Ahhh finally here!!! Almost forgot about this blog already- hah, have been so busy. So after I made it through the nightmare in Canada, I slept great through my flight to London. In London, I wasn’t able to go off and site see because you have to walk through immigrations first and it’s hard to leave after that. I had almost 10 hours to kill and I figured it wouldn’t be that mad but it was. My computer was almost dead and I forgot that I wouldn’t be able to charge it considering I didn’t have a European adapter. Also, in London they charge you for internet! I of course found someone to who gave me a password for a small café so I got to use it for a while but then my computer died. Finally boarded, had an hour and a half delay while sitting on the plane but was on my way to Africa and that’s all that mattered.
When I arrived in the airport I got my luggage with no problem and had a man standing with a sign that said “Arcadia” on it. The rest of the group was already together so that was a little intimidating. We had an hour an a half drive to an iron-oaks type setting with a little house out in Worchester. The place was called Bonamanzi. The other Arcadia students moved out Friday morning and the staff had to clean our house first, leaving us stranded at this Bonamanzi place for the weekend. Janye, Chris, & Dion made us breakfast, lunch, and dinner and made us go through different types of team-building. We also went kayaking and for a hike up a hill. The place was gorgeous, beautiful mountain scenery everywhere. We bunked in two rooms- girls room and a boys room. Each room had 7 sets of triple bunks. Bathrooms and showers were outside- I felt like I was at Girl Scout camp. The people in my group are great! I’ve been with them for three nights now and it feels like weeks. There are only two boys- Matt & Joe and six girls- Justice, Maxie, Ryan, Amanda, Taryn, & myself. Our SHAWCO rep is Ainsley and she is with us at all times.
Come Monday morning we took a two-hour bus ride to Cape Town to our houses- finally! There are two, a larger one in front and a smaller one in back. They are basically connected but you do have to go outside to enter into the other. I’m in the back house with Matt, Amanda, and Taryn. We each have a set of four keys. 1. For our front gate 2. Gate in front of the front door 3. Front door and 4. My room. Even though crime is extremely high, I feel safe at home. We also have electric wires on the top of our gate to the houses. I love our little house, it feels very home-y.
After rearranging our rooms and unpacking, we took a bus over to the University of Cape Town campus to get our student IDs. We got a small tour of the UCT campus, which is HUGE, and it is gorgeous. Mountains everywhere. We got our pictures taken for our IDs and then took a tour of the library and took an hour pit-stop in the computer lab- first time I had internet in four days.
After our tour we went to the market down the street from us. Towels, shampoo, conditioner were needed among the group. I also bought airtime (which is like minutes) for the cell phones we were given. I can call/text the US but it’s obviously more. My number is 0711237159. At night we went to a Mexican restaurant with the whole group. We got margaritas (wasn’t very good) and the food was decent. I got two tacos and they weren’t that good but other people’s were. After dinner Taryn, Maxie, Ryan, Matt, & myself went out to Long Street to an Irish Pub. Ahhhh so much fun! Beers were R22 throughout the night. There was an live singer that could literally sing anything, and sing it good, REALLY good. Oh, besides Jimmy Buffet. He made references to our US group the whole time which made it fun. Out the window we had a nice show of a he/she attempting to find money or a home for the night or both. It was a man dressed as a women in tights, a small tank, and a wig. She was constantly fixing her hair and make-up and was dancing the full three hours we were there. Very entertaining.
Today we had a tour of Cape Town scheduled at 10am. We took a bus down to the downtown area and got on one of those double decker buses. The bus stopped every couple minutes and you chose whether or not to get off. We went all the way to the top of Table Mountain and then ended by the coast. We got off at the beach and it was so gorgeous. The mountains are in the background and the beach is so pretty. After the bus tour my little group of five decided we wanted to walk through the aquarium. It was only about $10 so we figured why not. Right when we got there it was feeding time for the penguins, which was fun. We spent about an hour walking around and it was time to go.
Tonight we are taking a tour of the health clinics- which is where I will be interning the whole time I’m here so I’m very excited. Everyone’s planning to chill tonight since we have our first day of actual lecture.
I love Cape Town and we have so much planned already for the six short weeks we’re here. I’m having a wonderful time and could not ask for anything more at this point. So much exciting stuff to look forward to this week =)
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