August 3, 2009

Yesterday my interview at Kiddies never happened. The principal didn’t show up because she was doing some kind of teacher training. She has teacher training for the rest of the week… At the beginning of my internship, showing up to find that the principal had forgotten about the interview was frustrating, now it happens so regularly that it doesn’t faze me… Today I went to Sackhingomso, the very first crèche I ever visited, and the one where I am most familiar with the children and staff. It was actually really stressful. Now that I have gone to most of the crèches I have something to compare Sackhingomso with. The same three little boys that fought over seats at specific place at the lunch table my first day visiting, were still at there old habits today. I could see even clearer the habits of the children after visiting so many times. The children were extremely difficult today. I underestimated the severity of the rock incident with the boy who wanted my water bottle. The same boy who was throwing rocks at me over the water bottle that I wouldn’t share with him tried to attack me again today. I was sitting in the chair just observing the kids and he came up to me and tried to rip my sweater off. Then when I told him to stop, he proceeded by biting my leg really intensely with his teeth. That’s when I got loud and grabbed him and asked him what he was doing. He obviously did not understand me but Constance, the teacher, knew exactly what was going on because he is one of the regular troublemakers. The later on a girl with down syndrome bit me in the leg again. I can still feel the bite marks in my legs as I am writing this. She is really crazy sometimes. Every time someone walks in the door she runs up to them screaming and she is often really aggressive with everyone else. Sometimes she will ask me to feed her and then she will throw her lunch on me. Everything I touch or do at the crèche, she must mimic, and if it is not the way she likes it, she flips out. The kids were just overall really violent today. There were other instances where kids were literally fist fighting over toys… It was a crazy afternoon.

August 3, 2009

It is about time for another quarter report on my progress. I am doing a much better job at recording my interviews. However, it is still a struggle. I have gotten smarter and am now doing most of my work on my laptop because it is more reliable than our work computers. Most of my coworkers have finished their internships and returned home. It is kind of lonely in the office. This is probably why I am getting more work done because I have no one to talk to. My mentor, Isabel is still gone. She returns this week so my goal is to get everything recorded before she gets back I have been working more closely with director’s wife, Jane Keen. I like her a lot. She does a really great job at checking in on everyone and figuring out where she can assist. We had a lot of confusion last week because the oversight over the intern’s projects has been lacking. Another girl is doing similar research and our interviews were overlapping. This was really frustrating because we were asking the same questions and the principal has a lot of work to do and I felt as if I was wasting both of our time. Jane straightened everything out so now everything is on track. My last interview is today with a crèche called Kiddies.

This past weekend my roommates and I went to Kruger National Park to try our luck at seeing the Big 5. The Big 5 are historically the most dangerous animals to hunt; they include the elephant, the rhino, the lion, the leopard, and African buffalo. We flew to Johannesburg early Friday morning and then drove almost 8 hours to get to our rest camp on the park known as Olifants, which is in the northern section of the camp. We needed to get to the park by 5:30 because the gates close to the park so we were running very close on time. When we got to the airport there were no automatics available so this delayed us for an hour and a half. Then we drove into a pothole and had to stop somewhere for someone to put on the spare. We got there well before 5:30 but then as soon as we got onto the park, Liese got a speeding ticket. It was her first ticket. She had to pay a $60 dollar ticket. She was not happy. The night we arrived we went on a night drive and the next day on a morning drive. The morning drive started at 4:30am; Sarah and I were knocked out underneath the blankets they had provided. We would only wake up when we stopped to see some wildlife. We had to checkout at 9am so then we went on our own little safari in our rental vehicle and drove the southern part of the camp. We saw elephants, giraffe, impala, hyenas, vevet monkeys, spring hare, waterbuck, zebra, crocodile, hippos, a jackal, wildebeest, warthogs, and some exotic birds. We once were almost 5 feet away from an elephant. We sat and took some pictures briefly. We later read in our guide book that we should have kept driving because elephants have tendency to stump vehicles. We ended up on seeing 3 of the Big 5. We saw no cats.

The second night we stayed in a hostel in this small town right outside the southern side of the park called Hazyview. That night I slept with all my valuables in my sleeping bag: my Garmin, cell phone, and wallet. I am going to be so ready to hostel my way through Europe by the time I get there. I am getting a lot of practice with Liese and Sarah. On Sunday we drove back to Johannesburg. Before doing so we had to switch out the rental so we were not driving on a spare anymore. This was drama filled, as our insurance did not cover the tire and they charged us a fee to fix it. When this was all over we got on the road to Johannesburg. We visited Soweto, the most developed township in South Africa. It is home to many of the apartheid activists. It is very different than the township I work in. I did not see any farm animals just roaming the street and there were no shacks in the area we were in. We were pretty brave because we decided not to take an organized tour and drove the rental into the township. We visited the Mandela home. One of the interesting facts I learned while was that US intelligence contributed to arrest and capture of Nelson Mandela. This was a pretty quick tour because the home was really small. After this we went to another museum in Soweto where we learned mainly about the student Soweto Uprising in 1976.

Later we met up with friend in Johannesburg who was letting us crash on his floor. His name is Nick; Jessica introduced us in Cape Town. He graduated from Duke and is currently doing a Fulbright. He has done some amazing things after undergrad. He decided to spend a year in Haiti where he was working with medicine and now he is doing some research for a year in Johannesburg. He plans to go to medical school after his travels. We went out to a nice dinner and hung out afterwards on one of the really busy streets close to his house.

