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May 28th 2009

Published: May 28th 2009

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Life Through A New Lens

All Smiles

Ok, so their eyes aren't open, but these girls were great. They were some of the nicer girls from Mannenberg

Well, it’s been the home stretch in terms of school, so I’ve actually been cracking down and doing work some. Don’t worry, it hasn’t been a whole lot. It has been a bit rainy around here since it’s becoming winter, so that helps because I am stuck inside more often. Even so, this whole taking it easy thing has been great for me. I’m never been in the middle of a finals period before and been totally non-stressed. Pretty awesome if you ask me. Even though I’ve been taking it pretty easy, I haven’t been the best at keeping up with my blog. The thing is that it’s going to get crazy around here the next couple of weeks, so I want to get you all updated before everything goes down.

The final three days of the week since I last blogged, the 13th through the 15th, I just went to class, did homework and chilled around home. No big adventures those days. I suppose a few down days were good for me. On the 16th I went with Susy to Shawco Community Day in Mannenberg. Shawco is a community service organization that is on campus. It is run by

The Dance Off

Boys vs Girls. These kids were crazy good!!!

students and students sign to go into the various townships once a week and do tutoring, sports, crafts and other activities with the kids there. Each student does work in a specific program within a specific township. Susy has been doing the art program in Mannenberg for the semester, and as an end of the semester thing they have a day in the community where the kids come and the plan is to just have a fun day for the parents to come and for the kids to have a good time. Well, like many township communities, the parents were not exactly highly present, but the kids were there in abundance. We woke up that morning to discover that it was rainy and gross outside. This was kind of disheartening, because it was supposed to be outside, but we ended up bringing it all into the school where Susy does her weekly stuff. They had a jumping castle, a fashion show, a dance-off, some talent stuff and face painting. As usual with these sorts of things, I got to do face painting the whole time. The face painting was in the same room as the stage, so it was really

Let the face painting begin

Besides me, she was the first to get her face painted, and we started off strong. With an innocent butterfly.

loud in there, but it was fun to be able to watch what was going on while I was working. The kids were somewhat out of control though. When I do this sort of thing back home, the kids are usually quite patient; they form a nice line, and patiently wait their turn. This was not happening in Mannenberg. In fact, the kids all pushed and shoved each other in a big clump, and when they got to the front they were not satisfied to have one thing painted on their faces. They wanted both cheeks, forehead, and chin painted. Eventually, I got them to at least stand in a line, not without pushing, but at least in a line. I painted faces for 4 hours. The most popular requests were a mouse, the South African flag, the British flag, and the American flag. Well I and 3 other people (non of which were South African) painted faces for 4 hours, and about 30min before we were done one of the local students told us not to paint any more American flags. It turns out that the American flag is a gang sign in Cape Town. Interesting fact, the worst

Painting Away

Susy was the culprit of the purple heart. It was an experiment to see if the paint was still good. Not my first choice in facial accessories.

gang in Cape Town is called the Americans, and by innocently painting flags on people’s faces, we (3 Americans and 1 Norwegian) were encouraging gang activity. I should have been tipped off that there was something weird going on when one of the mothers asked me to paint an American flag on her 2 year olds face. After a long day of face painting, as we were getting ready to leave, a local marching band came by. It was just a community band made up of just some young people, and they stopped by to play for us, it was really cool. So, as usual, something that is meant to be pretty chill turned out to be an adventure. Who knew that something as innocent as face painting could be so bad?

When we arrived home after community day, I just chilled with Susy and some other Alma kids for a while and we had supper. Then Susy went with Ben, Ryan, Caroline and Sam to the movie, and I went home. I went and did homework. I know it’s something that I rarely ever do, but it had to be done.

Sunday, May 17th I went to

Singing

This is a group of girls who had prepared a song to sing, and they were pretty good too.

church at the Campus for Christ church on Upper Campus again. I don’t exactly like the church, but I promised the pastor that I would come by again before I leave, and my Sunday’s in Cape Town are limited. I stopped by and it was fine, there were even about 15 people there. Even though it was fine, I will not be going back there before I leave.

