Robin Island

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Friday, the 9th, three friends and I went to a restaurant called Moyo just outside of Stellenbosch. It's a huge buffet of food from all over Africa. They have music, dancing and drumming shows along with insane amounts of food. It was so awesome that night... but not good the next day when we were traveling around Cape Town.

On March 10th we took a day trip to Robin Island off the coast of Cape Town. It's a former prison that held many political prisoners during apartheid, including Nelson Mandela. We had to take a boat to the island and from there we went on a tour of the island on a bus, ending with a tour inside the main prison building led by a former prisoner. It was unreal.

My day to day schedule has worked itself out to be fairly steady. I have class four days a week, with service learning being a large part of my day off on Tuesday. The HIV Program is enjoyable and the people are great to work with. Unless they are speaking Afrikaans... in which case I pretend like I know what is going on and follow visual clues and body language. It's fun. From March 1st until the 16th we had a large campaign for HIV testing. I was working the testing site, booking people into the computer system for their testing and giving information. I had to be in the SRC, Student Representative Councel, office for the majority of the time which also had it's interesting moments when people would assume I know Afrikaans or they would have completely random questions that were near impossible for me to know. I was basically the secretary for several days a week. I learned a lot about how things work at the university, though, so I got something for being awkward.

I don't remember if I wrote about this in a previous post... and since I don't feel like reading back, and I'm pretty sure I haven't, I'll write it and I'll go back and erase it if I need to. ok! Over spring break, or what they call mid-semester break here, I'll be doing some traveling. To start with, I'll be going on the Garden Route Tour from March 29th until April 4th. We'll hit spots all along the southern coast of South Africa and basically be annoying tourists. Then, instead of heading back to Stellenbosch, I'm going with a group of nine other students from my program to Lesotho, where we are doing a four day pony trekking excursion into the mountains. We'll ride during the day, get to a small village in the afternoon and spend the nights in huts. The first and the last nights will be in a lodge, though. We're renting two cars, and since I'm one of the only drivers who knows how to drive a manual, I'll be doing quite a bit of driving. It's 11 hours back to Stellenbosch that we will probably divide into two days. We're all so excited!!

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Photos

Grow Up and Get Tested
The banner for the AIDS march that we did through part of town and into the campus to raise awareness about the testing campaign.

At the March
Marley, Tonja and I waiting for the march to start. we kind of rock.

En Route
On the way to Robin Island

quarry
This is the cave that was hand carved by the prisoners. They used it for teaching each other while the guards weren't paying attention and also as a restroom while they were working.

Prison Courtyard
This courtyard is outside of the cell where Nelson Mandela was kept.