South Africa 2008

Drew: Botswana, Zimbabwe, Kruger National Park, and the Return Trip

2008-12-22T05:56:00.000-08:00

Wow, we haven't posted in quite some time, so I'm sure you're all wondering if we're even still alive! For those of you who picked us up at the airport, you know that we made it (although just barely!).

To follow up from the last post... we spent 5 more days in Namibia which took us to Etosha National Park for 2 days of great safari adventures and then some R&R (well, as much as one can get in Africa) in the capital city of Windhoek.

Next we headed into Botswana, a country that has several elephants, donkeys, and foot-and-mouth-disease checkpoints on the roads. Here, we spent 3 days in the Okavango Delta, which took several hours to get to, and once there, we were completely in the Wild. No guns for protection (and we actually came within 20 meters of a real wild lion eating a real dead antelope), no toilets for doing your business (but we did have a nice hole that we dug in the ground), and no civilization or cities or cell phone reception for miles upon miles upon miles. It was great. Wonderful experience!

After the Delta, we spent a day at Chobe National Park where we spent almost an entire day riding on a motor boat up and down a river watching elephants, hippos, crocodiles, monitor lizards, several hawks and eagles, and many other animals.

Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe (largest waterfall in the world) was the next stop. It was gorgeous! There were also craft markets at which you could trade t-shirts, shorts, pillows, shoes, and even food for handcrafted goods and souvenirs.

We then drove for 2 days straight down to Johannesburg. Following this, we departed for Kruger National Park and finally saw the only animal of the Big 5 that had so far been elusive... the mighty leopard!!! Other Big 5 animals include the rhino, elephant, buffalo, and lion.

The return trip was CRAZY! All total, we spent 43 hours traveling from Johannesburg to Kansas City and were detained at Immigration in Cape Town for supposedly being in the country illegally, sat on a plane in New York City for over 4 hours before it finally took off, and then missed our connecting flight in Atlanta that would have brought us home. Scrambling for a way to return home, we ran to a boarding gate that was sending a flight to KC, and luckily, a super wonderful lady took pity upon us and put the three of us at the top of the standby list and eventually ensuring that we had a seat on the plane! And while we arrived 3 hours later than we wanted to, and while most of our baggage didn't even arrive until even later that evening, we managed to do the most important thing: make it back safe and sound.

I'm sure we all have our cell phones back on now so give us a call!

Joshua: Namibia!

2008-11-28T06:49:00.000-08:00

Hello, all!

We're having the times of our lives on our travels throughout Southern Africa. We're currently resting for 1 1/2 days in Swakopmund, Namibia, a small, Germanic-influenced town along the country's coast.

Thus far, we've travelled through the Cederberg Mountains and the Orange River in South Africa up the Western coast. Also, we went to Fish River Canyon, the oldest canyon in the world; spent 2 days in the vast, beautiful Namib Desert (climbed up Dune 45, viewed countless, bright red dunes at sunrise, explored desert wildlife, etc.); stayed in Solitaire, Namibia, a town with a population of 1; and much, much more!

We miss you all and hope that you had a great Thanksgiving! We're thankful for you. We taught our international friends on our tour with us (we're the only Americans out of the 24 travellers) about Thanksgiving. Last night around the fire, we each said what we were thankful for.

Will post again when we can!

Joshua: Mozambique

2008-11-22T11:17:00.000-08:00

We're alive and well!

Mozambique was absolutely incredible. We travelled on a sleeper train called the Shosholoza Meyl. It had a restaurant car and hot shower per car. We spent 2 days in Maputo with a wonderful British couple we found on Couch Surfers and then spent 2 1/2 days on the beaches of Xai-Xai. Xai-Xai is the most beautiful place on earth.

Will post more later. Just wanted everyone to know we're okay. We leave tomorrow at 8AM for Namibia!!!

Cheers.

Joshua: Southern Africa, here we come!

2008-11-15T13:02:00.001-08:00

To all our family and friends,

We leave tomorrow at 8:00 AM for Maputo, Mozambique, where we will be until Friday! After that, we leave Sunday for a 26 day camping trip throughout Namibia, Botswana, Zambia, Zimbabwe, and Kruger National Park in South Africa. We'll have sporadic Internet access (probably twice over the entire month span), so we'll post quick sentence blurps to let you know we're still alive.

Don't send us e-mails at our sun accounts anymore. They're closed.

By the way, when we return to the USA, we'll compliment this blog with awesome pictures from our month tours. So even though we'll be home, check the blog again for the photos.

Cheers! We'll talk soon.

The South African Crew

Drew: Cape Point, Penguins, and One Very Mean Baboon

2008-11-07T00:06:00.000-08:00

On Sunday, October 26, we went with the international student organization on a trip first to Boulder's Beach, which boasts a large penguin population, and then to Cape Point at the Cape of Good Hope. They don't have penguins there; they have baboons. I wish they didn't have baboons... One attacked me and stole my package of cookies. If you look closely at the fifth picture below, you'll see the clear plastic bag that at one time had my cookies in it...

Drew: YES WE DID!!!

2008-11-05T06:17:00.000-08:00

Barack Obama won and the whole world is celebrating!

From a small tv in the lobby of the residence, the three of us have been glued to CNN International for several hours. The scenes of excitement and celebration are chilling to watch as it would seem as though America herself emerged triumphant from a long struggle.

And how about that acceptance speech?! Inspirational and empowering, to say the least!

However, in light of such a brilliant victory for our nation, there were unfortunately setbacks in the struggle for equality and dignity for all.

While I thought it had been removed from the ballot, Arkansas widely passed a ban on unmarried couples adopting children. Mainly affecting homosexuals, this initiative clearly holds the interests of self-righteous, right-wing prudes OVER the health and security of children within the foster care system. This measure brings shame not only to the state, but to this nation which claims to want the best for future generations.

Florida and Arizona both passed amendments to their state constitutions defining marriage as between one man and one woman. It would seem as though people still ignorantly think that they go to the courthouse and obtain a marriage license from God, rather than participating in a civil contract that aims solely to provide security and reduce eventual dependence on the government.

And in California, where nearly twenty thousand gay and lesbian couples have wed in recent months, voters actually enshrined into their state constitution something that REMOVES rights from its citizens. Aren't constitutions supposed to protect people? Seems like they are playing with fire.

So election night had its ups and downs. I'm thrilled that Obama was chosen in landslide victory, but the coattails of his message of hope, change, and equality were not long enough to combat this era's civil rights abuses.

Drew: Outside Looking In

2008-10-29T16:09:00.000-07:00

Throughout this election, I've become quite disaffected from ultra conservatives whose unabated trash-talking and fear-mongering is ridiculous and deceitful. Recently, my mother forwarded to me one of the several chain emails trying to paint Barack Obama as an evil Muslim plotting a jihad-like overthrow of our government. And as I'm definitely a supporter of equality and have no problems expressing my opinions, I felt the need to respond.

This is not addressed to anyone in particular, but rather a few thoughts for everyone to read:

"Oh please, surely we're not still catering to the falsely induced fear of Barack Obama's hidden ties to Islam. Seems more to me like conservatives are playing to people's inner xenophobia to scare them into voting for selfish political motivations rather than encouraging people to open their minds to different belief systems and cultures, analyze and respect differences, and form logical and accurate views. I'm not saying to forget your own religion, or even to take it out of the picture, but I AM saying that your narrow-mindedness results from a negligent lack of understanding of people who harbor different religious, political, and cultural beliefs. How can you demand other groups to change their actions from intolerance to acceptance when yours are the very same? The Bible speaks quite directly about hypocrisy, and I'd suggest that professing Christians uphold and practice this aspect of their religion, too.

In regard to the email, it is quite offensive and undeservedly biased. Is Barack Obama a radical anti-white Christian or a Muslim? People, make up your mind which ridiculous insult you're going to use and stick with it! And if you choose to call him a Muslim, and mean it as an insult, then I pity you. So what if there are 2000 mosques in America, there are God knows how many churches and we're all entitled to religious freedom, THE single-most important principle upon which America was built.

And the very fact that anyone would question the billions of dollars in federal aid to African countries based on a difference of nations' dominant religious beliefs is quite possibly one of the most inhumane, and certainly one of the most unChristian, acts I can think of. I challenge each and every one of you to leave your nice, insulated little bubble-world of cultural closedmindedness and go to Africa, or some other impoverished country, and spend time serving a community that is in desperate need of any and every resource imaginable. These people don't need God, they need food and running water. They need shelter and security. They need employment and infrastructure. They need a world free from discrimination and inequality and fear. Only then will thoughts of religion become important in their world, and only then should it even be considered as an issue on which to base conditions for humanitarian aid.

There is a reason why people voted for Barack Obama this week, and it had nothing to do with religion or race or fear, but rather hope and inspiration. Why are we even bickering over whether or not Muslim-Americans, or anyone really, should have an equal place in our great society when we both profess to support the very same Constitution? Because these politics of the past that isolate and exploit a common "enemy" at the expense of select citizens' rights unfortunately find listeners in those people with their heads still shoved in the sand."

I'd love to hear any thoughts or questions regarding my post! Send them to drew_keaster@hotmail.com or leave a comment on the blog.

Cheers!

Melissa: It's Been Awhile....

2008-10-20T11:42:00.001-07:00

I had such illusions about this blog at the beginning. Having never managed to keep a diary, I was convinced this would be an easier way to record my feelings and experiences on a regular basis. Here's the thing about illusions: they are usually erroneous, as this one proved to be. I have not written on this blog for a month and, while I have kept my family and close friends up to date, I must apologize to those who do not have regular contact with me except through this blog. With that said, let me recap some highlights from the past month.

The week after Spring Break I spent the majority of my time studying for a history test. Having taken pages and pages of notes, I read and summarized and outlined and drank a lot of tea in the process. It all paid off the next Monday when I came out of the three-hour test feeling confident about my essays on African colonization.

The next weekend Josh, Drew, and I headed off to Auntie Vivian's house again. This time we cooked Mexican food for 8 of our friends. Here's a funny story...That Saturday I was watching drama scenes until 1:00 when Josh and I were supposed to meet at Pick 'N Pay (our grocery store of choice). I show up on time and he is not there so I wait outside for awhile before searching inside the store and then waiting outside the store (but inside the complex the store is in) until about 1:30. Josh doesn't have his phone on him, so I assume something came up and he can't make it; I begin shopping for all the food we need to feed 11 people. I finish shopping at around 2:30 and carry the baie heavy bags all the way back to Concordia. Josh comes in about 10 minutes later with his bags of food. Apparently he thought my theatre scenes weren't going to be done on time, so he showed up at around 1:20, didn't really look inside and just waited outside the complex until around 1:45 when he gave up on me and began shopping. Pick 'N Pay is not all that large. I have no idea how we shopped for a good 45 minutes in the same store and never once saw each other!! It's like those scenes in romantic comedies where the guy and the girl walk right past each other but don't meet. It's funny because when we looked at the food, it was obvious we were circling each other. He got to the yellow peppers first and took all the good ones (I didn't buy any because the rest weren't fresh), while I got to the red peppers before him and stole all the good ones. So yes, we had soooo much food!! We still have some of it left. :) But we spent a wonderful evening at Auntie Vivian's and introduced our friends to fajitas, guacamole and stuffed bell peppers. Needless to say, they are all fans of Mexican food now.

I spent the next week contemplating whether I should stay in South Africa for another semester or not. There is so much I would love to do here and the theatre department is very supportive of my work, so it was tempting. The week was spent calling and emailing countless people both at Missouri State and Stellenbosch as I tried to figure out if it was even possible. After wavering back and forth on an almost daily basis I felt called to come home. I'm going to spend the next semester volunteering with the Springfield Regional Arts Council and hopefully directing a show at either the YMCA or Boys and Girls Club.