The 18th, 19th and 20th of May were the last 3 days of classes, so it was pretty chill, but required some studying time. Tuesday I had my final for my IES Health class, and afterwards Caroline, Lull and I went to Nando’s for supper, because Caroline and I had never been there. It was really good, and it was a lot of food, but then I had to be home and study. The 20th I had a test in my psychology class. Nothing major, just a multiple choice test, and we already got the results back, and I did quite well. That was the only thing I had to do that day, and then my time of going to classes at UCT was over. It seems like just yesterday I

Watching intently

Sorry Mannenberg, we didn't know it was a gang sing :S

was lost on campus and not knowing what was going on, on a campus that has more students enrolled in undergraduate than there are in Albert Lea. Funny how that works.

Wednesday afternoon I went shopping with my friend Shalagh-Anne. She is from Cape Town and loves shopping, and I needed jeans. Mine are looking a bit ragged, and when I fell down Lion’s Head I tore a hole in one of them. So, we hopped on a Claremont Jammie and headed to the Cavendish mall. Now, I hate shopping, and especially jean shopping, because I can never find a pair of jeans that actually fits right, but this was necessary and I needed a mindless activity. As usual, I went into this whole thing somewhat skeptically. We stopped at the first store, and none of the jeans I tried on fit, so I was starting to think this would be like every other jeans shopping experience I had ever had. We then went to this store called Mr. Price. It is a really popular place to shop because they have fashionable clothing at a decent price, and so we decided to take our chances. We just started pulling

Artistic Expression

I wasn't responsible for their faces or this picture, but I still think it's cool.

jeans off the racks in my size not paying any attention to the style. In the first round I found a pair that fit pretty well, and in the second round I found a pair that fit PERFECT. I told Shalagh-Anne that they were miracle jeans. So, after less than 2 hours I had 2 pairs of new jeans, and I didn’t pay that much for them. We then headed back to campus because Shalagh-Anne had to print off some things and turn in a project. Of course, it couldn’t be that easy. What would an easy activity in Cape Town be without a little bit of an adventure? When I got home, I pulled the jeans out of the bag and realized that I had purchased the wrong size of one of the pairs. I had tried on 2 sizes, and I accidentally bought the wrong pair. So, I hopped on a Jammie and headed back to Claremont/Cavendish area to exchange them. When I got there, the jeans that I had tried on were on the rack with the pant legs still rolled up from when I tried them on when I was there. So, no worries I just

Yay Face Painting!!

I forgot her name, but she's from Norway.

exchanged them.

When I got home, I went with Jack (the homeless man whom I have gotten to know) to the drug store. He needed some medicine, and so we went to get it for him. He’s such a nice man, and at times I wonder what he is going to do when I leave. He has been diligently looking for a job and has only been successful in finding jobs that only have work for him sometimes. It really stinks that he is trying so hard, and there is just nothing out there. He has two kids, and no matter how hard he tries, he just can’t seem to get a full time job. He turned 35 on Saturday. It’s amazing this guy. I don’t know how he does it, but he calls me his angel and tells everyone he knows about me. Some angel. Here I am, I just spent R200 on jeans, and I think twice about paying R70 for a bottle of medicine for a man who can’t afford to buy food because he won’t be paid until later in the week. A man who was willing to give me the ID book of his

Hard at Work

What this picture doesn't show you is that there are probably 20 kids pushing to get to us.

deceased sister, one of his only possessions, as collateral for the medicine, because he was going to pay me back. Don’t worry, I didn’t take the ID book, but it makes you think. He has nothing, and all he asks for me most days is that I pray for him. Makes me feel like a spoiled brat.

That evening I went about my life being spoiled and went with my friend Rachel and a bunch of her friends to the Northern Suburbs to Sokkie. Sokkie is traditional Afrikaans dancing. It is like a combination of swing dancing and polka. It was a lot of fun, and made me miss swing dancing back at Jewell. There is this place up in the northern suburbs where they play Sokkie music ½ the time and club music ½ the time. I didn’t do a whole lot of dancing though, because we didn’t have many guys with us who knew how to Sokkie, so we had to take turns. It was fine though, it was still fun.

Thursday and Friday I mostly just worked on writing my final Religion Essay. Thursday evening I also met Susy’s family, because they got here that

Susy and Her Shawco Friend

Ok, so I forgot her name too.

day. I then went back to my paper writing. Thursday night I pulled my first all-nighter ever. Don’t worry, it wasn’t a big deal. I actually think it’s pretty impressive that it is the end of my junior year, and this is the first all-nighter that I have ever done. Friday morning I went and printed my essay and then when I came home I baked scones and had a very lazy day. That night, I chilled with my roommates and watched movies, only leaving the house once to go get Steer’s ice-cream and rent movies. I felt really lazy, but it was a wonderful day. I ended up falling asleep on the couch and spending the whole night there.

