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!
Showing posts with label Friday. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Friday. Show all posts
Monday, June 29, 2009
Monday, June 22, 2009
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!
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!
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