The weekend before last, the boys, Jacques, Daniel, Stacey and I hit Bikini Beach at Gordan's Bay. It was small and steep, which meant there were no noisy kids running around. The vast majority of beachgoers were between the ages of 18-30 and very respectful. We alternated between laying out in the warm sun and venturing into the cold water. The ocean was actually quite pleasant once you got up the courage to submerge yourself! It was just those first few minutes of actually getting in that was hard! Entering and exiting the water was also a bit dangerous because the fierce waves brought rocks that pelted you when the waves crashed. All of us ended up with cuts and bruises on our feet; Drew got hit with a pretty big rock and limped for a day or two afterwards. Despite our minor injuries, we all plan to go back to the beach soon.

I've spent a lot of my time working with Theatre in Action. As mentioned before, I am working with about 16 students aged 14-18 from Kayamandi High. Of the four of us from Stellenbosch, I am the most consistent about attending rehearsals (I've only missed one because I was writting the test) and have the most authority, though until about a few weeks ago that authority was minimal. When I tried to speak it was often difficult to get the kids to quiet down and listen. Two men in the group had much more authority than I did; I call them "men" even though they are only 17 or 18 because they have "been to the mountain" and are now considered men in the community. It is a tradition in Xhosa communities that fathers and uncles take a boy up into the mountains when they reach a certain age and spend several days teaching them to be a man. It's quite secretive and I don't know what all it entails, but I know that not everyone comes back from the mountain. The ritual has gotten safer over the years (it's actually been deemed dangerous and illegal by the government, but that doesn't stop it from continuing) and it is not mandatory to participate. The dwindling number of participants means that those who do go to the mountain are regarded highly. Flabba and Langa, the two men in Theatre in Action, are distinguisable by their jackets and hats that mark them as men. When they speak, everyone listens. Another person that has respect in the group is Bongi, a professional actor/dancer who recently moved into Kayamandi to be near his mother. Bongi has become the "director" in the group, using his authority as an adult, black, Xhosa-speaking male to get results that I could not. He can quiet the students with a snap--a trick I'd like to learn!--and is not afraid to be the "bad guy" to get results. It has been Bongi respecting my opinion and direction and telling the students, "She doesn't have to be here. She's trying to work with you so if you really want to become actors you should shut up, be professional and listen to her," that has resulted in my increased authority lately. I no longer have to fight for silence and as a result, rehearsals are much more efficient. It is still a highly collaborative effort, but the increased focus and respect means people can share their ideas more easily and quickly.

After finalizing the script, we began blocking and rehearsing. Our sets are minimal--a table, a few chairs, a few blocks--and there are few props or costumes, which made rehearsing easy. We did have some difficulty because our performance venue kept being changed. Initially, we were going to perform in the HB Thom Theatre in Stellenbosch, so we blocked the play assuming there was wingspace. However, we got booted out of the theatre due to Cabaret being performed. We were then going to perform in the theatre's foyer, where a small stage has been set up. However, there is no wingspace stage left, so we reblocked the show so everyone entered and exited stage right. That's complicated! Then we got word that we could not use the foyer and would have to perform in a classroom. So we reblocked the show again because it was silly to have everyone entering and exiting from the same side. We borrowed flats to create a kind of backstage and just hoped that it would work. And it did. We performed about half the play for Stellenbosch University acting students last Friday. (I was backstage making sure everyone knew which side they entered on and had their correct props.) We could not finish the performance because the kids had to be back in Kayamandi by a certain time to leave for an academic camp. I think I've told the story of how the play ends about 30 times; everyone in the audience enjoyed it and wanted to know what happened next! This Saturday we perform the whole show in Kayamandi, which should be really exciting.

Friday night Josh, Drew and I went with our friends, Harrie and Ivan, to Cape Town to see a play at Artscape called "Dalliances." Part of the Artscape New Writing Programme in 2007, it is a current view of young Cape Townians, love, the absence of love, friendship, and HIV. We all enjoyed it--I especially appreciated the innovative set and recurring use of the color yellow in the set, props, costumes, etc. After the play we danced the night away and then spent most of the weekend sleeping.

Today, Josh and Drew had their Xhosa final and all three of us took a mock Afrikaans oral exam. The real exam is next Wednesday. This is the last week of classes for me; how crazy is that?! I need to finish one more paper, but then all I have left is studying for finals. Afrikaans and Acting finals next week, History the week after, and my two Theatre classes the week after that. I'm used to taking at least one final every day for a week and find it interesting that exams are so spread out here. It's nice to have time to study, though, as finals are worth about 60% of the class mark.

Though the next weeks will be busy as we attempt to do everything and hang out with everyone before leaving Stellenbosch in mid-November to travel, I will attempt to do a better job about keeping up with this blog.

Much love and God bless,
Melissa

Drew: We Conquered Table Mountain

2008-10-10T16:15:00.000-07:00

Yep, we sure did! I should have posted these pictures much sooner, but better late than never. It wasn't a grueling hike, but it took about 90 minutes of a steady, intense pace to scale over 600 meters. It was well worth it even though we were all incredibly sore for several days to come :)

School is beginning to wind down, so we've all been working on essays, research papers, tests, and presentations. And while next week is no different (probably the busiest of the year for me, actually), we're rewarding ourselves by taking a 2 day beach vacation. We'll take the train to the coast tomorrow morning and relax in the town of Strand (Afrikaans for beach), followed by a braai at one of Melissa's theater-friend's house, followed by another day at Bikini Beach in the neighboring town of Gordonsbaai (Gordon's Bay).

Joshua: A Public Service Announcement

2008-10-03T07:09:00.000-07:00

The following reflects the views of Andrew Keaster, Joshua Snowden, and Melissa Fagan. No South African wild animals were harmed in the production of this PSA...

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GO OBAMA!!!

We're submitting our absentee ballots all the way from Stellenbosch, South Africa; and if we can vote from 8000+ miles a way, you can and should, too! Even if you vote for McCain and Palin, the important thing is that you as an American take advantage of the universal suffrage with which we are blessed. Go to the polls on November 4th and let your voice be heard! (If you're living in Missouri, remember that this year's election is crucial. The state could tilt either way this November, so make sure that your vote is represented.)

Drew: A typical week in South Africa...

2008-09-26T09:46:00.000-07:00

So it seems like a lot is happening all around me.

Last Friday night, I went to my first official rugby game. It puts American football to shame. Sorry, I know this might upset all you guys who value manliness and express that through a keen interest in and love of football, but when compared next to rugby, our shoulderpadded athletes looks like a bunch of school kids on a cold day trying to do ballet after being wrapped up in much-too-large winter coats.

Dance Bearathon was a huge success, raising over $20,000 this year! Congratulations to Blake and all my other friends who took over in the wake of Josh's and my absence.

On Tuesdays, I usually volunteer at the AIDS clinic from 8:30 to 1:00, but on the way there, the driver asked if he could pick my partner and I up early because he had to be somewhere at 1:00. "Of course! No problem. Where are you going?" He responds casually with something about attending a lecture by Desmond Tutu. The Most Reverend Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu! As it turns out, I ended up getting to go, too. When was the last time you heard a Nobel Peace Prize winning apartheid fighter who has since served as the nation's moral conscience?

In other news, South Africa's president, Thabo Mbeki, resigned earlier this week after serving for 10 years as Nelson Mandela's successor. The African National Congress appointed their party's deputy leader as the interim head of state until next year's elections. Maybe this guy should just stay in power, though... After all, he just fired Dr. Beetroot and South Africa can now attempt to make progress on its HIV/AIDS epidemic. Now we just need a bit more funding at the HIV clinic...

I wish I could watch the first presidential debate. Of all the things I thought I wouldn't miss, my first presidential election ranks pretty high on the list. As long as I get an absentee ballot in the mail, though, at least I'll be upholding my civic duty.

Wednesday was a public holiday in South Africa. After slacking for the past few weeks, we determined that Wednesday would be spent in the computer lab working on soon-to-be-due papers. And other than a brief break to a late lunch and go to the gym, we did just that. On our return trip to our residence at about 9:00PM, Josh and I were discussing something as a strange-looking man walked by. It was in a dimly lit area, and upon hearing our accents he immediately turned around and started following us. Pretty closely, too. We upped our pace to a near jog, but still he seemed to be following a few meters behind. At this point, we detoured toward McDonald's, the nearest public place we could find. This man actually followed us in, and suspiciously stood in line to order food. When it got his turn, he indeed ordered something and Josh and I made good use of this window of opportunity and left without him noticing. We're both convinced that we narrowly avoided getting mugged. Oh, and the guy was white, just FYI.

Josh and I rode the train in to Cape Town today, much against the recommendations of pretty much everyone we know. Apparently, white people who ride the train get mugged. To this, I say, "If you ride 1st class where the only other person in the car is your attacker, then DUH!" We rode economy class for R7, or less than $1, each way, and spent 75 minutes riding each way with South Africa's working class. Were we apprehensive because of all the negative things we've heard about the train? Yes. Were we scared? No. It's justifiable to watch your back in a potentially dangerous situation, but I think it's racist for Stellenbosch's white community to avoid the train out of their trumped up fear of the Coloured and Black communities.

Drew: South African Spring Break - The Garden Route complete with Safari and Bungee Jumping!

2008-09-20T15:23:00.000-07:00

So, after a week of getting oriented in South Africa, and 7 consecutive weeks of classes, we began our Spring Break on Friday, September 5. The following 10 days were crammed full of excitement, and that week was probably the most adventurous, most hardcore, and craziest one of my life!!! We relaxed all Saturday in preparation of the upcoming adventure tour, leaving the room only to watch Mamma Mia in the local theater (everyone should watch/rent it because it is a fantastic musical-turned-movie) and eat a picnic supper in the middle of town. The next morning, Josh and I embarked upon a guided trip that lasted a full week, from Sunday morning to Saturday evening, and each day would consist of a bit of driving, several activities, and then overnight at backpacker's lodges.

Sunday – After a gorgeous scenic drive along the coast, the group stopped in Hermanus for whale-watching during lunch (we saw huge whales breach several times). Continuing in the day, we had 5 rounds at Birkenhead, a South African brewery, and then drove to the southernmost tip of Africa on Cape Agulhas where we played in two oceans simultaneously...because it's where the Indian and Atlantic Oceans meet! That evening, we were served ostrich meatloaf for supper. Stick with beef, just trust me on this one!

Monday - More scenic driving (actually, all driving would be considered “scenic” because the Garden Route is basically one large tourist attraction that stretches for hundreds of kilometers) before stopping at a funny roadside bar called Ronnie’s Sex Shop. In Afrikaans, the original name was Ronnie Se Shop, which means Ronnie’s Shop, but one night after several drinks, he and his friends added the additional “x” to the name and thus the present day, random tourist attraction… We all had a drink on the house (haha, the trip was definitely catered to college students, and as I have definitely acquired a taste for white wines, and sweet ones in particular, I still have no liking for most other alcoholic beverages) and then left underwear hanging from the rafters, a funny tradition growing out of the name. Next, we drove a bit further down the road to eat lunch while basking and relaxing in natural warm water springs. They were kind of dirty, though… Oh well, they felt good! In the afternoon, we went to the Cango wildlife ranch where we saw several bats, birds, fish, warthogs, hippos, mierkats, crocodiles, storks, lemurs, lions, tigers, cheetahs, and all kinds of snakes (puff adders, black mambas, king cobras, Burmese python, boa constrictor, etc.). Supper was Ostrich steak, which was much better than the meatloaf, and some ostrich sausage, which is another one of those things that no type of meat should ever be made into.