Saturday, May 23 I went with Guy, Rebecca, Katie, Kate and Kat to the farmer’s market again. We keep going back there because the food is so wonderful, and the atmosphere is great. For those of you who kept asking, I took some pictures this time. Not a lot, but a few so you can get the feeling of what it is like. That night we had a fire in the backyard with s’mores and ate cake. It was

Local Band

They didn't have music and I'm going to guess they haven't paid hundreds of dollars for private lessons, but they were good and seemed to be enjoying themselves.

Guy’s birthday on Sunday so we started to celebrate on Saturday evening. We just chilled in the back yard around the fire and then came in and watched a movie before bed.

Sunday, May 24 I went with Susy and her family to church. She wanted to bring them to my home stay church in Retreat. Her family is renting a car, so they picked me up and we drove there. After church Susy and I brought them on a small tour of the cape. We stopped in Kalk Bay and had lunch at Kalky’s. We then drove along the coast out to Cape Point, stopping at Boulder’s beach to see the penguins. At the point we climbed up to the lighthouse. Now, I wasn’t exactly planning on going to Cape point when I left for church, so I did the leisurely climb in my nice church sandals which have a slight heel. Crazy? Perhaps. Winging it? Definitely! It wasn’t so bad though. When we first got here in January it seemed really hard, but after Devil’s Peak, it was nothing. I think that Cape Point may be my favorite place in Cape Town. It’s the most southern point

The Old Biscuit Mill

The Outside of the Farmer's Market. Our favorite place to eat on Saturday Afternoons.

of South Africa, and especially without the 400 other international students, it is absolutely beautiful. As we were walking down, it started to rain. Just in time I guess. That evening for Guy’s birthday, we went to a bar down the road in Rondebosch called Pig and Swizzle and just played a couple games of pool and chilled.

This week I have just been chilling and studying. It is finals time you know. Tuesday it was a beautiful day and I just studied and went to Muezinburg with Guy, Rebecca and Katie. Guy and I decided that we are going to take advantage of every nice day from now on and go to the beach, because we haven’t gone enough.

Wednesday, May 27 I had my first final exam for a UCT course. I had my religion final at 8am, and I emerged to find a beautiful day to great me. It was hot and sunny, and there was barely a breeze, so I decided I wanted to take advantage of the beautiful day. I went home and waited, because I just wanted to go to the beach. Well, finally Rebecca woke up and we headed to Muezinburg.

A place for the whole Family

All the people at the market. This is actually less people than usual.

It was an absolutely beautiful day, and we just enjoyed some time chilling on the beach. Unfortunately, today was not as nice. I woke up to the rain, so it was not a beach day. It was probably a good thing though, because I needed to do some studying. I was hoping to make monkey bread this morning, but unfortunately, as is frequently the case, we were practically out of electricity, so I had to wait for Lyle to go and get more for us. When he got back I made it. Of course, as with baking anything in South Africa, it’s a little more difficult here. They don’t have premade biscuits in rolls here, so I first had to make the biscuits from scratch and then do the whole monkey bread thing. It turned out really well though, and my housemates enjoyed it as well.

That brings you all up to speed. I suppose it’s back to studying for me. By next Wednesday I will be finished with my classes, and all I will have left to do is travel and draw every last ounce of adventure and learning that I can get out of my South African

Farmer's Stand

Want something tasty for now or to bring it home? You can get it here.

journey. For now, I am still taking it one day at a time, and looking forward to not having to worry about school any more. Not that I worry about it a lot, but I’m looking forward to being able to do the last few things I desire to do here in Cape Town that I have not yet had the chance to do.

I would appreciate it if you continue to pray for me as I finish up my studies here and travel some. I will be road tripping with some of my friends next week, so I would appreciate some prays for safe travels for us. I know that God has been looking out for me this whole time, and I thank him every day for what he is doing. My eyes have been opened to a new world, and every day is an adventure. You’ve got to love life and find joy in the little things. Even if it’s simply finding a pair of jeans that fits perfectly.

With Love from Cape Town,
April

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