Tuesday, August 7, 2012

First Few Weeks of Class, Township Homestay and MY BIRTHDAY!



 World Cup Stadium!

 Manchester United vs. Cape Town AJAX

 Mama Noks and some of my fellow IES peeps!

 Gugulethu Township 



University of Cape Town probably has the most beautiful campus; it is literally on a mountain. When I say this I am also implying that to get to class I literally have to climb up a mountain everyday. The reason that University of Cape Town is on a mountain is because it is suppose to be a temple of learning that student have to make a pilgrimage to. Good thing they started the Jammie shuttle system up the mountain or I would never go to class. The first week of school was so crazy because it was like the first week of freshman year all over again; I didn’t know anyone and I was running around like a crazy person trying to make it to class on time not knowing where any of the buildings were. I was one of those people that had to ask a million times where each building was. It was so much different than the small Southwestern bubble that I am use to. Luckily as I go into my third week of class this week I feel like I have finally figured out my schedule it just took a little while. This week we even have a public holiday on Thursday, which means that no one will go to class on Friday so I basically have a 4-day weekend and will get to have fun adventures this weekend!!!  Also I forgot to mention that I got to see Manchester United play the Cape Town AJAX at the world cup stadium!!


Homestay!!!! 

Last weekend we had a homestay in the Gugulethu township, an eye-opening experience to say the least. Everyone in my program was put into groups and we were matched with a mama, my mom’s name was mama Noks. She had lived in Gugulethu for 14 years. When we got there we walked around Gugulethu a little and it is safe to say that this community was one of the most tightly knit communities I had been too. There was a big soccer game going on that same night and every time the team that everyone was routing for scored a goal there was a chorus of vuvuzelas followed by kids running into peoples houses and through the streets cheering. One house had a party going on for a little girl turning one and the party started before we arrived that night and ended when we left for church Sunday morning. The church service that I attended on Sunday morning was like no other church service I had ever been to But really there was no sermon only singing and dancing, it was called a “thanksgiving service”; which consisted of people giving thanks the whole time and concluded with a slideshow of everyone in the congregation. After church our guide took us to a famous restaurant called Mzoli’s, which is in Gugulethu as well. Mzoli’s is famous for its Braai BBQ, basically from my non-eating meat point of view it was a bucket full of meat. It was however despite the large quantities of meat a really fun way to spend a Sunday afternoon observing a traditional Braai and going to one of the most famous spots in Cape Town.  Now I understand why all of the tourism books that I have read on Cape Town rave about this place! Another culinary experience that I had last weekend was Mexican food in South Africa. For my birthday a bunch of my friends from my program and I went to this “really good” Mexican place in the nearby neighborhood of observatory. It was an attempt at Mexican food to say the least, basically what I expected of Mexican food in a country that is so far away from Mexico.  All in all my 20th birthday in Cape Town was pretty fun!!!!


Cheers,
Claire