Tuesday – For breakfast, of course the meal had some part of an ostrich, but this time it was ostrich egg before going to tour the massive Cango Caves. We didn’t have time to take the adventurous section of the tour, which would have involved us basically wiggling through 18-inch cracks in rocks for about a kilometer. The reason for leaving early, though, was that we next went to an ostrich farm where we each RODE an ostrich, as well as other cool ostrich-related activities. After eating lunch at a jazzy little restaurant, we drove into the Eastern Cape (Think of South Africa as having 9 states, or provinces as they are called here, and the Eastern Cape is next to the Western Cape, which houses Cape Town and Stellenbosch) to the world's highest bungee jump! It was 216 meters tall (2 and a half football fields) and certified by Guiness Records, and I totally volunteered to jump first! And for those of you who might doubt that I actually jumped, that I don't seem like the "risk-taking type," I have several pictures and the DVD they made of it to prove my awesomeness!

Wednesday – We did a 1hr zip-line adventure through Tsitsikama Forest, then spent lunch and afternoon in a touristy town on the beach while several people went shopping. There were several cheap factory outlet stores for surf related stores like Quicksilver, Billabong, Jeep, and Element. That evening, we drove inland toward Addo National Elephant park and stayed overnight on an orange plantation in little African huts. It was so cool!

Thursday - 6 AM safari where we saw WILD elephants, cape buffalo, warthogs, ostriches, kudu, duiker, hartebeast (these last three are deerlike animals), monkeys, jackals, and lions. In fact, the three lions we saw actually walked mere feet from our frozen vehicle and laid in the grass about 8 meters from us (even the tour guide who works in the park was taking pictures)! So out of the big 5, which includes elephants, buffalo, rhinos, lions, and leopards, we saw 3. Not too shabby, I’d say, considering we haven’t yet been to Kruger National Park (we are going there mid-December). We stayed in the park finding animals until 12:30 and then spent the afternoon relaxing at the beach. There always seems to be a beach nearby here in South Africa… Yep, I knew I loved this place!

Friday – We began our drive back toward Cape Town, taking a few different routes so as to hit different attractions. The day’s first stop was at an elephant sanctuary where most of the group went in and walked, fed, and rode elephants. Afterward, we were scheduled to go sea kayaking but due to the windy weather, our afternoon activity was canceled so we just got extra chill time at the beach! Not that any of us were complaining :)

Saturday - We spent most of the day driving back, stopping occasionally at cool places like a scenic mountain pass, an Aloe Factory, and some others before arriving back in Stellenbosch. All in all, I’d say it was a pretty worthwhile trip. You know, I could get used to this whole idea of taking a vacation while on vacation. South Africa = Good choice to spend 6 months!

Oh, and since I’m on the topic of vacations, I would like to take this opportunity to announce the next big undertaking in my life. I have always wanted to learn a foreign language to the point of at least being conversationally competent, but have been unable to do so up to this point. Sure, I can understand a little Spanish (2 years in high school, and Josh speaks it fluently) and some Afrikaans (everyone here speaks it), and I can speak/read/write even more Spanish, Afrikaans, and some isiXhosa, but I would definitely not say that I have anything more than a rudimentary knowledge of each. Because of this, coupled with the amazing experience of studying abroad, Josh and I have decided to spend Spring of 2010 in Qingdao, China, taking a language intensive Mandarin Chinese course for 4 hours a day, 5 days a week, for about 16 weeks. The Chinese school calendar for the spring begins around March 1 and ends about July 1, meaning that we would have to forego walking at our college graduation. Compared to spending a semester in China, though, that seems like a trade I’d be willing to make!

Josh: Dance Bear-A-Thon

2008-09-19T03:58:00.000-07:00

I promise to upload pictures from Drew and my amazing Spring Break adventures! From performing the world's highest bungee jump to going on a safari at Addo National Elephant Park, from riding ostriches to touring Cango Caves, from staying in huts to swimming in the Indian Ocean, this past week was incredible! I'll show you why in a little bit...

But for the time being, I can't stop thinking about Dance Bear-A-Thon, which starts tonight in Missouri State's McDonald Arena at 7:00PM. Please keep those orchestrating the night's activities in your thoughts. Drew and I are hoping that tonight's event surpasses all expectations.

Also, if you've yet to donate to Children's Miracle Network, please do so! Go to www.kidsmiracles.org/missouristateuniversity, click "Find a Dancer" on the right-hand side, search for either "Andrew Keaster" or "Joshua Snowden" and then donate by clicking "Support My Efforts Now!" on our individual pages. Thank you SO much!

Totsiens. Geniet julle dag.

Melissa: Spring Break in Stellenbosch

2008-09-10T03:08:00.000-07:00

Wow! I am so glad that it is Spring Break here! Last week was hectic--I had tests and a major paper due in History so I slept very little! But it was all over by Wednesday, so I got to enjoy Thursday and Friday.

On Thursday, I headed out to Kayamandi with Theatre in Action, a group of about four Stellenbosch students (though it's dwindled since) that are scripting and performing a play with about 15 students from Kayamandi High. All of the kids of wonderful, truly interested in theatre and willing to participate in the creative process. We asked them to come up with issues that they wanted to address in the play and then guided them through scripting. The resulting story revolves around Tandi, whose father is abusive to her mother. The mother is submissive, convinced that such treatment is only natural, while the community is reluctant to involve itself in "family matters." When a neighbor goes to the police, they do little as the system is corrupt. There's a tragic ending, with a spark of hope battling despair. It's a good foundation but the script needs to be fleshed out. The performance date isn't set in stone yet, but it's coming quickly so we'll work fast!

On Thursday night, Drew and I went out with our friend Harrie, while Josh went out with Jacques, Stacy, and other International Relations students to celebrate completing a test. It was a fun (and late) evening. Harrie and Drew started to teach me how to dance! hahaha. I'm sure it was amusing if anyone was watching! Friday was another socializing day. The three of us headed to Jacques's flat for tea with him, Stacy and Daniel. We talked about politics and generally had a good time. Then we headed off to meet Harrie and Ivan for a quick bite, before leaving with Marian and Julia for a braai at Auntie Vivian's house!! What a day!

Saturday was gorgeous--after a week of rain we really enjoyed the hot weather. After watching Mamma Mia we settled down for a picnic in a field. Our sprawling was interrupted by a beggar who came and just stood about a meter from us. After about 15 minutes of ignoring her, we decided to just leave. After a late meal at the newly reopened Java (Drew was so happy!), the boys spent the evening packing for their Cape to Addo trip. I was supposed to go on the same trip, but chose to stay in Stellenbosch to continue my work with Theatre in Action. Only one other girl was available to help with rehearsals and she couldn't even make on all the days, so I decided to stay behind. It was a bit disappointing, but I can always take a few days later and visit the Garden Route. I won't have this opportunity to workshop a production later.

I've been out to Kayamandi every day so far this week, so my time here has been productive. It's been rainy every day (as I write, ominous black clouds hang in the sky), so I haven't spent much time outside, but I've explored town, poking my head into every tiny shop and spending hours in the museums. It's actually probably better that I'm alone, because otherwise the boys would be rushing me along!! Yesterday I went to the Stellenbosch Toy Museum and spent a long time looking at dollhouses and miniature rooms. The museum has two buildings and therefore two curators, both elderly and full of knowledge about their exhibits. Johan and Phillip gave me personal tours, throwing in advice about things to do in Stellenbosch, as well as in life. Phillip regaled me with his recent braaing adventure; he lives above the museum and invited friends over to braai in the backyard, setting off the smoke alarm in the museum in the process! When the firemen arrived, he just offered them a steak! And did I mention that the museum had Kewpie dolls?!

I've really enjoyed the week so far. It's the first time I've really been completely on my own. At college I had roommates and Madison nearby, so I didn't go off exploring by myself. And since I've been here, I've had Josh and Drew with me every day. It's kind of liberating to be alone! To decide what I want to do, when I want to do it, what I want to eat, where I want to walk, without having to clear it with anyone or make compromises. When I wanted to stop into a random restaurant and order a scone, I did. When I felt like seeing a movie, I did. When I wanted to spend an hour chatting with the owner of the art gallery, I did. Everyone is so friendly; I enjoy having the time and freedom to converse.

At the same time, I've been very safe. Stellenbosch is safe during the days, especially downtown and in the more expensive shopping section. There are lots of tourists around, but it is empty enough that you can always be aware of who exactly is around you. I haven't felt in any danger being alone, but I am careful to be back in my room before it gets dark. While it's unlikely anything would happen, I'd much rather be safer than sorry.

Yesterday evening I went to the Baxter Theatre in Cape Town. The driver, a personal friend of our housemother, is wonderful and enjoys talking about her life and the town. I learned Deirdre was in the army, loves to scrapbook, has a grown daughter in London, spends time with a gang of 10 friends (there should be a book or movie about them--so fun!), and feels like a mother to everyone she drives around. If she takes a group somewhere, she doesn't leave them. If Deirdre drives a group of girls to the beach, she parks and then sits somewhere where she can see to make sure they are okay until they are ready to go back. In the same vein, Deirdre dropped me at the theatre and then stayed, playing cards with her young son (who came along for the ride) until I was ready to go.

I saw "Gumbo," South Africa's first full-length Deaf and hearing clowning show. "In a rumble-down seaside inn, a young Deaf boy works the kitchen for his father. One dark and stormy night, a travelling salesman and his daughter seek refuge and a hot meal at the inn. The inn-keeper welcomes them in, and proceeds to hustle the traveller in a game of cards. As the wine flows and the stakes are raised, the salesman bets his daughter on the final hand..." Needless to say, the inn-keeper wins and then tries to woo the daughter, while she instead falls in love with the deaf son. At times the clowning was a little annoying, but the love story was so well done I forgave the rest. The scene where the girl discovered the boy was deaf and he began to communicate through sign was exceptional, done in such a way that you always understood what was being said. Extremely interesting to watch.

After the play, I came back and met up with Christian and Jerome, two German friends that stayed over Spring Break as well. We headed to Brazen Head, the Irish pub in town that I hadn't been to yet. While not quite the same as the real thing, it was a fun time. The bartenders knew Christian, so we sat at the bar and talked with them for most of the night. I got laughed at for nursing a glass of wine for about 4 hours, but that was fine with me!!

And now it's officially raining again. Great. I considered going to another show tonight (a high school theatre competition) but I'm going to wait to see shows until my friends who own cars get back and I can recruit someone to go with me. I spent R65 on a ticket, but R500 on safe transport, which I find ridiculous. Although, on Saturday I am going to see two shows at the ArtsCape--My Fair Lady and Gatherings (a dance performance)--with Estelle and her family.

I'm not sure what I'm doing today and tomorrow. The Theatre in Action rehearsal tomorrow might be cancelled and if it is, I might join Christian and Jerome on the trip to Hermanus (whales!!!!) and Cape Agulhas they are thinking about. Although, Stacy is in town and we're supposed to do something. And Harrie and Ivan are coming back soon. And Estelle invited me out to her house in Strand. hahaha. Don't worry about me being alone--I have plenty of things to keep me occupied.

By the way, check out pictures from Tuesday at http://picasaweb.google.com/MelissaMFagan

Joshua: Sportin' Fauxhawks

2008-09-02T03:28:00.000-07:00

The past few weeks have proven very busy at Universiteit van Stellenbosch. As we approach Spring Break next week, Melissa and I have been extremely busy preparing for third term tests while Drew has been working on three papers, each around 1,500-2,000 words. On a break-out-of-the-ordinary day yesterday, Drew and I decided to get haircuts. On a whim, we decided to sport the fauxhawk look.

When I met with my political science friends, Jacques, Stacey, and Daniel in the Neelsie Student Centre today, Jacques said that he could barely recognize me since I blended in so well with Matie crowd. How truthful his statement rings: Male Stellenbosch students wear some crazy hair cuts, and it's quite fun to fit in with the crowd.

So when in Rome...

