine falcon! We all actually got to hold an eagle, too, and we have pictures of it! We decided to come back later in the day to watch some of the bird shows (falconry!). From here, we went to the information/wine testing center. For R10, you could sample 5 wines from their normal collection. For R20, you could sample 3 wines from their vintage/private collections. So of course, we collectively purchased 2 x5 tickets and 2 x3 tickets, not quite knowing how much wine we were about to get… and let me just say: we sampled a lot of wine! They give you a glass, and you take a card with 5 or 3 boxes on it and as they give you a sample of wine, they are supposed to mark off one of the boxes. So yea, we cheaply purchased 16 small glasses of wine, but they would often forget to mark our cards and we found two extra cards each good for 3 more samples! From their regular collection, they only had 11 to choose from. Needless to say, we got to try them all. We ended up getting to try 8 of their best wines, too. Things we learned:

1. Anything with the word “Sauvignon” is disgusting. Merlot is also gross.
2. White wine is definitely better than red wine.
3. With age comes a softer taste
4. Red wine should be served at room temp; white wine chilled.
5. My favorites were the year-old unwooded white wine, the two-year-old chenin blanc, and the year-old unwooded sweet white wine.
6. Josh will finish any cup of wine if everyone else thinks it’s unpleasant.
7. Drinking wine with a meal is actually very intriguing. It cleanses the palate, definitely, but cannot be used to quench thirst. Hmmm…
8. The worst type of milk or juice or tea is far better than the best white or red or rose or sweet wine. I gave it a chance. Well, 20 chances, actually. Alcohol just isn’t good. I’ll still drink wine while I’m here; it does compliment some meals well. But this further confirms my taste aversion to alcohol.

I ended up buying two bottles of wine: the 2006 Chenin Blanc (with hint of peach flavor) and the Discover 2007 Sweet (hint of honey and lots of fruits). However, I can’t actually taste the peach or honey or other fruit…but I can tell that they have extra sugar! Each bottle was R20, so under $3 each! Just FYI, alcohol and tobacco products, just like food and traveling, are MUCH cheaper here than we are used to in the States. Go dollar go (for food and traveling, that is)!

Halfway through the wine-tasting extravaganza, we took a break and made sandwiches at a little deli on the estate. For two dollars, I was able to fill two homemade rolls with deli meat. We ate at a picnic table right beside a gorgeous lake filled with many ducks and surrounded by numerous songbirds. Then we went back for more wine!

After sampling more wine and making our purchases, we went back to the Cheetah Outreach area and Josh payed R80 to pet Joseph, the most adorable animal I think I’ve ever seen! Following this, we went and watched a falconry exhibition for four different types of birds of prey: a kite, a screechy thing (owl maybe? I can’t remember, must be all the alcohol I had… just kidding Mom!), an eagle, and a peregrine falcon!

For supper, we went back to Java! I tried something else and it was the second-best food I’ve ever had in my life, second only to the first thing I had there. Later in life, I’ll probably return to Stellenbosch just for the food at this snazzy little internet café. Go figure, right?

Sunday, July 20, 2008 – We departed on two large tour buses to Cape Town. It is probably the most impressively stunning and remarkably contrasting city in the entire world. The nice parts are upscale, beautiful, well-kept, and have a sophisticated look, and all lie right beneath some of the most breathtaking mountains! The city is SO much nicer than Chicago or New York, hands down, and nowhere did we feel the least bit threatened. The edges of the city, however, are comprised of townships and informal settlements. Hundreds of thousands of people live right on top of each other in little wooden shacks and lean-tos made from any water resistant material available.

Our first stop was in the heart of Cape Town at the Company Gardens. Many Parliament building are housed in this area, as well as a botanical garden, courtyard, planetarium, and many monuments and statues. There was actually a WWII commemoration ceremony going on in the courtyard while we were passing through and we got to see the South African way of honoring and remembering its servicemen (with anthem and hymns and flag ceremony, etc). Very neat!

The second stop was at Signal Hill. Overlooking Cape Town are a few prominent mountains, the most famous of which is Table Mountain, followed next by Lion’s Head Mountain and then Signal Hill in terms of both popularity and location. The view from Signal Hill, however, gives a 360 degree view from the Atlantic Ocean (spinning left) around to the Lion’s Head and Table Mountain and on around to the city of Cape Town and housing areas and then business district and then piers and harbors and back to the Atlantic Ocean. Amazing!

The third stop was a bit south of Cape Town. We went to the beach at Camp’s Bay, an upscale community nestled just beneath the famed 12 Apostles (group of mountains). The water was cold because it’s winter here, but we nonetheless waded in a good ways and enjoyed lunch on the beach, too.

