Wednesday, March 23, 2011

            This week has been crazy so far! But I’ll start with my first weekend experience out of Grahamstown.

            I was so excited to see more of SA. I love it here. It is a gorgeous place and the people are amazing. If it weren’t for missing my family I would feel like it’s a new kind of home. I feel like every moment in SA is an adventure.

            But this weekend all the COST students went to Kenton on Sea, which is a town. We rented a beach house and went to the beach. It was my first time swimming in an ocean (this was the Indian Ocean) and it was so fabulous! It was a perfect day and the water wasn’t cold at all. I totally forgot that oceans have salt water though, and after a couple minutes I was like “oh my god, am I like sweating in my mouth or something” and then I figured it out. So stupid.

            We had brought food to barbeque that night and I made salsa with a super potent red onion and the dullest knife I have ever seen. But everything was super good and it was a beautiful night out.

            The next day we woke up early and we had plans to go to Kwantu game reserve and do a safari. I was so excited! But as we walked out to our van that we had rented to get around, we found that someone had smashed a rock through the back and the whole back window was shattered! The other students were just shocked and really upset about it. It is too bad and it almost affected our safari plans, but these things happen all the time, even in the States. The only thing stolen was a pair of tennis shoes. That was extremely lucky since one of the girls left their purse in the van up front. Thankfully, it was not taken. It is crazy to think that some people are so poor here that they would break into a van to steal an old pair of tennis shoes, but that is the case. But when you’re traveling you really should take extra precautions, duh!

            The cops had to come to get a report for the beach house lady, who was just in shock at this happening to us. What I find interesting is that they all seem more worried about how this makes South Africa look than sometimes even how it might affect them personally.

            Apparently it takes police a long time to do anything, and you do not see them very much around here, so we had to wait awhile and were late to our safari. We also got very lost. It was hilarious and such a tedious drive, with the back window gone and driving on a lot of dirt roads, we were completely covered with dirt when we arrived. It was such a gross feeling.

            Kwantu was amazing though. We saw giraffes, zebras, springbok (SA national animal), and other animals. We did not see any of the Big Five in the safari, but after we got to go through the reserve’s rehabilitation center. They had white lions, a cheetah, tigers, and lots of other lions. My absolute favorite part was when we went past an enclosure that said ‘Cubs Crib’. There were two little 5-month-old tiger cubs and our safari guide said we could go in and play with them! It was soooooo cool! I actually have little scratches on my arm from a tiger kitten! I got baby tiger kisses and one sucked my thumb! So cute!

            This week I also experienced a day without electricity. I think the longest I have ever been without power in the States is like an hour or two, tops. And that’s like if there is a storm or something. And even then we have generators. But here I guess it is not uncommon for the power to be out in the city, and for several days. Apparently the government does this to random cities to save power and money. It was crazy to see everyone just keep on with their lives. I don’t know if Americans could. I did not realize how many things I took for granted either. I had to teach a lesson that day and had to think how I would teach my music lesson on Eine Kleine without any photocopies or music. It was kind of a cool experience for me.

The classroom I teach in!

At the beach holding a snail thing!

Some naughty person broke into our cool rental van...

Giraffes on the Safari

Baby tigers!

            The girls also had their ‘Gala’ yesterday. It is like an all school swimming meet. A lot of girls here are afraid to swim and I loved that the school had beginner races as well. It was a beautiful day out and I got to be a timekeeper and be right in the thick of it all. It was a fun and sunny afternoon!