PS: I wrote a 14 page paper, 1.5 spacing, on food security in the Horn of Africa for my global governance course. Here, the Harvard Referencing system is used, and it's quite intriguing and starkly different from Chicago, MLA, etc. If you want to look at it out of curiosity, write down your e-mail (or e-mail me your e-mail at 15636410@sun.ac.za), and I'll send you a copy!

PPS: By Wednesday of next week, Drew and I will have completed the tallest bungee jump of the world. Bloukras Bridge, be ready!

Melissa: Peer2Peer training

2008-08-25T15:19:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago, Joshua and I were selected to become peer educators in the Stellenbosch University HIV awareness program. The program- Peer2Peer- focuses on prevention methods, including voluntary counseling and testing, awareness sessions and condom distribution. Their vision is: “By 2012 there are no new infections on campus. University management, institutional units, staff and students are working together to enable leadership, health seeking behaviour and quality education needed to effectively respond to the challenges of HIV and AIDS in South Africa, and the African continent.” As Peer2Peer educators within this program, Josh and I will receive training before participating in clinic outreaches, mentoring sessions and individual or group interventions. The biggest outreach hosted by the organization, the Grow Up and Get Tested campaign, is held annually in March so unfortunately we will not be able to participate in that. However, there are many other ways to get involved.

We had our first training weekend two weeks ago. We began on Friday with activities meant to break the ice between peer educators. For instance, a sticker was placed on each of our foreheads and we had to ask questions to discover who our new persona was. Josh successfully figured out he was Marge Simpson, while I didn’t manage to figure out Christiano Ronaldo (shame on me, I know). After a few other exercises and a pre-training questionnaire, we discussed our role at Stellenbosch. Peer educators are educators, activists, referral resources (able to provide names of locations, as well as directions and a name of a contact) and role models.

We next explored personal attitudes regarding values and gender. Much of being a peer educator is recognizing personal viewpoints and learning to express these clearly, while at the same time understanding how to put personal beliefs aside when dealing with people who have different belief systems. As an exercise, the group of around 40 trainees was asked to stand in the middle of the room. One wall became “agree” while another was “disagree.” We were then asked to bodily respond to a series of statements--Virgins can be sexually active. Men and women cannot have an equal say in decision-making. Heterosexuality is a choice. If a man is diagnosed with an STD he should be forced to test for HIV. After the group split into “agree” and “disagree,” individuals were asked to explain why they chose that particular wall. The answers were extremely interesting and varied as a result of the wide range of cultures represented in the room. Everyone was able to listen respectfully and some people were even persuaded to cross the room and change their response.

On Saturday morning we began by trying out a webCT course on HIV that will be compulsory for all first-year students to complete, beginning next year. The course consists of a pretest, informative module, and a posttest. While the module itself was interesting and informative, Josh and I suggested many improvements, most of which involved grammar or punctuation. We both felt that if the course was going to be affiliated with Stellenbosch University, it should look and sound professional!

Next was a session on HIV/AIDS. To share a few of the scary facts we learned:
-There were an estimated 33.2 million people living with HIV in 2007 with 2.5 million from new infections during that year.
-Of these 33.2 million, 22.5 million are in Sub-Saharan Africa.
-In South Africa, the Western Cape (where we are) has the lowest prevalence. It is 1.9%, while in other regions it is as high as 16.5%.
-Africans have a prevalence of 3.4% while other race groups are below 1%.
-In the 15-24 age group, females have 8X higher incidence (6.5% compared to .8% for males). This is likely due to multiple partners (one infected male infects multiple women) and women sleeping with older men in return for gifts.
-The age of sexual debut is 11. This refers to penetrative sex not due to rape or molestation. (This was particularly shocking to Josh and me. Eleven?!)
-More than half (57%) of sexually active females 15-24 have never used contraception.
-66% of people believe they are not at risk for HIV.
-51% of HIV positive respondents thought they would probably not or definitely not get infected with HIV.

After a quick lunch tea break we returned for another session, this time on how HIV/AIDS works.
-HIV= Human Immunodeficiency Virus
-AIDS=Acquired Immunodeficiency syndrome.
-HIV/AIDS can be spread through semen, vaginal fluids, blood and breast milk. Saliva and tears contain negligible amounts of the virus. You cannot get AIDS from mosquitoes or an animal bite.
-In the body’s immune response, phagocytes patrol and look for intruders. When an intruder is recognized, it sends for macrophages, which then confiscate an antigen. CD4 cells recognize antigen and attack the HIV. Next, antibodies are produced, slowing down HIV and making it an easier target for phagocytes to find.
-During the first 12 weeks after infection, the viral load increases as the HI virus replicates itself, killing CD4 cells in the process. This is the window period. Antibodies have not been produced, so if you are tested in this time it will be a false negative. Also, you are most contagious in this time.
-After 12 weeks, antibodies are produced and CD4 count goes up. There is then an asymptomatic period that can last 8-10 years, but CD4 cells continue to die slowly. Eventually, there is a tipping point, where there are not enough CD4 cells to manage your immune system. At this time opportunistic infections, especially TB and Meningitis, begin to appear due to a weakened immune system.
-South Africans qualify for government provided ARVs when their CD4 count drops below 200. They continue to take ARVs for the rest of their lives.
-AntiRetroviral (ARV) treatment suppresses or prevents the replication of HIV in cells. This allows CD4 counts to increase and the immune system to rebuild itself.

For lunch, the Peer2Peer program provided everyone with food from the Neelsie Student Center. We ate outside with new South African friends from the program. The lunch discussion revolved around the issue of race and how it is acceptable conversation in South Africa while almost taboo in the United States.

On our return to training we were placed into same-gendered groups and asked to discuss what sexuality meant to us. To do this, each group traced a body on large pieces of paper. We then drew what could be seen with clothes on in detail. My group’s body (Phobe- a homage to Friends) was given extremely good nails and facial features, as well as numerous pieces of jewelry. Next we were asked to draw everything that could be seen with clothes off. People were a little hesitant to draw at this point, but we soon got over it. Next came labeling parts of the body that everyone was self-conscious about. This was easy. Our labels included: fat legs, skinny legs, love handles, weird hands, ugly feet, crooked teeth, big calves, arm flab, scars, birthmarks, strange toes, acne, big breasts, small breasts, too short, too fat, too thin, too black, and so on. Less easy was labeling of areas of the body that give pleasure. Girls were again reluctant to begin, but eventually proposed labels that ranged from forehead kissing to ear licking to foot massages to the general area of breasts, etc. Upon finishing the posters, each group was then asked to explain their poster to their group. I was amazed at how explicit and open everyone was willing to be. There was laughter and teasing at some of the labels (especially the boys’ groups for some reason!) but it was a very safe environment.

On Sunday the training focused on living positively with HIV. We were first informed that yesterday everyone was infected with a rare strain of a disease. To counteract this, we must take medicine (a piece of sugar coated candy) every 6 minutes. My table set an alarm every 6 minutes and everyone would remind everyone else to take it. While at first we were so aware of the time we did not need the alarm, it came in handy as we began to be distracted by other things. The trainees were shown several videos about people living with HIV/AIDS. One was a televised support group comprised of doctors and also people living with the disease. One member of the group was a hemophiliac man from Stellenbosch who contracted HIV during a blood transfusion at age 6. His parents did not tell him until he was 15 and he came out at age 19. Now 23 and married, he was subject to discrimination in Stellenbosch due to his status. That just goes to show how great the stigma around HIV is. A white, straight man is HIV positive, but didn’t contact it through sexual means and he is still blamed by the conservative community. Other videos included a video of a white HIV+ Afrikaans woman who gave birth to an HIV+ son, a documentary-style video about a reporter trying to trace who gave a woman HIV, and interviews with positive black HIV+ role models. By the end of the day, we had a better idea of the different responses to living with HIV, as well as an idea about how difficult it is to remember to take medicine at a certain time. How terrible it is that those on ARVs have to take pills for the rest of their lives!

The weekend was long, but extremely interesting and informative. The second training session is this coming weekend and I am excited to learn more and become better prepared to discuss the topic with others. We'll keep you informed. Also, if you have questions, just ask!

Who knew bell peppers and butternut squash were so tasty?

2008-08-19T05:22:00.000-07:00

For those of you who might have been wondering about our abilities to provide food for ourselves, rest assured that we are doing quite well! We do our best to buy the healthiest food at the lowest price, and what we end up with is usually delicious! Below is just a glimpse into the wonderful world of cooking with Drew, Josh, and Melissa...

Josh: Kissing Festival and a Few Other Photos

2008-08-17T23:16:00.000-07:00

I just wanted to reaffirm how much I love the uniqueness of this country. Two weeks ago, Drew, Melissa, and I went to "Salaam" (river) by the corner of the Unversiteit van Stellenbosch's campus. There, the administration and Student Representative Council had organized a massive attempt to break the world record with regard to...yes...most couples kissing at a time. The event was absolutely insane! Over 7,600 students packed into an area just a little bit wider than the length of a street. All participants received free umbrellas (nice ones, too, I must add), listened to a music concert while all the Stellenbosch students were herded in, and then the kiss itself lasted for the duration of one song. While we did not reach the world record--It stands at 7,000 Parisian COUPLES--we did start an exciting, or at least an extremely interesting, tradition. Eventually, the Universiteit van Stellenbosch will grace the pages of the Guinness Book of World Records.

The couple you will see is Stacey and Jacques, my South African friends from my Global Governance course. They're probably the coolest people we've met yet.

I'll also include a couple of bonus shots. There is a picture of Drew holding his Nashville, AR, newspaper so that he can issue an article to his hometown paper. The other bonus shots are two photos of the African market in Cape Town.

Melissa: Soundtrack of My Life. Track 8. Michael Buble.

2008-08-16T14:51:00.000-07:00

In the first post on this blog, Joshua wrote that the three of us would reside 8800 miles away. I couldn’t understand at the time why this figure seemed to bother my mother so much, why knowing the exact mileage made the distance real. It was just a number, and a pretty exciting number at that! I would be miles away from what I’d known and since I could still call, email or webcam, the distance was never truly important to me. But when I heard last week that my pastor, David, had passed away from cancer, the distance became almost tangible. 8800 miles stood between me and my family. 8800 miles between me and the hugs I wanted to give Alex and Bonnie. 8800 miles from the hugs I needed to receive.

Another aeroplane
Another sunny place
I’m lucky, I know
But I wanna go home
Mmmm, I’ve got to go home

I knew before I came to South Africa that David’s death was a very real possibility as he had been battling cancer for multiple years and it wasn’t looking good. While most of my goodbyes were happy, saying goodbye to David was extremely difficult. He made sure I knew how proud he was of me and how he knew this journey would challenge and strengthen me. I think both of us were teary by the end. Neither of us said it, but we knew that our goodbye might be the last we said. Two weeks ago I woke up crying from a dream where David had died and found ot soon after that he wasn’t expected to live for much longer. I thought that I might get to speak to him by webcam, but unfortunately never had the chance.

Let me go home
I’m just too far from where you are
I wanna come home

Last Sunday night I found out in an email that David had passed away. I just sat in my room and cried. I tried to find someone online to talk to, but I could not find anyone that I thought would understand. I didn’t know my roommates well enough to share this with them, and while I could have gone to Josh or Drew, it didn’t feel right. I needed to speak to someone who knew Pastor David so I wouldn’t have to explain how deeply I felt about him. I didn’t want to try to explain why I was so upset even though I knew it was coming.

And I’m surrounded by
A million people I
Still feel all alone
Oh, let me go home
Oh, I miss you, you know

I managed to speak to Katie, my roommate from Missouri State, the next day, which was helpful. I don’t think I ended up really saying all that much, but she had met David and knows me, so she could understand the situation. Katie has this wonderful gift of knowing when to just listen and this gift translates to communication via messaging systems as well. There were a lot of times when I just sat looking at my computer screen, typing and then deleting things without sending them, but knowing that she’d sit on the other end and wait without rushing me. Once again I thanked whoever it was that matched us as roommates. (I love you, Katie.) The rest of the week, while better, was more somber than usual. I found myself declining invitations to go out, staying awake longer than usual and being in an unusually irritable mood.

