weeks 10-13!

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Hellloo again!

I cannot believe how fast the month of September flew by! In just three days I will have completed my 14th week here, and only have 5 left - - the time has just flown by so incredibly fast.

I will try and re-cap the past few weeks for you, which for once will be easy because it has been fairly uneventful in terms of extravagant excursions go.

As soon as we got home from spring break we got swept into 2 straight weeks of birthday frenzy. Lex had her 21st the Monday upon our return, the twins had theirs the following weekend, and in-between those 4 of our South African friends had birthdays! All of these celebrations could not have come at a better time. Coming home from our crazy spring break, it would have been hard to get thrown back into school without having some fun that first week!

Aside from that, our program took us on a day trip to Robbin Island which is a prison off the coast of Cape Town. This is the prison that all of the political activists were held during the apartheid regime. Nelson Mandela was housed there for 27 years before his release. It was a great experience, as well as a good adventure. I will put up some pictures of the view of Cape Town from our ferry ride over to the island - - it was a neat way to see the city.

That is the only journey that our whole group has went on since spring break, but Natalie, the twins and I spent the weekend in Cape Town this past weekend. Brenda, the twins mom, had been in SA for over a week and she needed a ride to the airport Saturday evening. So, the four of us piled up in their rental car and headed into the city for the day. The weather is finally getting nice! It was 85 degrees on Saturday and we headed right to the beach. You all should have seen this beach, it was by far the most crowded space I have ever been in. There were thousands of people packed onto a tiny beach - - we were lucky we found a spot that the 5 of us could sit together in!

That evening, we ate at a delicious Mexican food restaurant, which we drove far out of our way to get. We have not had any mexican food since our arrival and this is the only one around. It was yummyyy. That night we dropped Brenda off at the airport and the four of us met up with some other friends in CT and enjoyed a night in another city!

Aside from these adventures all I have been doing is school work. I have had numerous papers and tests over the last few weeks and things are not slowing down anytime soon. I start finals in a week and a half! Kayamandi is still going well and I finally took some photos that I will add to this entry so you all can see my classroom and some of the students.

This weekend we are leaving bright and early Friday morning and starting a 2 day 40Km hike that ends on the top of Table Mountain. Cross your fingers that I make it to the top! It is supposed to be a long, hard hike, and we have to carry actual hiking packs with all of the goods we need to sleep in the woods for the night!

I will update with pictures from that adventure soon!

Hope all is well in the States - - I miss you all!
Thanksgiving is right around the corner now :-D

Cheers!

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Photos

Cape Town Waterfront
This is the dock of the waterfront area in downtown CT

Table Mountain
view from the ferry

Kayamandi 1
classroom

kayamandi 2
some of my class sitting outside for snack time

kayamandi 3
time to learn!

kayamandi 4
it took a long time, but Wonga finally finished..his writing has improved 10 fold since I first saw him

kayamandi 5
girls at playtime

kayamandi 6
some of the boys in my class wanting to pose for a picture

kayamandi 7
..they are cute

kayamandi 8
girls during song/dance time

kayamandi 9
boys during song/dance time..this song involved an intricate dance that ended up in a circle like you see