July 30,2009

This weekend was an adrenaline rush. We went on a road trip along the coast of South Africa on what is popularly known as the Garden Route. Five of us hopped in a car with a map and some PB&J’s to drive as much as we could in a two-day trip in what was supposed to be at least a ten day road trip. The plan was to leave at 7am on Saturday morning but we ran into a couple obstacles that greatly delayed our trip. We had forgotten our passport which was required to make payment on the reservation for the car and we also had trouble finding the rental place in the city. Finally we got on the road around 11am. We made minimal stops and made it all the way to Plettenberg Bay to stay in a youth hostel for the night. Along the route there hundreds of people hitch hiking. It seemed as if it was a common form of transport. Even men in business suits were waiting for a ride. It would be my first time ever staying in a youth hostel. It was beyond freezing in the hostel. I wore all the clothes that I was wearing for the next day, my coat, two scarves, and a rag on my head. I looked like a crazy person but it was so worth it to be warm.

The next day the biggest adrenaline rush came. I decided to bungee jump off the highest bungee jumping bridge in the world. No one had been sure the night before that they were actually going to do it. I was definitely a chicken. I had once cried my way off a roller coaster and this was definitely a time where I would want to cry my way out of bungee jumping or someone was going to have to push me off. But we drove up to the bungee jump anyway the next morning. Sarah signed up right away and then Avery. Once I looked at the bridge, I started to feel sick to my stomach. It took me like 20 minutes to sign up because I was so unsure if I wanted to take such a large risk. Finally, I just paid the money and once you pay there are no refunds so I guess in a way you have to do or I would have wasted almost $80. When it was finally time to jump, we walked this really long and jagged walkway underneath the bridge that led to the bungee site. It was almost as frightening as the jump. If you looked underneath your feet, you were literally are hundreds of meters up from a valley filled with trees and a stream. It was like being at the top of a skyscraper and looking over the edge of the building. I could not look down of course before the jump. I just looked straight forward so I wouldn’t chicken out. Surprisingly, I was very calm but I know my face was blank and my body language gave off a nervous vibe. I just felt like it was the end right before the jump. Sarah had given one of the girls on the trip, Lizzie, her mother's phone number so that she could call if anything should happen…. As they were hooking my feet up, the people kept talking to me but I had no idea what he was saying or what was going on. All I could think was I was about to kill myself and why would I do this? As I scooted up to the edge I just closed my eyes and then leaped into the air. The feeling was awkwardly not adrenaline filled for me. It was the anticipation of the jump that had my adrenaline pumping. But the jump was beautiful and smooth. I felt light and I was just gliding. Of course I screamed when I jumped off but then once the jump was over I just kept saying OMG to myself. The view was beautiful. It was great! But I would never do it again. It is a once and a life time thing.

After bungee jumping we went to an ostrich farm and road some ostriches. This for me was much scarier than the bungee jumping. I was so terrified. Ostriches are the most awkward and ugly animals I think I have ever seen. They are just so big. So in order to ride the ostrich, the people working at the farm would grab them by the neck with this medal hook at the end of a wooden pole and then put a bag over its head. Then they would push the ostrich over to us so that we could mount it. There was no saddle, stirrups or reins. It was just a bizarre experience. And in some ways I felt bad that we were riding them because I felt like we were torturing the animals…We sat at the edge of the ostrich’s back because there is hump in the center of its back that makes it difficult to sit in the cent and we rapped our feet around the front part of its body to stay mounted. The most ridiculous part is that we grabbed its wings to use as reins. It was such an unnatural thing and all I could think is that this animal was not ever meant to ride. The men working at the farm gave us no instructions and just told us to get straight on. Before we had even entered the area to ride the ostrich they pointed at a sign saying, RIDE AT YOUR OWN RISK. I am assuming this was kind of like the sign I saw when I petted the cheetah. But no they are not comparable. The cheetah just laid there while I petted it, when riding the ostrich, it was just me and the ostrich….. I was so scared…. The thing kept hissing at me. I screamed and yelled the entire time I was on it…Avery even fell off the ostrich onto the ground because the ostrich was not having it…. She also got stumped as she tried to mount it…. But she was brave and it didn’t even faze her….. She got right back on that scary animal… I would have been like I am through after that beast knocked me off….Sarah was another brave one too. She was riding it like she was a pro…. The event was hilarious and bit ridiculous…..

July 20, 2009

Today I freaked out because I thought I lost my passport. I basically ripped my house apart for an hour. This was the first time I realized how important my passport was for the rest of my travel plans for the summer. It has my Vietnam Visa in it and it will get me out of South Africa at the end of my trip. I was not so much concerned about getting out of the country but I was concerned about Vietnam because it take 3 weeks to process a new visa and another $100. Since I am living on a budget and all my trips are right after the other, I would have been screwed. Liese kept asking me if I need help as I was panicking but I only brought so much stuff and I had already gone through all of it. Finally I just sat down on my bed and inhaled, trying to think back to time I last saw it. Then I found it! It was between the pages of one my books. Thank GOD! I showed up to work so late but I felt like I had a really good excuse...

Work was not work today.... When I arrived the internet was down for almost three hours so nobody was doing any work. We were mostly just sitting and chatting. There was a bake sale on the third floor of our building so we all went upstairs instead of working and had some treats. Then my coworker Ellie took us on a hike. The entire early childhood development office left and walked up to the University of Cape Town. We were given a tour of the campus and than taken on a hike in the woods behind the university. It was beautiful. It was my favorite view in Cape Town. It was overall a very relaxing day besides my hectic morning raid for my passport.