Another winter day has come
And gone away
In even Paris and Rome
And I wanna go home
Let me go home

On Thursday I was given the option of watching David’s funeral via webcam. At first I felt apprehensive about the idea; it seemed as though I would intruding in some way. However, the more I thought about it, the more I wanted to be part of the service. As I was so far away, the whole idea of David being dead wasn’t completely real; I needed to see the casket to have closure. Though there were difficulties with the webcam and I ended up only getting to see parts of the service, it was still nice to get to hear Muriel preach and see that everyone was coping. It also helped that during the service I was led to Psalm 90. At one part it says, “So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom. Return, O LORD! How long? Have pity on your servants! Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days. Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us, and for as many years as we have seen evil. Let your work be shown to your servants and your glorious power to their children.” (Psalm 12-16, ESV.) The passage became a source of peace for me, illustrating how God is so much bigger than any of our lives. If I need reminding, I simply look at that verse.

So that is a brief update on me and what’s been happening. Life –the good and the bad--doesn’t stop because I’m in South Africa. Part of my growing process will just have to be learning how to deal with these situations. And really, just because I’m 8800 miles away doesn’t mean I’m alone. A special thanks to all those who made that very clear.

Drew: SLCD Reflective Journal 2

2008-08-15T15:23:00.000-07:00

I went with Renee, our Pennsylvanian friend, to the African Market here in Stellenbosch determined to find a chess set. Luckily, too, I found one. And not just any set, but a hand-carved stone set with pieces supposedly made of verdite and malachite (probably not, but they sure do look cool)! I also managed to purchase an amazing painting. All total, it was R400, just about US $55!

So eventually Josh or Melissa will put some pictures on this site, or at least write an article or two of their own. For now, though, you will all just have to settle with reading my analytical masterpieces... and as always, the actual names of people have been removed from this post and in their place you'll find [job title].

Service Learning in Community Development
Reflection Journal 2: 12/08/08

Monday, I arrived at 11 and left at 1, giving me two hours to view operations on a day which I will not normally be present. However, I felt it was important to attend the clinic because of the stark differences between a Monday/Wednesday and a Tuesday/Thursday. [PharmD 2], a pharmacist who spends two days per week at the Idas Valley clinic, was there and taught [my partner] and me how to enter records into the computer using their software system. As she worked with us, I think we both became aware of a situation that we feel could be improved throughout our service-learning. They are presently trying to move all records onto the computers, a daunting, if not impossible, task. Yet they seem to have been making much progress in terms of entering most of the patients into the software. However, most of the computerized records are not fully updated and many do not contain important test results and prescription regimens. As many of the physical charts are in poor condition, there is a possibility of loss or damage to the physical records and without electronic backup, ill effects could surely follow. As these realizations came to mind, I felt slightly apprehensive. If someone’s chart was to disappear for whatever reason, their health could be in jeopardy. It would fall upon the doctor and the patient to remember the complex drug combinations, and any lack of adherence to a regimen increases the chance of developing resistant strains of the virus. Thus, if we could perhaps work with the clinical staff and develop more computer literacy in regard to the medical filing software, it would speed the transition and enhance the effectiveness in using electronic records. This would lead to an increase in security, confidentiality, and kas;a, as well as providing a safeguard against a possible deterioration in the clinic’s ability to provide appropriate medical services to all who need treatment.

Tuesday was spent mostly in Observation again with [Sister 1]; the last hour was dedicated to entering more records into the computer. [Sister 1] has been the person with whom we have had the most contact and I would say that my conversations with her were the most important aspect of this week. We had discussions on topics ranging from equipment at the clinic to weekend excursions, proving our acceptance more or less into this community. She does her best to be encouraging and informative, and I felt secure in my role and confident in my service following my exchanges with her.

A third “incident” happens all the time, and as such, I will not mention a specific example but rather the general occurrences and associated feelings. Each time a patient’s chart is brought to us, we proceed to gather the necessary information. However, due mostly to the language barrier and also to the limited time we spend with patients, it is hard to develop any sort of dialogue or relationship with them. By the time they adjust to us as new staff in the clinic while we are concentrating heavily on doing our jobs correctly, it is time for them to leave the room. I will not say that it is frustrating, but I do not foresee much interaction with patients other than providing a medical service. Thus, any development project will almost necessarily be geared toward the facility and/or staff.

Routine tasks, simple procedures, and busy work all make up a large proportion of my time at the clinic thus far. I would therefore like to make two comments in this regard. The first is my appreciation of the staff who willingly allows us to participate in their daily work, providing us a hands-on yet limited introduction into medical practice. This works well: we have not been thrust into any situation that is in anyway mentally or physically challenging or risky while still having the chance to learn and work in a clinical setting. These baby steps are a highly suitable approach and the set limits give a structured entrance into our future profession. Proceeding, my second thought on these tasks has been that they provide us with sufficient time to acquaint ourselves with the staff we are helping. Between each patient or observation or chart we engage in small-talk that allows us to develop friendships, ascertain the existing needs and goals of this community, and gain practical knowledge in the realms not only of medicine and community development, but also language acquisition and cross-cultural communication.

We are still very much in the critical contact-making phase of development. Learning is taking place on both sides as familiarity is enhanced. As they get to know us and work with us, each staff member shows more interest in our presence as pertains to academic study as well as community development. If this solidarity increases, I predict they will respond well to any attempts at furthering development we might suggest.

Coming from a medical environment where everything is extremely organized and strictly managed, it is slightly unsettling to see such a specialized clinic operate in such a relaxed way. Some sisters often forget to wear gloves, there are occasionally multiple patients in the room simultaneously, and the condition of the charts and lack of electronic data are examples that alert me to differences between the private, sterile environment in US clinics and this government-funded clinic. In no way am I suggesting that this clinic is doing anything 'wrong' or 'bad,' but differences exist and can often impede adaptation of the community development worker. Thus, a healthy realization of the environment in which one works is, I feel, a good way to begin to get to know and accept the community and it will ultimately help them get to know you.

In the previous postings I mention a certain “community” and would like to provide specific qualifiers and contexts to this oft used term, although none are wholly accurate. The physical locale of our SLCD is the Idas Valley ARV Clinic found in the section of town east-northeast of campus. In strictly geographical terms, following this logic, the community is a site housing a pharmacy and a primary care, ARV, and dental clinic and encompasses all those who travel to this place. In a professional workplace classification, it would denote those doctors, nurses, and other trained personnel who work together as a team in pursuit of a common goal (improving the quality of life for HIV victims). It could refer to the fostered sense of kinship between patients and their caregivers, and could also be extended to include all patients who ever attended the clinic. By examining and combining these last two, one could say that the community extends even further to the surrounding township clinics to include patients receiving treatment from the traveling doctors. Community could also refer in a hierarchical way to include the governing body of the clinic, its source of funding (government), and any inspectors assigned to assess effectiveness. My view, though, scales down the scope in this case to those persons with a vested interest in the day-to-day operations of the clinic. I feel this includes the full-time clinic staff, auxiliary workers including doctors, nurses, and pharmacists who periodically spend time there, and also the patients. I hesitate to include a collective “patient” as part of the community, for there seems to be few commonalities between patients other than their present affliction and view of the clinic as a kind of sanctuary, and if such commonalities do exist, this is neither the setting nor is there the desire to create any solidarity amongst themselves. However, they too have a vested interest in the clinic, and it was established initially for patients and could not exist without them. Also, the workers involved directly with these “patients” (such as counselors, reproductive health workers, and the medical staff) lend to the overlapping of various social fields, which ultimately merge into a community field and as such, patients are included when I speak of the “community.” Individually, also, each patient forms relationships in the clinic and are the members who stand to learn and gain the most.

Drew: Brief Note

2008-08-11T13:05:00.000-07:00

In July, I posted a day-by-day list detailing activities and travels in an entry entitled "My Long Overdue Posting". I have now gone back and added to that post a list (although somewhat vague) bridging the gap between when it originally finished on July 23 and now. To access it, scroll really far down OR click the arrow by the "July" tab on the right hand side of the screen and then click the name of my post. Just FYI! We love and miss you all!

Drew: SLCD Reflective Journal 1

2008-08-10T11:00:00.001-07:00

So a few of you have been waiting to hear from me in regard to my volunteer work, that very evasive subject that I promised many times would be worthwhile as a reason to come to South Africa. Well, it would seem that fate is once again on my side. After a brief power struggle with Murphy, my Service Learning in Community Development (SLCD) supervisor managed to find a perfect fit: an ARV clinic. ARV stands for AntiRetroVirals, the medication used to slow the progress of HIV. At the end of each week, it is policy that students should submit online an in-depth summary of their community work, complete with details, feelings and emotions, and reflections over newly attained knowledge about the micro environment in which we work that can be applied on a macro level. Thus, I have decided to post each of those journals on this site.

Josh has told me numerous times that posts of this nature are too long, a tedious read, and undesirable for most of the readers of this blog. However, I believe that most of you who check this blog from time to time feel that we do not post frequently enough; this should satisfy you and help to provide a picture of a very important aspect of South African life.

Service Learning in Community Development
Reflection Journal 1: 07/08/08

Let me first begin by mentioning a meeting that took place on August 5 with [Teacher], [My partner], and me. While the other students in the course knew of their placement sites last week, things did not work out as planned with the hospital and there was a time of uncertainty as to whether or not I would get to serve in a medical setting. After hours of hard work and multiple annoying emails from me, [Teacher] succeeded in securing for us a placement at a local antiretroviral (ARV) clinic. After informing us of this opportunity, she proceeded to discuss very important concerns she had regarding the site and wanted us to know both the entire situation from the outset and what our feelings were in response to her concerns. These included our safety, first and foremost, as well as an extra time commitment and possible dress code, among others. Of course, I was excited to learn the details of the community and environment in which I would be working. Before I move onto details of the actual site entry, I want to briefly discuss a few thoughts I had in regard to this meeting. First, I thought it was very respectful for [Teacher] to meet with us and explain her hesitation to let us work in the clinic out of concern for our health and, by asking for our feelings, give us a choice in the matter. Also, she provided us not only with detailed observations that she made while at the clinic making arrangements but also many historical, political, and otherwise relevant information that helped to paint a very real picture in our minds of what the experience might be like. Community Development theory places a great importance on the initial entry into a site, and planning for that entry is a prerequisite. This meeting served that purpose well.

At 8:00AM on August 6, [My partner] and I met at the gate to our residential complex. We walked to [Teacher’s] office while discussing our anticipation for the day’s holdings. Who and what would we encounter? What would we be doing? And as a spoiler for these questions, I can say that we were not disappointed. Saying this, however, might suggest that we were content, if not enthusiastic, about what we discovered throughout the day, and to this end I attribute such positive emotions and satisfaction with the details of the functional aspect of our service, not with the people, conditions, afflictions, and circumstances. No one can be happy seeing patients with HIV, but they can be content knowing that they are getting to perform a service.

Upon our arrival, we met with [Doctor 1], the ARV clinic doctor. After briefly discussing if there was a uniform to wear or dress code to follow, [Teacher] left and we began talking with [Doctor 1] about what we would be doing. She was very relaxed and pleasant to speak with; she seemed mildly excited to have the opportunity to show us around and tell us the many practical medical aspects she was going to teach us! She also stressed that she was not going to strictly demand that we follow any set timetable of volunteering at the clinic and that she would not ever just place us in any area and ask that we do one task over and over without our consent. And while the former is definitely not going to happen (schedules are always needed, in my opinion) and the second may or may not always be the case, she did a good job of making us seem welcome, like she was very willing and open to having us join in with their work.

