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Published: October 2nd 2012
Hello my readers! I'm now typing to you from the Heathfield area of Cape Town, South Africa! An exciting new portions of the span of adventures. Well I have been so extremely busy since we arrived on Saturday morning. Honestly, when I've been awake, I haven't had a moment to sit still. Let me back track a bit though.
Many people know I have a horrible tendency of getting sick nearly every time I travel, so of course, the worst possible times. Well, I suppose I had to stay true to fashion and get sick the night before we were going to travel. I had felt a bit out of sorts that day, funny tummy, but by dinner time, when we were going to meet Claire and others for dinner, I was dizzy and sweating and basically an overall wreck. I should have listened to my body's signs, but no... I still decided to try dinner. About five minutes after sitting down, I needed to go. Luckily we were eating at the hotel restaurant so I just had to walk up to the room to get some rest. But (once again, at the worst time possible) had to throw up along the path to my room, fortunately outside. You know that you have the world's greatest best friend when she will literally take care of you all night and still share a bed with you when you're a disgusting being. Katie McDowell, I will forever love you with all my heart. Seriously, I'm so glad to have you here with me.
The next morning I was feeling better somewhat and decided to forge ahead. We got to the Abuja airport about thirty minutes before our flight was due to take off. With all of that stress, I had a mysterious pain in my chest that was excruciating. Claire worked her magic and managed to get us to our gate and even get me tea before we boarded the plane. As usual it seems, the Nigerian airport was very chaotic and we barely got to bid our farewells to Claire and Ngozi, both of whom we already miss so much. But once the plane had taken off, I was starting to feel better and that was finally the end of my sickness! Except for the mental kind that came from dealing with the Lagos airport.
I swear that I have never been through a more frustrating situation. We got to the Lagos airport at near 5:30 and did not get to our departure gate until a good three and a half hours later. It was all spent waiting in the longest lines to go through the so many different security measures. I'm grateful they have them, but why they seem to take ages, I'll never understand. Tensions were high and I got in a slight verbal altercation with a female airport security guard. I suppose it wasn't the best idea, but she was a real witch and I could not tolerate her extreme attitude issues. After dealing with some baggage check issues, which were resolved with the help from the nicest South African man (a fellow passenger), we made it to our gate! Only to wait in line more... But eventually onto the plane we went. I fell asleep immediately, woke up once to eat, and then slept for the rest of the flight. We were practically kissing the ground when we arrived in Johannesburg and we ate at a restaurant called Wimpy's. We had a field day with that name.
Our arrival to Cape Town! When we got there, we were picked up by two Projects Abroad staff members, both with wonderful accents of course. We loaded up our luggage and started our drive to our home for the next two months. We passed miles of neighborhoods in which every house is made simply out of scrap metal and even garbage. If I thought the obvious wealth gap in Nigeria was bad, I can barely describe this. To drive past those and then mere minutes later past some of the nicest houses I've seen, was hard, to say the least. I'm really feeling how much experiencing these things can bring these realizations to the surface. Slowly it's dawning on me just how much I don't need and how much so many others do. I've always known I'm a fortunate person, but I'm starting to appreciate it more than ever before. We got to our host house and got to meet our host mom, Pam! She's a very welcoming and interesting woman. She is one of eleven siblings, believe it or not! All of whom live in this area and some of them even host volunteers as well. We have a steady stream of relatives who come and go all the time and it's great to meet so many people. We live in a suburb area of Heathfield. Pretty much all of Cape Town is divided into the smaller suburbs and areas, all of which are connected by train. We're settled into our room, it's cozy and comfy. We have bunk beds, by the way. We cracked up when we walked in. I got top bunk, seeing as I'm so agile and graceful (yeah right). Our first night we fell asleep at 8 in the evening. We were exhausted.
That next morning we went to Pam's sister, Philli's house. She and her husband are hosting three guys right now, one an American named Brett and two Germans, Cornelius and Martin. We went with them to the Muizenburg Beach, a famous surfing spot, Surfer's Corner. We watched as the surfers all rode one wave in order to break a record. Let me just tell you, this beach alone is reason enough to come to Cape Town! That view is spectacular. I'll be honest, at first I thought Table Mountain was a bit overrated, but no. Giving it more time has shown me just how gorgeous it is! To have a whole city built around an impressive and natural landmark is awesome. And to think I get to live here for two months! We ate lunch in Muizenburg and basked in the sun with the other volunteers. We didn't expect the weather to be so nice, so Katie and I forgot swim suits. We went to a little beach shop and spent far too much on new bikinis, I'm considering it a Christmas present, Dad, because I'm not positive I can afford to lose that money right now... love you! After taking the train home later, we went and got changed to go to dinner for one of the girls' last night. We went to a restaurant called Cabana in the area of Newlands. There were about 15 of us who went and it was a lot of fun. We went to a bar afterwards and headed home around midnight.
Katie and I woke up early this morning because a Projects Abroad staff member name Mishek came to pick us up and show us around. We took the train to the main office and met the rest of the staff. We got a ton of information thrown at us, so hopefully we can retain it all! Afterwards Mishek took us out to lunch and walked us through even more info that we need to know. We then went to our specific project location, the Human Rights office. Man does this internship sound intense! Let's just say we're very intimidated to start our first day tomorrow. I'd say the reason I'm so intimidated is because I'm going to be dealing with very real situations belonging to very real people. These are desperately in-need people who have no idea how to handle what they're going through. We'll be dealing with situations anywhere from refugee issues, to domestic abuse, to property disagreements. We also have regular chances to go to juvenile prisons, women's shelters, and townships in order to investigate cases or receive people's complaints. I'm excited and terrified to start tomorrow, but all I can do is dive right in and hope I can keep up. I'm thinking the motivation of helping these people will push me to be able to handle the heaviness and severity of the work load.
As usual, thank you for reading and I'll keep you updated on my experiences and activities! I love you all so much and wish you the best in the experience and activities in your lives too!
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MissCaron
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Hannah, I cannot tell you enough just how proud I am of you taking on this opportunity. It is so wonderful to see you growing into the amazing young woman you are today. This is such a great adventure and I'm so blessed to follow along in your travels. God bless you pretty girl!