July 18, 2009

My development plan is becoming more difficult with every passing week. It is also sometimes discouraging when I cannot observe much progress. I am getting a lot of feedback from my coworkers. One really great piece of advice was that the goal shouldn’t be to change myself but to change the way I am perceived by other people. Another great piece of advice was that I should pick and choose my battles more carefully. I never thought it would be this difficult to change my personal habits. They have been so ingrained into my behavior and the person I have become, it seems impossible to shake. I also realized that I left an important element out of my plan. I knew that Sarah and Liese would play an important role in my progress but I totally forgot to explain to them my goals. Bus my coworkers suggested that it is good that I didn’t tell them in the outset because now they have had time to observe my tendencies and now they can better observe whether I have made progress. I also had an advisor at work that was supposed to be helping me with my development plan but she left this week for 3 weeks. This is not helpful but I will work it out. I now have temporary advisor but I don’t think it will be productive to explain my development plan to my temporary advisor as she will not be working in the office very often and will be helping at a distance(email, phone, etc).I have been working on my email etiquette. I sometimes feel dumb when I am writing to one of my friends or my family using “Hello Mom” and “Best, Brittni.” I figured I would use it for everyone so I would get in the habit.

Work this week was really busy. I have been continuing my interviews. The most tedious part about interviewing is recording the information into an organized document afterwards. I have not been doing a good job of this. My advisor also decided that I should add more crèches onto my research. This may affect whether I can finish the project. I have faith I will get it done though. Wednesday was the dirtiest I got with the kids. I felt like a walking germ. Kids coughing in my face, the neighborhood dog jumping all over me, helping to build a roof on a house. It was truly a long day and then I went to see Harry Potter after my long day of work, not haven taken a shower…. One little kid was licking my co-worker, Adanna on her neck as she held him in her arms. Adanna and I both went to Sackinghomso that day. It was a somewhat frustrating day because the principal was putting off the meeting she had arranged with her. I felt so gross but I am still alive so I guess it wasn’t so bad.

Sarah and I went sightseeing downtown today. We visited the Castle of Good Hope which is the oldest building in Cape Town and currently acts as military post. We went into the dungeons of the military post and got to go into the artillery and torture rooms. It was pretty cool. We also visited District Six Museum. This museum was made in commemoration of the families that were forcibly moved out of their homes in the 1960’s because the government decided to declare their neighborhood, District Six, a white’s only neighborhood. Over 60,000 families were removed and all of their homes were bulldozed. This displacement greatly contributed to the development of the Townships/Cape Flats. When President Mbeki was in office he was able to reverse the discriminatory laws that displaced thousands of people and today homes are continually being returned to their rightful owners. The people that do not want to return are given about 17000 rand (a little over $1700) as compensation. This obviously does not make up for their loss and some families are still struggling to get their homes back because of the broken judicial system. After this museum we went to the Slave Lodge, which was my favorite. The Slave Lodge explained the complete history of how the VOC or the Dutch East India Trading Company developed the system of slavery. Interestingly, the African people in the areas of Cape Town were not the original people enslaved by the VOC, they actually imported slaved from Madagascar and Mozambique first. The African people in Cape Town were originally the colonialist’s business partners but eventually they were enslaved too. Slaves were often given names from the Bible which was often also done to pets as well. There was also a section of the museum that focused on Steve Biko that emphasized the parallels between American leaders and movements. Most notable was the Malcolm X as having overlapping strategies for empowering their followers.

After our museum quest I went to a braai for one of my coworker’s birthday and then late met my roommates on Long Street where I learned how to belly dance. I was really awful. It ended up being and early night because Sarah was feeling sick and my feet were hurting from trying to dress too cute.

Tuesday July 14, 2009

So we had a braai (Afrikkaans for barbeque) on Sunday. It was an absolute disaster. We knew it was going to rain on Sunday but my feeling about rain is that it really should not inhibit our plans but I was so wrong. Janine insisted on doing all the cooking so I didn’t really help with that. It was supposed to be a really South African experience. She invited all her Afrikaans friends and I invited people from work and some people from Stanford. It was raining really bad outside and people had a difficult time getting in the house because of the rain. Evidently the rain was reaching people’s thighs. I was somewhat oblivious because I was inside just enjoying conversation, food and drinks, while Liese was shuttling people back and forth from the front gate with umbrellas to the house because she was the only one that brought rain boots. We had to supply everyone towels and clothes. I still do not know where my two Stanford sweaters are. Anyways once everyone was there, Janine started panicking because she couldn’t find her cat and the house looked like it was going to flood. The garage was also getting flooded and she was worried about her car. We evidently live in the lowest point in Rondebosch, so our house is very vulnerable to floods. The last time the house flooded, the water reached the attic. Finally I realized the extent of the storm when Janine told us to grab our passports pack our bags, and grab all of our cash. Everyone had to evacuate the house. No one had any food yet. Everyone was just getting there but she was worried that we would get trapped in the house. Liese and I were contemplating checking into a hotel for the night. At this point the house was chaotic. Everyone was rushing up and down the stairs moving all Sarah’s clothes out of her room up to the attic. When I think back on this it is very comical. Once we had everyone out of the house Sarah, Liese, and I went to Janine’s, niece’s house to try and wait it out. We had some interesting conversation with Nu (her niece) and her roommate Laura. They are both from Zimbabwe, which they refer to as Zim. They told us about how they were violently pushed off their farms by the government. Nu and Laura shared that men with machetes, guns, and other weapons showed up to their farm and forced them to leave or die if they stayed. They had no choice but to leave. Currently most people that can leave Zimbabwe have left already because these forced removals have caused the entire economic system to collapse. Now there are Africans living on these farms that do not know how to farm so Zimbabwe is no longer exporting any food. She also explained that though there was clearly large inequality the economic system, in some ways having the whites continue to own the farm was to Zim’s advantage. The system that was put in place would have helped the African people to assimilate into the farming business. These white farms employed up to 400 workers and a school was also in place to educate the people. The forced removal of these white farmers totally damaged this system and now everything is falling apart. People who owned farms were required to hire so many African workers and were also required to have a school on the farm to teach the workers. We also talked about the African prospective of American. You can probably guess what that was, a strong disdain for American attitudes. It was great getting together with people our age; we also mocked each others accents and talked about the differences in our upbringing. It was really cool getting to know them.