Following this, she showed us around the clinic and also introduced us to all the staff. The first person we met was the pharmacist, [PharmD 1], who during her studies had spent a semester in Montana. We also met [Sister 1], a humorous nurse who does the initial observations on patients before the doctor sees them. We were also introduced to the counselors (who work with patients on adherence and education), as well as taken to the opposite end of the building which houses a small primary care center (at which there is no regular doctor). All total, the building is occupied by the ARV clinic, a small dental office, the primary care center, and the pharmacy. [Doctor 1] took us back into the pharmacy where [PharmD 1] greeted us and spoke of a few opportunities we had to accompany her to some of the surrounding clinics in the townships.

After the introductory phase, we were placed with [Sister 1] so that we could spend time seeing the first stage in patient care – observations. While here, we learned the fine art of taking bloed druk (blood pressure) with a sphygmanometer and a stethoscope, which we will get to actually perform tomorrow. We also learned how to read urine tests (and say the Xhosa command for something along the lines of “go to the bathroom, pee in one of the cups, and bring us the sample”; more than likely, though, it is probably just the command for "pee") by comparing any color changes to a chart and looking most commonly for proteins, glucose, blood, and occasionally a low pH or the presence of leukocytes. We also experimented with blood glucose levels by pricking our fingers with lancets and testing the blood, as well as learning the significance of weight and weight loss as a primary indicator of health in HIV patients, methods the clinic uses for family planning and birth control, and how to read and record information in the charts. After all of this practice, we began seeing patients. We only watched, though, and were careful not to interfere with [Sister 1]'s work. [My partner] assisted a little bit toward the end of our time with [Sister 1], and I chose to stay inactive because the small room would have been overwhelming if all three of us were moving about and taking turns with the observations. However, between patients we would joke about how tomorrow she was going to have a nice long break because we would be doing the work! I also began a conversation with her in which I just started asking about her history in the nursing profession, how long she had worked in the clinic, what fields she had practiced in, and so forth. During her 38 years of nursing (she is 60, which we would both have sworn she was no older than 45), she has worked in wine farms, hospice care, hospitals, and various clinics. Her insight into many things, I think, will be valuable because of her history in many aspects of medicine in the South African way of life. She was very friendly, and seemed to enjoy our company and, at times, entertainment. Her new goal for the next few months is to teach us Afrikaans, and she is certain she will succeed if we see her often. This is the entertainment about which I mentioned: she would tell us words and we would absolutely butcher the pronunciations! I look forward to spending more time over the next many weeks with [Sister 1] not only for guidance and wisdom, but also as a friend.

Following our wonderful 2 hours in the observation room, we moved back to the examination room with [Doctor 1]. We first saw a female patient who had a cough and had lost 10 Kg during the last month, which is unusual considering she had been started on ARVs and that usually causes a slight increase in weight. The chances were, [Doctor 1] explained, that the patient had some sort of infection and began asking a few questions to the patient. Following this, she had the patient lie on the table and examined her as she explained what she was doing to us. JACEL (like jackal) is an acronym for immediate things to note and stands for jaundice, anemia, cyanosis, edema, and lymph nodes. After this, she started at the head (checking head/neck for stiffness, a sign of meningitis) and worked her way down the body including listening to her breathing with a stethoscope and checking for abdominal discomfort. She discovered that the patient’s right lung sounded distressed, and then instructed us to listen to each other’s breathing and then that of the patient’s. Our conversation at this point focused on making sure to check the basics, and one sentence she said in particular referred to even checking that the patient eats. Not eats three balanced meals each day, or maybe a few too many unhealthy items, but eats at all. Sure, we hear similar messages in our theory class and in news stories and is predominant in the average American’s preconceptions about Africa, but actually hearing the doctor say this really served to make the meaning of this concept clear: that poverty is absolutely real and it is absolutely affecting so many people, to the point where each patient may or may not even have any food to eat. [Doctor 1] then scheduled the patient to have an X-ray next week at the hospital (the clinic doesn’t have an X-ray machine) to check for a lung infection and then said that “hopefully it was tuberculosis.” In this case, tuberculosis would be a much more easily combated illness than some of the other potential opportunistic infections.

The next patient was seen only very briefly as a checkup appointment, and then our driver from the international office arrived to pick us up. We scheduled our time for tomorrow with [Doctor 1], and we confirmed with her our times on Tuesday and Thursday of each week. She would prefer that we arrive at 9:00 instead of 8:00 because the clinic would be much slower and she did not want to “waste our time,” another courteous gesture on her part which I think shows both her willingness to work and accommodate us and her wonderful, delightful personality.

I must say, today’s experience was an eye-opening one, for sure, and also a very exciting one. [Doctor 1] and [PharmD 1] want to teach us many things about the actual practice of medicine, [Sister 1] wants to teach us Afrikaans and let us do some of her work, and everyone else is very nice and has the potential to be (we did not get to interact much with the others, but we will eventually get to) just as welcoming, enthusiastic, knowledgeable, and accommodating! Of the three goals of contact making in community development, I think that important progress was made in terms of getting to know a few members of this medical community and also in terms of their acceptance of us. Because we were not there for too long, I cannot profess to adequately know any specific needs the community has identified, but these will come in time. They do not have X-ray equipment and there is a problem with adherence (patients failing to take their prescripted ARVs and thus developing resistant strains of HIV), but many more needs might surface and it is premature to focus on just the ones noticed immediately.

Service Learning in Community Development
Reflection Journal 1: 07-08/08/08 - Part 2, added after online submission

August 7, 2008 - I went to the clinic this morning and after briefly letting the Tanya know that I was present, I went immediately to Observations with [Sister 1]. Donning a pair of gloves, I practiced taking blood pressure on [My partner], anxiously awaiting my first patient. When a stack of medical charts were delivered to the room, I let [Sister 1] take the first one. Again, the routine is simple. A patient goes first to the bathroom and micturates in a cup. Upon bringing the sample to us, we place a strip in the urine and look for the presence of different molecules/cells while they return to the restroom to dispose of the urine. We then get their weight by asking them to “trek asseblief jou skoene ait en staan op die scaal (take please your shoes off and stand on the scale – literal translation).” Then we take their blood pressure, and, if they are diabetic, we take their blood glucose level. During this process, there are a few things for which we have to look out. The first is a very high or very low blood pressure, but this is not often seen. The most important thing, though, is to compare their present weight with that of their previous visit. If they lose more than 2 kg, we are supposed to alert [Sister 1], who then makes a note for the doctor. Sadly, several of our patients today had lost weight, an ominous sign in their struggle against HIV.

All total, we spent 4 hours in the Observation room seeing patients and entertaining ourselves when no patients needed our attention. At one point, too, [Sister 1] felt so confident in our abilities that she decided to take a break, drive downtown, and buy herself a sandwich because she was hungry! I must say, she is quite the character. She is determined to teach me Afrikaans by the end of the semester and teaches me new words and phrases. She also has a motivational calendar (the ones on the roller that you flip every day to a new phrase) and has me read the day’s saying, which of course is written in Afrikaans, so that I can practice my pronunciation. At the end of the day, too, we were invited to attend Friday’s support group for those aged 15-25.

August 8, 2008, 9:00 AM– I waited for nearly 45 minutes before anyone showed up to the clinic for the support group. However, [PharmD 1] was there and, while waiting for patients to arrive, we had a wonderful conversation about her semester spent in the Montana, our experiences thus far in Suid Afrika, her desires to move to either Canada or the US, and the history and purpose of the support group. Let me mention a quick note here: this is a perfect example of one of Suid Afrika’s most challenging problems, called the Brain Drain. Because of the uneducated masses voting for the African National Congress (ANC), whose socialist policies and corruption are quite evidently detrimental following Nelson Mandela’s presidency (under his rule, things were much better…). Now, though, most of the highly educated professionals realize that things would be so much better for themselves should they emigrate to another country, and as they have the resources and luxury of doing so, they relocate, leaving the country with fewer and fewer professionals to meet an ever growing supply of needs. It’s sad, but true.

After a while, two people showed up for the support group. One was a male; the other was a female. Only these two showed, but it turned out to be a pleasant experience for us all. We were able to chat with them in a very intimate setting, getting to know them and talk of our lives and interests.

He really enjoys music, plays in a band, and writes his own songs (he’s actually invited us to a concert in a few weeks where his band will be one of several opening for a larger band). She is a quiet, friendly girl who speaks Xhosa, Afrikaans, and English, and thus will serve as a translator in the support group should others choose to speak in one of those languages.

Also during the hour while we were all together (we had to leave at 10:45 for an 11 o’clock class), [PharmD 1] and our two new friends planned how the support group would work, including setting the agenda and laying out a few rules. Unknown to us, this was only the second week of the support group and thus we have the chance to help get things going.

Melissa: Overview of Classes

2008-08-07T15:31:00.000-07:00

What looked to be a simple assignment—read a packet and answer seven questions—turned out to be an extremely lengthy and complex undertaking. Each question had multiple sub questions and the words “analyze,” “compare,” “evaluate,” and “discuss” abounded. After working on this assignment off and on for the past several days, I submitted the final paper this morning in my History 244: South Africa -Colonization and the Rearrangement of Societies class. It was seven pages and 2200 words long! (It should be noted that the research paper I am required to complete within the next month is only 4000 words.) The class is enjoyable, despite the heavy workload. Taught by an American who likes to discuss Obama and They Would Be Giants songs (Istanbul, Not Constantinople…), the class is conducted completely in English. Initially I was going to take a different history class, but after the lecturer taught primarily in Afrikaans I found my current class a pleasant alternative. We are presently focusing on the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade and its debilitating effects on African development. Yesterday we attempted to answer the question: Did racism ‘cause’ or ‘result from’ the Atlantic Slave Trade? In other words, were blacks enslaved because they were seen as inferior, or are blacks seen as inferior because of a history of enslavement? Interesting arguments can be made for both sides. Similar to most undergraduate classes, this course has three lectures a week, as well as an additional tutorial taught by a graduate student. It is during these tutorials that assignments are collected and tests written. It is also a time for discussion and questions on the assigned additional readings.

I am also enrolled in Theatre 178: History of Western Theatre. We will study theatre and theatre conventions of Western drama by examining key texts (Major Barbara, Mother Courage and Her Children, Medea, etc). At the moment the class is examining Ibsen’s A Doll’s House. Professor Hees, who regularly reminds me of Bill Morgan, also teaches primarily in English. His favorite phrase, heard numerous times in each lecture, is “The text is not the play.” He also tends to answer questions about his lectures with “Did I say that? Well, I’m glad—that’s precisely what I meant.” There is to be an essay in this class as well, though Professor Hees told us not to worry about it yet--“I’m sure I’ll tell you about it sometime before it’s due!” The professor of my 178 tutorial is equally amusing, performing large sections of A Doll’s House in an outrageous melodramatic style. I will never be able to read the alternate ending to the play without the memory of Schalkw running around the room as he played both Nora and Torvald, as well as read stage directions aloud in a voice worthy of movie trailer voiceovers. As an added bonus to the amusement this class provides, though only a first year class at the University of Stellenbosch, this class will transfer back to Missouri State as a 500-level course!

Professor Hees is going to take over my other theatre history class, Theatre 354: History of South African Theatre, after next week. At the moment Professor Hauptenfleish is presenting an overview of South African theatre forms, genres, productions, actors, purposes, and so on. The material is fascinating, but the lecturer regularly lapses into Afrikaans and I miss information, only picking up a date or a name now and again. Though I may have lost a few facts along the way, after beginning with the indigenous forms of drama, we have made our way through time to the current discussion of how theatre was affected by apartheid. By the 1970s, new laws extended to theatrical activities and racially integrated casts and audiences were effectively illegal, although some innovative individuals managed to get around these limitations. Playwright Athol Fugard began a members-only “club” that only happened to consistently present contemporary plays that commented on apartheid, performed by multi-racial casts to multi-racial audiences, while British Donald Howarth wrote Othello Slegs Blankes (Othello Only Whites) for South Africa. Othello, being a black man, could not be portrayed on stage alongside white Desdemona, so Howath made a statement by simply writing him out! After Professor Hauptenfleish concludes his history lectures next week, Professor Hees will begin a study of significant texts from South African history. The reading list includes Ubu and the Truth Commission, Saturday Night at the Palace, The Island and Die Jogger, which I have yet to find an English translation of.

