weeks 7&8!

Well hello again everyone!

In true South African tradition, I am sitting here drinking a nice hot glass of Roobios Tea. It is..well, one in the morning now I guess, and I would estimate that 75% of this residence hall just made some tea to perk them up for the long night of studying ahead. It is mid-term week here at Stellenbosch University, or "writing week" as they call it. Almost all student have 5 days in a row of tests at 8am. It is run much like finals week at home would be.

Besides that, here is the update on my past two weeks:

First, just a little description of the first picture in this entry. That is the view, out one of the windows that lines the classroom (skatkarmer) in my Afrikaans class. It is on the edge of campus, overlooking most of the buildings and outlining the view of the mountains that I get every day. I love it.

But, onto life:
I left off with Cape Town Fashion week in the last entry. We, as seen in the picture, got all dressed up and headed into Cape Town Saturday evening and proceeded to sit front row for 3 of the 4 shows that night. We also got to have a great dinner at the venue where I ordered, on my own, for the first time ever, a lamb dish. It was delicious. The fashion shows were great..my favorite, incase anyone wants to look her up was the last show of the night. She is a new designer in SA and her name is Stefania Morland. Ironically enough, I went out to dinner tonight with a SA friend and her girlfriends and one of the girl's mothers is good friends with this women. So, hopefully I will get to go tour her store in CT one weekend and pick something out for myself!

After that I had an insanely busy week. I had 3 or 4 papers due, and even more due the following week. This was the one of the weeks that I had to remind myself that I am actually attending school while I am here..

Before I knew it, as always seems to happen, it was the weekend. It was the weekend of the 28th, and it was by far the best weekend I have had here in SA thus far. We went to Overburg, SA, which is about 4.5 hours east along the coast from Stellenbosch. Along the way, we took a slight detour and went to Cape Auguhlus (as seen in photo's as well). This is the actual Southern most point on the African continent, where the Indian and Atlantic oceans meet. It was not that breathtaking in reality, but, since we were so close it would have been silly not to put our feet in two oceans at one time. Not to mention, that was my first glimpse at the Indian Ocean.

As we continued our drive to Overburg we saw some great landscape. We left the mountainous region of the Cape and entered the flat, farm land, which was just as breath taking as the mountains. Just rolling fields for miles. Within Overburg, we were staying in the De Hoop Nature Reserve. Once we made it there at about 1 in the afternoon, we started our 45 minute drive to the coast. Along the way we saw, horses (picture), zebras, babboons, elands, and mongooses. What a way to start off the weekend!

As we approached our house, we could not even believe it. It is shown in a photo on our drive towards it. It was literally the most magnificent place I have been to in a long time. It was about 100 steps above the beach, with nothing for miles and miles. We did not see another human the entire weekend and literally had 20 miles of private beach to the left, and to the right. The reason we came to De Hoop was because it is the Southern Wright whale migration time. The Southern Wrights migrate from the Indian to the Atlantic ocean during the summer here because the Indian ocean is too warm for them. So, our house was perfectly positioned to get a birds eye view of at least 75-100 whales that weekend. Not only did we get to walk for miles on a sandy beach, and watch the beautiful whales jumping out of the ocean all weekend, but we also got to swim in the Indian Ocean! Which I think is pretty cool..

We witnessed an amazing sunset on Saturday night, and then woke up early Sunday morning to watch the sun rise. It could not have been a more peaceful adventure. It was truly amazing.

As for today, it is (was) Tuesday, which means I was in Kayamandi teaching. Today, my lesson was about shopping, so I focused on grocery shopping and clothing shopping. We played some games and the kids practiced writing and then got rewarded for their good behavior with a coloring activity. Going to Kayamandi, as I have explained to my parents, is a hard thing to do every week. For those of you that don't know, Kayamandi is a township right outside of Stellenbosch, and a rude awakening that I am in Africa, and the poverty levels are tremendous. 30,000 people live in an area that I walked in an hours time, 75% of them make under $3 US per day. I go their and teach pre-primary students every Tuesday, and typically one other day of the week. This week was the first time that it was more rewarding then heartbreaking. My kids are remembering me, and I can feel that I am actually helping them, rather then hindering them, which I am happy about. I will take pictures soon and show you all my classroom and 35+ students that I work with weekly.

Looking into the future, this Friday marks mid-semester break! Believe it or not, in a week my trip will be half-over, if not a little more. I will be leaving Stellenbosch on Friday and traveling along the Garden Route with the twins, and two boys on my program. For those of you that have been here before, or are just curious, we will be going to Wilderness, Knysna, Storms River, Jeffery's Bay, and Port Elizabeth. We will do everything from relaxing on the beach, kloofing, canopying, and going on a safari. I will update you on my trip upon my return Saturday the 12th.

I hope all is going well back in the states and can't wait to see you all around Thanksgiving!

Cheers!

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