Monday I went to the International film festival in the city. I saw the most amazing movie. It was called the “The Age of Stupid” which referenced the ignorance that plagues the world. It basically argues that the world is knowingly committing suicide because we are not doing enough to combat global warming. I went with my friend from work, Ellie. The movie made her really sad but it made me really mad at myself for being so wasteful and our world leaders for being all about money. The movie discussed the American problem of consumerism. Some little kids in Iraq who were clearly resentful of American destroying their way of life expressed that American are wasteful. One example the two kids gave were that American never wear their shoes until they fall apart. In Iraq they explained after their shoes are worn out, they simply fix them and keep on wearing them. It also revealed the horrible things that Shell Gas and Oil Company has done to small villages in rural areas of Africa. They are deepening poverty levels by polluting the water, preventing fish from growing full size and eliminating all clean drinking water. They also promised these villages that they would contribute monetarily to their development in exchange for allowing to them to drill for oil but nothing has been done to improve the living standards. After watching this movie I thought about how wasteful I was with everything!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This movie predicts that the world will basically at its end in 2055 if we continue with our wasteful habits because global warming effects will be accelerated. What can we all do individually to make a large difference?

Sunday, July 05, 2009

This weekend was awesome!!!!!!!!!! So Friday Sarah, Liese, and I met up with the Duke and UNC students from my work for a night of Bar Golf. Jessica also decided to hang out with us that night. This was my first time playing and it ended up be a crazzzzzzzzzzy night. So there were 9 holes and the object of the game was to have the least amount of points at the end of the game. Therefore if you were playing to win, which I was, you had to drink mostly eagles, which were -2 points. Each bar had designated drinks and as the night went on the drinks got worse and worse. We had 40 minutes at each bar with 5 minutes walking time to the next bar. A girl named Ainslie at my work was the official timer. And if you went to the bathroom, were late to the next bar, didn’t finish a drink or ordered water you had to add points to the score. Whisky and water had to be the worst drink I ever had in my life. I couldn’t even drink it. I just gave it to someone else in the bar it was so bad. By the third bar, the game had really brought out some personalities….. Me and Jessica snuck into a club through the kitchen because we did not want to pay the cover fee. It had the best music of all the clubs but it was very segregated. All the people in the club were Indians so we obviously were sticking out being the only white and black girl in the club. We danced for a little bit and then ran out the back door again. As we ran out Jessica handed the workers tips for letting us come in.Jessica has by far been my favorite person in Cape Town. She is just really fun and gives a lot of great advice. She also has a really big heart. She is always giving selflessly and you can just tell by the small thing she does. She loves people and she doesn’t judge. She can find a way to feel comfortable in any setting and she is a great people person. It sad to think that it took a flight 20+ hours away from my campus to find the Stanford students I can most relate to. It makes me wonder how many others I have not met.

After a long night out on the row of bars in Observatory we managed to wake up at 8am the next morning. I honestly was not trying to move. I wouldn’t have made it if it wasn’t for my roommate Liese, who has shown to be the most responsible out of all of us. She woke me up with 20 minutes to eat and shower before the cab arrived at our house. Headache and all I was off to Table Mountain, which according to our cab driver is in the running for 7th place to become one of the Seven Wonders of the World. Table Mountain has 300 routes up and down. It is also over 1000 meters high. It takes 2 ½ hours to hike up to the top. Hikers have died every year on the trail; therefore, we were warned to stay on the trail at all times. We went on the hike with people from that Sarah’s work, the Gender Health and Research Unit at the University of Cape Town. Amad was the expert hiker and our guide up the mountain. He made sure we had plenty as breaks as we were hiking. It was really difficult to hike. And for me it was more difficult than it had to be because of several reasons: lack of sleep, hangover, lack of water and food. I had rushed out of the house so fast that morning that I had forgotten water which was the most important thing. The hangover gave me a throbbing headache which was made worse by the fact that I had just gotten my braids in a couple days before and my scalp still felt like it was being ripped from my forehead. It was all good though, I made it up that mountain like none of that was bothering me. I brought my ipod and listened to Beyoncé all the way up the mountain. Comparatively to other hikers we were really really slow. One guy had gone down and up the mountain twice on the path we were taking before we made it to the top. When we got to the top, you could see all of Cape Town on one side and the other was a beautiful view of the Atlantic Ocean. There was a restaurant and a bunch of gift shops at the top. It was a perfect day to hike up the mountain and probably one of the few days while we are here that we will miss the rain so it is good we got ourselves out of bed. We did not end up walking down the mountain. We instead, took a revolving cable car that took about 4 minutes to get down the mountain compared to our 2 ½ hours up. At the end of the hike we were all happy we made the trip up the mountain because we were able to appreciate the scenery and feel a since of an accomplishment after hiking up the mountain.

After our long hike up the mountain we went to eat at a café and the rested up for the night. I had to go to sleep if I was going to go out on the 4th of July. So for the 4th of July we celebrated with a group of Yale students that live in Sea Point. They had a barbecue with 4th of July balloons and drinks to top it off. We ate hot dogs and some other American style food on behalf of the holiday. Most of the Yale students work with me at SAEP (Austin, Adanna, and Ellie). There are also some other Yale students that are staying with them that are working with other organizations. The Yale students live in luxury. They live in one the nicest places in Cape Town in an apartment that faces the ocean. They have personal drivers to take them to and from work and have organized trips designed by their school for some weekends while they are in Cape Town. It must be nice…. After this party we went to another party with people from Sarah’s work..... I just could not hang. By the time we got to this spot I was so out of it…. I tried to be social…. They had fireworks and everything for the party…But I had to turn in early and I just caught a cab home along and went to sleep…

