Langebaan

Thinking that we may not have a chance to get out of town during break, a friend of mine (Claire) and I decided to take a drive outside of Cape Town. We weren’t really sure where we were headed when we left. She asked where I would like to go and, not knowing any of the places she mentioned, I told her to surprise me because I would be happy going anywhere. We headed off going North, I think and passed some areas that I’ve been to before – Milnerton, etc. We went through Blaauberg (sp?) and through a pretty drive up the coast. Eventually (about an hour/hour and a half later) we ended up in a nice coastal area called Langebaan. We took a nice walk up the beach and landed up in a cute restaurant for lunch. I had fish and chips – for the first time since I arrived in Cape Town and she had breakfast. The fish and chips was made with a local favorite fish called Hake. I quite enjoyed it and we relaxed for a bit before heading back to Cape Town. My friend had to be back on campus for a meeting with her research adviser and I had a professor who scheduled class during the break, so we had to get back. Our venture out of Cape Town was quite nice and I’m sure not the last of our fun road trips. She and I are also considering going to Namibia during our break from classes in June.

Hillsong Church Cape Town

The whole post about Cape Town for Jesus and other amazing things going on here leads me to write about something that I’ve been meaning to really talk about on here for a while. I have become involved in an amazing church here – Hillsong Church Cape Town. As many of you know one of the things that I was most worried about in coming here was finding a church and a community of Christians to connect with while here. Well, literally less than a week in, I had found this wonderful community. Hillsong is a branch of a church started in Sydney, Australia with other branches in London, Paris, and Kiev (maybe others, I’m not sure). They’re also starting a church in New York this year – should be good stuff! Anyway, the pastors are awesome, worship is like summersalt camp (for those of you who know it) every week or kind of like an awesome rock concert that you can really get into, and the community here is quite unlike anything I’ve experienced before. I really am adjusting well and so glad to be involved with this church.

Kaapstad vir Jesus -- Cape Town for Jesus

This was definitely the largest Christian event I have ever been to. Absolutely amazing! One of the last tests of the new Green Point (World Cup) Stadium was the Cape Town for Jesus event. This event was expected to have between 50,000 and 60,000 people – I imagine somewhere in that number actually showed up because there were people everywhere. Our seats were great, too – right in the middle of the field facing the stage. It was a hot day in Cape Town and the sun was baking us by mid-way through the event. I went with my flat mate and a few friends from church. The event opened with prayers and praise songs in a variety of languages – from Afrikaans to Xhosa to English. It was a multicultural and multilingual event. They also presented some videos and information about specific issues and organizations within the country – not the least of which was human trafficking and several campaigns working to stop human trafficking in South Africa! It was pretty awesome and also amazing knowing that so many thousands of people were together praying specifically about this issue. Amazing things are going on in this country! There was also a presentation featuring the flags of each country playing in the World Cup – it was nice (except for the fact that I saw the American flag touch the ground a few times…). This was paired with a responsive reading and prayer about specific areas in the world. All in all, this was an amazing event and one that I wish other cities would aspire to. Hey Myrtle Beach and Charleston – why not take the lead from Cape Town and hold an event like this – amazing things happen when an entire city gets together to pray for its people, its youth, its leaders, and the nation as a whole.

Updates!!!

So I’m sorry for the super-update there – there has been so much going on in my life that I really haven’t had too much time to type it out and blog about it. Of course I want everyone at home to know what I’m up to and to realize how amazing Cape Town is, so I’m sorry that I have been a bit awol lately. Also, as I have mentioned in previous posts, internet is a funny thing around here and I tend to only have access on campus or via internet cafes, neither of which is as frequent as I’m used to or as frequent as I would like. In any case, I’ve posted several new updates about various events/happenings that I wanted to share. I would also love to know any questions that you (whoever you are, haha) have about South Africa, Cape Town, me, my experiences, Rotary, whatever…. so that I can make sure that I include answers to those (as best I can, anyway).

My first Rotary Presentation!

On 17 March, I gave my first Rotary presentation to my host club, Sea Point Rotary. These presentations are a bit weird because I’ve been given so much mixed advice about what to/not to say. I kind of took it all and put together what I thought would be informative and interesting. Of course as an ambassadorial scholar, part of my responsibility is to give some background about where I’m from and the area that I’m representing, so my presentation basically covered these main points: brief introduction of myself (showed a picture of my family, where I’m from, what I studied in undergrad, etc), some info about SC, background and photos of Charleston, CofC, Murrells Inlet, info about the Mt. Pleasant Rotary club (my sponsor club) and then I turned to an issue that I care about and one that I think transcends cultural differences and country boundaries – human trafficking. I was amazed at how few people had any idea about human trafficking. I gave a brief overview about what trafficking is as well as some statistics about it worldwide. Then I compared the types of trafficking that are common in the US and SA and compared the two a bit – I think everyone really enjoyed the comparative and informative elements of this portion of the presentation. (I also plan on researching human trafficking in Southern Africa for my Masters thesis) I closed the presentation with a little update about what I’ve been up to in Cape Town (volunteering with Rotary, etc), and some comparisons between home and here. Of course I also thanked my wonderful host club for all of their hospitality and help in my first few weeks here. I was a bit nervous about how the presentation would be received, mostly because of some of the suggestions/advice/stories about other presentations etc, but everyone really seemed to enjoy my presentation. In fact, one of the members came up to me after to specifically tell me that it is one of the best scholar presentations that he has seen. Another member spoke to me after to invite me to help her with an upcoming conference in May for a Jewish women’s organization specifically about human trafficking. So exciting! Anyway, I’m glad I got the first one out of the way and had some positive encouragement about it. One down, 14 to go!