In Theatre 178: Acting, I am performing a scene from Mourning Becomes Electra by Eugene O’Neill. The play is based on Aeschylus’s The Oresteia trilogy and involves the Oedipus Complex, the Electra Complex and Freudian psychology. Fun, I know. In the scene, Lavinia Mannon (myself) confronts her mother, Christine (my partner Estelle), about her adultery. The scene is one long power struggle, with each character strategizing on how best to get the upper hand. In a recent tutorial, Professor Du Preez compared it to a chess game between two masters: all action is strategic and precise, any weakness is preyed upon by the other. In pure Naturalistic style, at one part in the scene my character seemingly absentmindedly fiddles with a chess set laid out on the table. Though presented as an idle gesture, the symbolism is really quite unmistakable. While rehearsing the scene today, Estelle and I both got goose bumps as the mutual hatred between our characters fueled exciting, organic acting discoveries; we’ve decided it’s our goal to make everyone in the audience shift in their chairs on seeing the distorted relationship between mother and child.

My final class is Afrikaans, a night class on Mondays and Wednesdays. After spending several days discussing how the class will learn this semester, we have finally begun to learn the actual language. We’ve covered pleasantries, colors, pronouns, articles of clothing and various other words. Josh (Jaco) and Drew (Gert) are in the class with me (Treintjie Taalyart). Though the boys are always the first to volunteer, I have not become comfortable speaking aloud in Afrikaans. While I’m doing better comprehending written and spoken Afrikaans, verbal communication is challenging. Most of my difficulties will likely solve themselves when I get over my self-consciousness and become more willing to make mistakes. Though the classroom environment is very relaxed, in typical perfectionist style I concentrate too much and think too hard, ending up making more mistakes than I would if I just lightened up. I’m far more eager to practice my Afrikaans when I am out of the classroom and around other Afrikaans speakers. I’ve begun saying simple sentences in Afrikaans to my mainstream theatre friends and then learning how to pronounce everything correctly! Today I learned the very important pronunciation of ‘hoor,’ which means ‘hear.’ A small vowel modification or slurring of the word can easily turn ‘hear’ into ‘whore,’ so you must be careful!

Though I have more work than other international students who are not taking mainstream courses, and though I will actually have to take finals, I am pleased with my decision to take the classes I have chosen. Not only do I get to learn side-by-side with South African students, but I also will have the satisfaction in succeeding in difficult courses, some of which are taught in another language!

Josh: South African Friends and Shark Cage Diving

2008-07-31T15:44:00.000-07:00

Throughout the past week, Melissa, Drew, and I have forged friendships with South African students, experienced an extreme adventure, and attempted to stay afloat amid the rigors of our coursework. At Universiteit Stellenbosch, there are essentially two types of classes international students take: IPSU (International Program: Stellenbosch University) and mainstream. IPSU classes are taught fully in English and are available only to the 250+ international students. Mainstream courses, taught from the individual faculties and departments, feature either entirely Afrikaans or a combination of Afrikaans and English. Why am I mentioning this when our next post will be dedicated to classes and studies? Well, the most effective way to make South African friends at our university—Melissa and I’ve discovered—is through these mainstream courses. In my global governance module, I met a group of eight or so International Studies students who are incredibly hospitable and cool. Among these, the closest friends Drew, Melissa, and I have made are Stacey, her boyfriend Jacques, and Daniel.

On Wednesday, this trio, two Slovakian girls, a girl from Cape Town named Marian, and a few others from my global governance class took us out on the town. Whereas Thursday night is the social night at Missouri State University, Wednesday night houses all the Stellenbosch fun. It’s referred to as “Claander Saterdaag” (Halfway to Saturday). We went dancing for a little bit at Nu Bar, went to the Rhythm Lounge for a cocktail (my first and LAST cocktail: it was disgusting), ate some meat pies from the fast-food chain King Pie, and danced some more at [name to be given later…we were all too drunk to remember it. JUST KIDDING, enjoy a joke]. It was quite a fun night, but that was all the partying the three of us could handle; hence, we did not celebrate Claander Saterdaag this week.

We met up with Stacey, Jacques, Daniel, and Phil on Friday for the South African premiere of The Dark Knight. Going to the cinema in Stellenbosch is quite inexpensive. Each ticket costs R20 (about $2.85). Moreover, Drew and I split a large coke and large popcorn for only R26 (approximately $3.70). I personally loved the film, Melissa enjoyed the acting, and Drew found it too violent for a Batman film. Long gone are the days where Batman played up the cheese factor.

Rather than sleeping in late on Saturday, we all woke up and surprised Stacey by attending her res’s football game. Afterwards, we trekked towards the foot of Stellenbosch Mountain to our uni’s gimnasium. Situated about 15-20 minutes from our res, the gim is well worth the walk. It contains two circuits (You simply follow the proscribed, sequenced exercises in accordance with the timer!), many stationery bikes and rowing machines, free weights, aerobic and yoga classes at no additional expense, and an indoor swimming pool. Adopting the South African trend of staying fit, the three of us purchased gym memberships for the next four months. We live in a society with almost no overweight or obese citizens!

Alas, the most exciting part of the past week: On Sunday, we drove down the Western Coast (southern coast geographically) for two hours until we arrived at Gansbaai. We had scheduled a shark cage diving day through the Stellenbosch Adventure Center, and the moment had finally arrived. Melissa, Drew, Renee, and I all woke up at about 7:15 to get to our van by 8. Fortunately for us, the weather in Stellenbosch was pretty bleak, leaving many of the international students to believe the cage diving day would be cancelled. In Gansbaai, however, the weather was ideal for cage diving—our skipper told us at the end of the day that our shark viewing was unbelievable. Gansbaai, located near the southernmost point in Africa (where the Pacific and Indian Oceans meet), is world-reknowned for its great white shark populations. In fact, the area between Geyser Rock (a small island home to 50,000-60,000 Cape Fur seals), and Dyer Island (African penguins live here!) is called Shark Alley. During the winter months (April-August), a multitude of great white sharks gather between the islands to feed on cub Cape Fur seals learning how to swim.

After feeding us a large breakfast (which we kept down only long enough to get to Dyer Island…just ask Melissa for more details), our skipper briefed us about the shark population and general safety/guidelines. We boarded our boat and travelled out to Shark Alley, taking time to first view the seals. There, massive amounts of chum were poured into the ocean water, attracting a number of 3-3.5 meter great whites. In addition to Melissa, Drew, Renee, and I, three Holland tourists were cage diving. I first got into the cage with the three Holland visitors, and within three minutes great whites began swimming by the cage. Wow! Talk about an adrenaline rush. One time the shark’s left fin actually bumped into the cage. At that moment, one of the Holland girls became scared, so Drew entered the cage in her place. When the other two Holland divers emerged from the cage, Melissa and Renee joined us for the experience. While cage diving, you wear a wetsuit and snorkeling goggles; however, you don’t use scuba gear. Evidently the scuba breathing noise—unnatural to the sharks—scares them away. Moreover, because the sharks only swim by the cage for about 5-10 seconds at a time, you stay above water in the cage until a crewmember shouts “Down right” or “Down left” or “In front of you.” You then submerge to observe the sharks pass by. You only see great whites off the coast of Gansbaai because a) They are the only surface feeder sharks in the area and b) They eat all the other sharks. Yeah…In total, we saw seven sharks (two males, five females), each of which swam by our boat a number of times. The adventure was incredible, so much in fact that Melissa, Drew, and I purchased a 13 minute DVD of our day. We will definitely host a viewing party when we arrive back to the USA.

Well, we hope you enjoy these photographs from our great white shark cage diving day. For our next post, the three of us will address the challenges of Universiteit Stellenboch coursework.

Our departure point

Eating a hearty breakfast

The three amigos in search of Jaws

Geyser Rock is completely covered with Cape Fur seals

Yeah, we went inside that cage

A great white approaching the chum lure

Look at how close they get to the boat

South Africa is the only place in the world where Great White Sharks breach, or jump out of the water

Cue the theme from Jaws

Remember that our video contains much cooler footage of our day than these photos do. We will have a viewing party upon our arrival.

Chardonay, Cheetahs, Capetown, Camps Bay, Cooking

2008-07-25T17:59:00.000-07:00

Melissa: Why I Didn't Look at the Scenery

2008-07-24T16:27:00.000-07:00

At the top of Signal Hill, a lone painter sat behind his easel, surrounded by canvases depicting Table Mountain, winding roads and falling leaves. As a small group of students gathered to look at his artwork, he shared with us that he did not consider himself an artist. His name was Ishmail Achmat and he was a concerned denizen of South Africa.

And so he began his story. During P.W. Botha’s apartheid rule, Achmat (a colored man) grew increasingly frustrated with imposed segregation until he finally wrote a letter to Botha, detailing his personal vision of a South Africa undivided by race. When Botha responded, Achmat asked for a color photo of the NP leader. He then embarked on his first painting, a portrait of Botha in white, brown, and black; the painting was sent to Botha with another letter pointing out that the policy of color segregation was flawed because the painting needed all three colors. Over the next eight years, Achmat and Botha continued corresponding through letters. Ultimately, Botha became the first South African government leader to authorize contacts with imprisoned ANC leader Nelson Mandela.

Obviously proud of his part in history, Ishmail pulled out laminated copies of newspaper articles describing his story, as well as a booklet of photos of his work. Included was a photo of a portrait of Mandela, as well as a picture of him and Mandiba in front of the painting. Despite his interaction with government leaders, Achmat was also very humble, under no illusions that he alone had convinced Botha to talk to Mandela. After all, he wasn’t even a painter!

Today, Achmat is again trying to influence political leaders through letters. He lately began a series of letters to Mbeki, advocating funding for the arts. As is the case in the States, arts funding in South Africa is declining. From his stack of papers, Ishmail pulled out a photocopy of one of his recent letters and asked me to read a section aloud.

“Art, President Mbeki, … is the flower of civilization. Fame, Power, Reputation, Wealth are meaningless in a world devoid of joy and hope…. The origin of art is an unanswerable question. I believe it comes from the Divine, Muvumbi, Mulungu, God, Allah, or whatever.”

I attempted to commit the passage to memory, but it was extensive, a whole page of eloquent exposition on the importance of art in a community. It was the kind of language that flowed off the tongue, inspiring silence from everyone who stopped to listen. If it was in a film, there would be underscoring of strings, but we made do with the wind and birds.

Soon after I finished reading, most of the students drifted off. However, another international student, Caleb, and I stayed to talk to Achmat further. He elaborated on the need of society to have art, and was excited that I, as an artist, could readily identify with his position. He gave us his contact information, as well as recommendations of films and books. And he promised if I wrote to him, he would send me a copy of the passage I read. How interesting to initiate a correspondence with someone who writes to Botha and Mandela…

Drew: My Long Overdue Posting!

2008-07-21T14:19:00.000-07:00

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.

We're Here!

2008-07-17T09:19:00.000-07:00

And so it begins… “The adventure of a lifetime,” as Josh sings. Since our arrival in Stellenbosch we have lived without the technology we are accustomed to: no television, no cell phones, no laptops. The sleepy town of Stellenbosch begs for relaxation. Everyone is on South African time, unrushed and more lenient about time than we are used to. Breaks for coffee and tea are taken two to three times a day! The town will pick up this weekend as South African students arrive, but we’ve used the last week to familiarize ourselves with the area.