The next morning we all went to church with Jessica in Guguletu. I am starting to understand the organization of the service. They always start with a little AIDS education and then they go into empowering the people, introducing visitors, etc. Nosi, Luzuko, and Knesa, the kids I had gone with my first weekend did not join us this time because their mother had forbidden them to go to their church again. It was sad because I was excited to tell them about R Kelley, since they were really into celebrities. We ended ups topping by their house to say “hi” afterwords. I told them I have been learning some Xhosa, and they laughed when I told them the words I knew because it made no sense. After our visit to the township for church we went home and just rested…. It was a long weekend…

Thursday, July 2, 2009

Today I visited a different crèche than Sakingomso. My advisor and I decided that the research would achieve better results if I spent a day at each crèche before I actually did the interviews. Sometimes this will help with the questions because the principals do not always understand what I am saying and they will often nod yes as if they do. The crèche I went to today was called Zamukhanyo. It means with clear eyes they can see the light. When the principal tried to explain the meaning to me she used a metaphor; she said it was like using a torch to light a fire and that by equipping the children with social, academic, mental, and other skills she would be giving the children the tools to create opportunities for themselves. The principal at Zamukhanyo was called Nburito. This crèche was far superior to Sakhingomso. They were housed in an actual building, the outside play area was cleared of all sharp objects, and they had an actual set curriculum. The kids were also much cleaner. I was less apprehensive to touch these children as they looked healthier. They were also very well behaved and loved to play with me. None of the kids tried to hit me here and they all played very nicely together. At Sakhingomoso, the kids fed each other sand, slapped, and hit each other. All the kids refer to me as “missy” at Zamukanyo. I wonder if they know that I do not understand a word they say to me because they still call for me and ask me questions and tattle on the other kids. Most of my interaction with the kids was during recess. All of them wanted me to push them on swings. When I pushed them I would say “wee” as they flew up into the air. Than all the children started to copy me and say “wee” every time someone was swinging. Then I got on the swings and all the kids surrounded the swing and they all wanted to push me. They also wanted me to pick all of them up and throw them in the air after they slid down the slide. I was getting so tired but they kept calling for “missy.” I have picked up some of the words and phrases they use in the classroom. I do not really know what I am saying but all the kids respond. I do not think they kids really understand the meaning of the English words they are saying either. One kid sometimes chanted “there is a fire in the mountain” and when he says this all the kids respond with something in Xhosa while running around in circle around the playground.

Later on in the day the cook walked me down the street in the township. These were moments when I felt increased anxiety and uneasiness. The glares that I get just look so suspicious. Sometimes I think I blend because of my brown skin and braids so I assume they cannot tell I am a foreigner. But other times I feel as if they “just know.” Of course as soon as I open my mouth and say hello, everyone knows, so I try and stay quiet and just act like I know what I am doing and where I am going. As we were walking to the corner store, I saw a man outside his shack cutting the heads off of goats and chickens. They eat the head here. Actually they eat every part of the animal, eyeballs and all. It was a little bit freaky to see this because blood was still leaking out off the heads they were all just sitting in a pile. When I got back to crèche and they offered me chicken for lunch, I simply could not eat it. I was sickened by the sight of the animal heads.

Wednesday, July 1, 2009

I went back to Sakingomso today and started my research. I had to basically spend an hour and a half interviewing her. When I called her the day before, she did not mention that the crèche were going to be under construction this week so this ended up limiting the interview. She had no financial documents to show me so we just had to stick with questions mostly concerning infrastructure, curriculum, and staff training. Again, working for this organization is such a different experience. I never have been so informal in a work setting in my life. It was odd for me to have our interview basically in the middle of the playground. We sat in two chairs, no desk no electronics or anything to assist with documentation and I wrote on my note pad as I asked her questions. Having spent time there before, interviewing Phelisa, made the interview go much more smoothly. Phelisa speaks great English but she does not always understand what I am saying or asking so some things I was familiar with and could answer myself. For instance, I asked her to explain their curriculum and their daily activities and she didn’t exactly answer that with complete understanding of what I was asking. The thing that shocked me the most during this interview is how much it takes to open up a school. The staff do not get paid adequately because their salary depends on whether parents pay school fees. Phelisa explained that a lot of times they do not pressure the parents to pay because they know they are struggling to eat and pay for medical problems. She said that some of them only get paid $100 dollars a month. But this obviously sometimes decreases. It is hard to believe that people live on such little money.

The meals they serve the children also depend on the money they get from parents. The meals don’t have very much nutrients and proteins. I brought my lunch to the crèche today and I shared my food with the staff. They seemed really excited to just have some sliced cucumbers and strawberries. I was also drinking bottled water and all the kids flocked around me wanting a sip of my water. I didn’t understand at first why the kids wanted my water so bad because they get plenty of food and their parents pack them juice. One little boy wouldn’t leave me alone and followed me around for all his recess trying to get my water. He even tried to like hurt me by throwing stones and hitting me with metal rods. It was kind of frightening. He also kept punching my leg… I guess I will never bring my lunch again… The kids at Sackingomso are really violent sometimes…. It bothers me that the teachers do not do anything…. Today I also met another new little girl that had some sort of mental problems. After snack time she was running around with food all over her face and half chewed remnants still in her mouth trying to get my attention. She also followed me around most of the time.

