"there is only one solution the world's problems, you and everybody around you" --take from district 6 :)

2/05/10

Confession. I though studying abroad was going to be a lot easier but this week has proven the rollercoaster of emotions anyone could feel when they’re away from home. I really though that after ending last semester with such mixed feelings I could basically escape to Africa and start over completey but I kind of hit rock-bottom if you will and really really missed my friends and DC in general. Still after talking to a good friend I realized that’s all part of the transition to study abroad. There’s no way you can prepare for culture shock and missing your best friends but with a great support system it makes the transition a lot easier, and I’ve already made some great friends here so that really helps. I bounced back pretty quickly, it sounds ridiculous but I was really only upset for a day and once I admitted that Cape Town wasn’t the GREATEST PLACE IN THE WORLD and that I wasn’t 100% happy it made it so much easier to move one and get excited about life here anyway. I’m also conviced that once classes really start up and I’m volunteering and active in some clubs (running club, hiking and some type of cultural society)…I’ll have a regular schedule, meet more interesting people and actually start to build a life here.

On a completely different note…

Our road trip fell through for this week (apparently you have to be 21 to rent a car in South Africa, and none of are yet…) but it might have been for the better, instead of trying to frantically plan another trip we decided to stay in Cape Town and do a lot of the touristy things we’ve taken for granted. On Tuesday we went to the district 6 museum, which commemorates a neighborhood that was historically black and colored, but forcibly removed during apartheid. The museum was really cool, instead of only educating its audience about the gentrification, it acted as a memorial to the actual community, educating about the small shops, businesses, sports teams…etc that thrived within the community. It’s especially depressing because after district 6 was cleared, there was so much controversy that nothing was ever re-established there, and today its just a barren open field, basically there was no reason to remove all the people that once lived there. Then Tuesday night we went to a karaoke bar on the beach, which was really fun.

Wednesday, we went to the slave lodge museum, which acts as a memorial to those who passed through the actual building during the slave trade. The museum was huge and really educational. It was interesting to learn about the slave trade across the Indian Ocean to South Africa-these were slaves who for the most part never made it to America, but stayed in the African colonies. Life wasn’t any better for these slaves but it was neat to compare/contrast with what I’ve learned about America’s slave trade and the middle passage. After the museum we wondered through Green Market, a huge open-air market of various African jelwely, art, music, clothing…etc, and then made our way to Long Street and window-shopped through various vintage stores and boutiques. When we finally got home we all cooked dinner together and stayed in to watch a movie.

Thursday we went to Clifton beach all day! The weather was fantastic and it was the perfect ending to the week, and also ensured that we were all rested for classes today.

So I was really really excited for class to start today but then realized I actually didn’t have any classes. Classes today ran on a Tuesday schedule, and I only have one class on Tuesdays but it didn’t meet today so I still had another day off. I had an interview for one of my potential volunteering projects and then ran errands all day.

Tonight we’re going to “The Big Bash”, it’s a festival thrown by UTC to kick-off the new school year (here it’s the fall semester). I hate not being about to take my camera anywhere because I’d love to take pictures of this event, there’s supposed to be a ton of different famous DJs there and it’s just going to be a really fun party but low and behold totally unsafe for me to take my camera too.

Okay I think I wrote plenty (parents you should be happy haha) until next week, cheers!