Cape Argus

The Cape Argus bicycle race was Sunday 14 March. This is a huge one-day cycling event with between 40,000-50,000 cyclists (at least that was the estimate I heard). Many of the area Rotary clubs volunteered to help. Louis (the French exchange student hosted by my club) and I were also asked to help. We stayed at Gavin’s house because we had to be at our post by 6:30 am. It was quite an early morning. Several of the roads were also closed, so we had to drive to one part of Camps Bay and walk down a big hill and then to our post. I joked with some of the people there that the steepest thing I climb at home is a speed bump – haha!! The site was quite a big area and staffed with medical professionals, physical therapists, a huge coca-cola trailer and several Rotarian volunteers. A few others from my club came as well. I think I saw Lance Armstrong, or at least the group of riders that he was in. It was a nice day and I was glad to be involved in such a huge event!

Zip Zap Circus and Judy

I met an amazing woman through Rotary. Her name is Judy Westwater; you can actually probably google her and get some information about her story as well as info about her books (she has written 2). Anyway, she is a former street kid. She was kidnapped from Britain by her father and brought to South Africa and abandoned. She now supports several projects in South Africa to help street kids. One of the projects is called Second Chance in Cape Town. The Second Chance project coordinates events with several of the shelters and ngo’s in Cape Town that work with street kids and at-risk youth. I was able to go to one of the projects with Judy, Suzy (a journalist who is traveling with Judy), and Gavin (Sea Point Rotary president). The project is the Zip Zap Circus which is a social organization that teaches circus skills to many different groups – one of them is former street kids and at-risk youth. The organization was amazing and just hanging out with these kids was incredible. The kids got there and immediately starting conditioning/stretching in a really fun-looking workout around the whole gym. By the way, this gym/circus is really a huge tent in the middle of the city specifically for this circus. I began playing with them as well, once Judy sort of encouraged me and gave me permission (in a way) to have fun and play as well. Check out the pictures above of me walking on a tight rope and jumping on the trampoline -- tons of fun and the kids really enjoyed me playing along as well. I hope to do some more work with this organization.

Rotary Scholar Orientation

On Saturday March 6 – we had an orientation for all of the incoming scholars. There were about 12 of us – mostly American with a Canadian guy, British girl, and French girl to mix it up a bit. Most of the other scholars I knew from my program. There are 6 Rotary scholars in the Political Studies postgrad department. I thought that was kind of interesting – this scholarship definitely attracts social science students and people interested in this field, but I guess I didn’t realize how much. We had our orientation at a wine estate in Durbanville (suburb about 25 minutes outside of Cape Town). Tony picked me up bright and early and we got started at the orientation about 7:45. We were introduced to Trevor and Helene who assist the inbound scholars – Trevor held the official position until recently when Helene took over. It seems that they are both very involved. We also heard presentations from several Rotarians – two from my club! After a few presentations and some general discussion, we did a few activities with the horses on the estate. One of the presentations was from some of the trainers who use the horses for social programs with at-risk youth and disabled kids and we got to play some of the games that they do with their programs. There was one beautiful horse that I especially liked that I nicknamed Savannah. I don’t think I ever actually learned the horse’s real name. anyway, the activity was nice and allowed us to get to know one another much better. We had a lovely lunch and finished the afternoon with a presentation from the organizer of Ubuntu Africa (an organization that works with children with HIV/AIDS), a former Rotary scholar, and a Rotarian who is a judge for one of the high courts. Rotary has such an intricate network of members and supporters -- it's quite amazing to see all around the world. It was nice to meet the other scholars and to hear the various presentations. The wine estate was also quite nice and I enjoyed getting to know other Rotarians. The only suggestion I would have for the event is that they hold it sooner for other incoming scholars. Most of us had already been in the country for five or so weeks before meeting one another and having a chance to discuss some of our concerns and ask questions of each other. This sort of meeting would be more beneficial earlier into the program.

Following the official orientation, several of us went to town and hung out during the evening. It was a nice informal way to get to know some of the other students.

Dear John

Helene (my flatmate) and I went to see Dear John the other night. I’ve been quite excited to see it, mostly because I knew people who were extras in it and it was filmed at CofC and in other parts of Charleston. I was also quite proud to go to a movie in South Africa that was filmed where I am from. Anyway, it was probably one of the first things to make me truly homesick. Watching Savannah (Amanda Seyfried’s character) walk around CofC and all of the visits to the beach and walks around Charleston made me miss home and Charleston and my friends there. Oh yeah, and then there was that love story. Anyway, I’m trying to figure out if it is more that I miss being an undergrad at CofC or that I was really homesick.

Green Point

I'm all settled into the flat that I will be living in hopefully for the duration of my stay in Cape Town. The flat is in Green Point, which is a bit of a ways from campus, but quite close to other nice things in town (Green Point Stadium, V&A Waterfront, closer to the beach, etc, etc). Getting to campus so far has been kind of interesting. It's a bit different everyday -- sometimes I walk to the shuttle in the center or town (about a 40 minute walk), sometimes I take a local taxi (minibus taxis that have specific routes around town, only 5 rand per trip and are kind of an on/off sort of thing with all kinds of people), sometimes my flat mate drops me off at the shuttle in town. Anyway, no shortage of interesting ways to get to campus. It has been quite hot the past few days, so walking has been kind of a sweaty mess, but good. Oh and no worries, walking around during the day time is totally safe -- i haven't had any trouble so far.

I also have a very nice South African flat mate who has helped me feel more at home in Cape Town.