Overall the day was eventful and a lot different than my first couple visits. I learned about the things that they actually needed. It gives me a better prospective of my so called public service in the US. While I know that community service is helping the community, I often give material things to organizations that need it. Many times I have run clothing drives and other drives to collect items to give away to organizations and groups that need them. But I realize that a lot of time I would be helping them out more if money was given because when we buy things and give it away we are deciding what they need… which is not fair, we are taking away their ability to make choices for themselves. The money would go towards areas that could help them out a lot more in the long run… the best thing I could recommend to people is do what I am doing and actually go and work with the organizations so you can actually see and ask what the organizations needs… Many times Americans do not want to do this type of ground work… I am not saying go to a foreign country or anything like that. I am just saying find an organization or a group of people that you’re interested and helping and learn about the people so that you can truly value and understand what your contributions are doing for them. I can guarantee if everyone did this, prospective would be broadened and more group and organizations that need help would get it.

Monday June 29, 2009

Today was a traditional work day. I finished my development plan finally at work… At work my goals are the following: first, to increase flexibility and just go with the flow. Relax and don’t stress. Second, to expand knowledge on the education debate in South Africa. Understand the current education system and how it has evolved since apartheid. Find out what the government objectives and emphasis on education. Interact with students, parents, and teachers. And third, to develop and improve research skills by completing research within the 9 week period. Off the job, my goals are to learn to share, keep a positive attitude, and be respectful of differences. The subset of these goals as a means to accomplish them are to stop cursing, stop complaining, spend more time listening and observing, at home learn to share space with roommates, engage with different people, learn and reflect on experiences by talking to others and writing down thoughts. Another priority/goal is to get to know Cape Town: I plan to accomplish this by having new experiences: be adventurous while being street smart (safety!), developing relationships (get to know the natives, listen and talk to people), and document interesting points in blog. I had to turn this development plan into my supervisor with more detailed description on how I am going to accomplish and monitor my goals.

The highlight of the day was my night at the R Kelley concert. Well at first I had the battle of trying to figure out who was going to go with me because it is not safe to travel alone, and no one wanted to go… not even my roommates… So I was talking to some people at work about what my plans were for the day and they happened to be going!!! Unfortunately the tickets in their section were sold out. So I had to buy floor tickets…. Bummer right… The concert was supposed to be sold out but it was nowhere near being sold out even though that was what the sponsors published in the media the day of the concert. While I was standing in my assigned section which was pretty close for me because my first concert was the Lil Bow Wow Christmas tour in DC where I was in the nose bleed section… I was feeling pretty privileged. I spent about $40 dollars on the ticket. As luck would have it, a bouncer was walking around giving some people in my section red bracelets to be located right in front of the stage. I was one of the lucky ones!!!!!!! I was literally 2 feet away from R Kelley. He even jumped into the crowd where I was standing about 3 times. He came over to my section and was giving out free hugs!!! I rubbed his balled head and I even held his hand for a second. He was crazy though because the men in the audience that were next to me were man-handling his face. He was brave for coming out into the crowd. The people here are some really R Kelley fans. They knew the words to all of his songs, songs that I had never even heard of. One man next to me kept saying “I love you” and “we forgive you” (for his jail time) while he was on stage. R Kelley also threw is towel right on to my head and I almost got my head ripped off. Everyone was fighting over the towel. Finally I just let go because I was like what am I going to do with a towel…… At the end of the night I met a journalist named Myrna from Johannesburg that invited me to the after party with R Kelley. But again no one wanted to go with me  So I called it a night.
I later found out that R Kelley was here for a lawsuit concerning money laundering…..

Sunday, June 28, 2009

Saturday, we woke up late after a long night and went on a late tour of Robben Island. Visiting Robben Island is something everyone must do when they come to Cape Town. It highlights the political activists of the apartheid era. The Robben prison has been often been compared to Alcatraz in San Francisco. Today people still live on Robben Island which mostly includes the tour guides and their families. Children in elementary and middle school have school on the island. We took a 45 minute boat out to the island and then had a 2 hours tour with a guide that was actually a prisoner in the jail during the apartheid era. His name was Michael Ntando Mbatha. The political activists were regarded as more dangerous than murderers and rapists. I thought the tour was an amazing experience but I was a little disappointed in my guide. His presentation was very impersonal and sounded too rehearsed. He used words like “in conclusion” and “thus” that were just a little awkward for the type of speech I expected. He talked little about himself so I really could not tell you about what he was actually in prison for… Most of the information he gave highlighted Mandela. This was frustrating because many people already know something about Mandela before going on this tour and therefore, I was more interested in learning about the other people that were in the prison. After the tour we had lunch on the pier and happened to see fight at the restaurant at the bar next to us. They were fighting over a soccer game....silly... Anyways while we were waiting for the cab to come pick us up I thought I was going to have to use my mase. This man was begging for money but we said no and I gave him some food instead. But then he got mad and jumped at us and swung his arms in our faces. He was speaking another language so we could not understand what he was saying. We all got up real fast and ran off...

We later had dinner with Jessica and her friend Ntombi. Jessica cooked for us at her house. Ntombi works with Jessica. I met her at church my first weekend there. She lives in Gugulathu. Ntombi also invited us to an R Kelly concert before the night was over but we will see if we can get tickets for this week. We stayed there for a couple hours and then went home and watched a movie. Sarah, Liese, and I were all tired but we stayed up all night talking after the movie, knowing the next morning we had to wake up at the crack of dawn for a wine tour.

Sunday, We got up at 8am to leave for a 10+ hour wine tour in the surrounding suburbs of Cape Town. The Boogie Bus took us around to the wineries. The Bus is a taxi/cab service that was referred to us by my advisor at school. Our driver’s name is Steve; he is a character….He gives us really cheap fares and does not try to rob us like most of the cab drivers here. I cannot tell you how many times I was cheated out of money before I met him. Luckily most things are cheap here so cheating me out of money means like I paying $12 opposed to $8 for cab fare. Steve took my roommates and I and a group of Notre Dame students to 5 farms in three different small towns. We also went to a cheetah farm. I got to pet an adult cheetah. Cheetahs are endangered because of poaching but mostly due to the evolution of its habitat. There is only 850 cheetahs left on the continent of Africa. Cheetahs also only live for about 8 years. Later we continued to go from farm to farm wine tasting. To test about 5-8 different kinds of wine; it costs around $2-4. I found that wine is very much an acquired taste. Most of the wine tasted like finger nail polish remover to me… I learned today that I only like the sweet wines which were mostly desert wines. I also prefer white wine. We finally got home around 8pm. We were all tired and some of fell asleep on the Boogie bus. Sarah's head was on Emily and it was kind of funny because we had just met her and the other Notre Dame students that morning and we had grown so comfortable over the course of the trip. We got home we talked to Janine about our day and then went to bed...