The fourth stop was at the Waterfront, which is easily the largest mall I’ve ever seen in my life! There were 3 levels in the main store which stretched for at least a half-mile long and was a solid quarter of a mile deep… Perhaps these dimensions might be a little off, but when South African prices meet the nicest, largest mall (probably on the lower half of Africa, if not the whole continent), you KNOW it’s good!

For supper, we cooked chicken nuggets with cream-style corn, peaches, roll, and some white wine. I haven’t mentioned our cooking experiences, and will try to start from now on. This was the third meal we’ve successfully cooked here for ourselves!

Monday, July 21, 2008 – I went to my first two classes today and I also found out today that I was accepted into the Service Learning Programme! This entails 5 hours per week of community service plus 4 hours of theory-based reflections for 9 credit hours. I’ll also take a 3 credit hours Political Science course on Economic and Developmental Problems in South Africa. One dilemma I face, though, is which language I should take. The choice is between Afrikaans, the dominant language at the university and in this province, or isiXhosa, the second most spoken language in South Africa and used primarily by many poorer black communities (it’s also the “click” language. Xhosa is pronounced “KA-hosa” with the KA being a palatal click, not to be confused with the dental click or the alveo-lateral click… Isn’t that SO cool!). Since one is more relevant, and the other is the coolest opportunity EVER, I think I’m going to take both and have 18 credit hours this semester!

***FOLLOWING UPDATE ADDED ON MONDAY, AUGUST 11, 2008***

Tuesday, July 22, 2008 – First SLCD (Service Learning in Community Development) class was very informative and interesting. The focus is on poverty and escaping the deprivation trap, as well as emphasizing an in-depth look at South African demographics, resource allocation, and availability and prevalence of amenities such as running water, bathrooms, electricity, source of heat, primary material of residence, Internet, refrigerators, etc.

Wednesday, July 23, 2008 – Went out with Stacey, Jacques, Daniel, Ivie, Susie, and Marian (South African students from Josh’s International Relations classes) for cocktails at the Rhythm Lounge and dancing at All Stars club.

Thursday, July 24, 2008 – prepared for Friday’s class

Friday, July 25, 2008 – I gave a 5 minute presentation in my slcd class on infectious diseases in SA

Saturday, July 26, 2008 – don’t remember. Probably just a boring day.

Sunday, July 27, 2008 – Shark cage diving!!!

Monday, July 28, 2008 – boring day, but I love my Xhosa class!

Tuesday, July 29, 2008 – boring day

Wednesday, July 30, 2008 – boring day, got a membership at the gym here at the university

Thursday, July 31, 2008 – lots of class…

Friday, August 1, 2008 – Failed to receive my placement at a SLCD site…

Saturday, August 2, 2008 – Stellenbosch Wine festival!!!

Sunday, August 3, 2008 – We had planned to go hiking but the weather was incompatible with this…

Monday, August 4, 2008 – Man’oushe restaurant – Lebanese food – very interesting and tasty!

Tuesday, August 5, 2008 – got a placement site from Antoinette at an ARV clinic!

Wednesday, August 6, 2008 – First day at ARV clinic: for more details read blog post entitled “SLCD Reflective Journal 1." Our dorm also hosted another braai!

Thursday, August 7, 2008 – ARV clinic and class… I also saw a South African student get slammed into by a speeding car. He ended up getting 20ish stitches in his face and had a shattered pelvis. Not to mention a lot of lost blood out of his head.

Friday, August 8, 2008 – went to ARV clinic for support group, then SLCD class, at a South African pub named Dros and then went to the cinema and saw Hancock

Saturday, August 9, 2008 – went to eKapa (Xhosa for Cape Town) on train with Marian. We were going to climb Table Mountain, but due to the cloudy weather decided instead to tour the city. We walked around to the African market, went into the slave lodge museum, ate Portuguese food, and enjoyed a nice relaxing day just chillin’ because it was Women’s Day, a public holiday in their country, and thus there were not many people, a great way to see the city and become familiar with the layout so that next time we go, we’ll have our bearings! Upon our return, we again went to the cinema and this time saw Wanted!

Sunday, August 10, 2008 – Day devoted to home-making…cleaning, washing, sweeping, dishes, organizing, shopping, and cooking. Wow. You know you’re impressed.

Monday, August 11, 2008 – Xhosa, followed by 2 hours of entering patient records into the computer at the ARV clinic, then by working out at the gym and Afrikaans.