When we left Kansas City last Thursday, we headed to NYC, where we sampled snails, walked through Central Park, bought a present for Drew Rozell, and explored Mood Fabrics- where we missed filming for Project Runway by one day. After a day of sightseeing, it was off to a 17 hour flight. Josh and Drew spent 6 hours solving a 4X4 Sudoku, while I managed to sleep. (Thanks for the earplugs, Mom.) The plane landed in Dakar, Senegal, for a security search mid-way through the flight; after some passengers disembarked some guards came onto the plane and removed cushions to inspect every seat. Every piece of baggage had to be claimed by its owner and if a bag was not claimed, the officials would remove it. During this time, we enjoyed talking to an older couple a few rows behind us who were familiar with Springfield (and Branson—ha!) and had frequented Stellenbosch. Josh saw them on Wednesday within a Stellenbosch square! By the way, for those of you who didn’t know, Stellenbosch is 7 hours ahead of Missouri.

When we got to Stellenbosch on Saturday night, our exploring natures broke free. The student centre is 4 stories tall and contains shops, restaurants, bookstores, and more. We gained Matie pride (pronounced “mottie”) upon seeing stuffed squirrels wearing Matie gear. What a ferocious mascot we have, much more deadly than the hippo! We also discovered the local mall, Eikstad Mall, where we ordered two large, barbecue chicken specialty pizzas for R84. The restaurant is apparently known for its buy-one-get-one-free menu. This was our first experience with how cheap things are in Stellenbosch. The conversion is R7.5 to $1 and is most noticeably seen when eating or buying groceries. You can buy a loaf of bread for R8 (just over one dollar) and that is the expensive kind. Cheaper, fresh bakery bread is only R5! Josh and Drew bought decent wine for R10. Avocados are everywhere, appearing on almost any sandwich on any menu. Also note that a bacon and banana sandwich is quite common.

Everyone speaks Afrikaans here. People understand English, but primarily speak Afrikaans. Thus, our experience has been a true “immersion” one.

But don't worry, Mrs. Keaster, because Stellenbosch has a McDonalds and a KFC.

ASIDE – This post is much longer than the majority you’ll receive. We’ve not had Internet for a week!!

On Sunday we discovered that church is held in the evenings, so the city shuts down mid-afternoon. We went looking for tea bags with our new friend Shelby from Sydney, Australia, but couldn’t find an open store! We also met Annie from Virginia, Renee from Pennsylvania, and Jan (John) from Germany.

Josh and Drew are rooming together, while I have three roommates. The guys are really happy because maid service cleans the bathrooms, living rooms, and kitchens free of charge DAILY. My roommates are Karina, a Washington State-attendee who was born and raised in Mexico, Carrie (also Washington State), and Lauren, the Nebraskan. Each person has their own room and bathroom and some rooms have a view of the mountains. My window faces east so I can watch the sun rise over the mountain.

A group of eight international students conquered Stellenbosch Mountain on Monday. There was a path for the first part, but then we had to travel up a water path of steep rocks. Coming down was even more interesting than going up, but the view made it all worth it! Capetown, Table Mountain, the coast, Stellenbosch, the vineyards…awww! We love Africa!

On Tuesday we began orientation, where we learned survival isiXhosa (yes, the clicking language) and Afrikaans. The international office also covered HIV/AIDS safety and the university’s efforts to have no new infections by 2012. There are about 250 international students at Universiteit Stellenbosch, ranging from Germany to Bolivia to Argentina to Hong Kong. Members of the International Students Organization: Stellenbosch (ISOS) take trips and also volunteer at the local township of Kayamundi. We’ll post more about these townships, soon, because the need in Kayamundi is great, and you better believe we’ll do our part to help.

The two-day orientation ended on Wednesday with discussions on academics, culture shock, finances, and accommodation. Courses are taught in both English and Afrikaans—yes, we will soon be fluent. Following a lunch of meat pie (a South African staple), Josh, along with a few other international students, joined some locals in a game of football. We are, of course, talking about the real football. American football is unheard of in South Africa. Here, rugby and cricket are the most popular sports. When we get our Maties gear, we’re going to go cheer on the Mighty Squirrels!

Wednesday night also featured our first social events. We attended a braai, the first of many. A braai is an outdoor barbecue where everyone brings their own meat (BYOM), socializes, and drinks…a lot. I sampled my first beer, and the Germans laughed. We brought lamb steak, but since we forgot to defrost it, we reckoned it would taste horrible. To the contrary, we marinated it with the cheap red wine and drenched it with pepper. It was delicious. Braais are held once or twice a week; we’ve already been invited to two more. When the braai ended at 23:00, Josh and I went clubbing—my first time dancing! Dancing here (so Josh says) is 100% different from what happens in typical US clubs. They play very alternative rock from the 90s instead of hip-hop.

Our long narrative brings us to today. We toured our uni’s (Aussie lingo) underground library, but only saw the top level because a Bollywood film is being filmed on the lower levels. Yeah, Maties are that cool…

We miss you. We love you all. Enjoy the pictures! Also check out my page on Picasa (http://picasaweb.google.com/MelissaMFagan). We’d write more if there were not gorgeous mountains outside of our windows. They look a little nicer than this computer screen, and Shelby’s calling us for tea time.

“The adventure of a lifetime…lies beyond this plane ride.” (Can you tell Josh helped me write this?)

How to Contact Us

2008-07-07T13:42:00.001-07:00

We've created this site so that you, our family and friends, can share in our experiences with us. As such, this site allows you to post comments about our articles and pictures. However, I'm not exactly sure how it works, and since we definitely want each of you to feel free to contact us, here are each of our personal email addresses.

keaster4@missouristate.edu

joshua528@missouristate.edu

melissa113@missouristate.edu

Don't hesitate to send us emails anytime! Just be patient in waiting for a response!

Melissa: Facundity would be nice, if anyone has some on hand

2008-07-06T22:32:00.000-07:00

I’m not the best at saying goodbye. When people tell me they will be thinking of me or they know I’ll enjoy every minute of this experience, I feel as though my responses of “Thank you” and “I will” are wholly inadequate. I seem to think I need to be more eloquent than I am, conveying my appreciation and love in a clear manner that will last the next six months. I recently sent out thank-you notes to people who generously gave me gifts at my good-bye party. How difficult it is to express thanks for a gift, much less gratitude for intangible things like support and love and faith! How difficult to say goodbye in a letter that will be far more lasting than any words murmured during a crushing hug in my living room.

I realize saying goodbye now is not that different from saying goodbye when I left for college in the first place. When I headed off to Missouri State, I said goodbye to many people I would not see again until Christmas, some not until the next summer. If I didn’t see some of my friends for my entire freshman year, why does six months suddenly seem so long? Maybe it's because in some cases I’m saying goodbye to a stage in a relationship- I will change or you will change or life will change things for us. That doesn't call for sadness or finality, but it does seem to deserve more than a simple “I’ll miss you."

Even knowing that the toughest farewells (the ones where I’ll probably just cry instead of even trying to speak) are still to come, my excitement is building. After all of our work and waiting, it’s finally here! I leave Tuesday morning for Kansas City, so I just have tomorrow to run last minute errands and anxiously weigh my bags. Almost everything is crossed off the list...

Drew: With two weeks away, here are my thoughts!

2008-06-25T15:18:00.000-07:00

As most of you know, I will be spending almost six months in Stellenbosch, South Africa, studying at a university there. While my major is Cell and Molecular Biology, my plans are to take a semester-long break from the natural sciences, instead focusing on a realm of social science that has long fascinated me: Political Science! And where better to do it than the politically charged arena of post-apartheid South Africa! Depending upon an essay that I write upon my arrival, I might also get the chance to enter a program that will allow me to work in an HIV/AIDS treatment and preventative education clinic, which would be awesome!

Don't worry, I'm not going alone! Lucky for me, I get to travel with my best friend, Joshua Snowden, and one of my other closest friends, Melissa Fagan. Together, we've spent hours upon hours making lists, impressing the right people, securing scholarships from Missouri State, making more lists, filling out forms, applying for visas and health insurance and housing and university-related documents, planning excursions, making even more lists, gathering giveaway items for our soon-to-be new friends, and deciding what we take with us vs. what we will have to buy over there. And did I mention making lists (because I don't think I've seen Melissa without one for quite some time!)? Believe me, I couldn't have done it without them!

Some of you might be thinking, "Africa! Lions and grass huts and AIDS, Oh my!" Well, rest assured. Does anyone that knows me really think that I would spend any considerable amount of time without the precious luxuries of air-conditioning, the Internet, and running water? South Africa is very much a divided nation. On one side, you have a highly developed country, technology comparable even to the United States including nuclear power, an infrastructure in places that is equitable to what we know here, and much broader support for tourism than we find here. On the other hand, though, 50% of citizens don't have running water, they live in very poor conditions in smaller villages or shanty towns (slums on the outsides of the larger cities such as Cape Town, Johannesburg, Bloemfontein, and Pretoria), HIV/AIDS afflicts some 20% of adults age 15-49 (10% of their entire 55 million people are infected), and the incidence of rape and murder are among the highest not just in the civilized world but also among poorer nations, too. The place at which I'll be staying happens to have all of the good things mentioned above and very little, if any, of the bad! So again, relax.

Stellenbosch is a city of nearly 100,000 people, and is located approximately 20 miles east of Cape Town, a city of 4 million at the very southernmost tip of Africa. Contrary to popular opinion, it isn’t very cold there and it isn’t very far south. Google a map of the world and you’ll see that Cape Town is in the same latitude as Sydney, Australia, and Buenos Aires, Argentina, and lies about as far south as the Arkansas-Missouri border is north. The Cape area is renowned for several things. The natural beauty, including natural wonders such as Table Mountain and the Cape of Good Hope, makes Cape Town the second-most visited site in Africa (after the pyramids…pssssh)! The Cape Winelands, where Stellenbosch is located, is a vastly splendid area with vinyards as far as the eye can see (wine-sampling tours!). The coast is less than a half hour away to the south and west, and a half day drive northeast can place you in either Johannesburg or a Game Reserve (where we’ll be taking a safari!). Cape Town is home to the National Legislature (the equivalent of our Congress), hosts several sports teams, serves as the economic hub via land, air, and sea for much of the region, and has more money than other areas of South Africa.

Stellenbosch University is the perfect place for international students to study and a great platform from which to view the rest of the country. Of the 20,000 students (same as Missouri State), just over 10% are international students, thus showing the importance they place on culture, diversity, and the sharing of ideas and customs among different groups of people.

I could go on and on and on, but I’ll save other additional information for another post, another time.!

Godspeed,
Drew

Josh: 22 Days Away

2008-06-19T12:39:00.000-07:00

Hello, everyone!

We just wanted to give you a quick update on the status of our South African trip. We will be leaving in 22 days! Plane tickets have already been purchased, our housing contracts have been signed, MO State gifts and thank you cards are coming along nicely, and we will soon be planning our safari and other vacations.

Of course the three of us have planned some crazy South African adventures! Melissa, Drew, and I will post the details once we finalize our plans!

Here is a link to the international office at Stellenbosch University (more specifically, the apartment-style dorm we'll be staying at. to navigate to the homepage, scroll to the top and click "International Office")

http://www0.sun.ac.za/international/prosp.php?page=concordia

Josh: 61 Days Away

2008-05-13T16:44:00.001-07:00

Family and friends,

Thank you for taking interest in our five month stint in South Africa. Melissa, Drew, and I will use this blog throughout our time to upload photographs, journal our exciting happenings, and stay in touch with all of you--who, by the way, will reside approximately 8,800 miles away!

Please feel free to leave numerous comments, and one of us will get back to you promptly. Once again, we hope you enjoy chronicling our South African adventures alongside us.

The fun begins July 10...