Friday , June 26, 2009

Experiencing different culture is the best thing I would say about visiting new countries. The other day I visited the mall to pick up some rain boots and I learned that South Africans call rain boots “wellingtons.” I also stopped at the food court where I ordered food and then was sent to a table, where they brought my food to me on glass plates with silver utensils. It was an odd experience because in America everything is made “fast” with plastic utensils and Styrofoam or paper containers for the food. It was like dining at a restaurant except it was actually “fast food” that was being served. I went to a place called Steers, a burger place, which many Americans consider the Wendy’s of Cape Town. The differences in culture is evident everywhere. I can observe it from simply shopping at the local grocery stores, which are commonly known here as PicknPay, Checkers, or Woolworths. I tried to buy peanut butter and jelly and the peanut butter I bought was “smooth” but it ended up being hard as a brick and the jelly had actual grapes in it. Everything was a little off from the traditional American PB&J. South Africa also has very unique languages. I had my first Xhosa lesson Thursday. The gap year students at SAEP that we teach gave me a private lesson. Xhosa is the hardest language I have ever tried to learn. I could not get any of the clicking right and I feel so silly trying to speak. The students were laughing at me. That is how bad I was. I told them I would practice over the weekend but I do not know how far that I will get….

I had my first cultural Cape Town social outing today. I went out to dinner with my two roommates Sarah and Liese and Sandile who was supposed to room with us but ended up living a couple blocks away. Sandile is a graduate student in the International Policy Studies Program at Stanford. She picked us up in this beat up old bug that she rented to get to and from work. It is actually quite comical, it sounds like the car is dying, and each push on the gas sounds like its last gasp for air. But it got us to and from where we needed to go. We met with two people, Alex and Sharon, for dinner at an Ethiopian restaurant. Yes, I ate Ethiopian food, first time ever! Alex graduated from UCT in engineering but currently works in consulting. He talked to me a lot about nuclear power because he used to be one of the primary engineers for the nuclear plants hear in SA but now he is interested in development and eventually using his business expertise to start a project/business to build better infrastructure in the townships. Sharon is also engineering major. She was the former runner-up to Miss South Africa in 2004. She explained her involvement in the pageants as pure luck. She had not had any trainers, never put make up on before the auditions, and had no idea what she was getting herself into. She said she got sucked into the modeling world but realized at the end of her pageant days that modeling meant nothing and in the long run would not take her very far. African families often see pageants as a sign that a woman is not doing much with her life…her dad was so angry with her for trying out and kept reminding her that he had paid school fees for her to education and that she was wasting his investment…

Alex and Sharon took us to a club called Jade in Green Point, this is down town Cape Town. The music and people in the club gave it a very European feel. When I got into the club, I felt very much out of place because I felt so young and out of touch with this type of scene. I went to the bar and I did'nt even know what drinks to get. There was no menu either…. I was just supposed to know….Alcohol for the most part to me tastes like poison, so I want the closest thing to juice! I was successful in finding that but I do not know what it was that I ordered…..Everyone in the club looked like a model and the club was very conservative. No one was grinding on each other. Being traditional westerners, we stood out clearly as non-natives on the dance floor. We were chanting for Michael Jackson and dancing in a circle. Other American in the club started to flock to us. We tried to start a soul train line but no one really understood what that actually was.lol I guess that’s an American thing…. When I heard the first MJ song of the night, it was kind of sad, recognizing that it was the end of an era. But after that all his songs were a celebration. I still cannot believe he died and why did it have to be on Christmas….

After we left Jade, Alex and Sharon got us into this other club for free called Fashion TV. This club was more my type; it has more college aged people. Although I saw some guy who was at least 80 years old, yea this was a little odd. They had a hair straightener in the women’s bathroom that you had to pay a couple cents to the machine to use for 10 minutes. I didn’t see why anyone would need a straightener in a club… It had all the American R&B and Rap music. They also played some South African house music and some MJ. I danced on stage most of the night because I didn’t want any drinks spilled on me or someone to burn me with their cigarette on accident. I met some guy name Emannuel that was from Belgium, him and his friend Damien spoke to me in French while I was there. My French was awful but I needed the practice… unfortunately I could barely hear him most the time. Anyways the night was fun!

Sunday, June 21, 2009

More surprises…. I did not come here with any expectations, so if you ask me if Cape Town is what I expected, I really do not know. I honestly just came with a really open-mind. However, my one assumption would have been that there is a lot of unhappiness. The pictures that I see of African people are usually of African children starving and the stories that are told are often of the widespread disease and poverty, so a grim picture is often painted. But despite the fact that all of this does really exist the things I have seen in the past two days are of people that are happy and getting through what we as Americans would see has extreme hardship. It is really funny because American do everything possible to make themselves comfortable, whether it is by buying things or avoiding situations they do not want to be in. But the people here cannot do that, they do not have the luxury. People here just cope... I do not know how yet, but I think it just finding joy in what they already have.

For the past two days I have been hanging out with Jessica Vernon, a Fulbright Scholar and Stanford graduate. She has spent the last year in Cape Town doing research and working. On Sunday, Jessica took me to church in the township known as Gugulatu. The townships were like nothing I ever have seen before. I saw people buying chickens to be slaughtered at home and eaten, stray dogs that looked like they hadn’t been fed in months, and horses roaming freely in the residential area. I saw playgrounds made from scraps and children in the streets with bare feet. I witnessed people living in overcrowded shacks the size of my room at Stanford. Women were standing outside squeezing their breasts at the passing cars. I am assuming that they were prostitutes….This is just the beginning of what I know I will see much more of. The church was very nice. It looked brand new and had fresh artwork maid by the manager of the church. The sermon I could barely understand, as it was given in Xhosa and some parts in English. However, from the limited parts that were in English the message I got was that the people of SA need to stop enslaving themselves and take responsibility for themselves. He stressed the importance of self-empowerment and a move away from dependence on others to improve the people’s circumstances. Church is an important part of everyone’s life in the townships. There was at least one church every 2 blocks we drove. There were even people dressed in all white gowns celebrating their church in an open field on their knees in a circle.

We went to church with four children that Jessica works closely with. When I told them I did not go to church as home they were in shock. They were really bright, one of them ranks 2nd among high school students in Cape Town. All of them go to schools that offers the best education in the area, all that was made possible by the organization that Jessica works with, which is run by a white Afrikaner. Jessica says that in the year she has worked in Cape Town she has only come across only three Afrikaners that take steps to improve the circumstances of the African people, all of which work at her organization. She cannot understand the rationale behind this but assumes that the white Afrikaners believe themselves to be separate from the African people and view themselves as the target of black crime. This is sad to here as I believe that white Afrikaners should be the primary people assisting in the development of African communities. This makes me think of the Amnesty that was granted to people after the apartheid era as a means of reconciliation, many of which were white Afrikaners. It makes me think that the Amnesty should have been tied to the condition of required involvement in the development of Africa communities that were so deeply torn apart by white Afrikaner apartheid system.

The kids were really intrigued with me. They thought I came from the show America’s Next Top Model. They said we received a lot of stares while in church because they thought I was someone famous. Janine says it was my straight hair, which is uncommon among the African people here that fascinated them. The people here are really into American celebrities. The children knew all the facts about celebrities, more than I knew about my own American celebrities. They asked if I had met any celebrities and if I wanted to become a celebrity. I told them that I once tried out for America’s Next Top Model. Jessica later said that she thought the kids believed that was the “coolest” thing they ever heard. I really enjoyed hanging out with them because they are so amazed by everything you tell them. All the things that my friends in America would never care to hear, they wanted to know all about. I have to admit, I was very much scared to meet them. The thing that continually ran through my head was, what do they think of me? I did not want to say or do anything to offend them, but within minutes of meeting, they started asking me all sorts of questions.

These kids go through a lot. Jessica tells me that the youngest one was kidnapped but was able to get away. Her sister, suffers from cerebral palsy and on her way home from school, the handicapped bus was hijacked and all the kids were left on a street corner. In my eyes, there is so much for them to fear as children. To my surprise, despite these circumstances, they all are such happy kids and excited for the next day. My fear of spiders seems ridiculous in comparison. I guess it would not actually be a life if every day was lived in fear.

Friday, June 19, 2009

My fellowship requires that I have a development plan while I am here in SA. I have thought about it a little and have jotted down some goals. The purpose of this blog is so that as I work to complete my goals I can get feedback on my experiences from my family and friends on what I could be doing different, general thoughts, or any other constructive comments. I have yet to develop a sold plan. I think I am going to wait and see how my first week goes to see what goals are feasible during this 2 month time frame on the job and off the job. One thing that is definite is that I plan to keep up with the local news to increase my awareness about local life as well as events that relate to my volunteer work. Today in the Cape Town Daily it reported that 1 in 4 South African has admitted to raping a young girl! This number is insane. This statistic was a part of an article about the celebration of Youth Day on June 16, in commemoration of the student uprising in Soweto during apartheid. A girl was taken from her school on this day and was found raped in killed in a bush. People really do know how to spoil a special holiday…..

Today was my first day visiting the job site. They told me I didn’t have to come in until Monday but I was just too anxious to meet my new coworkers. I sat down with the head of the organization, Norton Tennille, who gave be a run-down of the goals of the Early Childhood Development Program. I will be working closely with this program. He shared also shared some of his concerns about coming year at SAEP. Next year all the schools will be closing down for the FIFA world cup that is taking place in Cape Town. Mass construction has been taking place to prepare the city to host, to include an extensive subway system between Cape Town and Johannesburg. Norton foresees two problems with the event: first, volunteers for SAEP will have difficulty finding housing in Cape Town and the cost of living will go up for them which could discourage volunteer participation and second, is finding time for the kids to make up the schooling that is missed which could have detrimental impact on the metric (testing), that already suffers from low scores.

As far as work assignments go, I think I am going to have a really awesome project, however, my skills set for the assignment do not seem to match but I will work it out. My mentor, Isabel, wants me to spend time evaluating the progress of the crèches (early childhood development schools). New crèches have recently been opened, and my job will be to do research on both the old and new crèches and to make some kind of conclusion on how all of them can be improved in general and how the new ones can get caught up. Isabel said I will be doing a lot interviewing of people out in the townships to aid in my understanding of the progress. I am most excited about this as interacting with the people should be an extraordinary experience. My office has over 25 interns and there are large clusters from different schools. There is a large group from UNC, another from Duke, and Yale. The there are two Stanford Students and one girl from BYU. My first day meeting all of them they declared the first office outing, a Happy Hour at a bar called MOJO in Observatory. It was a lot of fun and my first time hanging out at a bar other than when I have been with my family. The only time I can remember going to a bar before was when I was in Japan with my aunt. We went to an ice bar and I think I drank juice!